Since I haven't posted for a while, I thought I would bring photos. :)

Pretty flower by my garage.



Dan, the cat at my horse vet. Dan is a girl. The kids named Dan before their dad determined the sex. :) Dan can be very clingy with the claws, but allows adoration.


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One afternoon it was gorgeous, and I had time to go to Coleman Park in Sulphur Springs. It's around a lake-which appears mostly manmade, but still neat.
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Because I can. And they're cool.

First, we got some free donuts at work from this fun place. (This last week we got something almost every day. It was horrible because after a few days we just didn't want anymore cupcakes. lol)


Second, more pictures from where Tess was training.
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Hi guys. I'm back from my sister's. I stayed longer than usual (by 1-2 days), but for the first time, I didn't really look forward to going home. Not ready, I guess, to go back into the stress I know I'm walking back into.

We ate at such good places-yummy. There was one seafood place that I just wanted to go back to the beginning of the dinner and eat it all again!!! We ate at the bar, and got to watch them cooking. Our waiter was great.

Saw two movies in the theater; End of the World with Simon Pegg, which had great British humor, although slow at first. And Riddick, which was a teeny bit disappointing ( Read more...Collapse ), but otherwise it was awesome!! His costume rocked, for one thing. ;) And so did Katee's.

Saw a bunch of baaad movies on my sister's Netflix (and HD TV): State of Emergency 3.5/5, Come Out and Play 3/5, The Ledge 2/5, Croczilla 3/5, The Bay 3/5, The Dinosaur Project 3/5, Creature 2.5/5.

Went to the Musical Instrument Museum, where we still haven't finished going through it. Saw the Desert Botanical Garden, which I totally still love. Spent a few hours at the Phoenix zoo-every time we go there, they've added more wonderful areas!!!-before it got waaaaay too freaking hot. (We were the only people at the jaguar area when they let her back out to play and eat her snacks, and that was so awesome.)

Did less shopping than usual. Probably because neither of us had money. lol Got some stuff at REI, including a cool new purse. Talked to the apple store people about which iPad to get when I can finally afford one. Got an iPad cover ;) on big super sale, so I couldn't pass it up. Went to JJill, but was disappointed. We both got new undies and sports bras at Target while waiting for REI to open. Went to two nurseries looking for a new front yard plant for my sister. That was fun, but holy cow cacti cost a lot!!!

Finished two books, read one book, started a new one, and read a lot of fanfic. But I really only had my phone, hence no LJ.

Had three meals with my sister's friends, who are very cool. One was Jewish New Year. :) We were honorary jews, but enjoyed it nonetheless.

We also occasionally sat out on my sister's lovely expanded patio, when it wasn't too hot.

And, of course, her chickens were always entertaining. And the cats.


So now I'm back home, wheeee! The dogs were happy to see me, as were the indoor cats. The horses so far are not impressed. I haven't been away from either of them before. Also, I'm afraid to go to the barn, although D- is usually good at keeping things mostly in order. The house wasn't too bad-although A- hadn't made it by to fix my ducts like he thought he might :(.

Coming up this week: I have to confab with the guy who chaired my committee in my absence tomorrow evening so I know what to report Tuesday evening. I'm working one nurse low, and she's the one who does the most direct patient care, so we will be running horribly slow. However, I have to keep working as much as I can especially since I took last week off. Have to meet with the peer review people before Wed at noon so I can read the feedback on my case(s). Have to keep pinching as many pennies as I can because I have no money until next Monday. Hope I get enough next Monday to pay the IRS (an insane amount of money), my accountant (maybe, although I could probably just pay a small amount), the trainer (if I can't, I owe the trainer half the month, and have to bring Zolar home, which is another chunk, and also means I have to suck it up and get confidence). Stop thinking about how many things in my house need to be fixed (my sister doesn't have horses, so she can spend money on making her house look nice).

That may be it. It's the coming home from vacation blues, but both worse and better than usual. Maybe because I only took one of my OCD/depression meds while I was there. Usually I don't take either on vacation, and can have a hard time dealing with the 'mess' I come to when I get home.

Ack, almost 8pm. Time to feed the equines, and see if I need to buy filly (Tess) yet another bag of minerals (poor thing's eaten 1 1/2 bags already).

P.S. I have a few pics mostly from the garden, but may put them up later.

The last few days have been kind of busy, surprisingly enough.

Lessee, Wed I went to the local botanical gardens. Small, but well done. Many different little sections covering many different kinds of gardens. In one place, looking north there was Japan, turn to the South, and it was the Sonoran desert. lol It's packed in.

Looked for a newish restaurant, but since I couldn't remember the name, I couldn't find it.


What else did I do? Can't remember! lol

Yesterday I went to the Wildcat Bluff Nature Center. Unfortunately it was quite humid still, and I accidentally took the longest trail. Very nice. I've only been in mesquite on horseback, so I had no idea how tall it really was. Yikes! It was kind of nice to be back in the 'natural terrain', haven't been trail riding or hiking around here in years.
But, it tired me out.

Again to the gelato place. Except no raspberry. :( So I temporized with oreo. lol

Today I went to the most awesome museum-I put pics in the previous post-about RVs. I had no idea about it until I googled museums for my town.

Also went to the local air and space museum. Even though I got there later in the day, one of the guys took me out to see the planes, talked to me about them, and even brought up one of my questions to another guy who could answer it better. And then we all talked about space, and current spaceflight. hee! ahem. /geek
Did I mention they have a NASA training jet there? /spacegeek

Went to the local Hastings, where I discovered them selling old comics as well as new. WTF? They don't buy back from the public, so ? Also, kind of spendy, I'd go to the real comic place if I wanted to get old ones, methinks.
Found a book-Apocalypse Cow. *snort*
Surprisingly ran into my friend K's husband. She was out in the car, so I got to see her. Yay! Was thinking about seeing her while I was on vacation. Her strength is getting better, which is great. We talked horses, of course, and she thought my new filly was cute. Maybe if she gets strong enough she can come see her.

My favorite pizza place was way busy after that, so went and ate Thai. yummy.


And tomorrow, the Ama-Con.
You know, I didn't realize how stressed Comicon made me until I thought about going to Ama-con tomorrow. Wow, all of a sudden I was worried about everything. Luckily I eventually calmed it down, but wow. Maybe it's a good thing I'm missing this year.
Night, all.

I've taken several photos while on staycation. Mostly of the botanical gardens, and the most very awesomely cool RV museum. I swear to God it was awesome.
But, so as to not overwhelm the flist, I will just give links to the albums. Except for my favorite restrooms direction ever.




Botanical Gardens: http://s104.photobucket.com/user/adafrog/library/Nature/Amarillo%20Botanical%20Gardens%207-17-13

RV Museum: http://s104.photobucket.com/user/adafrog/library/Vacation/Amarillo-RV%20Museum

Has been named one of the most beautiful campuses, apparently again. :D It really is beautiful, even before they upgraded some of it.

It was initially so overwhelming. And crazy. But I found the farm, and they were very cool, very welcoming people. I did find a horse that seemed to fit well with me. He is a 2 year old andalusian named JP Zolar. Very cute and sweet, although he is two, so, you know.
He is staying in Kentucky until September so they can start him under saddle. I'm going up over Labor Day to spend 4 days with lessons with him so we can get started together correctly. Then, if all is well, he'll be shipped home. yay!

It was kind of hard to leave him there, though. :(

So, until I can go see him again, I will work my butt off trying to pay for it all. lol



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