Will return to regular schedule after Thursday.

Thursday, from 2pm to 5pm I will be flexing my mental muscle to it's limits......that's just sad to consider.  Actually, not my brain's limits, but more like the limits of my attention, interest in physics, and motivation to do crap that is hard and not fun at all.  *Sigh*

Is it worse to feel stupid or lazy?  I'm not sure.

Anyway, on a happier note:

 Happy belated Mother's day to all the wonderful Moms in my life - both the actual and the spiritual ones!!

More this weekend....

All style, no sub....

Well, hope everybody enjoys the new blog-look!  Spring is fully sprung 'round here and I'd thought I'd share the love.  Also I'd like to point out the new "follow by email" gadget to the right ------>
Can't say I've tried it (seems weird to "follow" one's own blog) but I'm hoping it simplifies things for those of you who are interested.  Also, I've heard from a little birdie (*cough* sister *sniff*) that it's hard to leave comments after posts.  All I can say is that I have enabled the anonymous commenting option, so folks should be able to leave comments without having to sign up for anything.  That being said, I'm sure that blogger (the free program I'm using to do this) would prefer that you have some sort of account and probably asks you to sign in by some method - just keep looking for that anonymous comment option/button, realizing it won't be the first option that is presented.  Beyond that, I'm afraid I'm not much help b/c I'm pretty sure that blogger "looks" slightly different depending on which web browser you're using.


Business aside, there are a few things going on (har-dee-har-har):


1.  Hubby got a job offer!!!  So I'm not the only one who thinks he's brilliant, hard-working, honest as the day is long and has a cute tush.  Well, I might be the only one who thinks that last part, but whatever.  Of course we're both excited, but not surprisingly the offer wasn't for the income he had hoped....thus begins salary negotiations.  Salary negotiation is such a foreign concept for us coming from academia that we didn't remember that he's supposed to counter-offer at first!  He did call them back with a counter just this past Friday, so we'll see what they say.  He's being modest about his experience and conservative due to the economy, so I have high hopes the company will agree to the counter offer.  I also think he should have pushed for more, but I'm not the one doing the negotiation (and I do have all the wifey bias of thinking he's worth more than his weight in gold.....I mean, c'mon!!  The man does dishes so I can work on my physics homework then helps me with the algebra when I get stuck!  Who wouldn't want him!??!?)


2.  Physics/Hell is drawing to a close! But the pressure is on.  So I kind of dropped the ball on my third exam....as in, like, left my brain somewhere somewhere under the desk at home.   *sigh*  I can over-analyze the situation and why I did poorly all I want, but what it comes down to is that all that's left is cumulative final worth 36% of my grade.  So from now until May 12th, it's one last push to conquer my math and motivation demons.  I'm sure you'll hear more about this :-)


3.  Working on pre-qualification for a mortgage....happily there are still specialized first-time home buyer options out there.  Once we have the pre-qual in hand, it'll be coordinating with an agent to check out as many houses in B'Burg as we can in one day.  We want to minimize the trips with gas being so frickin' expensive.  Pre-qual should be figured out early this week, so we might be looking at houses as early as this Friday.  I wish I could say I'm thrilled to be buying our first home but....well, I honestly feel backed into it by the lack of rental options, and I'm totally dreading all the paperwork and surprise expenses and obnoxious owners who change their minds 20 times and....you get the idea.  Being an adult and realizing the implications of these big decisions sucks the excitement out of it for me.


Don't worry, I still get excited about some stuff.  Stuff like free cookies at a seminar, and new episodes of "Glee".  And I definitely get excited when nature decides to throw a little surprise into the mindless task of lawn-mowing:

     Morels, baby!!  For the first time the five years of renting in the same house, we've had a bumper crop of morels - all over the yard!  These things are about $25 per pound at the foof-stores in Charlottesville.  Hubby and I briefly considered selling our crop, but that passed pretty quickly :-)  First dish I made was a chicken scaloppine with a sautéed morel-vermouth-tarragon-cream sauce. (Random side note - spellcheck just blew my mind and corrected my phonic butchering of scaloppine....my spellcheck speaks Italian.  Who knew?)  Anyway, with lots left over we decided to dry the remaining morels.  Boy was that depressing!   Know what two pounds of fresh morels looks like dried??  A handful of bad-looking prunes is what.  We have one  2/3 full ziploc baggie in the freezer (extra precaution) for all our dried morels.  NOT that I'm complaining, but it was a bit of a surprise to realize how much of a morel is made up of, well, just water.  Anyway, I'm happily soliciting any morel recipe suggestions from you guys - feel free to share!


Well, it's quite past my bedtime now.  I shouldn't start the week sleep deprived, but it's hard to let relaxing Sundays go :-)  Hope everyone had a lovely weekend!


ps- furries are all great.  Dax is a fattie and not getting ridden enough, but otherwise fine.

Time does fly....

Well.
Not sure anyone is still reading, but what the hey.  I'm getting a backlog of pictures to post, but one of these days, I swear!!

So other than dealing with stink-bug infestations (invasive species, really gross: http://ento.psu.edu/extension/factsheets/brown-marmorated-stink-bug) life has been movin' along.  Update on this year's big changes:

1.  School:  I've found a lab to join to do my PhD.  Met with the professor on one trip to B-burg, then the rest of the lab on another.  Basically they're doing work I find interesting (and high quality), are really nice people and seem to like me (apparently a bit nuts too).  Next step: figure out credit transferring, what classes I've got to take in the fall, and then nail down a specific start date.   The transition is scheduled for the end of June/beginning of July.  However that really depends on....

2. HOUSING!!  ugh.  Hubby and I have discovered that the rental market is slim-pickin's in Blacksburg.  We'd rather not end up in a funky appt in undergrad-land.  Been there, done that.  So we're back to the "to buy or not to by" question.  That's a topic for a post all of it's own, honestly.  There are so many financial and career factors that play into it, it's hard to know where to start.  However, we are looking into the possibility of buying a house rather than renting.  Shoot, with the economy and screwed up, housing in shambles, we have no idea what loan (if anything) we'd qualify for.  Don't worry, hubby is super-cautious/conservative when it comes to finances, and I whole-heartedly support him (until I want to buy a new saddle for Dax and then he's just a tight-wad!!).

3. Hubby job - he had an interview that went very well, and we'll probably hear by the beginning of next week.  It's with a biotech firm, so still doing bench-work but his impression is that the different atmosphere of industry might suit him.  Cross your fingers and toes and eyes and.....

4. Found a home for Dax :-)  Great barn, nice, professional manager, reasonable rates and...get this....it's 5mins off of Main Street.  I. Love. Blacksburg.  More on the barn later...

Sorry to make this so short after such a long absence.  Probably won't get back on til after my third physics midterm this Thursday.  Have I mentioned THIS CLASS IS KILLING ME??!?
Two weeks of classes left.
One midterm, one final.

All that stands between me and sanity.

BACK IN BUSINESS!!

I RODE DAX ON SUNDAY AND SHE WAS GREAT!!!!

She's been trotting around so much on her own and looking completely sound that I decided it was time.  Sunday was warm, sunny and calm ( = calm pony) so she got brushed down and saddled up.  As a precaution I decided to lunge her first, just in case there were any bucks that needed to be worked out (again for the non-horsey, lunging = very long leash, horse goes in circles around person).

(Side note: it's spring and Dax is still young enough to get freakin' HYPER when the weather warms up.  She's had many a spazz out moment lately, running, rearing and bucking around her field.  And on the end of her lead rope.  With the farrier on the other end. *sigh*)

Lunging went something like this:

Dax: Uh, why are we going back in the field?  You strapped that saddle to me, don't you want to ride??
Me: I just want to see how you move and make sure you remember you're supposed to listen to me, how a saddle feels, etc.
Dax: Seriously?  How stupid do you think I am?!?  Oh, um, that's a whip.  Right...I remember that...okeee. Circling left.
Me: Thank you.  That's very nice.
Dax: Tossing head - THIS IS STUPID!  Let's do something fun - I can hear people over at Mint Springs...I bet someone would scratch my ears!  See, I know what I'm doing.  Circles are boooooring.....
Me: Yeah, circles are boring.
Dax: See!!  C'mon, let's go!!  (walks up and give me a little nudge)

So I caved and jumped on.  She made a bee-line for the park, ears perked and legs swinging (we even trotted a few steps).  She was happy just to people watch and walk along, and get a few pets from interested kids.  Up the road, through the field, along the dam and a brief trail loop (where she crossed two bridges and was careful with her feet around tree roots).  Her reward was once again to stop and eat seaweed at the spillway, where we were hissed at by some nervous-but-hilariously-brave canadian geese.  Back home she got brushed off, two cookies and her grazing muzzle back on.  She hung her head over the gate as I put everything away with a look that clearly said "That's all?!??"


For now, that's all - all I needed to make my entire weekend beautiful.

"I like that dog.....

.....because if you get tired, you can ride it!"

This was the comment I got from a local fisherman while Dax and I crossed the small spillway in Mint Springs park two weekends ago.  Dax merely looked at him for a moment, then went back to sea-weed eating.  This is her thing - that spillway collects weeds from the lake and she LOVES them.  I don't know if there is something in the plants she likes or if it's just that they are always juicy, either way she pulls me towards the spillway where ever we go by.

So I'm alive, Dax is well and we're following the rehab plan so far.  It's only been two weeks of walks (and not every day) but she's doing great.  She also digs all the attention.....nothing like walking a horse past a playground.  I swear she sucks up to kids....snuffling hands and pockets, licking, making funny faces.  And to think the lady I bought her from got rid of her b/c she thought Dax didn't like children!  Apparently one of the lady's kids had "bumped" Dax with a four-wheeler, and Dax had stomped or shaken her head at the child in response.

Clearly the horse is at fault here. *cough* *sputter*

In other news the last two weeks have been CRAZY but with not terribly interesting stuff, ergo the lack of updates.  Neither time nor much fun to say.  The main highlights are:

1) Had my second physics exam and it went WAY better than the first....I ran out of time on the first one and had to guess on 5 problems.  Had plenty of time in the second one b/c I was much more prepared, both by the first exam and simply refining study methods.  But once again I was up until 2am a few nights in a row cramming.

2) Got to Blacksburg this past Friday and met with profs and looked at houses.  Nothing was decided, and there are clearly more trips in our future.  My priority right now is to find a mentor/lab ASAP so then I can figure out a start date, then we'll know exactly when we'll be moving.  Hubby has meanwhile been busy applying for new jobs all over the place, so please keep your fingers crossed for him.  Of course he's super qualified, has excellent references, is hard working and responsible and generally a great guy but I get the impression none of that is a job guarantee in this economy.  Oh, and I might be slightly biased :-)

That's really all the excitement....otherwise my life was completely consumed by lab work and class work.  Lab has been rough b/c we're super busy with a project and then one of the main people I work with got sick and was out for 3 days, leaving me to pick up the slack and push all of my other stuff back.  And physics just sucks.  It's a ton of work and time - I know I signed up for this and I'm trying not to be a whiner, but exam weeks are pretty rough, especially when they coincide with going out of town and needing to prepare to interview with four professors for lab positions.

I'm going to stop right there before I begin to rant.  Have got some pics to share and more details, so more posts to come soon, I promise.  Rest will make Cat a much happier blogger.

Personal and Pony updates

I'm slowly re-joining the land of the living.  For those of you who don't know, I had minor surgery on Wed. It was no big deal, except that Tuesday I came down with a head cold.  Major stuffiness, sinus congestion, headache, all that fun stuff, but no fever or chest involvement.  So it was up in the air as to whether surgery would go ahead.  However, I still had to follow the pre-surgical rules of no food/liquids after 12midnight the night before and obviously no medications.  The surgery was scheduled for about 3pm, so you can imagine I was feeling great  - thirsty, hungry, tired, totally congested and generally feeling sick and facing anesthesia & surgery for the first time.  Good times!!  The surgery did go ahead as planned, all went well and the head cold is on its way out.  It's like killing two birds with one stone in a sense, as I was going to be stuck on the couch for a couple of days one way or the other!

The couch time has also coincided with some seriously nasty weather - lots and lots of cold rain!!  I'm sure most folks have heard about the tornados in the south and flooding all over the place.   Here in Crozet, we've got pretty good mountain drainage so flooding wasn't an issue, but everything is pretty soggy.  Like standing water in the fields soggy.  That being said, we're way behind in precipitation so the soggy it not a bad thing...I'm imagining underground aquifers re-filling as I type :-)  Pony squishes where ever she walks like she's got wet tennis shoes on, and there are a lot of doggie foot prints on the kitchen linoleum.  The grass is greening at a ridiculous pace....I see a grazing muzzle in someone's future (and a lawnmower in mine).

In pony news, I rigged up a toy a little while back to try to entertain her hairy-ness whilst she was still penned up.  It led to some serious concern and an interesting discovery.

The contraption is very simple, just an old apple cider jug with large holes cut in it, hung by the handle at pony-nose height.  See:

Stuff treats in those holes, and Dax gets to bop it around to get the treats out....it really does take a bit of bopping to get them out, and I watched her mess with it for a good bit of time the first day I put it out.  I'm thinking "Great!!  She's bright enough to figure this out and will hopefully keep herself busy messing with it for a bit each day!".  Horsey people are probably thinking "Yeah right, she's going to figure out she can grab it and pull it down with her teeth in about two seconds."  And we're both wrong.  Second day out, I put treats in it, and she completely ignores the contraption.  I come back that evening, and they haven't been touched.
Seriously....fresh cut carrots and Mrs. Pasture's horse cookies....untouched.  
My god, is she colicking?!??!?
No, she's just fine. I get a friendly nuzzle and she dives into her evening hay.  No signs of distress what-so-ever.  Hmmm.
This goes on for a few days.  I shake it, let her eat what drops out, she snuffles my hand as I put the cookies in the jug....and proceeds to ignore it.

I get the worried suspicion that my horse is, well, stupid.

As I've mentioned before, she's trusting to a fault, thinks pretty much the world is her oyster, all humans are good and she has the least play drive I've seen in any horse, ever.  Play in animals is often considered a sign of intelligence....it's often the first step in learning.

Oh dear lord, I think my horse is simple.

OK, can this really be true?  How does one tell??  Generally when one thinks of a stupid horse, we think of one that doesn't understand simple riding cues, or is scared of every thing, or is easily overwhelmed to the point of emotional melt-downs.  But these all depend on the horse having a functional fight-flight response, right?  (And I want to note that often these "stupid" horses are just very sensitive or simply high-strung and need a calm leader they can trust to excel.  It's really the people who are stupid and don't see what the horse needs.)  Anyway, the above described horse has to be smart enough to be scared of things like a normal prey animal.  What if my horse is so simple-minded that she isn't even scared of things for her own good???

I'm mulling over this possibility when my training clickers arrive.  Right, here's a test - will she get the click-equals-treat thing and can I mold a behavior with her, or will she fail miserably and prove to me once and for all that I actually own a special needs equine?

I have tried to teach her to bow previously by tempting her with a treat between her front legs - this is a no brainer, because her nose/mouth just follow the treat as I lower it to her knees.  But I wanted to see if I could get her to do it without the lure, and on command.  I follow the basic instructions of simply introducing the clicker "click" followed with a treat.  Let's see if she can figure out that the click means "at treat is coming".
Click, wait a second, treat.  Dax loves this game.
Click, wait 5 seconds, treat.  Dax thinks the treat must be in the other hand.  Tries to eat the clicker.  Finally gets her treat.  "Geez, what's with the 5 seconds mom?"
I do this for a minute or two  - it's pretty clear she gets the click and treat connection.  That or she can detect treat molecules on me and won't leave my side till she's inhaled every one.

Ok, time to up the stakes.  I don't do anything, and wait for an interesting behavior, something like a bow.  This is as simple as her dropping her nose to the ground or her leg.  As it turns out, nose to the ground is the first thing she does.  I click immediately and shove a cookie in her mouth.  Her ears are glued on me and I can almost hear the gears spinning behind her bright brown eyes.  She tries gently nudging me, looks around, then drops her nose again.  I manage to click while her head is dropping (you always click while the behavior is happening - timing is key).  'Nother cookie.
I swear she smiles at me.
She drops her head.
Click - cookie.
She drops her head again.

She learned to bow in three clicks.  A few more, and she was basically doing it on command.

I'm not worried Dax is simple anymore.  I'm now worried that she's so smart, she thinks the treat-jug is boring and frustrating, and will likewise ignore any of my other home-made toy ideas.  Crap.  

Still alive...

Hello!

Yes, I'm still alive and fine, as are all the creatures.  I'm sorry to have neglected the blog, I just can't seem to get on top of my other duties and thus have no time for "fun" stuff.  For example, I spent ALL DAY Sunday filling out an application to VaTech's graduate school - it's a formality since I've been accepted into the DVM/PhD program (i.e. I'm pretty sure they just want the application fee!).  Anyway, I'm thinking to myself "Oh, this will only take a few hours because I've already got essays and CV and all that together...."  That was my first mistake.  First, my CV needed just a few tweaks.  Then it turns out they wanted a description of past research experience and future research goals.....er, yeah.  Don't have that one.....so tack on another three hours to write up an intelligible and grammatically correct research history.  Oh, and they also want separate transcripts for undergrad and grad work.  Add another hour of fighting with adobe to try to split a .pdf document only to realize I can't b/c it's locked.  There was a break thrown in for me to go outside and check on the pony in the pouring rain, but that counts as part of my lunch break!!

Anyway, just as all that was done and submitted and the fee was paid, our power died.  So much for internet!  And thus so much for blogging plans.  But have no fear, I have stories and pictures to share which shall be up shortly.  Actually, you can brace yourselves for blogging bonanza as I've got a bit of time off this week and will be spending lots of it on the couch :-)  Yea for spring break!!

Be back soon.