I had my staff evaluation yesterday and I got nothing but postive comments, so yay! Also I've been going through my book again and added another chapter in about two thirds of the way through what's already written. Maybe one of these days I'll actually finish it. Anyway, Erin's now learning just how tired I was during parts of it. And the cats are going crazy. Fun stuff.

Wow it's been almost a year. Anyway, academically things couldn't be going better for me. I'm taking fifteen credits, have A's or B's in all of them so far and nothing's too strenuous. Plus there's the added benefit that two of my classes teach basically the same thing so I get learn one day, then review the next. That much less studying at home for me!

I'm working at the montessori school during the school year, and aside from my co-worker, I like it. Crazy how it's all the 2-6 year old kids that make me like it and the one adult I work with that makes me cringe. She's only technically an assistant teacher and she's taking classes that will qualify her to be a teacher. Today someone came in to observe her in the classroom to see how she interacts with the kids. Let me just say that today was a completely different person than she is on any other day during the school year. I had to bite my tongue several times so I wouldn't make some comment about that. But today was an easy day at work compared to yesterday. We only had 11 kids and yesterday it was 19.

Poor Sydney wasn't feeling well and as soon as her mom got there to pick her up she threw way more than I would have imagined she would have. While her mom was helping her to clean up I got Vaughn up since he was still asleep and got him ready to go home. Then I cleaned up the mess in the bathroom and classroom. Of course that ran into snack time but good old M just couldn't handle that sometimes you need to ADJUST to the situation. I was not going to leave the mess just sitting there on the floor for anyone to walk through. Plus I wanted to get rid of the smell. Once I did get snack there she got on my case about how the kids were impatient since they had to wait so long. See, the solution to the problem would have been to PREVENT it. In other words, let the kids play until I was at least getting snack ready instead of making them clean up at the same time they always do even though I'm slightly preoccupied. I always thought brains were in part for assessing situations and finding a solution any problems that may arise. But I guess some people just get stuck in a rut easier than others.

Oh and this same person held me up for FIFTEEN minutes after work last week telling me that I couldn't be mad at her for anything because God said so and that if I was than my heart was black and would burn in hell. I forgot to mention that I happened to have a rehearsal that evening that I always just barely get to in time when I leave right after work. I told her I didn't have time to sit and chat and why but did she listen? No. So for any of you reading this, I'm going to hell. At least according to the judgment of one person. I however am leaving my judgment up to a higher being thank you very much.

 Ag day is over and I'm glad of it. Everyone was biting each other's heads off and it went from bad to worse throughout the day. I'm proud of Steph though! She did amazing. Essentially the horse judge overlooked some things and was really picky about others, and she completely ignored certain faults our horses had (for instance, Chico breaks his canter a lot, which he did on me). The lamb judge started asking obscure questions of those of us in the advanced class, like a specific answer as to how to tell the age of a sheep. No one ever taught us something like that. I then get to the dairy barn as the class I'm in starts to come out. I see Jabberwocky and her topline couldn't have been worse if someone had tried. Her hooves were dirty, and she had dirt splattered on her back legs. I tried to find a halter quickly, there were only beef halters. Someone found me a dairy one but it was large and Jabberwocky was too small for it. They were talking about how I had forfeit or something like that when they were informed that I COULDN'T come out because there was no halter small enough for her. Sara M. told me that she had a halter I could use but I had to make sure I got it back to her in time for the fourth class. So the first class ended up having two people in and the second had six. Way to go Katy. The judge told me I placed last because my topline wasn't done right (we weren't supposed to be judged on that) and that she could have been cleaned up better. 

My friends commiserated with me, later telling me that when they saw my cow they were raving mad and let out what they knew I was trying hard to hold in. In fact, one of the first things they demanded to know when I finished was who had done my topline. I can only hope for better luck next year. I did my best and got screwed over in the end. Everyone told me that I had the best behaved cow, even the judge was impressed with that.

 If you're going to put yourself in a situation, don't blame other people when you can't get out of it. I know you're close to claiming bankruptcy and honestly, that sucks. But maybe if you hadn't been so impulsive and had actually thought things out like the adult you claimed to be you wouldn't be like this. And then when you realized how deep you were in, you got your little puppy dog, brother, and uncle involved. Yes. Way to go. Have your brother tell my friend that she's a bitch. Tell me that I don't listen when he interrupts me. Make crap up. And insult you. All at the same time. Yes. That sounds quite smart. 

I'm kind of insulted by you. Not because you badger me and have other people trying to get me to change my agreement with you, but because of how stupid you must think I am. And how little support you must have thought you would have gotten from my friends. You aren't the only one in a tight situation, sweety. Look around you, at the people you used to claim were your friends. Do you see any one of us rolling around in gold coins? No. We are all just trying to get by. And while we're doing that, we make mistakes. But guess what? We learn from them. You are so used to other people cleaning up your messes, that now you don't have any clue what to do. You are too proud for your own good. If you want to throw scripture at me, let me throw this one at you: D&C 39:9 Nevertheless, thou hast seen great sorrow, for thou hast rejected me many times because of pride and the cares of the world. 

But honestly, how is it that I know two people in very similar situations, yet they respond so differently? The one is blaming everyone around them, and doing nothing on her own, just sitting and pouting like a child learning to walk who has fallen down and just sits and cries about it.  The other is trying to make do with what they have and in the meantime accepts the help offered by others, allowing them to hold her up and walk with them, hand in hand, until she's confident enough take another step out on her own again. The one files for bankruptcy, the other sells her accessories. One is filled with pride, the other humility. One blames others, the other takes blame. 

The sad thing is, that as similar as their situations might be now, ten years from now it won't be. The one will not have changed or learned from any of this, the other will be a confident woman, having learned valuable lessons and weathered the storm, she is ready to fave the world. She may not be perfect, but she will be a success. She might not be rich or famous, but she can honestly say that she made lemonade when she had lemons pelted at her.  

 It's been crazy hectic in my life recently. But the good thing is that I still find plenty of time to spend at the farm. I'm sore and bruised right now because of it in fact. Saturday we weren't allowed to jump during our lesson so we spent some time lengthening and shortening the stride of our horses. And then we cantered without stirrups. In fact, I did it three times. I'm really beginning to like riding Chico, I used to hate it if we were going to canter, but now that we had our little talk last semester, he's not so bad. 

Lindsay was out of town this last weekend and when me, Steph, and Erin went to the shack to ask her a couple questions, she asked us how everyone was going with the whole training of the lambs. It kind of makes me laugh that she asked us our opinion of everyones progress and not Katy who's supposed to be in charge of the lambs for Ag day (even though Katy wasn't there when we were). But Lindsay wasn't surprised at all by any of our commentary on the trainers. After Katy asked Lindsay if anyone had actually been training last week and admitting she didn't know any of the lambs and Lindsay seeming to know how everyone was doing, it's clear who's pulling more than their fair share.

Oh, man. So while I was training my lamb today, Eden came up to train her lamb. She was the one who named Steph's lamb Merggles and we renamed Sam (the Eagle). Anyway, Lindsay, Tracy, and some other people hated the name Merggles and kept erasing it so Eden kept rewriting it. And then she stopped noticing. And then Erin and I took it upon ourselves to rename her Sammy. When someone asked Steph which lamb she had and told them it was Sammy, Eden protested and said, no, her name's Merggles. And then went on about everything I just wrote. She then explained to Erin that she had shown a ram last year and blah blah blah. She was also trying to tell me stuff and was just plain annoying. She's in the equestrian club too and drives me crazy there. I know she didn't do that well with the lamb show last year because she wasn't in mine, Jess and Tracy's, or Erin's classes and she didn't get first place. Her lamb this year is still pretty much untrained, as was her lamb last year (she says he was just living up to his name: Spartacus), in fact, she was one of the ones that lost their lambs on the last mock show last year. Yep, I'm going to listen to any advice she gives. I'll be surprised if she gets first in her class this year. Now, if only she'd shut up every now and then.  

The afternoon of February 23 brought two little lives into this world: Zelda Rose lamb number 821 and Link Hogthrob lamb number 822. I sadly, was not witness to either of their births but saw each when they were only a few minutes old. We processed them and moved them and Aunt Bee, their mother, into a jug where they'll be for about the next week. Zelda is quite the wanderer. She was only half an hour old when she started walking awkwardly to the other sheep in the due pen, confused as to why Aunt Bee was trotting after and why everyone else was moving away from her. Once in the jug, Zelda again tried to leave her mom's said and go through the fence boards to Liza's jug. Liza did not approve. Zelda and Link weighed in at 7.7 and 11.5 lbs each, Link was a big boy! Both are now nursing and Link is attempting to play...however he still gets confused about where his legs go.

This is a picture of them not long after we moved them to the jug.

Today involved: blackouts, good news, miracles, idiots, milking, rolling, bottle feeding, and boys that are too gentle.

But seriously, who doesn't know about rectal temperatures? It's not like you can tell a lamb to hold a thermometer under it's tongue till it beeps.

Oh, and I have an 85% in horse management and a 76 out of 84 on my physiology quiz/midterm

We've got sixteen lambs now, the last two being born about 20 minutes before I showed up at the barn after my classes today. Mocha gave birth to two more crossbreed lambs and Liza had her three yesterday. Petunia's three are all hyper little jumpy things, even at three days. Josie's little girl, Snooky, if I remember correctly, is showing more white in her body now and doesn't seem to be as dumb. And the weather is being nice to our little lambs this year! Even Cc's little girls are doing well. In fact, Lindsay is planning on moving them and Josie's out of the jugs tomorrow or wednesday. 

I spent last night in the commons at the last minute. My intention was to catch with my physiology reading. It didn't happen. Instead, Natasha and I headed back to La Plata to get the crushed peppermint and chocolate I had so we could make peppermint chocolate together. We then did some karaoke before heading back to the commons for our chocolate making business. It was good, but not as pepperminty as I like it to be.

We woke up this morning and walked to south campus diner...I was excited because south campus has jelly filled donuts and north campus doesn't. Only today south campus didn't have any jelly filled donuts! What the heck! So I opted for a cherry danish instead. And a chicken wrap.

About 1ish, I headed back over to La Plata to drop off my backpack and then go to the barn for my 1:30 lesson. It was a ground lesson so we discussed what each of us has already done (we're all pretty much comfortable with a walk, trot, and canter, starting to jump) and then woke Chico up from his nap to do some longing. He was as lazy as ever, especially by the time I longed him (I was the last of the four of us including our teacher, Amber). There were three specific points of the circle he would stop at every single time. But when I got him trotting, he actually went at a nice healthy speed, not his normal sluggishnish. And I could see, better than I've ever been able to fell, whenever he wanted to break his trot and go into a walk and I cracked the whip at him. By the time we finished, my right wrist hurt from trying to crack the whip, it's harder than it looks! We then stood around in the barn for a while and talked about random things before deciding to go to the sheep barn to check on the lambs. We now have 11 and all but three have names so far. As far as I can remember it the list is:
801-Zoe
802-Lola
803-Cookie Monster
804-Snooky
805-Doozer
806-
807-
808-
809-Winky Pinkerton (Winky)
810-Clementine
811-Felix

One of the unnamed ones has eye problems, his lower eyelids are turned in so he gets medicine in his eyes to stop the eyelashes from scratching the cornea. Cecelia also has a retained placenta still...almost a week after lambing. But all the lambs have their sweaters off and are jumping around. Maggie's boys have even been climbing on her and sliding off.

Between last night and this morning, we've had two ewes go and have a total of 5 lambs. Cecelia was the surprise lambing...no one expected her to go, she didn't even look pregnant yet. But she is now mother of two cute little girls. The girls are a quarter wool sheep and three quarters haired. So one girl is a haired sheep and the other is a wooled sheep. And they're TINY. The little wooled one is so skinny, I was taking off her sweater to put on a smaller one and you could see her rib cage clearly. You could also see the sharp points of her pelvis. Our second ewe to go was Josie. She had three, two boys and a girl that looks just like her. The triplets had to be bottle fed colostrum because Josie's bag was dry. Lindsay had to tube the girl earlier since she suckled on everything but the bottle. Lindsay kept commenting that the girl was stupid. One of the people in my lambwatch group was complaining that she got the colostrum replacement on her northface jacket. Yeah, stuff gets on your clothes when you're in a barn. I came back with bits of hay all over my jacket.  She should be an interesting person to work with...

I'm officially back from Rockville and...I'm sick. I have that sick taste and smell stuck in my airways, I have a headache, a stomachache, and sometimes there's so much crap in my throat that it's hard to swallow. Fun. But that doesn't even scratch the surface. Steph and I were washing the sheets last night and went down about midnight to check on them. Well, the laundry sink had gotten clogged with a plastic bag so when the washer drained into it, it eventually overflowed...all over the basement floor. So we rolled up our pants, took off our socks, and got to work mopping the floor. We finished about 2am and had to get up at 7:45 so I could drop Steph off at her sister's and so I could go to class. Of course...we didn't leave till 8:40. And then because Obama was on campus today, there was way more traffic than usual. I got to campus at 10:15 and decided against going to my 10am class late. I wouldn't have gotten there till almost 10:30 anyway. The line of people to see Barack Obama was already to the Rec center. At least a half mile long. The doors didn't open till 10:30 and it was getting longer by the minute.
But the good news is that my arm is looking a whole lot better. I'm pretty sure the ringworm is gone for good. But still no lambs yet.

 I've been having the weirdest dreams lately. 

I was driving down the highway and drove over this plastic grocery bag thinking nothing of it. It was an empty plastic bag, right? Well, suddenly my car was going weirdly. And whenever I tried to break, the tires just stopped rolling...they just skidded. So I pulled over to the shoulder and took a look at my wheels. The two on the driver's side were triangular shaped. The other two were normal. Even the rims were the shapes of triangles. That was a pretty impressive bag.

Renting the apartment fell through. So I was renting a room from Lisa...only her roommates seemed to hate me. She was showing me the house and then I asked her which room I was renting and she said I was in this teeny tiny room...sharing it with someone. So I was trying to confirm that I was allowed to have Josie there and everyone started protesting. So Lisa said she was sorry, but she didn't want to make the original renters unhappy and therefore Josie couldn't come. I was upset because I had fought so hard to convince my mom to keep her till I got a place to bring her with me. And now I had to admit that it had been all for nothing. I had to bring her to a shelter myself and I felt like I'd failed her. Later, the shelter sent my a letter saying that no one had wanted her and had had to put her to sleep.  

I was back in my old house, both my parents were there, they weren't divorced or separated and my brothers were both at home. It was the present, not the past. Only there was this group of tribal native people living in the house behind us and...ruling over us. They would tell us what we could and couldn't do and then make us do things. So as long as we "behaved" and didn't try to move, we were fine. Well, my parents decided that they would try to sneak away so they started sneaking things into the house, like extra food, because the natives kept watch over everything. At one point I went to the store with mom and while she was looking for food, I, for some reason, was looking at baby clothes. We got back and the natives weren't happy, they had figured out when we planned on leaving. So my parent's decided that we would stay and not leave the next afternoon like we had planned. Then, when they let their guard down, we'd leave in the middle of the night. That night we loaded both cars, it was decided that Jason, Sam, and dad would go together and then mom and I would go together. We were all set and just needed to get the dogs when mom realized that we forgot the dogs' food and toys. So she was running around getting those things and I was trying to get her to hurry up because I didn't want the natives to catch us. By the time we got everything and headed outside, both cars, my dad, Sam, and Jason were all gone...

I don't know, they're all weird. What do you guys think?

Josie's finally off her meds now, it makes life easier for both of us. She's recently been burrowing herself into my blankets when I'm not there and when I come home, she starts poking at them, letting me know where she is. She's always wanting my attention...I wonder if she knows that I'm bringing her to Frederick soon. Maybe that's why she's been hurting herself? She knows I would never bring her there sick, I want her to be 100%. I'm going to miss her when she's gone, but I have to keep reminding myself, it's only temporary. At the end of the semester, I'll have my own apartment (well, my own with friends) and she will be joining me. And for a while she'll have complete rule of the apartment, no being restricted to just one room like a prisoner. I know it's for her own good, but I still don't really want to let her go...if I could bring her to school with me, I would in a heartbeat. Crazy, in the end, it wasn't a boy that stole my heart, it was a cat.

So today was a good day. The alarm went off at eight (to prepare us for waking up at seven tomorrow and Saturday) we went back to sleep after it went of the second time (we had intended to be more conscious but oh well), I woke up around 11 and finished studying for my math final. Took it.

I saw that there was only one feeder today so went down to the barn figuring that if I didn't have a lesson today, I could help out. I went and hayed the upper paddocks and we started getting Duelly's drench ready when Anne showed up and asked if I wanted to ride. I told her it was pretty much up to her so she went and inspected the ring to see if it was passable for riding. Amy showed up and we did Duelly's drench while putting on a show for this young family. We were all hoping that Duelly wouldn't choose then as the best time to act up. Thankfully he didn't and was very good about getting his meds. 

Anne decided that the ring was ridable if we just did a walk trot and decided we could do a bareback lesson because 1) it would take less time to take up, 2) it was the perfect weather to do a bareback lesson in since we could only do a walk trot 3) if we got caught, there was only two of us for the club to get upset about (I was the only one from my lesson there and we technically aren't supposed to do bareback lessons), 4) you could feel a lot more what was going on underneath you when you didn't have a saddle, and 5) it's a lot warmer to ride bareback than it is to ride with a saddle.

So Anne decided that she was going to grab Chico since she trains him and it was just the two of us and that I could basically have my pick of the remaining six ridable horses (Bolsar's still out). I chose to ride Ellie, she seemed both the most comfortable to ride and easy to get on. Nordic and Smartie would have been extremely bony, Duelly and Dootsie would have been like jumping to the top of mountains to get on and Junior seemed like he was a mike of the two. Plus Ellie likes to keep herself clean unlike the boys. So grooming and taking took about 5 whole minutes of my life and then yay! Riding! I quickly learned that there is no way that you can jump to high to mount a horse bareback...even from a mounting block. You won't end up going over the other side. Although that would be pretty funny...especially if you kept doing it. And I was extremely grateful for our little mare's petiteness. So we did walking, trotting (it's much easier to trot without stirrups when you have no saddle period than if you have a saddle)  going over raised polls, but only at a walk, steering with just the legs at both a walk and trot and identifying beats in a walk. And just plain putzing around. And I'm much less sore than I would normally be on a thursday. And now it's back to blah studying. 

I was in such a good mood too. Now whenever your name shows up on my phone I just get this feeling of dread. I did nothing wrong though. Nothing at all. Maybe if you realize that you don't get handed money every time you spend it, you might grow up. Don't rush through life so much, live it. Enjoy it. And don't you dare think I'm throwing money around. I'm paying my own way through college thank you very much. Hold your horses and maybe I'll give it to you more than a day or two before Christmas. Oh, and now that you've bugged me so much, I'm less inclined to give you all of it even if I get it. Or maybe I should just give it to you and let you deal with life alone.

I will never again forget that a camel is a ruminate. Why? Because I was watching man vs wild with my cousins and the guy cutting open the camel's rumen so he could get the forage out, squeeze it, and drink the rumen juice. I always wanted a nice glass of rumen juice to go with my forage. So if I ever find myself stuck out in the middle of the desert, happen to kill a camel, I know I can at least drink the rumen juice. And use the skin as a blanket. And after gutting it, use the camel as shelter. I won't smell so pretty afterwards but at least I'll be alive.

My arm is getting worse again. Well the mark is. It's larger than a quarter and it's starting to puff up again around the edges. Jason told me it looks kind of like a C but I'm seeing more of a sideways heart. I love mark. It's also got a couple bruises near it on one side. I'm not too concerned about the bruising, I bruise easily because of the Factor V. I'm thisclose to asking someone to cut it off. Not the arm, just the mark. If it scars, it scars, but at least it won't itch. And it'll be gone. I mean really now, I've had this thing for at least three months now. maybe three and a half.

Oh, and I don't feel so bad about how fat Josie is now, Mick's fat too. He's got a little potbelly :D

Coughing. I just can't seem to stop. I go up or down a flight of stairs and I need to stop to catch my breathe. It's almost like I'm trying to get all my oxygen from the water and I've failed to realize that it just doesn't work like that. Is it friday yet?

I went home this weekend and got all the way back to school before realizing that I didn't have my key to my room or my card to let me into my dorm. I called Uju to let me in and I was able to get everything back to my room but then I needed to go back out to the stadium to sell concessions. It was the last football game and our stand was three times the size of the one we'd had all semester.

It was a long night. A couple kids, proud of the fact that they were 14 kept flirting with me and showing me magic tricks. They weren't very good, I saw where the 10 was. But that was at the end. It was a little slow in the beginning, I must have had a sign on me somewhere that said "Accepts Credit Cards" because it seemed like I got the most people paying with a credit card. I got one stuck in the card reader at one point. My fingers were so stiff and cold that I couldn't grasp the thin plastic to pull it back out. When it was in there for too long, the register read "Card Read Error" so I had to do it again until it worked. There came a point in the night when I would do anything to hang onto that hot dog for just a little longer to warm my fingers. And then it passed. I slammed my palm right into the corner of the door to the popcorn machine. I checked my hand to make sure I wasn't bleeding and returned to my customer. I was beyond feeling. I slammed my fingertips into the drawer multiple times only to yank them out and keep on. I ignored the cold angry drunk mob demanding their hot chocolate when our hot water broke. Never get between cold angry drunk people and their hot chocolate. I got nacho cheese on my jacket (it was one of the few warm things I haven't worn to the barn yet) and my hands got sticky from the overflow of soda. I enjoyed beer batter fries, chicken strips, hot dogs, and pizza better than the diner's (it's a sad when you look forward to eating that stuff over diner food). And then there were the kids with their magic tricks. Jess and Sheila had to turn away and warm themselves so the kids couldn't see them cracking up. I had to just smile and nod. Sorry, but you're too young. But we made about $1000 for the horses if I heard correctly.

I slept at a friends and went back home to get my card and key. And now I'm sitting in my room that I let myself into without anyone's help.

Soooo. I took my third midterm test today. I bsed about half of it. There was this stupid question that asked about the role of chylomicrons in the absorption of vitamins. Yeah, I don't remember even HEARING that word, ever. Not even in class. And I went to class every day since the last test. So I looked it up on wikipedia because the arrow pointing to something else in ONE chart didn't tell me anything. It has something to do with lipids. I don't know how that has to do with absorption of vitamins but I guess it does.

Later I accidentally nearly killed myself. It was fun. I got out of my chair and forgot where my bed was, tripped on something, fell backwards onto my bed, somehow twisted and hurt my back muscles, landed my inner left thigh smack on the bed post, and finally landed on my right knee which is what finally broke my fall. Yeah, I remarkably have no marks on my knee whatsoever but I have a lovely bruise on my thigh in the shape of my bedpost. I was wincing in pain for a moment and then realized that I had to go to anatomy, like I'd been planning when I got up.

Oh yes, and for anyone who didn't know, I recently discovered that I inherited a genetic mutation from my dad that causes me to clot too easily. It's called factor V leiden thrombophilia. And it has the ability to kill me. I can't use normal birth control (that'll be a tough one), and I'm more likely to get clots when I'm pregnant. The thing is, the normal medicine they give would mutate or retard my unborn child so if I was far enough along they would induce labor. My life is happy.

And my ringworm is back. Along with a bacterial infection. They have to treat the bacteria first and then the fungus. Fun. In the meantime, I'm both sore and itchy.