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August 25, 2005
You're Only As Old As You Feel!
And this Julip, named Lindy (after crossing the Atlantic a few times!), is pretty old!
Lindy is owned by my friend Amanda, who knows Julips extremely well. She thinks that Lindy is very old, indeed, but as you can see, he's still pretty spry! Here he is representing Havillands at a gymkhana! Age usually equals wisdom plus experience, so Lindy should excel at whatever he attempts!
Many thanks to Manda for sending this photo!!!
Posted by Jessica at 11:22 PM | Comments (0)
August 15, 2005
Festivals and Chairs
I haven't had such a flurry of activity since I gave birth!
Well, first of all, earlier this year I opened my big mouth at a Jaycee meeting, and found myself with a part of a project in my lap...I am organizing the Arts and Crafts show at the local Festival, which is coming up this weekend. We have spaces for 60 vendors, and the show had been petering out over the past few years, so I was encouraged to build it back up. We weren't expecting quite a full house, but I somehow (even with two cancellations) ended up filling 62 slots in our 60-slot area. Oops!
Then there was the chair auction...this benefitted the Opera House. I think this is a great project, it's going to take "billions and billions" of dollars to restore this building to anything resembling its former glory. The object of the auction was to take an old chair and decorate it, paint it, whatever, then donate it to the auction to raise money for the cause.
I finally, after weeks of looking at the chairs in the Opera House window, called them up and signed myself up for the project. I even talked my mother-in-law, who is a fantastic artist, into painting a chair.
The finished creations were auctioned off on Sunday. My mother-in-law engaged in a fierce bidding war in order to win my chair, so that she could present it to me as a gift. I was very touched! It is a ladder back chair, and I painted it gloss Victorian black with gold accents and a small oak leaf and acorn design on the top rung. It looks great next the my fireplace!
My mother-in-law's chair was a Gossip Bench (a chair with a desk on the left side to hold a phone.) She painted it pale green with pink clematis all over it. It looked lovely!
I wonder what my next project will be?
Posted by Jessica at 11:04 PM | Comments (1)
August 11, 2005
Derek's First Pony Ride
I wish I had a photo of Derek on the cute pony! He had a cowboy hat (birthday present from Christie) and everything!
I read in the Fowlerville News about a horse farm that had a Wild West Carnival on Thursdays, with a pony ride and other fun things for kids to do. Well, I couldn't wait to take Derek there. For $3 (it's usually $5, but he was so little that they only charged me $3!) he got a pony ride, pony petting priviledges (he petted three whole ponies to his heart's content) AND a "train" ride through the farm, as well as wandering through the nifty "Wild West Village" that the farm had set up. There are lots of activities there for older kids, but that's about all Derek could handle! He didn't want the pony ride to end. The woman in charge of the pony ride said that he was her youngest rider, and that the next smallest kid had been too scared to ride!
The pony was dark brown, and was named, appropriately, "Fudge." And he was very cute!
I can't wait until Derek is old enough for riding lessons! I want another horsie now!
Posted by Jessica at 11:15 PM | Comments (0)
August 08, 2005
Breyerfest etc.
Well, I have finally recovered from Breyerfest. The drive, the heat, the expense...at least, I think I've recovered. But some things will never be the same.
I usually went down to Breyerfest with two friends, the same two friends for almost ten years. One of them I considered one of my best friends, and I would ride together with her down to Kentucky as well as share the expenses of the hotel.
One of the perks of getting into the right hotel is that one can recoup some of one's expenses by selling extra models from one's collection right out of the hotel room. Many times, my friends and I recovered our costs this way. However, you can only do this from the one hotel, and the rooms are booked solid way in advance.
Unfortunately, I always allowed my friend to book the hotel room. After attending Breyerfest of 2003 with the same two women, I found out that I was expecting a baby in 2004. My due date was in late June, so the baby would be four weeks old during the 2004 Breyerfest. I told my friend as soon as I found out that I was pregnant so that she could find another roommate for 2004.
I was in constant contact via email with my friend, and I assured her that I would be attending Breyerfest in 2005, and that I would once again be her roommate. For some reason, she decided not to tell me that she had already made arrangements with some other people to room with them. If she had told me, I could have booked my own room at the hotel and saved myself a ton of money by selling model horses from my room.
Instead, she chose not to tell me, and then to lie to me about it when I finally found out through a mutual aquaintance that my friend had made other plans-the year before!
Needless to say, by the time I found this out, the hotel I needed to be in was booked solid and I had to make arrangements at another hotel. No selling horses to pay for the trip this time.
I also had great trouble in finding another roomate, as several people backed out on me for various reasons.
This really was bad timing for us, as Brian had just gone through a month of unemployment when Breyerfest came around.
I was determined not to let this get me down, and I went to Breyerfest anyway.
I was able to pick up some more inexpensive Breyers to put in my booth at the antique mall. So far, at least two of those have sold already.
A nice Gypsy Vanner was performing at the Horse Park, and that was very fun to watch.
However, it just wasn't the same, knowing that the person that I had thought was my friend had let me down in a really bad way at a time when I could least afford it.
Posted by Jessica at 11:30 PM | Comments (5)