Amazing Miracle!

Okay... wow! I just had to share this when I remembered it. [This is also giving me a break from an evil Geometry test. ^_^] Yesterday, our pastor told us something that happened during the Easter Sunday service. When the scene where Jesus rides into Jerusalem started [our Jesus didn't have a donkey. :( haha.] Al [the guy playing Jesus] walked down one aisle and stopped in the front, then walked back up another one. Well, as he was walking up/down the aisles, as well as healing the actors who had the obvious diseases of lameness, blindness, deafness, etc, he shook hands of people in the pews, and touched shoulders, etc. Well, one of the guys in the pew had never been to church before, and his back had been giving him problems for the past few months. [I'll call him John so I won't get confused in the retelling. haha.] John had almost decided not to come to this Easter service, but the person who invited him persuaded him to come anyway. He had been in an especially large amount of pain due to his back that morning. [I'm sure some of you might be able to tell where this is going - but the rest of the story is still amazing!] As Al, dressed as Jesus, walked back up the aisle, he shook John's hand. John's friend later told our pastor that when Al touched John, he INSTANTLY felt an "amazing, out of this world" power go through his whole body, and the back pain IMMEDIATELY left him!! Isn't that so cool?!?! I thought so too!!!

So, John seems to have gotten a touch from Al [as Jesus], AND Jesus! haha. Yes, our pastor said that too. lol.

OH! A Jim Graham video update [haha]: My dad has successfully uploaded the video of me riding to his computer!!! Yaay! Now, he just needs to email it to me. Unfortunately, his desktop was the one that had the software for it.... and he went out of town. And since he is afraid I will get onto his computers and sell his company's secrets to rival companies, I do not have any of his passwords. So, it might be Thursday/Friday before I can get it up. But it IS coming! Halfway there.

So, I hope you were inspired by my little story... and until next post, God bless!!

Tina

Rooster is an idiot.

Soo... even though my mom cut my head off and Dakota's nose of in this one... I had to laugh because I so totally thought BUTT SHOT! lol. Not quite as great as a Haygood butt shot, but my horsie just has the cutest butt. :) Look at that rippling muscle. *pets horsie's butt* ANYWAY.....

Rooster is an idiot. I seriously thought I was going to watch that dumb horse die right in front of me! There's a chain that holds this gate closed, next to a fence where Rooster is turned out. Well, there's enough space between the gate and the fenct for me to just hop the chain and continue on my way, so I don't have to open the gate - that's too much trouble unless I have my horse with me. Well, Rooster got excited and thought I OPENED the gate, which I did not. So, he charged at me [I leapt out of the way, of course], and either just didn't jump in time, or didn't think the chain was there, and RAN INTO THE CHAIN. This is a big, thick chain. He hit the chain on his upper front legs, about five inches above his knees. The rest of this I watched in slow motion, basically: He FLIPPED, and somehow went over the chain, between the gate and the fence. I dunno how he fit, but he did. He landed NECK FIRST, then shoulder, then the rest of his body, then his head. Rooster's whole body is red, so when his head whipped around I thought he gouged his eye out because I couldn't see that side of his face clearly. THEN, he landed with his legs towards the fence, so I was like... Crap. If he didn't die instantly from snapping his neck, he's going to break his legs in the gate. Luckily, he just lay there, stunned for a few seconds, before slowly getting up and slowly walking off...

I didn't breathe until I dialed Kim's number and told her her horse just flipped over the fence. And Kim was like, "Well, if he broke his neck he'd be dead right now, so I think we can rule that out. Let's hope he didn't break his back. He'll either be fine or he won't... We'll see how he is doing in a day or two."

I nearly feinted.

THEN, [originally I had been going out to get my horse, and had to go through that gate to get to him... when I see my horse, he has this big growth thing on the inside of his upper leg, kind of between his chest muscle and his leg.... I get up to the barn, and Kim is like, "Oh, he has a hematoma."

"WHAT?!?"

"A hematoma."

"Umm... what is that?"

"He got kicked, and the blood just kind of pools up under the skin."

Umm-hum. I'm going to give it a week to re-absorb back into his body before calling the vet. At least it was smaller this morning, since I found it last night.

I swear, these horses are trying to give me a heart attack. And don't get me started about my ORU students today. Their brains were somewhere else, definitely not in their heads. I'll spare you that little rant... But to sum it up, I'll say that today I've been wondering how some of these people got into college in the first place. I felt like tearing my hair out.

Anways...

Until next post, God bless.

Tina

Jesus Needs an Independant Seat. ;)

Hahahaha. Yup. You read that right. ;) Soo... Saturday night my mom and I went to a different church to see their Easter program because we've heard it is really good every year. Guess what? It was! There was even a live animal. I know you horsey people might guess just what animal that was by my title... Or if you know me, you know what animal I'd remember to comment on. haha. There was a cute little donkey for the scene where Jesus rides into Jerusalem.

My mom and I laughed, because Jesus was riding side "saddle..." He was bareback, of course, and there was one man leading the donkey [which really was very cute!] and one walking beside Jesus.....

Jesus almost fell off!!! Hahaha. So, for the rest of the short donkey ride he had a fistfull of the front of the guy's shirt that was beside him. He jumped down from that donkey quicker than I could blink when it was time. haha. Poor donkey didn't do anything either.

And the only other problem was the Roman soldiers [who were definitely perfect for the roll... those were HUGE, muscley men. I could see their arm muscles from where we were sitting... Anyway...] had their timing off with the sound effects when they were whipping Jesus. Just by about a half second.

And then this morning at our church... my two FAVORITE people EVER sang. I was waiting the whole time for Bishop Randall Drake and Christi Hoffman to sing. They need to record a CD. I'd buy it. They also need to sing more. Like... switch off every other Sunday. Oh, and I thought our Jesus looked more like Jesus than the other church's Jesus... even if their production was better, and more like a play of the last week of Jesus' life... At least our Jesus had his own, real beard and didn't wear a totally fake wig. lol.

HAPPY EASTER!

[& Happy Birthday to Tomiah!!!]

Until next post, God bless!

Tina

P.S. -GASP!- I finally have some NEW pictures of me and my baby jumping! The one up there was taken YESTERDAY! Yay! :)

Cold Weather Go Away..

Come again another... year? haha. I wish. :S It was SO warm, and pretty for awhile. And we're gonna get rain as well.. As long as it isn't freezing rain, I'm good. I like thunder storms. ^_^ OHOHOHOHOH! I'm watching the weather, and guess what the 7 day forecast says.... SPRING! heehee. Yay.

You like my picture this time? haha. I want to order the t-shirt with that on it. So cool. My friend Sawyer has the non-horse version t-shirt.... and it's awesome. But of course I found the horse version. haha. AAAAAnd.... OTHER picture! Ross Thomas. Drool bucket worthy, isn't he? As well as David Krumholtz and Shawn Paul. :D Ross Thomas also leads me to the subject of The Cutting Edge. All three movies are AWESOME!!! The only thing I want to change is that in the third one, Jackie Dorsey [female lead in the second one] said her MARRIAGE ENDED! NOOO! They could have used some other way to explain why Alex Harrison [male lead in 2nd, Ross Thomas] wasn't in the third movie! I mean, come on! And then we find out that Doug Dorsey [Jackie's dad, male lead in the 1st, also in 2nd] is DEAD! Again, NOOO! We could have just thought he'd retired. But, if it wasn't for that... it was PERFECT! Loved it. :) Oh, and I also loved Matt Lanter.. he played the male lead. haha. Oh, wow. Lately I've sounded really boy crazy, haven't I? It's kind of strange to me, actually. I'm ususally not this guy crazy. haha.

But... you can't say that the male leads in ANY of the three movies are hard on the eyes... Just can't deny it. ^_^ Well, this was a short-ish post, so I'll leave it at this. haha. Until next post, God Bless!

Tina

Jim Graham

I've learned quite a bit. Like, for instance... I have problems keeping my thumbs up, like you would hold your hand for a handshake. I have problems staying quiet in my saddle; I move around too much. I need to remember to ride how I know how to ride. ;) haha. I need to be less afraid to make mistakes - the more mistakes I make, the more chances I get to make things better. There's four stadium positions: two point, middle seat [Kim calls it half seat], three point, and posting trot. And, it is dang hard to ride when your feet are so cold you can't feel them. Or your stirrups. That was just the first day! :P My dad came the second day with the video cam, but of course... [my luck] he doesn't have a cord to hook up the camera to my computer! Very disappointed about that, but maybe if I bug him enough he'll get one. ^_^ The second day was CROSS COUNTRY! yay! haha. The natural obstacles. First day was stadium, the poles. I learned that jumping down banks, I'm kind of lopsided. My left foot comes up when my right doesn't. Also, I should NEVER stop counting strides to my jumps, or I ask Dakota to jump a stride too early. Poor thing, he always listens when I tell him to do THAT. I learned what a single/double bridge was with my reins. And how that can sometimes save you from falling. There's the four cross country positions: galloping [or cruising] position, two point, middle seat [half seat], and three point [or sitting down, for the non-horsey people. ^_^]. There's also different instances when I need to rotate my shoulders certain directions. The line to my jumps should always be where my horse and I can both see the other side, not just trees. Jumping down into water is a LOT scarier for my horse than jumping down onto grass. And jumps without height [bank downs, ditches] has a different approach to each one. Haha. The second day, before we really started out, Jim came up to me while I was sitting on Dakota [the second day there were only two in my class, one horse had been injured, the other woman had something wrong with her... dog? Think so.] and talked to me a bit. I was so excited that he remembered my name most of the day! lol. I was wearing my pink jacket, so most of the first day my name was "Pinky." Or, "Pinky and the Grey." [Hmm.. We need to change the lyrics to the Pinky and the Brain song. haha.] He basically told me he was proud of me for not crying after the first day's lesson. Nicole, Kim's youngest, cried after hers. She'd fallen off, but she was crying because, "I just really really wanted Jim to LIKE me!" How sad was that? But I did have a bet going with the other barn girls that she'd cry.. Sorry, Nic. Apparently, he saw a few others either upset, close to tears, or crying as well. Then he asked me if I'd had any questions and I said, "Not really. It takes me awhile to process things, and I sorted some things out myself last night." And he said, "Thats fine. Just tell me if you have any questions." Then he was like, "How old are you, like twenty?" And I just went, "Ummm... sixteen." "Well you're very mature for your age." "...thank you.." I decided I was glad my dad was taping this, because I heard some of the things Jim said when I was out of his earshot. It boosted my confidence a bit when he told Kim I was a good student, and she was like, "Oh, very good." He only got mad at me once! haha. And frustrated once. He yelled a lot both days, but I could tell that's just him. He'd also say, "You know I'm not mad, right?" On the way home the first day, Nicole was like, "Were you nervous at all?" "A little bit at first, but then not really." "But... he was yelling at you a LOT!" haha. Then I told her about my insanely scary Russian figure skating coach for my power classes when I was still skating. Much scarier than Jim Graham. And the second day, Jim told Stacy and me [the other lady in my class] that we were both doing stuff much higher than beginner novice, and next time we should sign up for the novice class. Like the bank up, two short strides, jump, two short strides, bank down. That was fun. Scary, but fun. I think thats why eventers love cross country. The adrenaline, and the fact that you're jumping things that would scare a hunter/jumper [sorry Jillian, if you're reading this. ^_^] or dressage person out of their breeches. lol. My horse is so great. He could probably feel my nervousness, but he did everything anyway. Overall, it was a very productive weekend. And... its Monday morning now, and I'm so stiff and sore I can't describe it. But it was worth it! Looks like my long posts also came back, but this warranted a very long post! Hopefully, eventually, I'll be able to get that footage of me on the internet. Some day. Until next post, God bless! Tina

Oh. My. Gosh. OHMYGOSH OHMYGOSH OHMYGOSH!

Another short post. haha. Buuut... I AM GOING TO BE RIDING IN THE JIM GRAHAM CLINIC!!! Aaahhh! This is SOOO exciting! :D At first I just thought I was going to go to watch, but now I'm actually TAKING DAKOTA WITH ME!!! AND I GET TO RIDE! We're doing Stadium jumping on Saturday, Cross Country on Sunday! And I'll probably do jump crew when I'm not riding, since I'm just in the BN [beginner novice] class, and I'm pretty sure there's also Novice and Prelim. But, yes. I'M EXCITED!!!! My dad said I could go last night, after I offered to pay $100. You see, someone got injured, and told Kim [trainer] that if she had a student who could go, they'd pay HALF of the fee for them! Sooo... Kim asked ME, and we only have to pay $188!!! I offered to use some of my Christmas money [I KNEW there was a reason I wasn't using it! haha] and pay $100 of it. My parents only have to pay $88, and whatever amount Kim decides I need to pay to chip in for gas money. She'll actually trailer me for free! YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE HAAAAWWWWWWWWWW!!! :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D Hmm.. I need to get back to my schoolwork now, so dad won't be angry that I took the whole weekend off if I had schoolwork left to do for the week. I also need to get it done so I can clean my polo & pillow wraps, saddle pads, my boots, Koda's boots, and other tack. ^_^ God Bless! Tina