Friday, August 30, 2013

Monday, August 19, 2013

My Little Ponies

As promised, the horses were bathed this weekend and photos were taken!

First up, Chica the Magnificent:

Da hoss.
Followed by Chica the Unimpressed:

And Rude
Not to be outdone by Chica with the Luxurious Tail:

I trim it off the ground probably every 6 months- why can't my hair grow like that?

And finally, Chica the Gorgeous:

Keeping herself in shape since '00

Next, it was Sienna's turn. Since Chica is (generally) voice controlled, I ditched the lead with her immediately to keep it out of the way. With Sienna, I wasn't sure how well that would go over- but she surprised me and kept still, in spite of the grass tempting her underfoot.

Who, me?
Sienna the Well-Fed:

The camera adds 100 pounds

Sienna the Undistracted by the Neighbor's Annoying Dog in the Bacground:

Also Sienna the Arabian/Warmblood Stallion because of background- anyone else get it?
And finally, Sienna the Giraffe:

By Zippos Giraffe Dude
I'm not sure if poor Sienna suffers from Second Child Syndrome, in that I took almost 2x as many pictures of Chica as I did Sienna, or if it was just that the heat/humidity/bugs were starting to drive me insane.

I had a fun afternoon with my girls- especially after a couple weeks of being unable to ride. Unfortunately I seem to have overdone it, and until my surgery next Monday, my horse excursions are going to have to be kept to feeding. But at least I got a little fun in the sun this Sunday!



Thursday, August 15, 2013

My Impromtu "Vacation"

I went home Friday night, August 2nd, not expecting to spend 2 days of the next week in the ER and the rest of the time recuperating at various places- some at my house, some at my grandparents' house, and some at my parents' house.

Without my horses and cat to keep me busy (my roommate stepped up and took care of them for me), and with half of my family at work all day, what was I to do to entertain myself in the moments I wasn't asleep?

Oh, yeah- maybe hang out with this motley crew?

All Burlingame dogs: Pose now!
If you read my blog, you know that the two on the right- Romeo, the lab, and Fiona, the corgi- are my two babies that basically go with me everywhere. The other three belong to my parents. There's Rio the Great Pyrenees mix, and Dixie and Daphnee the Bichon Frises.

Five dogs is a lot spatially to have in a room- and even more so when the corgi, lab, and Pyrenees mix want to run around and play like a bunch of banshees. Of course, the Bichons don't partake in such rough-housing- they prefer to sleep on top of the couches and turn their noses up at any interaction from the blue-collar crew, especially Fiona. Sometimes Romeo will walk over and sniff at them, eliciting a growl from them as they daintily turn and face the other way. But Fiona is the bane of their collective existence. Their growling and snapping does little to deter her happy-go-lucky corgi mind; she merely jumps back and barks at them before tearing around the room, herding them to wherever she wants them to go. One day she successfully kept Dixie penned in the kitchen, in spite of there being two entrances on opposite sides of the kitchen, for a good several minutes before Dixie ran under a couch to get away from her. They are fortunate that she has about 10 pounds on them, so they can still get to places that she can't!

The only time they think she is ok is at times like this:

Dixie waits patiently while Fiona snoozes

The Bichons are all about quiet time
Dixie and Dapnee may be dainty little powder puffs like those that a past king of France (Henry III) wore around his neck in a tray-like basket (no joke), but Fiona expects to be treated in no lesser fashion. After all, she is British royalty herself (maybe that's why they don't get along)!

During one period of laying on the couch, being bored by what was on tv, I set a laundry basket upright and told Fiona to jump in, which, after some pacing and complicated mathematics I'm sure, she was able to oblige me with:

"And how else may I please you?"

She sat like that for probably 10 minutes, until I told her to get back out. Mostly because I got distracted by something on tv and forgot she was in there.

Later, like a good hour later, Fiona did something bad- possibly grabbed onto Romeo's jowls so that he would drag her across the room, what fun!- and I muttered to her that I was going to put her in her kennel if she did that again. She looked at me, turned around, trotted over to the forgotten laundry basket, which was now laying on its side, and crawled in and laid down. I haven't laughed that hard in I don't know how long. In her defense, it looks like a crate, with its slats- such a smart girl!

I returned from my parents' home this Monday so that I could go back to work the rest of the week, at least until my doctor's appointment tomorrow morning. And another member of my Royal family (how did I get to be so lucky?), His Highness King Ramses the Lionhearted, was so excited to see me, it made returning to work a little more bearable.

So happy, I'll even pose for you!
I love my little family! Depending on how the doctor goes tomorrow, maybe I'll get new pictures of everyone, ponies included, this weekend. It would be a good incentive to give them baths. Sienna has been caked with mud all this week and I haven't had the energy to do anything about it... perhaps the recent rain will help wash it off.

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

The month wherein all my horse plans fall through.

I've been working towards showing Sienna at an APHA show coming up at the end of the month. In addition to working her pretty hard, I've been locking her up at night and only letting her out into a small paddock during the day. She's actually looking less pregnant and more like a fit horse!

However, after a trip to the emergency room Saturday, where it was discovered that I have a kidney stone in my right kidney and some sort of growth on my left kidney, it would appear that my efforts were all for naught.

At first it was thought that the growth on my kidney was a hemorrhagic cyst, basically a cyst that has started bleeding into the kidney. However, the urologist I visited today isn't so sure. I don't remember a lot of the visit, due to him throwing around "rare kidney cancer" and "really rare bladder cancer". I barely made it out of the room before I burst into tears.

My mom assures me that he just wants to rule them out, that he isn't necessarily saying I have one of those. Apparently I could have any number of things.

I can't tell you how surreal it is to sit in a room and have a doctor discuss the possibility that you have cancer. I even thought something along the lines of "how in the world is this happening right now?".

I'd say I'm not panicking yet, but that's not true. What I am trying to do is trust God that His plan will work through this and that somehow He will be glorified in the process. I will be undergoing another cat scan on Monday with iodine so he can get a better picture of my kidneys. I'm praying for a good result.

And meanwhile, I'm really missing riding. I'm sad my show isn't going to work out, and I'm even sadder we won't be ready for the jumping show. I hope that I'll be riding again soon enough; in the meantime, just have to get through the days ahead.

Monday, August 5, 2013