Happy Holidays!

A Mare-y Christmas and a Horsey New Year to everyone!

Happy Anniversary!

Two years ago today, I was driving up to Salt Point, NY to pick up a big, green 3 year old filly. Two years ago today, this whole adventure got under way. There has been laughter and tears, disciplinary issues and flashes of brilliance. But most importantly, there has been bonding. I wasn't always sure I liked Dee, but I guess I always knew that I loved her, and now all I want for her is a cushy life. I'm not sure I have big goals anymore. Maybe that will change once I'm settled after school and can get back into riding more full time, but I would probably be happy with focusing on dressage and doing little jump schools occasionally, with lots of hacking thrown in for good measure. I'm not sure I care if her and I never make big splash on the show scene, or win lots of ribbons. I want to hang out with my mare and enjoy her. I want her to be happy and healthy until the end of her days. I've grown to seriously love my big brown beasty. Just a quick look back... here is the progression of Miss Dee over the past two years:

December 17, 2009: Dee comes home on a FREEZING day. I find out that she HATES things on her hind legs, including shipping boots and leg straps. She meets some new friends and is pretty relaxed about the whole "new person, new barn, new everything" situation.

January 2010: Dee and I work on strengthening, and I find out that Mare has a SERIOUS buck in her. The ring is usually frozen, so we can't do too much.

February 2010: Dee learns how to share a ring with other horses at Nancy's. She pretty much takes it all in stride. We have a natural horsemanship lesson. She kicks at the stick a lot, but ends up relaxing a little about it. I pull Dee's shoes off for the remainder of winter, since she finally had enough foot to be comfortable without shoes. My trailer gets snowed in and we're basically stuck doing a whole lot of not much in the snowy ring.

March 2010: Dee could care less about horses coming and going from the ring at Nancy's. She then starts dropping weight and goes on a powerpac for worms. She also gets a much-needed face shave...

April 2010: I discover that my pony has tons and tons of gray hair. She gets her first bath because she is a filthy mess and is pretty well-behaved for it. We do some free jumping and she is ridiculously adorable about it... super relaxed but SUPER awkward. Dee learns how much fun a stretchy trot can be. The first signs of crazy hormonal behavior surface as she begins to lean all over the curry comb towards the end of the month.

May 2010: Dee's canter starts coming along a little. She got her teeth done, and we had a couple of nice rides. At the end of the month, we have what I now know was a hormone surge. Grouchy, awful behavior under saddle and on the ground. Tense and angry, peeing everywhere. BAD BAD BABY. But then we jumped some at Nancy's and she was out of this world fantastic. I was apparently a bad mother and didn't take pictures that month.

June 2010: Dee starts the month off by being absolutely amazing. She is jumping and being brilliant. Towards the end of the month, we hit an even harder cycle and she is a monster. We go on her first ever trail ride and she is very well behaved, taking everything in stride, but she pretty much refuses to be good about anything else under saddle. She is stiff, grouchy and all around horrible.

July 2010: A bad month. Dee is a little lymey so I stick her on Doxy. She spends most of the month being a total wench.

August 2010: She has a decent month! But then again, I am also on vacation at the end of the month, so I miss the heat cycle. No pictures.

September 2010: My trailer breaks down. Sigh. With no way to get her off the property, we don't have a very good month. She is a herdbound cow, and a hormonal mess.

October 2010: I had pretty much just thrown my hands in the air about her. I was super busy getting ready for LSATS and didn't really have the time or energy to fight with her, so we did a lot of lunge work instead. Still no trailer.

November 2010: She's pretty bad. Nikki comes up to sit on her, because I'm convinced it's just me. It's not. She is mare-ish and angry ALL the time. I make arrangements for her to go to the cowboys and get some lessons in life as a riding horse.

December 2010: Dee moves to Southbury for training. I throw my back out somewhere around Christmas.

January 2011: Dee is doing pretty well in her cowboy training program.

February 2011: I bring Dee to Windhorse. I am basically a cripple with my back, so we do lots of groundwork. The weather is horrific. B helps us on the ground, and manners are dealt with.

March 2011: Dee moves to Steph's for jump lessons and for me to recoup. Steph hates her at first.

April 2011: I visit Dee at Steph's. Steph still doesn't really like her. I have my back surgery.

May 2011: Regumate! And with that, suddenly steph really likes Dee because she's no longer an angry ball of hormones! Dee also comes back to CT! We move to an awesome barn in Woodbury and Dee takes great care of her recovering mommy.

June 2011: The weather is hot hot hot, but Dee is an ANGEL. I work hard on her canter and she takes care of me over jumps.

July 2011: Dee is being wonderful, but it's almost time for me to leave for TN and I am sad. We look for a place for her to stay while I am gone. We find L and H through B, and Dee is set to move on the last day of the month.

August - December 2011: I am in TN, Dee is in NY. We are both doing well. I get to see her in 3 days and I CANNOT WAIT!

Winter Break!

I couldn't have asked for a cuter welcoming committee!

I got home on Saturday night. It was SO nice to see my babies again!

My mother and I are going to pay Dee a visit on the 19th or 20th, and I can't wait to see her! On the 17th, it will be 2 years since she came into my life. Time really does fly! She and I have had kind of a weird journey together, but she is happy and healthy, and I suppose that's what matters at the end of the day.

Halfway there!

2 down, 2 to go... Wednesday is Contracts. My most dreaded of exams.... Here are some cute contract kitties, because that's pretty much the extent to which my brain is working after my 3.5 hour civ pro exam.

This Kitty is not wrong...

Eye on the ball? What ball?

The trick is to keep your eye on the ball... which is kind of hard when you never really saw the ball in the first place. Ugh... well, tomorrow is judgment day. Let's go! At least the kitty feels my pain.

Which Intentional Tort?

take the WHAT INTENTIONAL TORT ARE YOU test.
and go to mewing.net. because law school made laura do this.

Dogs

I don't often post puppy pics, and I'm too buried in work to make a real post [I'm quite sure no one wants to see posts about how I sit around all day reading/outlining/writing my memo, it's not exciting] BUT... here are a couple of cute pictures of my girls...

this is my favorite picture of Belle... I caught her mid-yawn :)

Honey-bear sporting her Tennessee Orange!

Lazy puppies

demon-dog reunion! Their cousin Jake came for a visit... All of their eyes glowed a different color.

Library Living

Yesterday, I found a bright orange flyer in my mailbox at school.

"The Law Library is now open 24 hours a day!"

The sad part? I'm excited about this.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

...to those of you in the Northeast, it probably looks like you're living through Tim Burton's Nightmare before Christmas, but hopefully you'll enjoy yourselves and have a MERRY Halloween!

Chilla

Chilla is an annual law school halloween party. There was so much hype about it, that I was a little worried it wouldn't live up to expectations.
Cut to this morning, when I woke up looking and feeling like a crime scene. Yeah. It was a good night.
I wish that I had pictures of my costume (Zombie Alice in Wonderland). I'm hoping maybe a picture might surface at some point, at which point I will upload it immediately.

Riverboat Ride

My dad came for a visit this weekend! It was great to see him, and great to spend a day not worrying about law school. We took a riverboat ride and enjoyed the beautiful fall weather...

Huge Carp in the river.

Bundled up and ready for the ride!

Basketball Stadium

Neyland

A not-very-good shot of the sunsphere in the background...

Doing Well

Dee is doing really well. I got a quick update from L, and apparently she and H are getting along splendidly and plan to start jump lessons together soon. Apparently, H went along with L for her jump lesson, watched the whole thing and said "Dee can do this!" Of COURSE she can! I think the two of them will have a blast together, because if there's one thing maresy-poo is great at, it's jumping.

I'm not sure where October's gone, but before I know it, I'll be home for the holidays, and will hopefully get to visit Dee!

ps. I just so happen to be watching Good Morning America right now. Did anyone else hear about what happened in Ohio? With all of the animals escaping from the preserve? I am so disturbed that they killed all of those poor animals who were just terrified and acting on instincts. Eighteen Bengal tigers were murdered. That kind of carnage just seems excessive. So sad.

Mercury

I got a chance to talk with Steph yesterday. Her ponies are doing really well, and she's planning on taking Merc Intermediate at the VA Horse Trials, which is super exciting! I know that she is a little nervous about it, so I'll be keeping my fingers crossed, but Merc is so fantastic, I'm sure that they'll do well!
How much fun does she look!?

October is Murder Month

It's "Murder Month" because we're studying Homicide all month in Crim Law, not because I'm advocating murdering people all month! Just a few quick things for update. First, since this weekend is Boekelo, here is a funny video of a streaker running through the XC course: Second, I have taken up pole dancing classes [you know, in case the law school thing doesn't work out, haha]. Actually, there was an awesome groupon special of 8 classes for $25, and it just seemed like too good a deal to pass up. There are three of us doing it, and two classes in, it is already really fun!! However, it is also incredibly bruise-tastic! Just a few of my battle scars:

The first bruise I got: A softball sized monster on my thigh. This was taken a week after daily arnica application.

Knee bruise... I'd like to know how this happened.

Arm bruise. Now, I suppose I need to stop procrastinating and get reading for next week. Sigh.

Fall Break

I've been super lazy about posting lately. However, my excuse is that I don't have much to write about. I'm sure that none of you want to hear about how I spent all day sitting around the library reading for torts or contracts or crim law. I'm sure you also don't want to hear about my week-long memo writing battle. It just doesn't make for interesting topics. It's certainly a hell of a lot less interesting than taking the beast out on a hack, having a fantastic jump lesson, or having to wrestle a wild Taz into the barn from the far paddock. Anyway, I'm on fall break right now. This sounds like it would be a nice, relaxing time where I could lounge around all day not worrying about law school. Unfortunately, that's not the case. It's certainly more relaxing than being in class, but I'm using the time to read and start outlining a bit, so it's not exactly a break. HOWEVER, I have decided to cut myself a little slack, and I plan on going to the movies today after I read for civ pro. I haven't just cut out and gone to the movies since I got down here, and I really want to see that new Joseph Gordon-Leavitt film. So, that's my [super boring] fall break. I went a little wild yesterday and read crim law in market square. The weather is finally not quite so oppressively hot, and I decided I should enjoy it...

not a bad place to study...

This isn't market square... it's at World's fair park, which I pass on my way back to my apartment.