Udderly Delightful

Went to the Buffalo Trace Balloon Festival friday, and I have to say, it was one of the most visually stunning things I have ever seen in my life. I've lived in Kentucky 4 1/2 years now, and I've wanted to go to the festival the entire time, just haven't ever gotten the chance to. Schedules never worked out, or I found out about it after the fact. Seems like I always missed it for one reason or another. This time, my lovely neighbor Dorothy reminded me.

All tolled, I believe there were about 27 different balloons.

This balloon was called 'Udderly Delightful'. I thought it was damn cute.

They were having some problems getting this balloon vertical. See the little gray haired lady in the bottom left hand corner of the picture? She's a lot more enthusiastic there than when she finally gets in the balloon. With the basket jostling around, she did not seem especially thrilled. The balloon was actually tethered to the front bumper of the black truck she is leaning against, and it was moving as the balloon tried to lift off.

The balloons after everybody had lifted off.

Once the balloons were headed who-knows-where, they had live music and arts and crafts
to check out. And, of course, bounce houses for the kids.

It was a very nice evening.

Procrastination is my Middle Name

Ok, it should actually be my first name too. I am so bad about putting things off.

I've had a lot of people asking about the cruise hubby and I took, so I thought if I did a blog post, it could cover everybody.

We left from Port Canaveral on the 12th, in the afternoon on Monarch of the Seas. Huge boat. Surprisingly awe inspiring. I found out later that she is actually one of the smaller boats in the Royal Caribbean line.

We left in the afternoon, and sailed through the night to Cococay, Bahamas, an island that Royal Caribbean owns. Hubby and I thought it would be hoaky, but it was awesome. We decided at the end of the cruise that we would have liked to spend more time there. One side of the island was busy; you could sign up to go snorkeling, rent jet skis, play on bouncy things in the water. We took a nature walk by ourselves and ended up on the other end of the island, which was totally deserted. That was the side we liked most.

One thing we felt bad about, was walking on hermit crabs. When we went on the nature trail, it took us a few moments to realize the forest floor was moving, with little tiny hermit crabs. It ended up being an especially long hike because we were watching every step we took to avoid the crabs. On the deserted end of the island, Hubby found a pile of shells he thought somebody had gathered. Instead, it was a group of crabs that had gotten together for breeding, I thought.

These are all little crabs, most of them about the size of your thumbnail.

We left Cococay, and headed towards Nassua. While we were sailing, the RC staff made sure you had plenty to do. There were at least a dozen bars and lounges on the ship. There was a three story theater inside, a shopping mall with Ben N Jerrys, Starbucks, two jewellry stores, a general store, a duty free store. There was a casino, a piano bar, a climbing rock wall, 2 pools and two hot tubs. There was food available somewhere all the time. Literally, you could get pizza at 4 am. There was a regular buffet that ran about 15 hours a day, as well as several specialty restaurants. We went to a restaurant called Vincents for a couple nights, and I ate some of the best food I'd ever had. Lobster Bisque, Filet Mignon, Raspberrry Panna Cotta. Absolutely mouth watering!!! (Yes, I did gain a few pounds.)

When we arrived at Nassua, I had scheduled us to go snorkeling with Manta Rays. It was thrilling. They were debarbed of course, and very used to human contact. Such an unusual texture though.

After hiking up through the town, sampling conch fritters, we rented a taxi to take us to one of the forts and a place called the Queens Staircase. Below is a view of hubby standing at one of the cannons, with our ship in the background. On the right side is a view from the same hill of Paradise Island and Resort, which is very high end and built not too long ago. It looked very cool, but it was like a hundred bucks per person just to walk on the island. Maybe we'll do that next time. It was especially beautiful at night, but none of my pictures came out very well.

We sailed through the night Thursday night, and got back to Florida Friday morning. We spent a day in florida, looking at where I used to live years ago. We stayed at Melbourne beach, on the coast. The water was so much different from the Bahamas. Cold and a little violent.

It was turtle nesting time, but the only turtle we saw was one that had died on the beach. She didn't have any injuries or anything, so I assumed she starved to death trying to get to the beach to lay her eggs. Very sad.

Overall, the trip was absolutely phenomenal. I would do it again in a heartbeat. Next time, though, I will know to keep more money at hand when we go, (for the endless people that needed tips) and I will not fly Delta. The worst part of the trip was trying to get home, with delays, mechanical issues, etc, that put us a day late.

Hope everybody is inspired to do something crazy. A cruise was not something I ever really planned to do, but I decided to do it exactly because of that. I'm not generally a sun person, but I had a wonderful time.

So, alot's been going on that I didn't want to blog about. It seemed like this winter was a real test for us. We lost Moose, then Bud, and at the beginning of March we lost Annie. Not from her Diabetes or old age, No. She was attacked and ripped apart by neighbor dogs, and we ended up having to put her down. It seemed like everything I had to talk about was down.
With the spring comes renewal, though,and things are starting to perk up. Hubby has been working in Mexico for a little over a month, and he's almost done with that. He's at least getting to come home on the weekends now.
Although Moose is gone, he's not forgotten. He has a little baby filly that was born just before Easter. Mom appropriately called her Spring. She only weighed 29 pounds when she was born. Below is a clip of her at about 5 days old. And yes, those are roosters crowing in the background.

Then, a setback. Tucker, one of my three remaining geldings, managed to tear up his leg in fence. Actually, the term the vet used was degloved. Literally, he cut the skin and meat on his long cannon bone in his rear leg, and everything got shoved down. There was a 4 inch section of bone dry to the air. Think tube sock being pushed down to the ankle. Yea, seriously bad. The crazy thing was, the vet said all the work would be up to me. He didn't do anything. No antibiotics, no pain management, nothing. I have to bandage everything every 3-4 days, and let me tell you, it is absolutely THE MOST DISGUSTING THING I have ever seen or smelled. I was a cop for 9 years, and I've seen wrecks, dead bodies, gross things, and this injury is definitely in the top 3. I'm not even posting a picture, because it's so bad.

On the upside, it's looking surprisingly good.( I'm definitely looking for the upside in all things right now. ) Flesh is actually growing in over the bone. I never would have believed it. The vet said that this could be a six-month process though, with possible setbacks. I'm hoping for less. Poor Tucker won't be as pretty as he used to be.

Anyway, spring is here and I'm looking forward to a better year this year. I'm still writing, although with hubby traveling, it's harder to eek out time, because I have to juggle the kiddies. But I plug on, because I have to.

Till next time...

Sex All Weekend Long...

Had a wonderful experience this weekend. Mary Buckham, writer and professional critique-er (is that a word?) came to speak to our group, the Kentucky Romance Writers, on including sensuality in our writing. No, not sex, SENSUALITY. Yes, there is a difference. Sex is sex, But sensuality is everything that builds up to the actual act. All the hot glances, little touches, tense moments. Everything that makes the reader keep turning the pages. It was a VERY informative day, and she was such a gracious speaker.



The day before, on Friday, we explored our little corner of Kentucky. We started with lunch at Wallace Station, then moved on to a tour of Three Chimneys Farm, which was an enlightening experience in sex itself. We toured the stallion barns, where we met Big Brown, Smarty Jones and so many other phenomenal horses standing at stud there. We also watched three live breedings, which was very exciting.





This is the famous stud Dynaformer, father of Barbaro, getting a bath. Dynaformer brings in a paltry stud fee of $150,000 a cover, THREE TIMES A DAY! At 25, he is one of the oldest studs, but he's still going strong. You go old man!

I think us Kentuckians even taught Mary a thing or two about sex that day.

From left to right we have Tracy, Heidi, Stephanie, Kathy, Mary and Saundra. I, of course, am taking the pic.

From the farm we proceeded to Keeneland, where I have never been before. What a beautiful race track. Nothing was really going on , of course, but it was neat to explore the shop and paddock area.


I had to peel off after Keeneland and go to work, but the rest of the girls went on to Equus Run Vineyards, where they may have imbibed in just a little wine. (ie. a bottle or three?)


Nah, just kidding...mostly. Everybody had a wonderful weekend, and Mary was exceptional. If you check out her website, you will find that she has critique services available, and her prices are all included. From what I saw, she is well worth her time and money.

Rejection, rejection...

Today is a momentous day in the life of an aspiring author.I am officially in the club. I just received my first rejection. Months ago, heck, I think it was maybe August, Resplendence had a call for law-enforcement themed short stories. I whipped one up, and re-worked it, and re-re-worked it, let a few people read it, before finally sending it in. Honestly, I hadn't heard back from anybody, so I had already assumed it wasn't right for them.

I'm not too broken up about it. Since I sent the manuscript in, I've reworked it even more, and it is such a better story now. Better conflict, better sex, better dialogue. So, Ms. Everhardt, I think you made the right decision. But thank you for officially letting me know.

Although, if you want a look at the updated version, you've got my e-mail...

Good Idea for Anytime...Louis Ramey

So, our babysitter pulled through for us at the last minute on Saturday, and we headed to Lexington. Hubby and I don't get a chance to date much, so this was a special treat. One of my favorite things to do is go to Comedy Off Broadway, in the Lexington Green Shopping Center. I got online and ordered tickets. Their headliner was a dude I had never heard of. Louis Ramey. I looked him up on You-tube, and he was ok, but didn't seem spectacular.
Was I ever wrong!!!
From beginning to end, he had us rolling! His subjects were varied, and he had one-liners that really struck home. Of course he had to make fun of Kentucky, but he did it in a fun way. Apparently, he was on Last Comic Standing- not sure what year.
If I knew he was coming back to Lexington, I'd go see him again in a heartbeat.
http:/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HgybeZCltk
This clip is pretty tame compared to what he did for us, but you get the idea.
Enjoy!

Endings and Beginnigs...

I am sad once again. I've lost another very dear friend. 'Four Bid', the stud pictured above, died yesterday, unexpectedly.
Bud, as we called him, had been losing weight recently. But that was actually pretty normal for him. Lose weigh in the winter time, then bulk back up in the spring. Throughout the winter, I would feed him special senior feed, give him extra treats and roughage. I don't think it was enough, though, this year. Especially with the snow and the cold the way it's been. I think everything combined to get him down.
It was especially heartbreaking to look down in the field and see the other three horses hanging theirs heads over top of his body, waiting for him to get up.
Bud was the patriarch of the group, the 'old man' as we called him. He was 27 this year. He always held a special place in my heart because his pedigree could be traced back to Man O' War, the great racehorse. And because he was willing to put up with any novice rider I put on his back. He is going to be sorely missed.
Okay, damn it. On to lighter news. I reconnected this week to a very dear friend from high school. HELLO NICOLE!!!! On Facebook, no less. I think it's quite a coincidence that she found me. I've only just started being a presence on the network, and week before last she typed my name in. It was so good talking to her. I'm sure we'll get together at some point and get into trouble just like we always did. (Hey Nic, remember getting the truck stuck going around the reservoir? Ha Ha!!!)
So, I guess life kind of balances out, huh? When it takes something away, it will give you something back. Maybe just not what you expected.