Thank you Krista!

Krista gave me an award!

This award is in Portuguese and translated says, “This blog invests and believes, in proximity," meaning, that blogging makes us 'close'.

I actually "met" Krista though a comment she made on my mom's blog and I've been reading about her beautiful, curious son and delightful family ever since. It's amazing what kind of people you'll "meet" out there in cyberspace!

I'm going to pass this award on to Suzanne at Chickens in the Road, Dana at the Homesteading Housewife, Wendy at Let the Dog In! and Liz at Will There Be Cake?

I feel like I've become friends with these women bloggers, not because I've ever met them in real life, but because of the passion that comes through in their blogs. I feel like I'm a part of their lives, or at least, given a little window into parts of their lives.

New Blog

I don't want this "family" blog to become a horse training blog, and I was a bit afraid it would. I don't think my non-horsey readers would appreciate it!

So, I've started another blog to fulfill my need to chronicle and share my experiences on the road of training Gabe. It's still under construction as far as design goes, but it's there and I've started posting to it.

Green Slobber on My Shirt

Seven random

Sona has tagged me with a seven random things meme.

These are the rules:

Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
Share 7 random and or weird things about yourself.
Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

My seven random:
1. I seriously need a pedicure. My poor toes are crying for a little polish and shine.
2. In the MMORPG I play I'm a cute little warlock and I love "ganking horde."
3. I hate shaving my legs.
4. I was once a carnie.
5. Sometimes I eat sardines and smoked oysters just to gross my kids out.
6. I have intentionally farted on my children.
7. I like to drink pickle juice straight out of the jar.

I am tagging:
1. Wendy at Let the Dog In! tell us some random stuff.
2. Diesel at Mattress Police. Go ahead, Grundir the Implacable, give it your best shot.
3. I'll bet Marriage 101 has some interesting randomness to share!
4. And I KNOW Dorky Dad will provide some intensely funny randomness to make me giggle.
5. Joeprah! You're TAGGED! Get busy.
6. Lynette at Chatterbox Chit Chat is creative. Let's see some random things!
7. And last, but definitely not least, I'm tagging Nancy at World Wide Rolves.

Keeping the dorks smilin'

I made Dorky Dad smile! I love making people smile, especially those of the dorky persuasion.

Look at the cute award he gave me: Cool, eh?

Thank you for making me smile at myself today!

And now, to pass on the love to a few bloggers out there who almost always manage to bring a smirk to my face and a some much-needed humor to my day:

The Queen of Shake-Shake is my hero. She is the fresh mait author-i-tay, offered to wash Mike Rowe's "Dirty Job" feet with her gorgeous black hair and knows her way around the ubiquitous skid mark. She makes me smile, even when the topic is serious. Every day. And I think I have a huge blogger crush on her.

Six kids. One stay-at-home mom. Need I say more? Because I Said So! is a must read. Have a kid, or two, and think life is a neverending, absolutely hysterical roller-coaster ride? Try six. I don't envy her but I sure can sit back and smile right along with her.

Irreverent. Employs the Nazgul Grundir the Implacable to take care of the more distasteful aspects of blogging. Diesel at The Mattress Police will probably flog me publicly for giving him an award, but that's okay. Public flogging makes me smile.

Buzzin'

I've been secretly making a whole lot of new friends on the sly. Lots and lots of new friends who have fun, interesting, thought-provoking blogs! Some of them are so interesting I can't believe I didn't know them before and I'm just excited to have found them.

How did I find them, you ask? Where the heck have I been hanging out to meet all these new peeps without telling you? Well, I've been playing around in a new social community,www.cre8buzz.com and it goes live tomorrow (Sunday), so you can check it out for yourself.

Also, take a peek at the Antman's blog on cre8buzz to get an idea of the kind of community already building over there.

When I was first invited to give the beta site a try, I thought, "hmmm...this will
probably be just like MySpace and I'll get tired of it and stop going after a day or two." But it isn't, and I haven't. Because it's so much more than a bunch of teenagers being childish and irritating, it's adults truly wanting to become a community and making that community work. I joined the women's community (and LOVE it!), but there is something for just about everyone and it's growing.

And after I joined I saw the hits on BOTH my blogs spike and stay up. So, by making friends and reading blogs at cre8buzz, I managed to get a few more people visiting me over here, reading and commenting. Which I love, not because I make money on this blog (which I don't and most likely never will) but because I love the give and take, the conversation, the community.

I'm journalistjenn, and you can find me here.

Just Rockin' along

Rebecca loves me! She thinks I'm a Rockin' Girl Blogger!

I got a cool award from an even cooler blogger, which I'm just tickled pink about. Even though she doesn't like bats and is a Blues fan, she's still cool in my book. I can forgive her for the Blues thing. Not everyone realizes the Red Wings are superior, but, that's okay.

But the bats? I don't know if I can forgive her for the bats.

See my cool new blog bling? Pretty cool stuff, eh?

Thank you, Rebecca!

I absolutely LOVE it that she enjoys reading my blog. I love writing it, and I especially love sharing my kids, and my life, with you guys. It's fun! It has become one of those things I look forward to doing every day. Now, if I could only whip up a little more self-discipline in other writing areas of my life, I'd actually have my book done by now. Or get a promotion and a raise. HA!

Now, it's time to share a little bloggy love:

I recently started reading Marriage-101 and really, really enjoy her writing style. She is open and funny and well-spoken. And I think I can forgive her for working for the dark side. Which, knowing me, is a big step!

Ahhhh, Casey. Casey makes me laugh and when she writes I think "yeah, I've done that! But I'd never ADMIT it. Not in public!" Like peeing in buckets and orgasming on the treadmill. She has been brutally honest about her complete ignorance about booze, which had to take a lot of guts. She is definitely a Rockin' Girl Blogger!

I know she will never, ever know I think she's a rockin' girl blogger because she doesn't even know I read her, but I have a big time blogger crush on Ree. You should hop on over and take a read. She's funny, down to earth and takes amazing pictures of her beautiful children working on their extraordinary cattle ranch. Oh. And she burps songs.

If I had a few million dollars

My bloggy friend, Rebecca, wrote about winning the lottery and asked what we would do with lottery winnings. If we played the lottery. Which I don't. But who doesn't sometimes just sit around and dream about having a couple million to spend? I'd LOVE to look in my check book and see all those zeros. Or, even better, cash it out and stash the wads of cash in my sock drawer, just because they would be cool to look at every morning. "Oooh! Look at that roll of $100s! Next to my underwear! Cool."

Five things I would do if I won the lottery (and it has to be the mega lotto, because if there's one thing I can do well, it's spend money.)

1. Pay off the mortgage and ALL our bills and build my dream barn, complete with ceiling fans and brass hardware. That way I can start fostering and retraining retired Thoroughbreds while they wait to find new homes after their last race.

2. Special order the biggest honking redneck pickup truck I can find and have a custom matching horse trailer with living quarters built. All in purple and black. Oh, and smiley face fog lamps on the pickup.

3. Buy a house and a big chunk of land in the mountains for my mom. Because while it is TOTALLY awesome that's she's so free and unencumbered by worldly goods, one can only indulge one's inner gypsy for so long before you just want a bed that's your own.

4. Hand a huge wad of cash to my sister, a half a mill or so. That way she can pay off all her school loans, replace that piece of crap rust bucket she's driving now and buy the house she's always wanted. But she's not allowed to buy any more shoes with it. She has PLENTY of those.

5. Set up gigantic trust funds for both girls that they can only touch if they graduate from college.

6. (Okay, I lied about the five thing) Travel a LOT. To Ireland. Spain. Greece. Germany. Australia. And anywhere else that catches my millionaire fancy.

Of course, I'd donate generously to a couple of my favorite charities, like ex-racehorses, wild animals and kids.

A mommy blogger, hurting

I am crying.

A mommy blogger, RachD, lost her daughter in a drowning accident last week. The funeral was Monday, with everyone arriving in party clothes and feather boas, butterflies and sunflowers to celebrate Hannah's life, not mourn her death.

I can't even begin to imagine having to make funeral arrangements for one of my girls. I know it happens, but it happens to other people, right? Right? Not to me. Because I wouldn't be able to get through it.

My heart would fall right out and I really don't know if I'd be able to get out of bed. Ever. again. I break a little bit inside when Unruly cries because of a knee scrape or smashed finger. My heart aches when Wild is going through tough times and I can't fix it. I don't think I'd be able to live through losing one of them. I don't even want to think about it. I don't want to think about my heart being ripped out, my soul torn and shredded.

But I do. I think a lot of parents do, because its who we are. We worry. We obsess over the little things, the what ifs, the things we can't change, the dangers we know are out there in the big scary world. We stand ready to protect our babies at any cost, but we also know we can't protect them from everything. As much as I want to lock both my girls in a protected, safe space, I know I can't. I want to, but I can't.

Go give RachD some love...I can't imagine any mommy who needs it more than she does right now.

And hug your own children even more tightly today. And tomorrow. And next week.

I know I will be.