Adventure at the Barn

Well, people! Yesterday was an exciting day. Mum and I went over to the barn to clean -- our Monday/Wednesday tradition, to save money on boarding fees -- and we had a great time, as usual. *Sigh*, country music wafting through the air, gentle horse nickers and whinnies, the smell of sweet hay and alfalfa...

But that wasn't the exciting part. Remember the hay I just mentioned? I went upstairs in the barn to throw some bales of hay down, only I had never done it before. How hard could this be? I said to myself. Just grab the bale with the hay-hooks and toss it down the trapdoor.

If only it had been that simple! LOL!

Though there was no one around to see my little show of strength, I strutted over to the pile of hay bales, sinking the hay-hooks deep into the first bale. Lifting the bale as though it weighed nothing, I clomped over to the open trapdoor and started to toss it down, thinking I could release the hay-hooks as I threw the bale. NOT!! My right hay-hook stuck in the bale, and as the hay dropped down through the trapdoor, my body, carried by the momentum, started to follow! I quickly let go of the hay-hook and stepped back, wobbling at the edge as I tried to regain my balance.

Whew...needless to say, my knees were a little shaky for a few minutes after that. And now I've learned the correct way to toss down hay bales -- one should carry the bale over to the door, drop it in front of the door, release the hay-hooks, and then kick the bale down through the door. For future reference, if anybody reading this tries to toss down hay bales, RELEASE THE HAY-HOOKS BEFORE YOU TOSS THE HAY BALE, OTHERWISE YOU WILL GO WITH IT!!! LOL!

Yeah, yeah, yeah...go ahead and say it...I'm an idiot. But hey, it was my first time doing that. I had to learn somehow. And now I'm sure I won't forget. On the plus side, tossing the hay around was great exercise! ;-)

Winter Break!!!

YES! Finally, finally, finally. Winter Break is here!! I'm so happy! LOL! I've been waiting for a long time for this week off. Seems like such a small thing to make one happy, eh? But there it is. Starting tomorrow, I get to do whatever I want for a whole week!

Well, OK, not really. I do have homework, unfortunately. But hopefully not a lot. I have to do research for a Children's Lit. project, read Charlotte's Web (how hard can that be?!), start a term paper in my Women's Studies course, read stuff for Short Story and American Lit. II, and get ready for a sort-of skit thingy my group is supposed to do on Willa Cather's Neighbour Rosicky, which I haven't read yet (bad Mary, BAD Mary!). Mmmph...sounds like a lot, now that I'm mentioning it all. Good grief, I'm depressing myself again!

No! Stop it! I will not be depressed. Even though it is still going to be two months until I get to see Gladiator... Ack! LOL!

OK, I'll stop ranting now. Really. I'm going to be very, very happy for the rest of the night. I'm going to curl up by the fire and take it easy -- not even going to think about schoolwork for now. Watch a movie with my oldies, dress in baggy comfy clothes, eat popcorn and sweeties, yes, that sounds good. I'm happy again. I hope everybody else is happy too! :-D

It's been a week...

OK, yeah, I realise it's been a week. Sorry! My life is so crazy right now...I tell ya. And honestly, I don't really have a lot to say right now. More later! Have a good one!

Lovely Day!

People!

Well, today was a lovely day. The temperature got up to 52 degrees! Huzzah! It was so warm, I didn't need my jacket...or gloves...or headwrap...or scarf...

This morning, while reading O'Brian's The Nutmeg of Consolation, I ate a sandwich. For breakfast. It was yummy.

Then, after church and a little pizza party with my sis and three of my nephews (two of whom just celebrated their birthdays), I went into the Outback (i.e., my backyard). I hauled some logs around. It was fun. I got all muddy.

I ate some snow (it was clean, I promise!).

Then I thought that I might climb a tree and sit reading O'Brian in the sunshine. But...it was too much trouble to climb the tree after wading through the snow dragging those logs. So, alas, that beautiful idea will have to wait.

Can you tell I'm in a ticklish mood tonight?

Hee, hee!

Some Randomness

Hey readers!

Guess what? I'm not going to write about Russell Crowe this time! Not because I don't want to, mind you, but because those select few of you who are reading this must be getting annoyed at my repetitiveness. :-)

Oh, but I did just see part of A Beautiful Mind (disturbing thought!). It was horrible and beautiful all at the same time. I especially loved John Nash's interactions with the little girl -- that was so precious, even if she was just in his imagination. Gosh, RC is talented!

Ah! But I promised, didn't I? Alas...

So here I am. What shall I say? For one thing, I am fed up with reading classic literature right now. I've had it. Enough already! I have a heavy load of literature classes this semester, and while I adore reading above all other activities -- really! Everyone does have his or her limits. After Huckleberry Finn, The Death of Ivan Ilych, Daisy Miller, Song of Myself, Rip Van Winkle, and many more, I am almost ready to shriek at the thought of more "classic" stories. (OK, OK, technically Song of Myself isn't a story, but come on, folks-- it's definitely not poetry either, as the powers that be claim it is. No rhyme + no meter = not poetry. Or maybe I don't understand what poetry really is. Am I getting it right, Maria, or am I missing the point? You are my poetry aficionado, so leave me a note and let me know! LOL!)

It's a good thing I have nearby public libraries, that's all I can say. If it weren't for Patrick O'Brian, bless his creative soul, I would be insane right now. Or perhaps I'm thinking about insanity overmuch right now, after seeing A Beautiful Mind...not that schizophrenics are necessarily insane. And after all, as RC said once, "A little insanity is good for clarity, don't you think?"

Oh yes, my promise. Sorry. Anyway, I'm very thankful for the Aubrey/Maturin saga. It's helping me retain sanity, on which my hold is always very tenuous. ;-) And if I read O'Brian while exercising, it helps the time pass so much more swiftly!

That's all for now! More reading to do, then sleep (yay!).

This is my baby girl! 

Lyrics, Accents, Movies, and Pets

OK, I'm officially going crazy right now. I just bought the CD Gaslight by Thirty Odd Foot of Grunts. That's Russell Crowe's band, by the way, and I'm a huge RC fan, so it necessarily follows that I'd have to go out and get their CDs. Anyway, it's my first TOFOG CD, and I really like it (not quite all of it, but most of it). BUT...as with any new CD, the lyrics and music keep running through my head, over and over and over and over and over again. It's because my mind is trying to learn and absorb all the new stuff that has been introduced.

I keep hearing Russell Crowe's husky baritone singing "You treat me like chocolate..." and "How many people have the same name? How many Davids do you know?" and "What's in L.A. for a Southern girl like you?" and "The strong man was dancin' in the clothes that he borrowed from the girl in the chorus line..." and...OK, I'll stop there. I'm torturing myself. It's not that I don't like all these songs; in fact, just the opposite. But they WON'T STOP! Sometimes having a mind that grabs everything and holds tight is not a good thing. It's great for schoolwork, but not when I'm trying to sleep at night and all this music keeps rolling over and over in my head...

The same with accents! There's a a song on Gaslight entitled The Legend of Barry Kable. I don't care for the song all that much yet, but I love the beginning because RC is telling a story that explains the song. It's being done live, and the crowd is screaming when he begins.

He starts out, "This is kind of a long story, so you'll have to have a listen. You'll have to calm down, and have a listen. This is the story -- can you hear me?"

The crowd yells again in affirmation, and he goes on. "This is the story of Barry [I'm not sure what he says here] Kable. Not the legendary Australian football player, but the legendary Sydney painter and docker. One day when Barry was nine years old..."

The story is actually quite gruesome, but I keep hitting repeat just so I can hear him talking. That man has a lovely voice. The bad thing about all this is, I'm tempted to talk in a phony Australian accent all the time. British I can do just fine, and Southern, but it's a bit of bother for me to try to "speak Australian." It's tough! Practising helps...but unfortunately everybody around thinks I'm crazy and/or makes fun of me while I'm trying to improve my language skills. So I just blather on and on to myself when no one's here! :-)

What was next on my list of stuff to talk about? Oh yes, movies. That will be a frequent topic, I'm afraid; I love movies. *giggle* Anyway, another reason I'm going crazy is because I still haven't seen Gladiator and I really, really, really, really, really want to! I've made a bit of a promise to myself that I'll rent it on my parents' anniversary and have myself a movie night. Neither of them would be interested in seeing it, so I'll just indulge myself when they're not here. Unfortunately...their anniversary isn't until April. Waaaahh! How shall I survive until then?

But you don't want to read just a litany of complaints, do you? No, of course not. I've realised that I forgot to give you very important information in my first entry. How could I have neglected to mention two of my babies? No, not actual babies. One's a cat, and one's a horse. We have five cats, but only one of them's my little girl. She's adorable. She's grey and white, with long "opera-glove" markings on her front legs and a white half-diamond on her forehead. She's tiny -- and she's a polydactyl, which means she has extra toes. Squee! She's so cute!

And the other "baby" is a 15-hands-high black Morgan/Quarter mix. He's gorgeous -- really, he is. He's about 30, but you'd never know it; he acts like a two-year-old. I love riding, and he's a great horse. Just don't get in back of him or you might get flattened by the Flying Hooves of Doom! Kidding, kidding. He'd never intentionally hurt a human, but he has no qualms about knocking other horses around a bit.

I can't wait for spring so I can take a long ride again and improve my horsemanship. Or would that be horsewomanship? Ah well. Either way, I've got a long way to go. My two horseback-riding idols are Charles Bronson and...drum roll please...Russell Crowe. (Gee, bet you never saw that one coming, eh? LOL!) Both of them look as if they were born to ride horseback. For examples of what I'm talking about, please check out two great films: Breakheart Pass and The Silver Stallion, King of the Wild Brumbies. I'll let you figure out who's in which one. ;-)

OK, time for me to wrap it up for now. I've got a lot of schoolwork, and the warm woodstove is calling me to come into the living room and curl up in a chair. Besides, JAG will be on in a few...hours. It's not my favourite show, but it's tolerably interesting. David James Elliott and Catherine Bell have great chemistry.

More later!

Who I Am!

Hello dear readers! My name is Mary Longstreet, and I am the somewhat crazy author of this blog (as you will see in future posts). This is my first attempt at doing something like this, so please be kind. Also, I am *not* computer savvy. But you could probably see that for yourself! LOL! Anyway, this first post is to tell you a little about me.

I am a Yank, meaning that I live in the United States. But some of my favourite kinds of people are Brits and Aussies, and since I know that they refer to us as Yanks...there you are.

However, I am *not* a Yank in other respects. This means that I would have been a Southern sympathiser in the War Between the States (1861-1865). The War Between the States, or the Civil War, as some call it, is a very big part of my life. I am, in fact, one of those crazy people who run around in summertime wearing layers of old-fashioned clothing (i.e., a re-enactor). We re-enactors are a select group of psychos who actually *enjoy* pretending that we have traveled back in time (and living as if that were true!). I'm not one of the people who fire guns, by the way -- I'm one of the corseted, bonneted, hoopskirted ladies you'll see at these events.

When I'm not re-enacting the War, I love to read, write, sing, draw, play my instruments, daydream, watch movies, and work on my cabin in the backyard, among other things.

I am 21 years old, and I am short (5'3") and slightly plump (for lack of a better word). I have dark brown hair (almost black, some people tell me) and eyes the colour of chocolate. Mmmm...chocolate. *Dark* chocolate. OK, I'm done drooling now. No, really.

I have a wonderful mum whom I love very much, a dad, two sisters, two brothers-in-law, a grandma, and eight nieces and nephews (wonderful little scamps!). I also have several good friends, and I'd like to take this opportunity to acknowledge them. There is Maria Spirova, who inspired me to try this blogging thing; she is a lovely, mesmerising, black-haired Bulgarian lady, also 21, whom I cherish dearly. We met last year, on an Internet message board! I got to see her in person for the first time this past Christmas, and am so very thankful that God allowed us to get to know each other. Also, there is my wonderful friend Jessica Newman; she is 19 years old and has thick red hair and a contagious laugh. She's simply a love and I adore her. She re-enacts the War along with me and my mum. I'm so blessed to have them both in my life. :-)

OK, it's time for me to end my first post! It's getting late on my end and I still have lots of studying to do. Oh yeah, that's another thing about me -- I'm a junior in college, majoring in English. My dream is to edit fiction one day. I'll add more about me, and about my mates, when I get the chance, in the next posts. Thanks for reading!!