AKC Agility, Flyball, and Rally Demonstrations at Koka Booth Amphitheatre

Horsenation.com

I'm guest blogging for the semester about my PE riding class.

Check it out here: http://www.horsenation.com/2012/10/02/equestrian-u-riding-for-college-credit/

The guest blog with the most views each week wins a gift card, help me win this week! All you have to do is view the page.

Thanks!

Bob, the TB I usually ride.

Last First Day of School

I haven't posted anything all summer. I thought about it a few times but I had a pretty uneventful summer so I didn't have much to write about.

Tomorrow is the first day of school. I'm so excited! I'm the kind of person who loves school and most especially school supplies. Unfortunately, this year I really didn't need to buy anything new. Most of my notebooks were barely used and I still have all my pencils and everything. I also only have one textbook to buy this year.

Since freshmen year I have changed so much in terms of getting ready for school. Freshmen year I pre-ordered my books and picked them up from the bookstore all boxed up days before school even started. This year, I still haven't ordered my books :-) Freshmen year I arrived to school with all my notebooks and folders and pencils ready and in my backpack. This year, I have yet to take my backpack out of my closet. Freshmen year I was so nervous before my first day!
My first class was an 8am; Engineering 101. It ended up being a fun class with a professor I already knew. This year my first class is also at 8am, but this one is by choice. I'm taking intermediate equitation, yes, riding! I'm pretty excited about this class, although tomorrow we'll just be in a classroom on campus, we should be at the barn next week for an evaluation ride. Then the following week we'll be matched with our horses for the semester. Our instructor has already e-mailed us our program ride which will count as our final exam. She also mentioned getting permission for us to start at 7:30am so we'll almost two full hours to ride.

Thursdays will be a busy day for me this semester with four classes. Okay, three classes and a three hour lab, can't wait for that!

As far as my summer goes I FINALLY found an internship!! I worked for the City of Raleigh Capital Improvements Program. They're a great group of engineers whom I've enjoyed working with. Fortunately for me, they offered me to continue part-time through the semester. I've learned more about municipal water and sewer than I ever thought there was to know, and I've barely scratched the surface. I've also enjoyed working downtown. It's really nice to go outside and sit on a bench on Fayetteville St and eat lunch. The parking garage situation was a pain, and expensive, but when I turned my parking garage entry card in today it still made me a little sad :-(

Anyhow, that's it for now. Pogo and I are getting ready for a big today tomorrow! (Me at school and Pogo snoozing in his crate).

Exams are over!!

Finally. Senior year is over. You're thinking, "Oh, you're graduating, wonderful!". 

Not. I'm on the five year plan. Engineering is hard. It's even harder when you have a super uncooperative body that regularly attacks itself for no apparent reason.

Right now, in fact, my right ear is useless. I haven't been able to hear out of it since last Thursday. The ENT says it could take up to six weeks. Wonderful. It feels like I was on a airplane and it hasn't "popped" yet. It feels like I'm super off balance. Not fun to study for and take three exams this way. Could be worse I suppose :-)

Say some prayers for me and my, as yet, non-existent summer internship. I have two that have UN-officailly given me the job...pending budget approval and/or gaining clientele. I really have no idea what I'll do all summer if I don't have an internship. I can't afford to think that yet, it's going to happen. Power of positive thinking!

I'll leave you with a picture of Pogo-this was my view from the bath-tub last night. (Don't look at the mess of blankets of Pogo's "nest" under my bed, photos soon).

PS: Unrelated....but I've been reading a lot of other blogs lately and mine is in serious need of sprucing up! If anyone has any ideas I'd gladly take them!
PPS: I've yet to receive a comment, so if you're so inclined, I'd love to know anyone is actually reading :-)

Unintentional Hiatus

I haven't posted in a while because I haven't really had much to say. I came across an article or something the other day that asked bloggers what the purpose of their blog was and if the blogger had low followers/readers then it was probably because there wasn't a clear purpose to the readers as to why the blog existed.
Well, I had to say to myself, I don't what purpose my blog serves. And sadly, I still don't. However, I find it's a nice outlet for my worldly observations, especially those concerning Pogo and/or dogs in general. That being said....
A picture from a week or so ago, Pogo and I on a bike ride at the American Tobacco Trail.

 The most common question I get when he rides in his basket is "How do you get him to stay in there?" My response is usually "Watch me try to get him out!" He loves this basket, actually to be truthful, he loves being in any bag/basket/box type arrangement. Anytime I pull out a bag to pack, even if it's just an overnight bag, he jumps in at the earliest opportunity. I usually set the bike basket on the ground while I get the bike out the garage, then attach the basket on the driveway. Without fail, he is already sitting in the basket when I wheel the bike out of the garage. I know he's saying "You may pick me up now", in a british accent, of course.


Last pic, nails! If you know me, you know I'm a nail polish whore. I only buy OPI or China Glaze, I also accept Nicole by OPI, in case anyone is ever looking for a gift for me :-)
I paint and re-paint my nails all the time, I think it's become a calming habit. Anyway, this was super easy! It's hard to see the colors but it's pink with navy blue polka-dots. I just painted pink first, let it dry, then used the lead of a mechanical pencil to dot on the polka-dots. Finish with top coat so the dots aren't noticeably raised.

This weekend we're celebrating my sisters 24th birthday! Boy do I feel old....and I'm the baby sister :-)

Pumpkin

September 5, 1995-April 11, 2012

Pumpkin, our beloved family dog, had to be put to sleep on Wednesday. She was 16 1/2 years old.

 This was over Easter weekend 2012, just three days before she went to the Rainbow Bridge. We think she held on until Easter because everyone was home and she got to spend time with everyone together.

 She has been with our family for as long as I can remember, I was only five when we brought her home. Pumpkin was the sweetest dog who put up with so much from my sister and I as we played dress up with her and pushed her around in a doll stroller. She was also a very well traveled dog. In the picture above, Brittney is holding her in Mexico. Pumpkin traveled with us out to California one summer when we were "homeless" (in the middle of moving from WI to NC).

 In her younger days she could keep up on LONG walks/hikes for miles and miles. My mom walked her several miles a day, every day, when she was younger so she was able to keep up with us until she was about 13 years old.

 As she got older she just wanted to curl up and sleep somewhere soft and warm. When we couldn't find her in the evening we had to check each bedroom to see where she had put herself to bed that night.

 Pumpkin joins our other pet at the Rainbow Bridge, Pickles, a kitty we lost in 2006.

We miss you, sweet girl.

Easter Weekend

I'm a little late with this post....but this week has been pretty rough. Another post on that soon.

Camp fire on Friday and Saturday night in the fire pit. Raley still thinks she's lap-sized :-)

 Raley, Britt, Bryan, and me.

 Pogo and I relaxing on the deck on Sunday.

 First try at making Cake Pops!

They were cute but really time and labor intensive-I don't think I'll be making them again any time soon. To get them to stay on the sticks they had to be so small that I could've made at least three dozen! I didn't though, I made about 15 and then rolled the rest of the cake stuff into large balls that I dipped in candy coating and decorated.

After I made them I didn't really want to eat them. The candy coating stuff wasn't particularly tasty and was really kind of thick. I couldn't figure out how to get it thinner-which I tried-to make them less heavy. Anyhow-the cake/icing mixture was good minus the candy coating-which I ate plenty of while rolling them into balls :-)

Overall it was a fun weekend with the family.

Rally Novice Title!

This past week has been the Tarheel Cluster Kennel Club Dog Show at the NC State Fairgrounds. It is Wednesday through Sunday and each day is sponsored by a different local Kennel Club. Today, Saturday, was Raleigh Kennel Club, and tomorrow is Fayetteville Kennel Club. I attended Wednesday through Friday with Pogo to get him used to the environment. It's a breed show as well as an Obedience/Rally trial so there are 13 breed rings going on along with one Rally ring and one obedience ring. It's really loud inside the big echo-y Jim Graham Building with all the hair dryers, dog grooming, dogs barking, PA system, A/C kicking on and off, etc. Pogo was a little freaked out the first few times we were there but I fed him yummy treats and he started to get the idea that it was a good place to be and started paying attention to me.

 I arrived early on Saturday to make sure I was on time. They ran late, as usual it seems, so I didn't end up in the ring until closer to 1pm when it was supposed to be 11:15am. I was first in for Novice A, which was kind of scary because I didn't get to see anyone do through the course, but it was a pretty simple course so we did fine. We got a 99 out of a possible 100 points. Another team got a 100 and another got a 99. The team that got the other 99 was a big retriever and so did the course faster than Pogo and I, so in the case of a tied score the times are used to break the tie. So we ended up with third place but he did so well and paid such good attention to me that I was pretty happy with it!

Since this was our third qualifying novice score it means we earned our rally novice title and can now move up to advanced. Technically I have 60 days before I have to move up to advanced. But I don't see any reason to do novice again. Even if we do poorly in advanced at least it'll be more experience for us. Advanced is off-leash, which is a HUGE difference from novice so I'm a little nervous but we've trained off-leash almost exclusively and I think we can do it.
Wish us luck tomorrow, we'll see how it goes!

Crazy Days!

When aren't we busy? I always am, I think I prefer it that way.
I celebrated my birthday on February 24th with some friends....I may have gone a little overboard because I ended up in the ER the next night with two sprained ligaments in my ankle (hmmm, good birthday present, right?).

Clearly I had my priorities in order as I took this photo while at the club immediately after I hurt myself. I didn't fall, luckily, just kind of fell off my shoe, well my heel, four inch heel that is.
As of today (Friday) I'm two weeks into a 4-6 week recovery process. I sure know how to have a good time.

The next weekend was my actual birthday. So after a horrible, exhausting, stressful week at school I headed off to Winston Salem. Friday, March 2nd was our (Pogo and I=our) first Rally trial!

 This was after the first day...we're both looking a little rough in this picture. It was almost 10pm and I had had an engineering test that morning at 8:30, gone to class, packed and drove 2 hours to Winston, not to mention the actual Rally part. So, we're both a little tired....excited though! First leg (a rally title=3 legs) with a score of 93/100 and third place, not bad at all!

This is the second day, we finished second place with a 94/100. I'm looking a little more rested, although we had a very active day (Saturday). Brittney and Bryan showed me all over downtown Winston (where they live) along with Raley and Pogo. After the tour we drove over to Reynolda Village and walked around the gardens for a while. We found a stream pretty close to the path and Raley LOVED it! However, the bank was solid mud so she got a bath when we got home :-)

The next day we went out to Yadkinville where Britt rides a horse for a woman who can no longer ride him. Apparently Bryan and I were supposed to be taking pictures of her riding, but instead we took dog pictures.

Britt's trainer (shes in the back of the third pic) has the two german shepherds. The smaller one (black & tan) loved playing with Raley and the bigger one (black) LOVED playing with Bryan!

This past week has been spring break...but it hasn't really been a break. Only from school. I've spent the week catching up on my internship responsibilities as well as developing activities for the outreach program in the College of Engineering at NCSU.

The Week Ahead

This weekend my parents were out of town and my sister and her boyfriend came to Raleigh for the weekend with their new puppy Raley. She is a doll and is huge! Compared to Pogo :-) She's three months old and 19lbs already! The picture is from last weekend when it snowed in NC, we didn't get much in Raleigh, but they got a couple inches in Winston Salem. Below is Pogo in the 1/4'' we got in Raleigh.

Friday night I celebrated my birthday with friends downtown. We had a great time but I think I had a little too much fun....I took this picture at 2am right before we went home for the night.

What you can't see is that the shoes have 4 inch heels.

 This was 5pm on Saturday afternoon, soon after my sister and I talked to my parents and they thought it was time to go to the ER. So we put all three dogs (Pumpkin included) in their respective crates and Britt drove me over to WakeMed Cary. I had X-rays taken and they didn't see any fractures, but decided I had sprained the three ligaments that go across the ankle. They gave me a cast and crutches and told me to stay off it until next Friday!!

 So, I'm currently sitting with my foot propped way up with ice on it. Apparently I need to keep it even further up.

I doubt I'll be able to stay off it the whole week though, I have class, of course, all week, along with many homework assignments, projects, tests, etc. Most of my classes are in Weaver, but I have one class in the middle of campus (behind the gates) and another on Centennial campus where I park at least a half mile from the building. Why couldn't this have happened next weekend during Spring Break?