Does my forehead say "Creepies Unite!"??

So today was not a very eventful day at all.

I was supposed to go in to work with Mal to do inventory today but we got some freezing rain/snow on top of our wickedly muddy, uphill driveway and there was no way our little van on low profile tires was getting out of this yard. We gave it a couple of tries than gave up. The weather was miserable and the roads were touchy so it was just as well.

We never got off the property until dad came home and we went to return a movie at the local convenience store. I was standing there with my back to the door and I could hear this guy before he even came in go "LOOK AT THAT PONYTAIL!!!" I had my hair (which is getting quite long now) in a loose braid down my back, and it is quite exceptionally thick.

Anyways, he came in and said "Excuse me but you have the most beautiful hair I have ever seen! I know guys who would pay $750 for that!" and went on and on, asked permission to touch (granted), and he played and browsed through my head for a while. The guy seemed harmless and generally smelled like a brewery, and my dad was within arm's reach so I wasn't too scared, lol. He went on to say that builders use human hair to burnish marble and things like that... Eventually, his "$750" went down to $70 and if I grow it out another eight inches, $150. Nice for a quick buck, but eventually he turned around and asked me how much it was worth and I said "Nothing" and he said "THAT'S RIGHT! Your hair is an intricate part of the unique, beautiful person you are!" And they finally got him out. Buddy was tripping on something, he was just a little crazy and the three that came in together all had the munchies pretty bad.

Crazy peoples.

Tomorrow is Kyle's birthday dinner @ East Side Mario's! YAY! I love ESM, and I have not yet been to the Fredericton one.

I think I'll go to Boston, I think I'll start a new life...

I am surprisingly not feeling as restless as I usually do this time of year. Sure, I have been thinking about building a little one bedroom "camp" on the property and living there with my dogs, but usually right around now, when summer is blowing in on the spring wind, but there's still just a little bit of spring - that time when you KNOW summer is coming but it's teasing you - this is usually the time when I get really restless and want to move to a different continent, or get really morose and melancholy and sad about where my life is. Not this year. Strange!

I was, however, reading some of my book last night and I had to quit. Some days I think I am the bee's knees... other days, I just have to put it away. Last night, I was going "Oh my God... this sucks. How can I ever imagine this published?". I've gotten feedback - even from people who don't feel the need to sugarcoat it and I know my writing is strong and saleable, but it has been so long that I have been working on this manuscript that I think my eyes and my mind play tricks on me. There are some weaker parts, but that is what this edit is for.

I have to go to work and do inventory (which means that my job effectively messes up the EI I was going to use to get my teeth cleaned in two weeks... AGAIN!) tomorrow, but after that I have to start getting some real work done.

On my TO DO list:

• Buy new domain name to point to mom's website
• Get Jill to change logo if possible
• Re-work mom's website to make it more of a retail site than information
• Do some PR for Canadian Neigh
• Mess around with the CN Facebook group and get some "free advertising" for it
• Garner more classified ads for CN
• Finish editing
• Arrange small-group editing meetings

I have to start actually DOING some things before I go back to work full time because I know I am completely useless once I get back to work - particularly when we're in cleaning the building/doing prep work in May before the site opens. We work 8:30 to 4:30, on our hands and knees, scrubbing and working hard, so I usually come home and take a nap and then the rest of the day is shot.

Today I wrangled an alpaca. We seem to have this strange habit of finding animals "in need" and bringing them home. Bronwyn (horse), Bella (German Shepherd Dog), Freckles (horse), Callie (German Shepherd Dog), Reaper & Daisy (llamas), 2 sheep in the last 2 months (one with a vaginal prolapse, one that was not fenced, living around a house around 30ft from the road that her owner could "no longer afford to feed") and now Wall-E (aforementioned alpaca) -- he was being fed through a hole in the side of the barn but the door that he would have gotten in and out of the barn through was snowed under - so out we go with a pick axe and a foal halter and some leadropes and got him dug out. He is "officially" here for a "date" with Daisy, however, I imagine he will stick around. For what use, I have no idea, and what space he will live in, I have no clue, as my parents have been taking up my ENTIRE horse barn with space for their goats and sheep. TREACHERY!

Anyways, I should go to bed because I DO have to work in the morning (gross!), but then Tuesday is Kyle's birthday dinner party at East Side Mario's and I am mucho excited-o because I love ESM and this will be my first trip to the new one here in Fredericton!

Teen drinking is a very big problem...

Okay, I am a weeee little bit hangovery this morning. I didn't even drink much, but it has been some time since I have.

I went to Tiff's last night to hang out with her and D. Our original plan was to go to the local redneck bar half cut and make fools of ourselves, but the babysitter backed out (thanks a lot, Abbey! Just kidding - you probably saved me from doing and saying things to and about people I haven't seen in some time that would have made me never able to live it down), so we ended up staying in and making supper.

We meandered down to the shopping center and bought some spinach and cheese ravioli and herbed alfredo sauce and caesar salad and cheesecake and a bottle of strawberry flavoured white zinfandel and then meandered back up the hill where I prepared it and it didn't take long.

I am not a wine drinker but the wine was passable (much better than some of the burning holy terrors we serve at the restaurant, I tell you!), and gave me a pleasant little buzz. Sadly, it didn't last very long (the wine or the buzz) so we called Abbey and got her to bring us some Mike's. In the meantime, I played some super mad Wii boxing and worked up a horrendous sweat but Tiff seemed to get some amusement from it which made it worthwhile. Then I sucked at golf, I wasn't bad at tennis, and I love bowling.

We started watching the video yearbook from 2003 (how OLD are we?!), and I reminisced about how adorable I was and how nice my smile was before it was marred by this huge gap and decided I would not go to the reunion unless I have been published and lost a bunch of weight. Then Abbey showed up (alas, I was on the decline by then!) and my drunk got perked back up and we watched a video project from grade 12 advanced english in which I supposedly played a certain role (I was listed in the credits and everything) but never appeared on camera, nor did I run the camera - however, I still got full credit for the project. I laughed so hard when I realized it that I thought I might pee myself!

Then we watched EuroTrip just because I have had that song stuck in my head for weeks now... Scotty doesn't know that Fiona and me do it in my van every Sunday... she tells him she's in church but she doesn't go, still she's on her knees and Scotty doesn't know... Frickin' hot Matt Damon with piercings and shaved heads and other delectable physical attributes!

And today I am having lunch with Adam (as long as I don't smell like a brewery and my parents get home from Houlton soon enough) and then working for a GFB Gagetown function til about midnight. Yay, work!

I have nothing to say!

Of course, I never have anything to say!

Some horse notes, though... I took Bronwyn out for a walk on the road to start "carproofing" her and as usual, she took everything in stride. She is SUCH a good horse despite some of her "personality quirks"!

Rex tried to grab ahold of me tonight and I gave him whatfor. I don't think he'll do it again!

zzzzzzzzz

6400 people through the gates in two days.


zzzzzzz

Boys suck!

So Rex is just getting over a pastern injury on his left front from when we hooked him up to the whiffletree and it came apart... I went out to the barn today and RIGHT front is all swollen up. GRRRRR. He seems inherently attracted to things that hurt him or make him dirty. STUPID BOY!

We had the vet out today for a goat that had a twisted uterus. SCARY that the uterus can twist. She was uncomfortable (not in hard labor but definitely uncomfortable) for about 24 hours before we called the vet. We laid her on her side and he held the kid in place while we turned her over. It was quite possibly the coolest thing I have ever seen and it untwisted her uterus. Unfortunately, the kid was dead but mom seems to be just fine, though pulling the kid was pretty painful for her.

Stupid animals - $100 gone that easy and no profit from that goat this year! It's generally alright though, because the rest of the does make up for a couple of costs like that.

I have nothing to say but I will say it anyways!

So nothing big happened this weekend - I watched Ava for a little while, and then today, I had a writer's editing workshop.

I really enjoy the workshops because I generally don't get out of the house, so this gets me out there, talking to people, and I get to work on my craft. We did "Speed Editing" where everyone brought a 2 page sample of their manuscript and we moved around the tables editing each piece for 10 minutes. I picked a particularly tense, emotional scene from my novel that I thought would really grab the readers' attention, and it was fairly well recieved - I did have a couple of people approach me complimenting, and asking to read the entire manuscript. We used checkmarks and little smiley face stickers to point out parts we liked, and I got lots of stickers so I was happy. It is the first time I've really tried my writing (well, romantic suspense writing anyways) out in "public" with people that aren't my friends (well, my critical reader, Lisa, is my friend but she does a good job at presenting an unbiased response)... it felt good to get positive feedback. I was so excited to read what people had written that I didn't leave right away but sat in my car in the parking lot reading the responses! I'm sure now I will be a feedback junkie... too bad I can't not get addicted to stuff like this!

I have about 100 pages of manny left to "fine point" edit and then I am going to have a couple of copies printed via LuLu.com and give them to some friends with some questions. I have been so involved in the little itty bitty bits of the novel now that I am having a hard time remembering what it looks like as a "WHOLE" and so I need some fresh eyes on it. After I get the bound copies, I am going to read the chapters back to myself on a little recording device that Susan G sold me today to see how it flows back. Should be interesting anyways, particularly in the sex scenes!

On the way home, I hit an enormous crater in the road. I was sailing along because the road was smooth and clear and then all of a sudden.. WHAM. It was impossible to miss as it filled up my entire lane and I didn't see it til I was right on top of it. I waited anxiously for the wheel to fall off, but it didn't - I thought I might have dented the rim or something because it felt a bit wobbly, but then within another 40 feet or so, it became completely flat. I was really disappointed that I couldn't QUITE get it to my aunt's store - it was about 1/4km away... so I called my dad and got out and started walking. I bent the rim badly, but apparantly all it needed was a hit or two with a sledgehammer and the air compressor to fill it up. I am going to drive 50 from now on, I'm so scared of some of these holes. Some of the roads, particularly on the way to Nackawic are bad enough to write cars off. It's a real shame that the government can't put the money into the roads...

Anyways, my eyes are (literally!) starting to cross, so I need bed.

If life is a highway...

Seriously, I have been DRIVING ALL WEEK. Agh. It's actually quite exhausting to be sitting behind the wheel of the car all day with the sun glaring in your face. I might have gotten away with not driving much yesterday but I had to take Shay to an emergency orthodontist appointment because they had put an apparatus in her mouth that was much larger than it was meant to be and causing her severe pain.

Mom called and left an initial message with the receptionist, who then called me back sometime later, and asked me no less than FOUR times if Shay had been taking the Advil as she had been directed. After I assured her, yes, she is taking it, she started taking it last night, she has taken it every four hours, yes it's brand Advil, there is definitely something wrong with the apparatus, she agreed to have the orthodontist call us back...

Whew, so we got her in which was all good and dandy, they put the smaller aparatus in and voila, considerably less mouth pain! Seriously, though, she is at a point now where her teeth have been seated in the right place for some time, they are just playing with her jaw now. The braces are paid off, and then have been on approximately twenty seven MONTHS longer than was initially projected. She misses a LOT of school due to mouth pain and it's just not acceptable anymore.

Anyways, hopefully this will all get resolved soon.

I've also decided to give up on this internet dating thing. At first, I figured - if I am going to complain about being single, I am at least going to do something (as the new Nickleback song says "What's worth a prize is always worth a fight.")... I've done, I've failed, the end. Besides, I really need to focus on publishing houses and agents right now - and three green horses... and working... I just don't have time for a boyfriend right now - particularly one who is as painfully clingy as the ones I have seemed to get myself tangled up with. It's all good, it'll happen.

(But I really want to join the Mommy Club!)

I see nothing, nothing at all!

I really have nothing to type here, but I feel that I should fill space - I've always had that feeling, it's why I am so talkative... not because I am obsessed with myself, but because I like to fill the space!

Oh - one interesting thing is that last night when I felt like visiting Tiffany and took off to see her, my parents thought I was having a secret rendezvous with a boy that I wasn't telling them about. Particularly because my only "options" have been boys on the internet lately, I assured them that if I was going to meet one of them, I was not stupid enough not to tell them where I was going, how long I would be, etc.