Farewell Borders!

Today my sister, cousin, and I went to Borders for the last time; they are closed for good after today. It's kind of sad. I remember, when I was younger, begging my parents to go there whenever we drove by. I would spend over an hour there looking at books, and I would spend a lot of what little money I had there. Today I got 7 or so books for 11 dollars. Everything was 90% off. I honestly am not exactly sure what I got, lol. But, either the covers or the descriptions were interesting, so I hope the books I bought were decent. However, with the prices being so low, it was probably worth it.

After Border's we went to Toys R Us to get a toy for a birthday party we are going to tomorrow. I learned something from that. When you are going to a toy store with a kid (namely my cousin who is 6) do not expect to get out of there in a short time. She wanted everything that was in the store, lol. We had to tell her to "put it on her Christmas list." I'm sure her mom (our aunt) is going to be happy with us for that (it's going to be a long list.) We also went to Dover Saddlery, and got my cousin her first riding helmet for her birthday. Although then she got somewhat of an attitude, because we wouldn't buy her an 80 dollar toy horse trailer along with her helmet. So... we told her to put it on her Christmas list, lol.

I'm So Scatterbrained Lately

Yup, so apparently when I went to switch my old parking permit with my new one I mixed them up. I somehow ended up throwing the new one away and leaving the old one hanging around my mirror. This resulted in a 40 dollar fine on Monday. Luckily, they waived the fine, and I just had to pay 7 dollars to replace my permit. Today, though, I lost my calculator. I'm hoping it is somewhere around the house, but I'm going to need it tomorrow to do homework. And, those are a whole lot more expensive than 40 dollars... So, hopefully it will turn up tonight! Some good news though is that I got a 102 on my first Japanese quiz! It's the highest grade I've ever gotten in college. Hopefully my other classes will be this easy, but I doubt it. I haven't been able to ride at all since classes started. :( Whenever I do have time to ride it is always horribly muddy out. Hopefully the paddocks will dry out and the rain will stay away for a while!

Remembering 9/11

I was in 5th grade on 9/11/01. It hardly seems like it was 10 years ago; I remember it like it was yesterday. I remember my mom coming to pick me up from school. I remember gathering around the tv with my family; I remember being sad, confused, and afraid. We were only a couple of short hours from Washington D.C. and only a couple of hours more from New York City. I watched some of the memorial this morning and had to fight back tears. My heart goes out to everyone who was affected on that day, and to anyone who lost someone on that horrible day. I am proud to be an American, and I know I will never forget. God bless the USA.

On another note, today I finally got a decent picture, on my phone, of the newest little member of our barn. He/she scurries into the barn in the mornings, when we are cleaning stalls, and cleans up any food dropped by the horses, and then hurries back to her little den/nest (which is near our pool.) We've seen no babies; just this one.

First Week of School

The first week of school is done!! Well, we only had two days this week anyway (thanks to hurricane Irene.) So, far so good. Although I have a feeling that this semester is going to be hard. I'm taking elementary Japanese, Biology, Organic Chemistry, and Statistics. Japanese scares me, because the midterm and final will be a ten minute oral interview with the teacher. I'm a pretty shy, quiet person in real life, so stuff like that is pretty difficult for me. The other classes seem pretty difficult too. I'm going to have a lot of homework between Japanese and statistics (more so than previous semesters.) But, I am quite excited. I've always wanted to learn different languages. Hopefully I'll be able to keep up with it all.

I rode Pony on Wed. night. He's so fun to ride; when he's in a good mood he kind of struts around. He also gets all excited when there is someone he can walk up to. The mosquitoes are awful. I think we had a population explosion of them with all the rain we had last month (over 15 inches!) So, poor Pony is always getting bit. When I ride him bareback he will kick up at himself, and my feet are at the right spot that he always end up kicking my feet, lol. He also gets all twitchy. I fly spray him, and it works pretty well, but not well enough. Currently we are using Pyranha. I am planning to ride him either tomorrow or Sunday (with the saddle this time.) Although, I quite like riding bareback, but it isn't really good to do that all the time, I guess.

There is also another hurricane that might be heading our way (hurricane Katia.) Hopefully, not; it's still quite a distance away though. So, they aren't quite sure what it will do. I'm hoping that it will stay out at sea and die out. There are quite a lot of people on the east coast who are not ready for another hurricane. My aunt (who is in Virginia) still doesn't have electricity. So, hopefully, it will stay away...

All is Well

Hurricane Irene is long gone and all is well. There really wasn't any damage, just a bunch of tree limbs that came down. Our basement flooded some as well. The horses were safe and dry in the barn during the whole thing. Our electricity didn't even go out during the main part of the hurricane; it did go out for a couple of hours afterwards when it was just windy. But, it was kind of surprising that it didn't go out before that; our electricity usually goes out during even the smallest storms. (We were having problems connecting to the internet though.) We were under a tornado watch during the night; there were a few tornadoes in our state, but none near us. Thankfully the hurricane weakened and it wasn't as bad a they were originally predicting. There is still a lot of people with out power, and a lot of areas are still flooded though.

Classes were supposed to start today, but because of the hurricane, they will not start until Thursday. I don't mind though; it gives me extra time to get prepare. I still need to get everything ready. I will be going into my junior year of college, and I'm majoring in animal science. I have no idea what I exactly want to do with my degree (I don't want to be a vet,) but I know I want to do something with animals. Hopefully my classes this semester aren't too hard, and I'll be able to get good grades. My classes also end a whole lot earlier in the day, so I'll have more time to ride than I did last year. :)

Hurricane Irene

Hurricane Irene is expected to hit us this weekend. The forecasts are making it sound pretty scary. We are already under a state of emergency. There is also a mandatory evacuation along the coast (we're inland though.) And, my university's classes, which were supposed to start on Tuesday, have already been canceled. My sister and I were out all day buying stuff we may need... batteries, flashlights, water, food, horse bedding, pet food, etc... The one thing that I don't like is that we don't have a trailer. So, we cant move our horses if we feel like we need to. Also, if our electricity goes out (which it probably will) then we won't have water since we have a well. So, we are filling all of the buckets and water troughs. Tomorrow we are planning to go get horse feed, clean the barn, and get prepared. I'm also going to pick everything from the garden, since it will just blow away... I might ride tomorrow as well since it will be nice out. Hopefully, I will have time. An earthquake and a hurricane all in one week; what's next? Prayers and good thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks!

Earthquake!!

Holy crap, we just had an earthquake here! Well, it was actually in Virginia, but we could feel it here in Delaware. At first I thought it was me, but then the vibration turned into the whole house shaking. Apparently, it was a 5.9 earthquake (which is huge for us.) I've never been in an earthquake before (at least not one that I've felt.) Anyway, I jumped up, grabbed our one dog, and ran to the a part of the house where nothing could fall on us. Our one cat was freaking out and running around. I'm not going to lie, it kind of freaked me out. Everything ended up being fine though, including the horses. It's all over the news. Hopefully there are no major aftershocks!