Tuesday, May 31, 2011

I got an email from my mother this morning and I just had to share.

How in the heck did you get in there???






Yeah, enough said!

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Wedding Gifts & New Pickups

Well, how's a title like that for a blog? It has a lot of meaning to it, because yesterday.... well let's just say T and I shouldn't be aloud to go to town together anymore.

We decided that we would have a day to ourselves before he started works. He said he wanted to take me to Odessa and do some shopping, since he won't have a day off for a long time.. But anyways the day started somewhat early, getting there about 10:30. First he toke me to Hobby Lobby to get some things for the reception that my mom and I are trying plan. Then he made me go to Red Lobster with him, even though I can't stand sea food. But I toughed it out for him.

Next we decided that we would go to Target and do some last minute registering. T was a good sport about it and in no time we were done. After Target, T saw a store across the way that had rustic western furniture in and with some hesitation, we went in. About half and hour later we walked out with this....



It's a pretty nice little bed, and it didn't cost very much. Surprisingly. We also made a deal with the lady and got two night stands as well. T said that it is an early wedding present to me. Isn't he so sweet!


I think they are quite cute and make T's bedroom look a lot fuller!

But that's not even the highlight of the trip. After a SAM's run we decided we would go check out a truck we had been scouting out at the Dodge house in Odessa. Well when we got there, there was a couple signing on the truck we wanted to look at and they shortly drove off with it. A salesman there soon had us looking a truck, then test driving it, then sitting at the Dodge house for 5 hours, then driving off the lot with this....

 That is a 2008 Dodge Ram, it has 46,000 miles on it and runs pretty dang nice.


T left his truck there and Monday I have to take mine to Odessa to finish the trade off.  It's a pretty nice truck, but now that we only have one it may be a little difficult, until we are married at least.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

My random thoughts

Have you ever had a day where you just wake up in an irritable mood? And everything you do, or can't do make you cranky? Well today was that day for me. I woke up in a terrible mood, mostly because yesterday we spent 12 hours trying to brand 88 calves, so I was very tired. Branding was fun, I can't lie, I love to brand, or rather rope. Luckily the man we worked for let me rope with another man, who is sort of a legend to me so I was pumped about that. My daddy was proud because I was able to hold my own. But after about 50 calves and it was 4 o'clock in the day, I was slowly beginning to fade. It took at least an hour to brand the last 10 calves, "I'm not being judgemental or anything, but people around here have there own style of branding, I say this because I'm used to having 500 calves to brand in one day."

Anyways, I woke up tired and just wanted to do my own thing, which included ironing some cloths and picking up my room, "I was told that I needed to start packing up my things in my room that I don't absolutly need to take out to T's. My parents are buying a house and they are fixing to move and I don't really want to have to move twice... two birds with one stone.." It took me 3 hours to iron my cloths.. 3 Hours!! Why? I kept getting interuppted and I finally gave up and had to leave before I got mad. When I came home, no one was there.. perfect. My room cleaning attempt didn't last either. At about 2 I hit a wall and didn't have any energy to finish what I had started so there was a pile of "stuff" on my bed.

My mother, bless her heart, has been worked up about the horse herpes virus that is going around and she wants to make sure that Lj and I don't go anywhere with our horses anymore. Supposedly New Mexico has been quarentined, no horses in and no horses out. There goes helping my uncle in June brand his cattle. I was also supposed to go to a horse show this weekend in San Angelo but it was cancelled, along with numberous AQHA horse shows around. I don't know if any of you have heard about the virus but it is very bad.. The vet here in Alpine said that if a horse gets it, it is 100% fatal and will kill a horse in 48 hours, and there is no vaccination for it. Best not be traveling with horses for a while if you ask me. T even told me that people can spread it to other horses so don't be pettin' on other horses!

I really wish July would get here. T said that's why I was grumpy, because I haven't seen him in 5 whole days.. I think that's why he has been grumpy. People keep telling me that it will fly by or it will be here in no time.. Not for me. Two months is a long time to wait but I guess I will live.

My first college semester is over and I don't know what to do with myself nowadays. I'm still working at the little store downtown but mostly on Fridays and Saturdays. Sometimes a day in the middle of the week when I'm swamped. My boss said that she has "adopted," and says that I can't ever leave her, even whem I'm married. At least I will always have a job with her!

I don't know if any of this blog made sense, I'm just saying what's on my mind. I'm still really tired from yesterday, and my mom made me go with her to a workout deal at our church that totally kicked my butt, and I will be extremely sore. But anyways, ya'll have a great night!

Friday, May 13, 2011

Fire

 This is the Schwartz fire at Red Mill
 The Iron Mountain fire seen from the Mitchell camp turn off
 The fire at the road 25 miles from Marathon
 This guy's truck got sprayed with fire retardant
 There was literally a "fire tornado," that rolled acorss the highway and caught the other side on fire. This picture is of the tornado forming.

 The sun was completly blocked most of the time by the smoke


 The water helicopter
 The plane spraying fire retardant
 There is a guy in the middle of that setting back burns, crazy dude!

This monster could be seen on the Longfellow road on the way to Ft. Chadbourne and West Pyle. It looks like it was at least 15 miles away and maybe a mile wide. I don't know what was on fire but it was big! T thought maybe it was a gas line or oil rig or something on fire because every now and then it was belch black smoke.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

West Texas on Fire

It had been barely a week after the big "Rock House" fire was put out when more around here started. Sunday was Mother's Day and after we had a lovely meal with the family, we stepped outside and there was ash falling from the sky. To the West big clouds of smoke were rolling up and casting a haze on a once beautiful day. If my information is correct, the fire started at a road side park inbetween Alpine and Marfa (probably some tourist thinking they would have a BBQ) It spread very quickly to the north due to the wind and soon Sunny Glenn was being evacuated. I don't know much about this fire but yesterday when I was riding I sat and watched two giant helicopters fly back and forth from the fire, carrying water. I think it has been mostly contained.

Sunday afternoon T and I went out to the ranch to hang out and on our way there we say more smoke. Supposedly there had been a fire started East of Marathon that T had seen driving into Alpine Saturday  night. It was much closer to Marathon then and T thought maybe it was on the Longfellow (the ranch where he works,) No one had called him so he wasn't to worried about it. By the time I left Sunday evening, the fire was on the ranch, but I didn't know where. Yesterday T was out fighting the fire and he called me at noon and said the Red Mill, the farthest south camp on the ranch had burned and they had just got done saving Ft. Chadbourne, (where he used to live) He said that they were headed up to West Pyle to save it as well. The wind was blowing the fire that direction.

I haven't been able to get a hold of T at all today, besides a text message he sent me saying he was just checking in....

From where I am at in Alpine, smoke can be seen very clearly to the east. Apparently there is yet another fire on the back side of Iron Mountain. My brother and I were supposed to day work for a guy who lives there today but he called and cancelled. I don't know much about that fire except that it's in some pretty rough country.

Last night my mom and I decided we would go take a look at the fire that happened on Sunday because it was mostly put out. Well, when we got to the outskirts of town we looked behind us and there was literally a black mushroom cloud of smoke. It was in town. My mother wiped her little car around and sped that direction, wanting to see what was on fire. It toke us maybe 3 minutes to get there, along with every fire truck in Alpine. By the time we got there, whatever it was had been burned to the ground. It toke 3 minutes... Today I found out that it was a shed of some body's that blew up. I don't know why, that is all I heard.


Ok, that's enough about fires, I don't want to think about them anymore.

Last week, or Saturday I guess, my parents were driving home from Garden City Kansas from a show when they noticed their truck smoking. They happened to be in Plain view Texas when this happened so they pulled into the Ford dealership there, hoping to have someone look at it. It was 2 in the afternoon and the diesel mechanic looked at the truck, saying that they had a cracked fuel injector, hence all the black smoke. The mechanic, however was leaving. So, my parents called my uncle here in Alpine to come get them and he started on his way up there. I kept getting texts from my mother who was very bored, while they waited in the Ford House for my uncle to get there. He wouldn't be there till about 9..

At about 7:30, the Ford house closed and kicked my parents out so they decided to go eat at a restaurant across the way. While they were in the restaurant eating, the diesel mechanic showed up, asking for my dad's truck keys. He felt bad that it was Mother's Day the next day and they were stranded there. My dad reluctantly gave them to him, knowing that a job like the one the mechanic had ahead of him would take a good 4 hours, minimum. Unbelievably, the mechanic was able to fix the fuel injector in 1 hour, one handed. My dad said he was on the phone 90% of the time. That's literally amazing if you ask me. My parents were able to make it home, at 3 in the morning.

Well, last night my boss called me and said she and her husband were stranded in Balmorhea, Texas because there truck had broke down. She called me because I was the only one she could think of that had a big enough truck to pull a 28' goose neck flatbedd trailor. So at 9 at night, my dad and I came to their rescue. Everything went good, we were able to pick them up and haul them back to Alpine, except.... when we got to the 3 way stop in Alpine, my dad heard a funny sound. When he toke off, black smoke was blowing out the exhaust.. Unbelievably, another fuel injector went out.. My dad was not very happy

So among fires, and trucks breaking down... it's getting very old..

Friday, May 6, 2011

Stress.. that's all.

I haven't blogged in a long time it seems, I just don't have time anymore . The semester is fixing to be over though, with today being the last day of classes and next week is finals week. Luckily I only have three finals, one on Monday and two on Wednesday then I'm done! I'm hoping that I will be able to blog more this summer. I have a feeling that it will be very, very busy as well!


I have also been very stressed out the last couple of days.. You would think that I wouldn't be with my wedding coming up and what not, but believe me.. I am. I can't help it, I have always been the stressed out type. College plays a big role in this.. Like I mentioned earlier I have almost completed my first semester of college, only seven more to go.... To me that sounds so depressing. From my experiences so far, I have come to the conclusion that college is a waste of my time right now.. I think maybe that I jumped into it to fast. I started 20 days after I graduated high school.. I thought it would be fun! I had some classes with a close friend of mine but after four months, I've had enough.
When I was in high school, I was a perfectionist. Everything was a competition and I had to be the best at it; my grades included. During my entire high school career, the lowest grade I ever received was a 93% which happened to be a spanish class I believe. When I went to public school, I had a GPA or 4.08 average and was ranked 4th in my class of 90 students. I strove to be the best but never quite made it. Now-a-days.. I don't care about that anymore. Life isn't school and it doesn't matter what "grade," I get. For some reason this goes for college as well.. I just don't have the heart for it anymore, I don't want it to be a competition anymore.
My classes for this semester consisted of General Animal Science plus a lab, Zoology plus a lab, Psychology, Univeristy Alegebra, and a weight training course. 16 hours in total, five days a week. Ansc was not all that bad, I knew most of the stuff that we talked about, although it did make me upset sometimes when the professor told us something that was all wrong, or that I thought was wrong. (I was told to keep an open mind and I did just that) The lab was alright to, we did get to do somethings outside of the classroom like palpate heifers and sheer sheep. Zoology was a bust in my opinion. The professor was one of the most unhappiest person I have ever seen. He was always late to class and never had any fun in class! This made it extremely boring so my learning capacity went out the window.. I tried to learn, I tried to study but in the end.. it was not good. The lab for Zoo was also quite interesting, I did fairly well in this class because the TA's made it fun and therefore I had a will to learn. And I found out that I can't handle to smell of rats soaked in formaldehyde. Yuck! Psychology is another story, it was interesting but I didn't like it.. end of story. Algebra? Don't get me started.. I used to love math and algebra in high school! Not anymore >:(  I thought I would fly through that class and Ace it. Boy was I wrong.. I kid you not, I knew everything that we discussed in class.. Everything! and yet it's possible that I may have to retake it! Of course if the professor wasn't such a loon.. I shouldn't be mean but she was one of those people that is very neurotic about math

All in all... I believe that I have disappointed my parents, wasted their money and wasted my time. I am seriously considering not going back next semester for reason's that are my own. I have been praying about it a lot but hopefully this summer I can figure it out...

I won't bore you with college nonsense any longer but it is the number one stress item on my list. The second is my fiancee. I don't know what I am going to do with him. He is having trouble with his stomach and keeping on weight. How is it possible that he weighs Less than I do? That's not right... I worry about him about he worries about things to the point of making himself sick. I've been praying for him as well.

That is all I really have to say tonight. It's almost midnight and I have to work tomorrow. So good night all!