Hello 30

This past weekend we (Amanda, my brother & his girlfriend and myself) went down to New Braunfels to float the river to celebrate my 30th birthday.  Amanda's sister and a friend were coming down late Friday evening.

We found this awesome little cottage south of town that could comfortably sleep 8 people (well maybe not all 8 comfortably, but 6 for sure). There was 3 beds and a pull out couch and you all know how that goes. The coolest part was the playground area. They had a bouncy blob thing and a bunch of other cool things that any big kid would love (small kids too).

To save some money, Amanda and I decided to buy and take groceries with us. We also decided to make 100 jello shots to take with us (yea, we made 100 jello shots for the weekend).  We thought it best if we kept the weekend low-key at the cottage as much as possible.

Friday night, the plan was to stay at the cottage drinking beer and eating jello. Amanda and I also had some friends in the area that we were looking forward to seeing (we had met them in Mexico while on our honeymoon, and that's another long story), but they were dead set on heading to the bar and by midnight i had already had to much jello.  Besides I'm not a big fan of bar hopping in an area I'm unfamiliar with. Sorry!  Thanks!  PASS!

So Saturday comes and we head out to meet my best friend (Bert) her husband and some of their friends to float the river.  Of course with this record draught we been having, the river was not exactly flowing. Rather the river was more of a slow moving wide brook, but we manage. We actually were able to float the horseshoe twice, but only after we had to walk back up to where we had originally started.   Not a long walk exactly, but if you have ever floated the river you know that between the water, sun and 'beverages' it turns into quite a hike. Oh and one of the additional friends had recently broken his ankle, so YEA!

Anyways, on the river for a second time we again, very slowly make our way around the horseshoe. After the second go, we were ka-put aka done.

Back at the cottage, we made dinner and hung out and despite it being a birthday celebration, our night was over way before midnight.

Sunday morning we were up early, headed back to CS so I could start back to school on Monday.   The weekend over and the remnants of my 20's left behind.

It's really not the number that makes me feel older, but the countless random acts of stupidity youthful indiscretion that I have no desire to repeat that make me feel my age.

Who knows? Maybe I'm growing up?!?

NAH!!!

You're Welcome College Station ;o)

Of course it had to finally rain here, but on a day I decided (pay) to water both the front and the back yards. 

It's my ESPN.  Yea, you read it right. 
Girls have ESP, guys have ESPN :)

It's been so long since there has been rain in our area that this storm caught everyone's atttention.  Even the dogs were confused by 'the water from the sky.'

It was nice though to play in the rain like a little kid. 

Once the Texas sky remembered how to rain, it just kept coming.  It rained here for a day and half, and it was so nice not to be sweating on the way to work at 8a in the morning.

Hopefully now that the sky has figured it out, maybe it will continue.

Buck Davidson Clinic at Texas Rose Horse Park

Amanda is less than 3 weeks away from going to Atlanta to compete in the AEC’s (American Eventing Championships) and besides stressing herself out, she has been working really hard to make sure that she is prepared to compete in September.  

http://www.texasrosehorsepark.com/

In preparation for AEC’s, Amanda and I took a trip this weekend to the Texas Rose Horse Park in Tyler, Texas so that she school with Olympic Gold medalist rider Buck Davidson.  It ended up being an interesting weekend from the time we left College Station Friday afternoon until we got home Sunday night.

We should have known that the weekend was not going to go exactly as planned when 30 minutes outside of town, while heading down a farm-to-market country road we had a blow-out on the horse trailer.  The tread was literally blown off of the tire.  We had no more pulled down a country dirt road and got the trailer and tire off of the ground when a famer in the area stopped to see if we needed any help.  This guy had passed by us, turned around and came back to check on us. 

I didn’t catch this guy’s name, but “Thank You” anyways.  It’s nice to know that there are still people out there that will go out of their way to help a stranger.

So like I said, we got the trailer up and started to get the tire changed only to realize that the spare that we had with us was also flat.  Yippee!  The valve on the tire leaked air, but at least this one had some tread on it.  We limped the trailer back up to a gas station we had passed about a quarter of a mile back and using duct tape, string, and Aggie ingenuity secure the valve well enough to get some air in the tire until we could get to a tire shop. 

We drove the next 20 miles down this back-road going 45 mph trying to find a tire shop ‘around me’.  Every place we called told us that they were on at least an hour wait and we could not put our names on the list until we got there.  Keep in mind we had the horse with us.  We continued on until we got to a little town that had one of those full service gas stations, with signs saying they can take care of your car, including tire repair.  So we pulled into the gas station, hopped out of the truck and asked if there was any way that they could get us in fairly quickly because of the horse on the trailer.  Two guys came out to the truck, took one look, grabbed a jack, had the tire off of the trailer, valve repaired and tire back on the trailer in less than 10 minutes. 

The best part was it was only $10. 

Alright, the trip started bad but it had to get better.  Right?  Thankfully we made it the rest of the way to Tyler with no further detriment. 

So we got to Texas Rose, got the horse settled and Amanda rode the horse quickly to let him stretch his legs and get familiar with his surroundings.  After we got done there, we headed back to Coffee City (between Palestine and Tyler) where we were staying for the weekend with my aunt and her boyfriend.



The next part of this has been edited to protect the idiots involved.

Well my Aunt and her boyfriend kept telling us that they wanted to come and watch Amanda jump.  So Amanda and I mentioned that we had to be up early the next day to go out and feed the horse, so we were going to bed early.  Amanda was in bed before 10p and I followed later closer to midnight.

Shortly after falling asleep I was awakened to my aunt and her boyfriend being loud in the other room, and every time I started to get up they would get quiet.  I was getting a little bothered by this, but eventually fell back to sleep.

Around 1a I was woken again to someone taking heavy steps around the house, but as I went to get up it again stopped.  My other hesitation to getting up and saying something included the understanding that if I got up to say anything it would turn into a conversation and I had to be up in less than 5 hours, so I did my best to ignore it.

5:30a came early, and we were out of the house before 6a.  It was everything I could do not to go stomping around the house and be as loud as I could possibly manage, but my sense of decency prevailed.

Saturday was a L-O-N-G and HOT BLAZING day and we were out there from 6a until around 3p before heading back to my aunt’s.  When we got back to her place, she asked how the day went. 

My comment was “it wouldn’t have sucked so bad if I had been able to sleep last night.”

She responded with “Well then you should have stayed somewhere else!”

WTH? Are you kidding me?  You told me that you wanted me to stay there.  From here we skipped over agitated straight to frustrated!

After that, Amanda and grabbed all of our stuff and were out of the house in under two minutes.  I’m talking bags repacked, ice chest reloaded and we were out of there and headed to grandma’s house in Palestine.

When we got to Palestine I told my mother, who happened to be in town also to visit, what had happened and she was floored, but told me not to worry about it.  She said if my aunt had any sense she would just drop it.

Apparently she (my aunt) lacked the sense to drop it.  When she came to my grandmother’s house later, she kept trying to egg me on by making snide remarks.  I did my best to ignore her.  Until later in the evening we were looking for something that she had in her possession.

We kept asking if anyone knew where the air pump for the blow-up mattress was.  No response.  Well we kept looking.  A couple of minutes later my aunt comes around the corner, snaps her fingers at me and motions for me to follow her.  OK!  I follow down the hall to her room where she rounds on me and asks me “What the f is your problem with me?  Are you mad just because I didn’t come watch your little princess ride?”

There is not a ranking on the chart above to express how mad I got when she said that.  PISSED with a side of duck because I’m about to beat your @$$, would be the closet ranking.

I’ve never been so mad in my life and I told my aunt exactly what I thought of her, her comment and her disrespectful behavior.  The funniest part was that she tried to defend her actions, which I was not about to hear.

She left shortly after this confrontation and the rest of our stay at Grandma’s was uneventful (in comparison).  The trip was not over however.

We got back to Texas Rose Horse Park Sunday morning around 6:30a to feed the horse so he had time to digest before he had to run cross country training clinic.  While we waited for Amanda’s clinic time at 10a she went to watch a friend/student ride.  Unfortunately this student got jumped from her tack at the beginning of her clinic lesson, and the horse ran back to the barn.  After the horse had been caught Amanda was asked to get on the horse and finish the schooling.

I still need someone to explain to me how the horse knew where the barn was because we were not close to it.

This poor girl (see also lady) had a grapefruit sized hematoma on the back of her leg from where the horse had accidentally kicked her, but thankfully her jump vest had inflated and this was her only injury.

So now Amanda is on this other horse schooling and she has a lesson of her own immediately following this one.  I had to go back to the barn and find another rider to help me tact up Amanda’s horse for her lesson and had to take the horse she was riding back to barn and cool him off.

Oh yea, the horse she was riding quit sweating so we had to make sure he cooled down before just putting him back in his stall.

I can't say it was a bad weekend, because Amanda and I worked really well together.  I really don’t know if you were able to follow any of this adventure because there was so much that happened over those three days, but let me tell you it was interesting.

Neighborhood Sprinkler Inspector

I mentioned in the beginning that watering my lawn was less stressful than trying to write and keep up with this blog.  Well the reason it is less stresfull is because I have a friend that comes by to help me make sure that I water the lawn correctly.  Bet you didn't know that there was someone out there checking on your lawn for you.

I wanted to introduce you guys to this friend of mine.  This is my neighborhood sprinkler and yard inspector.  I usually call him Fred, but only because he has never actually told me his name.

Every night when I go to put the spinkler out to water my lawn, this guy will show up out of no where and come over to check things out.  He has a routine of things that have to be checked out and up to his standards. 

First, he must . . .


. . .survey the yard. . .

  





Then he spends a couple of minutes. . . 

. . .test the soil saturation. . .



Followed by several minutes of . . . 



. . . checking the pH of the water. . .

And if everything is in order. . .

. . . finishing up with a bath.

I know that it looks like Fred is bathing when he should be checking the pH, but this is a very long a drawn out process.  Believe me when I say that this guy really immerses himself in his work.

The Big 3 - O

So it is finally here; the big 3-0. 

I can’t believe I’m turning thirty.  It seems surreal.  I shouldn’t be thirty yet and as I mentioned before, I can’t help but to reflect on what has gotten me to this point and how far I’ve come.

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I graduated high school and went away to college only to realize that I was not ready for that.  I didn’t know at the time that I was really supposed to be going to all of the classes that I had signed up for.  I figured I was a smart guy, I could do all that stuff.  Yea, my professors didn’t agree either and were not impressed by my lack of effort.

After that flop of an experience, I joined the Army.  Seriously, at the time the military was the best thing for me.  Unfortunately the shine quickly faded.  The army is not as much fun as they make it look on T.V. or video games.  I ended up graduating basic training September 13^th, 2001. 

We were actually coming off our bivouac (biv – whack) at the time.  The bivouac was our last test of basic.  We had been out in the field ‘camping’ for two days; being shot at, digging and living in fox-holes, no sleep and eating MRE’s (meals ready to eat).  I remember thinking that the trade center attacks had to be another test by our drill sergeants, until I looked at their faces.  Nothing is scary than seeing the person that can scare the sh!t out of you scared.

After basic I went to A.I.T. in Virginia (Advanced Individual Training), where I was taught my actual military job.  I say my actual job because first and foremost your job is a soldier, that’s why basic is first.  Ah, makes sense now huh?

I don’t know if it was fortunate or unfortunate (I have to say fortunate now), I was injured in the line of duty.  (Sorry, I don’t mean to joke about it, but it is something that would only happen to me.)  I was injured running a P.T. (physical training) test.  I was racing a drill sergeant in a two-mile sprint and he cut to get out of my way so that I could finish and when he did I pulled up not to run into him and fell off of the curb, twisting my ankle.

I was eventually told that if I could not march and I could not run then I was no good to the Army. 

Well fine!  Then I’m going home.  And that ended that.

In time, I ended up back in my hometown, where at my age there was no way I was going to do anything but get in trouble.  And I did.  I had to get away from there.

I decided to try Austin for a while.  I ended up living there for a little over 5 years.  In the beginning it was good, great even, but when it went bad it went real bad.  Ultimately, I think most of my troubles came from lacking a direction for my life.

I decided I wanted to go back to school, but I knew I wasn’t going to be able to do it by myself.  I was going to need the support of my family, and that is exactly what I found in College Station.  My mother and my brother lifted me up when I was ready to give up.  I don’t think either of them will ever understand how much I needed it at the time (and still now too, but at that time I really needed it).

So there I was in College Station and the only idea that kept running through my head was “I only made it this far in life thanks to the teachers that took the time to teach me.”  I could never repay all of them for their inspiration, but maybe I could pay in forward.  So I decided that I wanted to teach, and specifically I wanted to teach the age that I felt like was the hardest for me; junior high, 7^th and 8^th graders.  Thank you to all of my teachers, parents and mentors that stuck with me even when I was a giant pain in the @$$.

While there are points in my life that I wish I could change, I don’t wish very hard because they got me to where I am today and I wouldn’t change a thing about my life now.  You know the butterfly effect and all; change one thing in the past changes everything that followed it.

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So here I am, 30 years old and loving my life, the good and the bad not so good.  Here’s to at least 30 more.

Stressing

Let me start out by apologizing.  I’m on a rant.

I feel stressed out and agitated.

School is about to start back up.

Only one year left!

I don’t have a job after August 31^st.

Millions of Americans are out of work.

I’m about to turn 30.

Honestly never thought about it before now.

And I need to quit smoking.

Can’t afford it, and it’s not good for me.

So I guess it could always be worse, but today is definitely one of those days that I wish I were still a kid and didn’t have any responsibilities.  Although I must say that being a “grown-up” is way more fun than being a kid ever was.  I just wish there wasn’t some much pressure associated with being an adult.

Being at work is not helping.   Have you ever hung out at a community college in the summer between semesters?  Let me tell you, this place is somewhere between the O.K. Coral and Chernobyl.  Everyone around here either looks ready to shoot you between the eyes or sick from being here.

To top everything else off, the school has decided to save money by turning the A/C off.  So it is 100 degrees outside, and we are getting close to the same inside.

I haven’t even been taking the medicine for my AD(H)D because there is no point of being productive when there isn’t anything to do.

Ok, the rant is over.

Leap of Faith

It occurred to me over the weekend, that I have an unusual approach to life.

I’m sure that those of you that know me find this very hard to believe ;)

I, myself, don’t believe it for a minute.

While I am not “religious” (per se) I do have a great amount of faith.  I have faith that things ultimately work out the way that they are supposed to, despite your best efforts to screw them up; faith that if you are willing to trudge the path set before you, no matter how daunting, you will eventually reach your goal.

I took a HUGE leap of faith this past week.

I quit my awesome* job because it was going to interfere with my school schedule.  Even though there are hundreds of Americans out there looking for jobs, I am too close to finishing this degree to slow down now.  If I were to work the schedule they wanted, it could add an addition year to my graduation date.

*Awesomely easy; couldn't retire from it, but it pays the bills.

Besides, this way I can say I’m doing my part to help create jobs.  Right?

I have a little more than a year left and I feel like it is time to get some experience in a classroom before I am actually thrown into a classroom.  We all had those teachers that we could smell their fear when they walked into the classroom and I am not about to be that teacher.

Furthermore, I am not afraid to work.  I’ve literally held every type of job from fast-food to newspaper delivery, and at times multiple at a time.  I am not above any type of work that can help support my family.

At the same time that I am writing this, my boss just finished interviewing for the part-time position we have posted.  There was actually a woman who was offered the position and declined because it would mess up her welfare.

*Glad to see you have your priorities straight.*

Maybe that’s my answer.  Screw work!  Forget bettering myself! Welfare pays better and I could be sitting at my house right now instead of stressing to find a part-time position that is going to be willing to work with my insane school schedule this semester. 

So here I am, poised on the edge of a ledge both feet off of the ledge, and hoping that I made the right decision. 

Thankfully, Amanda is supportive.

So where to start? The beginning was way to long ago.

A friend of mine suggested I start a blog as a cathartic release.  She is crazy, because this is not easy. Trying to keep my yard green in this Texas heat is easy, this requires thought.

Well I guess the best place to start, would be with me.  My name is Chuck.  I’ve been married to my crazy, beautiful, talented wife Amanda for just over a year, and I’m about to turn 30.   

Yea, I anticipate your shock . . . it’s crazy!

Amanda is way out of my league.

I totally, 100% agree.

Outside of those basic facts, the rest I’m sure you will eventually learn.

The name of the blog, Anchored Down & Horsing Around, is in homage to my beautiful wife.  

And for those of you worried about the “horsing around” part,

get your minds out of the gutter.

Amanda rides English Dressage, something that she has done for the vast majority of her life and I know absolutely nothing about.  I’m learning, but since I don’t really ride horses this is a very s-l-o-w process.  This is also where anchored part comes in.  As long as Amanda has been riding, she has used an anchor as both symbol and name; and it seemed appropriate in this case as well.

In my spare time I am currently a student at Texas A&M (WHOOOOP!!! GiG’EM AGS) trying to finish up a bachelor’s degree in Early Childhood Education. 

I think I’m 5^th or 6^th year senior, with like 100 years left.

Truthfully, if all goes according to plan, I will graduate fall of 2012 and will forever be 12^th Man.  This also means that I need to get my butt in gear and get these final classes done.  It’s going to be a really long year.