Things

As many of you probably know, we went to Brown County with the horses for a Labor Day weekend getaway. We got down there on Friday in the early afternoon and were fortunate enough to have gracious relatives that were willing to help out so we could stay till Monday afternoon. Friday was freaking HOT and freaking HUMID. Setting up camp was similar to setting up in Death Valley with 100% humidity. Nonetheless, the cold beer cooled us down, and we had a really nice early evening trail ride to the fire tower. Unlike last year, the horse flies were HERENDOUS but luckily we were prepared with extra blankets to put on the horses butts behind the saddles. If you’ve never experienced a horse fly bite, I recommend you keep it that way. Some of these things seem about as big as small birds and actually draw blood. They’re smart, too, and know to land on the horse right in the middle of the top of the butt or right in between the ears so the tail (or your hand) can’t kill them. We lived though. Again, the cold beer helped. 


It got pretty cool during the night – down to about 60 each night, so that felt good. I think we were the only saps at the whole horseman’s campground with a tent, ya know, camping the “old fashioned” way. All the other people had some rendition of this:



Brian suggested we aquire one of these sometime in the future and I didn’t object. I could live with a mostly solid walled structure, A/C, a kitchenette, table, couch, and possibly even a toilet and shower. They’re like small RV’s with room for horses in the back. Of course that would mean we’d need an actual pick up truck to pull it, too. We’ll see. The used ones are pretty reasonably priced. Just looking, I’ve seen a few (like the one above) priced around $100,000.00 new. Yeah, we probably need to find one QUITE a bit cheaper than that to move forward…

When we got home we were planning on taking the horses to a new barn. The old barn was having management problems and to make a very very long story very very short, I’m pretty sure the horses were missing meals, and I had visited more than once when their water buckets were bone dry and their stalls were full of poo. Definitely NOT what we were paying for. Anyway. We got to the new barn (that will hereinafter be referred to as the old-new barn – read on) and got the horses in. My gelding Harley (Monkey #4) got stalled next to the owner’s stallion. He is an enormous warm-blood, really pretty, but well, really crazy. They had actually custom built this stall for this horse – he was so huge and so crazy that he LITERALLY climbed up the stall wall (really hard to do for an animal with no thumbs…) put his front feet on the top of the stall wall, and stuck his head and neck OVER the top of the stall wall, into Harley’s stall.

If you’ve seen Harley, you’d quickly learn his favorite thing to do is sleep and eat. This giant horse coming over the top of his stall freaked him right out. I’m sure he thought he was going to die. So that’s how things started. Then we got a copy of the boarding contract. Line 3, paragraph one, “All riders shall wear helmets whenever mounted.”

I haven’t worn a helmet since my horse and pony days in 4-H. Not that it’s not a good idea – believe me, I understand the inherent danger in horseback riding. I’ve fallen on my head enough to know first hand in fact. I asked if the helmet law applied to kids or to adults, too. The owner looked at me, appalled, and exclaimed, “You don’t wear helmets?” Uh, yeah, not so much. Remember, my horse’s favorite thing to do is sleep. I’ll take the risk I suppose to avoid feeling like a 10 year old in pony club. But alas, the policy applies (well, applied) to all. It’s something I suppose I could have gotten used to and lived with, but for Brian, not so much. We park the horse trailer there, get into the truck to leave and the first comment is, “Well, let’s get finding another place.” Mind you we’ve been at the old-new place for precisely 17 minutes. After a huge “discussion” we agreed to find a new place. The next morning I hurriedly travelled to a couple barns that we hadn’t explored in our initial barn hunt. I found one that looked promising and asked the owner if we could come in in like, 10 minutes. She said that was fine.

Now I had to go to the old-new barn and tell them that we were refusing to wear helmets, be lectured about helmets, or be treated like we are incapable of weighing risk vs. benefit on our own. We were told the contract said unless we gave 35 days notice of leaving there would be a $200 fee per stall to leave. They were so nice, they agreed to just $200 for both, instead of the otherwise $400 dollars to leave after, oh, about 18 hours of being there. I like my money, and I like it even better when I’m not giving it away for nothing. I plead my case that can’t we just call this a mistake and wipe the slate – no hard feelings. Just let me come get my horses and we’ll call it a day. Angrily, I was told, “Just come get your horses.” Mind you, it’s about 1 in the afternoon at this point and Vincent was getting off the bus in 2.5 hours.

I flew home, picked up the truck and drove to the old-new barn to hitch up the trailer. Remember back in the first part of the post where I said we left the trailer there? Well, we unhitched it with all of our Brown County shit (total about 300 pounds) in the cargo area. The trailer was up as high as it would go, but now, with the truck empty, the back end of the truck was about 3 inches TOO HIGH to hitch up to the trailer. And there is NO WAY I was going to lift it. This has happened before, but Brian just stood on the bumper and bounced to get the truck low enough. The problem was this time, I was by myself and while I can do a lot of things, I can’t drive and bounce on the back of the truck at the same time. It was about 95 degrees that day, and I’m out there in tears at this point. Hot, frustrated, upset, pissed – it was a beautiful sight let me tell you.

So the irate old-new barn owner came out seeing that I was about to have a breakdown and apologized for yelling at me on the phone and offered to help hitch the trailer. His help was graciously accepted, as I was really in a time crunch now. I got my stuff and my horses and left.

Oh yeah, I lost my cell phone somewhere in the process, too, to top it all off.

I called the new-new barn and told them I’d be there in t-10 minutes. Luckily they were ready for us. I pulled in, dropped my horses, and left. They must have been wondering, “Who are these crazy people?” I don’t blame them, though. That would have been my impression too.

Are you liking my post? This is just the beginning.

So I get home and get showered up. Brian was already gone for work. By the time I got the kids in bed and sat down to catch up on some photography stuff, it was about 8:30. I get a call from Brian that he was on the way to the hospital. He had gotten a call of an apparent crazy person swinging a broom around a gas station, knocking stuff off shelves, and screaming that “they” were after him. Of course, my husband the shit magnet (that’s a cop term) was like one nanosecond away. He pulls in and the guy is now coming out of the gas station, sans broom, but soaked in sweat and literally foaming at the mouth. Brian gets him over to his car to try to figure out what the hell was going on at which point the guy gets all agitated. After a minor tussle, Brian cuffed him and (luckily) asked the guy if he was on any meds. The guy rambled off some med that Brian hadn’t heard of so Bri asked him what it was for. “AIDS,” the guy replies. At this point some reinforcements had arrived and Brian started to get his gloves on. The guy is getting more and more agitated and now tries to run. He gets helped to the ground and in the fight, gets a bloody nose and lip. He’s also trying to break out of the handcuffs and is slicing his wrists all up.

Not to go into too much detail, we’re now going through the post-exposure CDC protocol –

Brian doesn’t think he actually got any of this guy’s blood on him. It’s more to be sure than anything else, but it’s HIGHLY unnerving nonetheless. I’m sure he’ll be totally fine, it’s just like, ugh. The next 6 months should be pretty interesting. That’s all I’m going to say about that.

It’s been a crazy week.

And 6 Hours Later...

Well, I got my photos re-edited. Here were a few of the winners in my book...

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7

#8

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRIAN!!!

Today is Brian’s 41st birthday!!! Happy Birthday honey! I love you!!!

This year’s celebration is slightly less interesting than last years, which was a huge bash at the house and a Rolex watch…

This year we’re going to Kelsey’s for dinner, sans kids, and to Brown County to break in his birthday present



for a weekend of relaxing and trail riding. The weather’s supposed to be perfect, unlike last year which was 100 degrees – and our campsite was right in the sun. This year we planned ahead a little better and got a large site that backs up to the woods and a creek with tons of shade, especially in the morning.

Everyone help me in wishing him a good one!!!

Holy God... Did I Screw Up...

I spent about 6 hours yesterday editing pictures from Saturday’s wedding. Follow me here so you can weep with me…
Total images in RAW format = 1050
First edit; get rid of the “blinkers” remaining images = 789
Second edit; just bad pictures, remaining images = 624
Detailed edits = 624
Total files containing edited information = 624
Now, since I went from 789 images to 624, what was image #4 was now image, oh, #2 or so.
I renamed the 624 remaining so they were in numerical order (1-624) – so now the edit I did for the OLD #4, now applies to the new #4… you get the picture? (no pun intended).
I just lost 6 hours worth of editing, and there’s no way to un-rename the files to get them associated back with the edit file for which they are associated.
Does this make sense or am I just still in a state of delirium? So rather than opening roughly 624 edit files in notepad, noting the original image number, and guessing which RAW file it should be paired to, I’m. Starting. Over.
Yikes. We won’t make that mistake again!!!

Mean Parents

I got this from a friend of mine, and found a copy on the internet. The author is unknown, so I hope I'm not plagarizing... IT'S NOT MY OWN but I sure think it's true!!

All parents are mean for a reason. As we grow into adults we know why our moms and dads were mean. Someday when my children are old enough to understand the logic that motivates a parent, I will tell them:

I loved you enough... to ask where you were going, with whom, and what time you would be home.
I loved you enough... to insist that you save your money and buy a bike for yourself even though we could afford to buy one for you.
I loved you enough... to be silent and let you discover that your new best friend was a creep.
I loved you enough... to make you go pay for the bubble gum you had taken and tell the clerk, "I stole this yesterday and want to pay for it."
I loved you enough... to stand over you for two hours while you cleaned your room, a job that should have taken 15 minutes.

I loved you enough... to let you see anger, disappointment, and tears in my eyes. Children must learn that their parents aren't perfect.
I loved you enough... to let you assume the responsibility for your actions even when the penalties were so harsh they almost broke my heart.

But most of all, I loved you enough... to say NO when I knew you would hate me for it.

Those were the most difficult battles of all. I'm glad I won them because in the end you won, too. And someday when your children are old enough to understand the logic that motivates parents, you will tell them....

Was your Mom or Dad mean? I know mine were.
We had the meanest mother in the whole world!
While other kids ate candy for breakfast, we had to have cereal, eggs, and toast.
When others had a Pepsi and a Twinkie for lunch, we had to eat sandwiches.

And you can guess our mother fixed us a dinner that was different from what other kids had, too.

Dad insisted on knowing where we were at all times.
You'd think we were convicts in a prison.

He had to know who our friends were, and what we were doing with them. He insisted that if we said we would be gone for an hour, we would be gone for an hour or less

We were ashamed to admit it, but Mom had the nerve to break the Child Labor Laws by making us work. We had to wash the dishes, make the beds, learn to cook, vacuum the floor, do laundry, empty the trash and all sorts of cruel jobs. I think she would lie awake at night thinking of more things for us to do.

They always insisted on us telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
By the time we were teenagers, they could read our minds. Then, life was really tough!

My mother and father wouldn't let our friends just honk the horn when they drove up. They had to come up to the door so they could meet them.

While everyone else could date when they were 12 or 13, we had to wait until we were 16.

Because of our parents we missed out on lots of things other kids experienced.

None of us have ever been caught shoplifting, vandalizing others' property or ever arrested for any crime.

It was all their fault.

Now that we have left home, we are all educated, honest adults. We are doing our best to be mean parents just like ours were.

I think that is what's wrong with the world today.
It just doesn't have enough mean moms and dads.

A Few As Promised...

I know most people probably aren't really into looking at pictures of people they don't know, but as I do more and more photography, I'm feeling like I'm settling into my own "niche" if that makes sense. I've gotten some really good feedback from these from other pros - people whose work I've admired - asking ME what settings I used etc! Yay!

A Busy Weekend

Well, wedding season is starting and I’m feeling the heat. I had engagement pictures for a couple whose wedding I’m shooting next year on Saturday, and I met with my couple from this months wedding this weekend, too. We shot the engagements in Indy, which was AWESOME! After a while, I feel like I’m taking the same picture over and over, using the same locations blah blah blah. Even though the pictures are new to each couple, it was refreshing to actually go to a location I haven’t been before.

We started out at the Oldfields–Lilly House & Gardens at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. There were so many very cool locations there, I could have spent an entire session there finding new stuff. The actual Lilly house was absolutely stunning. I told my couple, it was like the places I see in magazines and always wonder, “Where do they find these places to take such beautiful pictures?” Well, I found it. Actually, the area behind the house was even better than the house itself. And all the bridges and fountains were just magnificent.

After that, we went down to the canal walk downtown and took some cool shots there too. At the very end it was getting dark and I got some really nice shots with the city all lit up in the background. Not only that, but I got to play with some flash, ISO, and dark shooting techniques that I haven’t had much opportunity to work with yet. So on top of being just a great place to shoot, it was a really good learning/practice session for me too. I should have some of the pics on my website by the end of the week, so check back. They turned out to be some of the best I’ve done yet, in my opinion. It also helped that the couple were a lot of fun and willing to play around a little, too.

Sarah and some other girls from the barn showed the horses this weekend on Sunday. I took them to the show, since I really shouldn’t be riding and especially showing just yet. Sarah and Harley got a 2nd in their first class out of 15 or so very nice horses. Yay! It’s nice to see all the hours spent in the saddle come to fruition. She won $25 too – can’t complain about that! So that pretty much paid for the day and all the entry fees and stuff.

Vincent went to the show with me and was such a good boy. He hung out all day, didn't complain at all, and was great. He got a new cowboy hat for his efforts. I'll take a pic of him in it - he's gonna be a little heartbreaker! Anyway, I'd better get to work... more later...

Awww.... a puppy video!

And I thought just for your entertainment, I'd post a few pics recently taken too. By the way. Brian named her Shooter. Thanks for all the input on name possibilities... Oh yeah, there's a bonus cool pic of a sunflower I took at the end, too, for all of you puppy haters...

 

 

 

 

Enter __________ (nameless)

After a momentary lapse of reason, this is what I came home with today. It wasn't actually that sporadic - it's a thought that has been being tossed around for a few weeks around here. As one would imagine, it was a thought that was taken a little more seriously by some than others.

So we welcome another border collie. It's a she, and she remains nameless at this point. I imagine when we have enough choices to actually vote on, I may post the options. We may just decide, as it probably needs a name before I'd give ample time for my readers to vote.

Well, this will definitely let me know who still reads this blog... I expect a few interesting comments on this one!!!

The iPod Fairy Cometh

I thought for sure that my iPod had been stolen on our trip home from Colorado. I had it in the camera bag that was in the carry on along with all kinds of other electronicky equipment. Naturally, I'm sure this bag was of added interest to the TSA. When we got home I didn't immediately think of my iPod and Brian unpacked the bags. A few days later, maybe even a week or so later, I decided to get into the camera bag and pull out the iPod. The only problem was it wasn't there.

Feverishly, I searched the house and every single bag that had been any where near Colorado with us and still no iPod. I was using Brian's for a while but it was problematic due to the fact that I have at least twice the number of files his holds on my iTunes. And believe it or not, I am/was getting really sick of the same ol 250 songs (give or take).

Anyway, today I was finally moving the camera bag that I had been using all during fireworks season to take pictures and video at Brian's shows. As I was moving it, I just happened to glance down into the open side pocket to see, what else, but my good ol' pink iPod laying there, innocently on its side.

Now, as I said, I have used this bag at least a half dozen times since we got back from our trip, and I know for a fact that I have even used that very pocket to put stuff in...

Not only that, but I know for a fact as well that I searched that very bag several times not wanting to believe that the TSA couldn't screen out a potential iPod thief...

I think I need to start looking for suspects under my own roof. Particularly, a very not-so-high-in-stature one that happens to be in a peaceful slumber in his room right now. I think maybe the same 250 songs were getting to him too, or maybe he realized Daddy's iPod sucked because it didn't have any Chris LeDoux, George Strait, OR Johnny Cash on it...

JibJab - Starring ME!

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Nazis

Whomever's idea it was to put vinegar on a sunburn needs to be investigated. I googled "home remedy sunburn" and the most commonly cited "home remedy" was to spray pure white vinegar on said burned area. Let me give you a little background.

Aside from having a sunburn, I'm pretty sure with my medical background and everything I've read that I have 2nd degree burns and/or sun poisoning on my chest. I made the brilliant decision this Sunday to "get a little sun" at the horse show I took some people from the barn to by wearing a cami instead of a t-shirt (big mistake). I got more than a little sun. In fact, I think I got THE SUN.

About the time I realized I was getting burned (oh, say around 10am), I quickly applied 50, yes, 50 spf sunscreen. I reapplied the sunscreen around 3. So theoretically, I shouldn't have gotten THIS BAD off! I haven't had a sunburn like this for I don't know how long. It's bad.

Anyway, I thought I'd try to relieve a little pain by spraying vinegar onto the burned skin. For all of you who think child birth is uncomfortable to downright painful - just wait till you spray vinegar on a 2nd degree burn. It pales in comparison. I'm not kidding. I'd rather birth both of my children (at their current sizes) than spray vinegar on the current state of my skin again. I did it once and it sucked. So I thought it was just because it was the first appliction. I took 4 advil and sprayed again about 45 minutes later. Still BAD BAD BAD.

Some of these people who say they got "instant relief" from the pain of their sunburn obviously didn't have this kind of sunburn. There was no instant relief about it. Believe me. Unless you consider instant to be about 4 minutes give or take of tooth grinding, fist clenching, nausea inducing pain.

I'd like to think I have a pretty high pain tolerance, especially considering what I recently went thorough with my back...

So, what's your best non-acetic acid, non-vinegar SEVERE sunburn remedy?

EBay Scare

Well, I thought I bought the farm. I ordered some software on eBay for photo editing. It's a really expensive piece of software, and I feel I got a pretty good deal on it. It was a buy it now, and in my usual fashion, I bid and in the next click paid. The transaction completed thru paypal. Done.

A few days later, well, more like 5 days later, I get this email from paypal and from eBay that my listing had been removed for reasons they couldn't disclose "for privacy purposes" and that I wasn't under obligation to pay for the item and complete the transaction. Uh, great, but it's already paid for. So essentially, it's mine, right? So tell me why the hell it was removed.

So slightly freaking out, I frantically checked for more information. I had visions of a 3 month long battle with paypal trying to recover some of my money. Bad. Bad. Bad. Then I saw that it had allegedly already been shipped via USPS. And believe it or not, it showed up yesterday.

The software was there, right in it's box with the activation code and everything. Being the skeptic that I am, I didn't believe it till I saw it - so I loaded it, put the product code in and BAM. It worked. I dunno what the problem was. But I definitely will think better about buying anything that costs more than $5 on eBay - with the economy the way it is, I can only imagine the number of scams out there...

Widowed

My husband has left me for a size 6 with a bigger bang and a huge rack.

Around the Fourth of July we really celebrate independence. Independence from family duties, that is. I think my husband is one of the few people who actually use VACATION days to blow stuff up. Right now he's setting up the Valpo city show. Yesterday, he worked at the Hebron show, and for the past who knows how long, he's been hovering over his catalogs, watching his hours of video, and trying to engage me in fireworks discussions. This year, he's totally the head dude in charge of the city show here, which is something he's never been left to do all on his own. That's a picture I took of him settung up last year. I imagine this year doesn't look a whole lot different.

I thought I'd include my favorite pic from last nights show. I'll blog more from tonights if any turn out. Pray for no wind. I've yet to have "ideal" firework photo shooting conditions.

If I can figure it out, I may even post a video...

Someone New to Harass

Allisa has a friend who has just jumped into the world of blogging... and someone else to harass when I get tagged for meme's!!! I can't wait! Be sure to visit Molly and her new blog at These are the Days of Our Lives! Welcome Molly!