"I Did Lots of Things My Parents Didn't Know About...."

Haha. Hi, all. Yes, it's been awhile. But I believe the readers of this blog only look about once a month anyway, so I probably could have posted this two weeks from now and it wouldn't have made a difference. Anyway.
I was just thinking back to one of my favorite conversations with my parents this winter. We had been snowed in for a day and a half, and when we finally went outside, it was for dad and I to take brooms to the tops of the cars and uncover them from about 6 inches of snow. And we also had to spend a good 30 minutes defrosting/de-icing the windshields.
When that was done, dad wanted to "see what the roads were like." He just randomly likes to go on drives. He's a big fan of "seeing where the roads will take him." So, while we were out on this little drive [he had me behind the wheel because he didn't feel like going to get his wallet/license] he asks me, "Do you have any experience getting out of skids?"
My immediate reaction could be summed up like this: "??????"
So I said, "Where would I practice getting out of skids? I know you steer into them. I fishtail and get into skids on purpose on the four-wheeler. Does that count?"
"Yeah, as long as you know what it feels like you have an advantage." So he was happy with that. But I just had to know something.
"Seriously, what did you think my answer would be?"
His answer to that question? "Well, I did lots of things my parents didn't know about. We used to to donuts in my truck when I was a kid." Uh-huh. Because that would go over REAL well with him. [Listen, dad. I know you want me to be safe on the roads when they're icy, so I got in some practice just messing around in my car in that abandoned parking lot over there! We did donuts, then we hit the open road to go drifting! Aren't you proud of me? Oh, wait... was this part of the stuff that you DIDN'T want to know about?]
Anyways... just thought I'd share a funny little convo with my dad with you all. haha. Personally, I think part of that conversation was just daring me to go do something dangerous on an empty patch of pavement, but maybe that's just me....

Potter, you rotter.

haha. I was bored. So I decided to pick out one of my favorite quotes from each Harry Potter book. I'll actually start that in a second, but I thought that these three quotes deserve good mention outside of my list:
"Oh, Potter, you rotter, oh, what have you done, You're killing off students, you think it's good fun." - Peeves
"Of course I know Dumbledore, who doesn't know Dumbledore?" - Mrs. Figg
"I am a wizard, not a baboon brandishing a stick." - Professor Flitwick
haha. Okay. Here we go!

Philosopher's Stone.
"There are some things you can't share without ending up liking each other, and knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll is one of them (Chapter 10)"

Chamber of Secrets
"Now, Harry you must know all about Muggles, tell me, what exactly is the function of a rubber duck? " - Arthur Weasley [yes.. I got a rubber duck quote from the whole book.]

Prisoner of Azkaban
"You look in excellent health to me, Potter, so you will excuse me if I don't let you off homework today. I assure you that if you die, you need not hand it in." - McGonagall
AND. " Harry and Ron both made furious moves toward Malfoy, but Hermione got there first--SMACK! She had slapped Malfoy across the face with all the strength she could muster. "

Goblet of Fire
"Colin, I fell in!" he [Dennis Creevey] said shrilly, throwing himself into an empty seat. "It was brilliant! And something in the water grabbed me and pushed me back in the boat!"
"Cool!" said Colin, just as excitedly. "It was probably the giant squid, Dennis!"
"Wow!" said Dennis, as though nobody in their wildest dreams could hope for more than being thrown into a storm-tossed, fathoms-deep lake, and pushed out of it again by a giant sea monster. "

Order of the Phoenix
"A week after Fred and George's departure, Harry witnessed Professor McGonagall walking right past Peeves, who was determinedly loosening a crystal chandelier, and could have sworn he heard her tell the poltergeist out of the corner of her mouth, "It unscrews the other way." "
AND.. "(After Lupin goes through a list of all the things they've done to discredit Dumbledore) "But Dumbledore says he doesn't care what they do as long as they don't take him off the Chocolate Frog Cards," said Bill, grinning. "
And since this is my favorite book as well as movie, I must add this favorite movie quote: "I'm sorry Professor, I must not tell lies." - Harry Potter!

Half-Blood Prince
"And that's Smith of Hufflepuff with the Quaffle," said a dreamy voice, echoing over the grounds. "He did the commentary last time, of course, and Ginny Weasley flew into him, I think probably on purpose, it looked like it. Smith was being quite rude about Gryffindor, I expect he regrets that now he's playing them - oh, look, he's lost the Quaffle. Ginny took it from him. I do like her, she's very nice..." -Luna Lovegood

Deathly Hallows
"Somewhere in the distance they could hear Peeves zooming through the corridors singing a victory song of his own composition:

We did it, we bashed them, wee Potter’s the one, And Voldy’s gone moldy, so now let’s have fun!

“Really gives a feeling for the scope and tragedy of the thing, doesn’t it?” said Ron. "

Woo! :D haha.

At Dawn

So, I lived up to my blog's name Thursday. Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve morning, actually.
My alarm went off at 5:30.
I left the house by 6:15.
I arrived at the barn some 7-9 minutes later.
I got to drive the truck. That was fun. :-) It was cold and wet and rainy and very very windy. It was pretty much the front end of the storm that brought the sleet and eventually snow through Tulsa.
It was before the sun came up. Actually, the sun didn't really come up until a few moments before I left the barn at 7:30.
Why would I wake up at 5:30 am on Christmas Eve to get out in that horrid weather by myself in the dark, you ask? [Or maybe not. Maybe I'm just hoping. Or maybe you're a person of average intelligence that has read some of my blog before, or you know me, and you already surmised my reasoning.]
I went to ride my beast. I had just gotten into a good habit of riding at least 5-6 days a week, and I didn't want to lose too many days when I went to Missouri for Christmas. And we had to leave the house before noon [so we wouldn't get stuck in Tulsa with all this LOVELY weather! (/sarcasm)]. I also wanted to get it over with before the temperature dropped. It was supposed to drop from low 40's to low 30's and below at 7:00. But I think it waited until 8:00. Which was just as well, because I spent 30 minutes longer than I meant to at the barn since I didn't get to the barn right at 6, as I had planned.

So, there I was, out in the dark at the barn with the wind howling. I jumped Koda in the indoor. Obviously, we had to go to the indoor so that we wouldn't get soaked through in the awful rain. He was a brat at first, mainly because [okay, this is a guess here. but I'd like to think that I know my horse well enough to say this] the weather was freaking him out when it made the doors creak on their hinges and the rain pound against the roof and walls. I was a little creeped by it too, just because it was dark out, but I locked us into the indoor and once we started trotting I was much more comfortable with the whole alone-in-the-beginning-of-a-storm-in-a-metal-structure-in-the-dark scenario.
Well, it wasn't completely dark. There were lights inside. But outside it was still dark, so you get my drift.

Anyway... we jumped. A lot. It was fun. :-) Once he got his manners back. We jumped pretty high too. About 3'2. Though the third time I had to get off to put the pole back up I remembered why I usually don't jump that high without Kim. But we got it. He was good about it. We did lots of tight turns with three jumps set up in the indoor. :)
And so, add in 4 hours of travel, several hours of watching REAL TV channels [not just the basic channels we have at home], and insisting to my Grandpa Pat several times that no, I wasn't freezing without socks on and that in fact, I was a bit warm all over, and there was my entire Christmas Eve.

NaNoWriMo on fictionpress.com!

So, my NaNoWriMo story is on my fictionpress account... here: http://www.fictionpress.com/s/2737067/1/California_Widow

So far I have written exactly 5,280 words. In case you're wondering, that is the amount of feet there are in a mile! I learned that because my math teacher taught us to say "five two-mate-ohs" in a mile. Five tomatoes! Isn't that clever?
Haha. Wow. I needed more than seven hours of sleep last night, obviously. Well.. I must get back to my homework so I have time for my daily 1,667 or more NaNo words today!
And I'm glad that the very few who read my very short excerpt seemed to like it! So you can go check out my fictionpress. haha.
Tina

NaNoWriMo Excerpt.

Ahh.. the first day of NaNoWriMo!
Daily word count: 2,723!

So... Here's an excerpt from my prologue.... in case anyone out there is actually interested:

The rainy New England day fit Lacey Jefferson's mood perfectly. Her husband Jonah was about ready to join the wagon train to California. He wanted to work the mines! She ran her hands through her long blonde hair before wrestling it into Jonah's favorite up do. Lacey looked at herself in the mirror, hardly believing that she was already twenty four years old. Twenty four, and about to become a California widow. That's what they were calling the women these days, wasn't it? When their husbands would run off to chase the gold, these women were left alone as if they were widows. Widows because of California and that darn gold rush. Lacey was quite happy with their station in life, and couldn't understand why Jonah had to leave them to make it better. She could only hope she wouldn't become a widow in the true sense of the word before she and Jonah were both at a ripe old age. In their mid eighties, at least!

That is the first paragraph of the prologue!
Does it have anyone intrigued? It shouldn't give away too much, but should hook the reader's attention right away! I'm very picky about my beginnings. :)

Tina

More NaNoWriMo Goodness.

So. At the moment I have a headache and should be sleeping, but I have to write this out or I shall a-splode. :) I've decided that the more I talk about NaNoWriMo the more I will be guilted into completing my daily word count [which is 1200, by the way!] because I know ALL of you will be disappointed if I don't. [And I know all of you means about 5 people who probably don't really care if I can write 50,000 in a month, but I'm convincing myself that I'll be seriously letting down about 100 of you!] Plus, the shame and humiliation of letting the project die off after a week or two, AFTER having said all of this about my excitement, should keep me on the right track. :)

Anyway. I've decided to bare my writer's soul to the world and share what my novel will be about. I'm extremely sensitive about letting people I actually KNOW [as opposed to the anonymous people on, say, fictionpress.com] see my fiction works... But if I'm going to attempt to get my finished product out in the world I might as well start with a tentative working title and synopsis, yes?

Working Title: California Widow.
Intrigued, are you? Good. haha. This working title chose itself. I did not. If you don't get it, you probably never will. I wasn't even sure I actually liked the phrase.. if you can call it that.. especially for a title. But those two darned words just would NOT go away. They wouldn't let me think of any other title, so ta-da! Zee title eez here!

Synopsis:
Lacey Jefferson was a widow. But she wasn't just any widow. They called her a California Widow, because her husband was off on the other side of the country, caught up in the gold rush. It was Jonah Jefferson's plan to make himself a modest fortune so that he could better care for his wife and daughter. What Lacey didn't know was that her California widowhood turned into true widowhood a year ago. When she decides to hitch a wagon ride west with her daughter Becky to go find Jonah, what will she find instead?


If you're thinking it sounds like a historical romance novel... then you would be correct. haha. I'm going to attempt to make it as non-cheesy as I possibly can. Because I love a good romance novel that manages to be as non-cliche'd as possible. And cheesy & cliche' usually go hand in hand with these things. :P

So.. even though I haven't gotten ANY feedback on my blog AT ALL for the past... 3-5 posts... tell me what you think! ..or not.
Tina

The Perfect Morning

I had to kick myself out of bed this morning, and it took until AFTER I already got to the barn at 7:45 for my contacts to settle and me to see completely clear. However, I still managed to get tacked up on time and almost completely warmed up before Kim came down from the house. I had opened up the indoor arena and turned the lights on, but Kim asked me if I was ready to jump. I jumped at the chance [pun intended... which makes it not as cool, but oh well] and we went outside. It was pretty much just misting at this point. I finished my warm-up by cantering in the big arena.

Side note: I LOVELOVELOVE Koda's canter after the Lurena Bell clinic. I'll have to post once or twice about that. It was this past weekend.

So, we did a tiny bit of gridwork in the dressage arena to get both Koda and me thinking about jumping. Then we went down to the stadium. It started raining a little bit harder, almost a legitimate rain at that point. Koda momentarily freaked out about a new log, which was out of character, but we jumped it without an issue. We also jumped the barrels, the bullseye, white picket fence, tires, coop, rolltop, brick wall, polkadot panel, and the other white panel as well as the double. Yesh.
My boy's still got it. :)
Kim was pleasantly surprised and impressed. An exact quote: "this is the type of thoroughbred you want." She was referring to the fact that Koda picked up almost everything immediately after about 10 months off. The footing was kind of iffy. Once when I asked for a lead change I felt him try, but he didn't and Kim and I both suspected it was because of the footing. It was kind of slick since it was, you know, raining. It was definitely a legitimate rainfall by the time we were done. Kim was huddled up in her jacket, hood over her head. haha. I was in a long-sleeved t-shirt thats about two sizes too big and a pair of summer breeches. It was great.

Pretty much the SECOND we walked under the roof of the barn, the downpour started. I mean... the heavens opened up and it rained BUCKETS. So I put bigeloil on Koda's legs, took a picture of the funny looking dry spot on his back where the saddle had been, cleaned his crib collar, and put him up. I had to close the indoor, then went to starbucks.

When I got to starbucks in Target, the barista waved at me. haha. After he was done with the guy's drink in front of me, he just started making my drink without saying a word. :) I didn't even have to clarify what size I wanted. :P Which the last few times he asked just to confirm.
Then the two guys that are always sitting in the round table next to the counter started talking to me. The first time it was a comment on my breeches: "So, you ride horses? Do you do that jumping thing?" The second time it was on a rainy day: "Isn't it a bit too wet to ride today?" My response was, "Oh, we have an indoor arena." "Oh, that's nice."

Today I walked in, my front was soaked from riding, and I'm sure I looked a fright with my hair all plastered to my head and no make up on, but I didn't really care. I'm still happy at how great Koda did! My long-sleeved t-shirt was plain grey, so it was really easy to see the wet spot that pretty much took over my whole shirt. And the front of my breeches were dark with water too. As Lee [the barista that knows my order by memory now] started making my drink, one of the guys goes,
"So, what happened to that indoor arena?" I laughed.
"I didn't feel like riding in it today."
The other guy speaks up, "I was gonna say... that must have been one big leak in the roof."
I laughed. "I felt like jumping today, and all my jumps were outside."
"Does your horse ever get a break?"
"I try to ride six days a week. So he gets one day off. Plus we're getting ready for a show next weekend so I'm trying to ride as much as possible."
"Wow, working people at least usually get two days off," said the first guy.
"Where is the show gonna be, the fairgrounds?" asked the second.
I laughed at the working people comment. "Its going to be out in, um, Okeemah." I always forget what its called where Doug lives.
"I thought there were only rodeos up in those parts."
"My trainer married a cowboy that lives up there, and bought some land next to his. So we're probably the only english spot for quite a few miles."
"I bet."

For some reason, that conversation made me smile a lot. haha. It was just amusing to have that convo while I was waiting for my drink - that I didn't have to order - while I was standing there soaked. And the funny thing is that these guys look like they're in their thirties. Shouldn't they be at work? But I guess some people would say I should be in school, so... whatever. :P haha.

Tina