IEA Travel Clothes

Equestrian Girl got her travel clothes for her IEA Team just in time to wear them at Findlay.  She has one more meet at the end of March where they should come in handy too - especially the heavy coat if it's as cold there this time as it was in December!

The Contortionist and the Pretty Girl

This is our horse.  He can bend and twist and put his nose out through this little hole really far.  This isn't as far as he can go.  This is how he begs for treats and kisses.  Well, mostly treats.  I don't think he cares much about the kisses.

This is the pretty girl.  This was on our way to her Michigan Paint Horse Club banquets where she won lots and lots of awards with the contortionist above.  High Point for 13 and Under and High Point for Novice Youth and like 9 other first place class awards.  It was huge.

Country Living

I've been doing a little house hunting for a friend.  This isn't one of them.

Equestrian Girl and I spotted this house though deep out in the middle of nowhere and decided we liked it an awful lot.  It's hard to see in the picture because it was kind of cloudy and dismal but the place was HUGE!

Green Fingers

Motocross Boy always gets the strangest conditions.  He's had this one for a while - when his hands get cold, they turn colors.  We call it green.  You can sort of see it in this first picture - his ring finger and part of his baby finger are starting to turn.

You can see it better in this picture -that same ring fingers has turned green at the tip and down one side.  Ignore the black on that next finger.  That's dirt.

An Unwelcome Visitor to the Barn

He's pretty hard to see up there in the rafters but that is NOT a cat.  Rocky the Raccoon came to visit and wasn't in any hurry to leave.  He alluded capture for almost a week before he was finally tricked into the humane trap and taken far, far away.

The Big Storm

In a winter of totally weak weather, THIS was our big storm.  It barely did much of anything in lower Michigan but threaten.  But it sure did make a pretty colorful radar map!

Donating Blood - a rough hobby

I have been donating blood with the Red Cross off and on since I was 16 and in high school.  Whenever it's convenient, I do it and since they often come to work, if I happen to be in the building that day, I will go do my duty and give them a pint of my A positive blood.  It's the right thing to do.

I have little veins and they are deep and they move.  I always tell everyone who is trying to draw my blood about these tricky little guys because it usually saves me getting poked twice.  This time was no exception.  I made my speech and he found what he thought would be a good vein.  It looked okay to me though I think the one a little further to the outside of my arm is better but who am I to judge?  I've never drawn my own blood or tried to stick a needle in my own vein.  So the guy drew some little lines on arm (the purple dash marks in the pic below) to mark his spot and popped it in.  It didn't feel much different than usual but he almost immediately got a little worried and called another nurse over.  He warned me that I was going to have a bruise.  No biggie.  It's not that unusual that I get  a little bruise when I give blood.  I bruise pretty easy.  Afterwards, he put ice on my "bruise" and told me to keep the ice on as much as possible all day (this was early morning) and to start putting warm compresses on it the next day.  Yeah, whatever.  And off I went back to work after stopping for the mandatory cookies and juice!  Breakfast!

When I took the bandages off when I got home I was a little shocked.  This was more than a little bruise!  Not horrible, but not a little bruise.

Almost a week later, it was definitely not a little bruise and wasn't even close to where the needle had gone in!

I think next time I'm not going to say anything about having little deep veins that move.