If I decided that I was going to enter into the medical profession, I think I would be a chiropractor. It must be so interesting. The nervous system is phenomenal. Who but a Master Designer could have pieced together such an intricate and sensitive communication system inside the human body.
This is not a random post. After months of warnings, my dad finally made me an appointment to visit his chiropractor. I dreaded it. He always comes home in as much pain as when he went. On top of that, he and my friend, Holly, always talk about how badly it hurts for the chiropractor to adjust them.
He was very nice. I was there for an hour and a half. Before he even started he had me do some stretches to gauge what hurt, etc. Then he explained what chiropractors do. He had a model of a spinal cord and a color coded skeleton and skull. He explained the way the nervous system worked and especially the anatomy of the hip. The hip is a very thick bone and is hard to fracture. It is surrounded by a lot of muscle. The muscle is extremely tight from not being exercised properly. The chiropractor adjusted my back and my neck. That all felt good. Then he began pushing and poking at my hip where the muscle is tender. That felt like a million needles stabbing into my hip. He said very calmly, "I'm just going to keep pressing 'til this stops hurting." I laughed at him. (It came out more like a "Ha-gasp-ha-gasp." He never did get to that point. He told me that I needed to do that everyday and to stretch it. I'm actually quite relieved that usage may help healing. I'm supposed to go back next week.
Hopefully the next post about my hip will be to report that it is all well and that I am able to run again! (Hopefully is the key word there.)

Internet!

The internet signal icon on our home computer as well as my laptop always indicate that we have internet, but when the window pops up it says "no internet connection." We've given up trying to will the internet onto our desktops. Last night, on a whim, Katie decided to just check and see. A few minutes later she was leaping and exclaiming for joy. The apple home page had popped up with a strong signal and in timely fashion. Perhaps my blog posts will be more frequent now that I have internet at home! (Don't count on it though. We may lose it again in a moment.)

Pressure Washing

This post contains some gross images. Do not read if you have a weak constitution.

This week I had the amazing opportunity to do some deep cleaning where some deep cleaning needed to be done...the barn. Rubber mats sit on top of the concrete floor in the barn. Beneath these rubber mats lies a disgusting marshland of horse waste. Each year as the weather warms and it is no longer necessary to bring the horses from the pasture to the barn on terribly cold nights, the horsemanship staff takes the pressure washer and blasts away at the marshland to reveal the gray cleanliness of the concrete. In previous years, the mats were flipped over on top of each other, sprayed, flipped back into place, and then sprayed again (they are very heavy and this took a very long time). Last year, our Ranch Hand had the idea that we should create a mechanism to set the mats on and then be able to spray the mats and the concrete without doing any flipping of the mats. Both the mats and the concrete are able to dry and lucky individual does not have to do any moving of the mats in the process.
It works rather well, but it is a few days' process. Day #1-I tied the ropes across the stalls on which to hang the mats and two of the kind maintenance guys lifted the mats onto the ropes for me. Day#2-I took out my handy-dandy pressure washer and wand and blasted away at the nastiness. Day#3-The barn finished drying. Day #4-Katie and I moved the mats back into place (there are 78 mats in the barn).
The glamorous part of the entire job was that on Day #2 as I was spraying, some of the old manure rushed into the posts holding up the barn and came flying back onto me. It's safe to say that I showered in manure that day (I did shower for real later on, I promise). I'm very glad that chore is done. And I am very glad that I only have to do it once a year.
I would've taken pictures of the process, but frankly, I didn't want to expose my new camera to such grossness.

Here is one of the lovely creatures who donates to the mess I have to clean up.

Bigger is Better.

We've all heard the anecdote "bigger is better." I don't always agree with that. There's another anecdote that says "good things come in small packages." When it comes to horses, I'm all about bigger. Often the bigger breeds are the gentle giants of the horse world. Yet with that gentleness comes a massive strength (just think of the budweiser Clydesdales). Then there are the athletic breeds; the thoroughbreds, arabians and quarter horses. Their bodies are made of lean muscle. From them we see agility, speed, and strength.
At camp we have mostly old, retired horses who are content to teach a young child how to ride. There are a few, however, who are still in their youth. One of our horses is the most powerful animal I have ever met. He is a thoroughbred and ex-Grand Prix jumper. He had some lameness problems which is why he was donated to us. He simply couldn't jump at such heights anymore. He still loves to jump. When one rides him, one can feel the power that he possesses. He has the ability to toss me with a kick of his heels, but he is so well trained and has such a good personality that he does not. Each time I ride him I am nearly breathless with awe. God has made a creature with such natural power, yet He has given us dominion over it that it would be a beast of beauty. Yet at the same time it is a picture of God's power. If such an animal has such might, how much more does the Almighty God have?

Pioneer

Recently I read this passage in Job and it made me think about Pioneer. In the life of my imagination, Pioneer was a war-horse.
"Have you given the horse strength?
Have you clothed his neck with thunder?
Can you frighten him like a locust?
His majestic snorting strikes terror.
He paws in the valley, and rejoices in his strength;
He gallops into the clash of arms.
He mocks at fear, and is not frightened;
Nor does he turn back from the sword.
The quiver rattles against him,
The glittering spear and javelin.
He devours the distance with fierceness and rage;
Nor does he come to a halt because the trumpet has sounded.
At the blast of the trumpet he says, 'Aha'!
He smells the battle from afar,
The thunder of captains and shouting."
Job 39:19-25

You Want To Do What?

Perhaps someday I will understand. Perhaps when I have my own garage I will desire to do what my mom did. Perhaps...
When I asked my mom what she wanted to do for Mother's Day she said, "Stay home with my family. Maybe have a barbecue." Okay. That sounded perfectly reasonable to me. A couple of days later, however, she jokingly suggested cleaning out the garage for Mother's Day...

...at least I thought she was joking.

Oh no. She was quite serious. It was her day, so the whole family went out into the overwhelming plethera of stuff and began to pick it up. It wasn't as bad as I expected it to be (cleaning is not my idea of fun and relaxation) and was actually kind of fun with our whole family out there.





Apparently I didn't get the "white shirt" memo.



We did have a little barbecue and even a strawberry pie afterwards.

Happy Mother's Day, Mama!

I'm home! Well, technically I haven't made it home yet, but I'm in Murrieta, which is just as good. We stopped for dinner at the Millers where we met Daddy and Katie because they were in town for Katie's school.
Before we left on Saturday, Mom and I attended a Mother's Day brunch with Grandma Bonnie. It was fun to do something with her for Mother's day. She decorated one of the tables and the center-piece was her Mother's Day gift from my mom.





Last night we met my life-long friend in Modesto. It was so good to see her! My mom and I met her and her mom at the Olive Garden for dinner and then went back to the hotel where we talked and talked. We lived close when we were little. In fact, there are pictures I've seen of my two year old birthday party and she is right beside me in all of them. We were inseparable. When her family moved and then mine did a year later we made it a point to spend a week together every summer. As we grew up, our schedules got busy and soon I left for college. How fortunate that I drive down the western coast every May! Modesto about an hour from Kayla's house and we have started a new tradition: Olive Garden and a few hours to cram twelve months into our conversation. What fun!

Goodbye, Sophomore Year

Sigh of relief.
My sophomore year of college is over! I had my last final yesterday morning. An hour later I was checked out, and an hour after that I had said good bye. I'm sorry to say that this year's good bye was not as emotional as last year's. I'm not one to show emotion in public anyways, but this year, I just didn't feel sad at all. Yes, I will miss my friends. Most of them I will see again in three months. Some of them aren't coming back to Corban, but they are the sort of friends that I will visit. One in particular I was actually quite sad to leave. She's one of my best friends and she is no longer going to be attending Corban. However, she lives about eight hours from school, so I believe that when the "study" weekend comes around in October, I'll be making a drive to see her!
Now I have to organize and re-pack all of my stuff. I don't like packing (it's one of those chores lumped with laundry) and I had a time limit so I kind of just threw everything in boxes and suitcases.
There were many good times and lots of fun, but it was a rough year. I'm so relieved that school is over.