Mar 19, 2009

Typing till I'm sleepy...who needs paragraphs?!?

It's late enough that everyone in my house is asleep. Well, everyone but Jolie and me. Jason always tells me how hard it is for him to sleep when the wind blows a gale outside....hmmm....I can hear the sound of his breathing (snoring, really) over the wind outside, the hum of the freezer, and the whirring of the ceiling fan! It's almost as if my mind knows that I'm going to start having later nights in the near future--like this is a self-imposed trial run. Let me tell ya---I'm not so high on it. I will admit, I have a tendency to want to sleep in. I think I get that from my daddy, no, scratch that. I KNOW I get that from my daddy! He's the world's worst about staying up watching sports, movies....anything that interests him really-until all hours of the morning. I remember a long time ago, back in the earlier years of my teens, I woke up to hear the sounds of a documentary on Edgar Allan Poe. I thought I'd left the TV on that channel so that I might wake up later and watch it, but then I realized I hadn't. (I used to read lots and lots of Edgar Allan Poe, until it all burned off my bookshelf back in '04.) As I walked into the living room, there was daddy. Sitting in his chair, a book in one hand and a big diet pepsi in the other. That's his thing really-reading. He may buy a pay-per-view movie for $4 or $5, then spends the most part of the movie with his nose in a book. My old room is almost inaccessible--there are paper grocery bags filled with paperbacks that he's read and done with. I don't mean one or two bags....I'm talking 10-15, all full to the brim. I can remember all the times when I was younger, when my daddy would take me to the book store. More often than not, I found more that I wanted in the book store than I ever did in a toy store. I realize now that I think back on it, many times in the book store I was never told no, as far as to what I could pick out for myself. Lots of times when it came to books there was almost no limit--on the other hand, at Walmart or the toy store, there were much more stringent limits as to what a little girl might pick out for herself. It stands out so clearly in my mind now how important the love of reading was to my father, and how thankful I am that he invested the time and effort in me to instill that same love in my heart for the written and printed word. I just ordered three books from Amazon.com, which isn't uncharacteristic of me. Over the last few years, I read in spurts it seems. I adore anything by Nora Roberts, and over last summer read one of her series in a matter of days. I managed to come by the first installment of the series, then absolutely had to have the rest of the saga to know how it all turned out. I told you that to tell you this--I treated myself to a new book at our little hometown *discount* store earlier this week. Very rarely do I ever have the time to read, so it really is an indulgence to buy any sort of book. I had heard so many people rave about Stephanie Myer's series, that my brain itched every time I saw one of her books on a shelf. As we perused the magazines last week, I saw a book that caught my eye...I admit, I was almost ashamed to pick it up and put it in our basket. I bought it, then read it in less than 20 hours. I loved it! I can honestly say it was hard for me to put it down, and a book had to be exceptionally enthralling for me to read it cover to cover in such a short time. I was temtped to read it again today, but I was afraid that it would take some of the effect away from the story if I already knew what was going on! I managed to wait until very late today to order the rest of the series--I finally talked myself into buying them. I'm positive I could've borrowed them from someone or even found them at the library here in town....but it wouldn't have been the same. For me, when a book captivates my attention the way Twilight did, I have to own it myself for future reading! I have several sets of books from my teenage years that I almost wore out. I'd read them all once or twice during the year, sometime more than that. I lost a few of them when my house burned, and it was heart breaking for me to lose some of those books. I was more upset about losing most of my books than I was about losing all of my clothes! Rambling about books incoherently at midnight is probably an often unnoticed symptom of hormone fluctuation.....but I wouldn't bet on it! Now that I've written my own short novel, the yawns are working their way up the back of my throat, making my jaws pop and my eyes water. Mission accomplished.

Mar 4, 2009

This time of year always makes me restless. It's like the world is going through a rebirth-and in a way, it is. Brown, lifeless ground begins to give way to the slender green growth that will carpet the country in a few months. Trees that looked like giant sticks of firewood start to show the first signs of the buds that will become fragrant blossoms and glossy leaves. I see it in the coats of our horses before I ever see it anywhere else. Fluffy, furry, not much unlike the coat of grizzly bear, they pack a good two or three inches of insulation warmth around all winter. Our horses lived outside all winter-they're tough guys. No blankets, well, only when they'd ride to town in the stock trailer.... That dense winter growth has begun to loosen it's hold on their hides, a little at a time. A week or a month from now will bring on the sunshine and longer days that will flip that proverbial "Shed" switch...minor flurries of horse hair will be intermitten as I desperately work with a shedding blade trying to "keep up with the fluff." Jackson's little mare packs long hair all year around, even in the hottest times of the summer she has an almost goat like profile if she isn't attacked with a set of clippers once a month.
Spring showers bring on such a change in this part of the world, it's always a welcome relief for me to see rain forecasts instead of the ice, snow and sleet that we all too often see in the dead of winter in the Osage. As I look out on our pecan tree, bleak and leafless, I think back to last summer...it was glorious about June, just thick with glossy green leaves. Our nurse cow, Clementine, could more often than not be found napping under it for the longest parts of the day, perfectly content to rest in it's shade. It was always tempting for Woodrow to reach out and try to grab a mouthful of leaves as we would trot by in the evenings, just for the sake of doing it I suppose....
This time of year is all about transitions-from brown and lifeless to green and abundant....dry and dusty to wet and muddy. Fluffy and hairy to shedding fur balls.... The last few years, spring has been a rough time for me. When things change drastically, suddenly, violently even-it's hard to accept sometimes. In the spring of 2004 I was dealing with a self inflicted move, to a part of the country that was drastically unlike everything I'd grown up in. The people, the places, it was all different. I was struggling, I admitted it to myself but refused to give in. Two months after my move, I lost an amazing friend from my life. It was one of the hardest things I'd ever been through, but there again, it was a transition. With the loss of that friend came the loss of others, in one way or another.
Fast forward-A year later found me in love with a man that I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I'd never been one for long relationships, I was always the first to bail out when things got serious....my way of thinking was that it was better to leave, and hurt yourself than to let yourself be hurt. Jason changed that for me, so once again, it was another transition for me. Learning that love doesn't have to hurt was refreshing to say the least! I was still struggling with some things, things that now that I look back, made me a different person. I have no regrets with any of the decisions I've ever made. I do wish that I would've reacted differently in some of the situations that I went through, but you know-hindsight is 20/20.
This spring is one full of anticipation and excitement for me! Our little girl will be here in the near future, so that will open a whole new chapter for our lives. I'm excited for her to get here, and so excited for all the things life may hold for her. I'm so anxious to be able to go catch on of my horses, saddle up and ride. I went almost two years without riding at all after I had Jackson. I really felt like I was just "getting my groove back" when we found out we were having Jolie. It was almost bittersweet-as excited as I was to have this new addition to our family, I knew it meant taking a break from my beloved ponies for awhile. I know that it hasn't hurt them a bit to just be horses for the last few months, but I still miss riding. It won't be much longer. Maybe that's part of the reason we were blessed with Jolie-so that I wouldn't rush things. It could've been the good Lord's way of saying, "Alright-slow down. Don't get ahead of yourself." Then again, I think I'll shy away from making assumptions about the big guy upstairs...he knows the way things should be, so it's not my place to jump to conclusions! I will say it has probably taught me a little more in the way of hanging back and being patient, which is always a good thing.