Post Birthday Bash

Chocolate cake with creme brulee filling and chocolate icing. Yum. The cake was delicious and I only had to blow out one candle. As old as I am and I still got presents. Thanks guys.

Neck and Neck

My sister (2squirrels.blogspot.com) and I are running neck and neck on our blogging entries. She beat me to it today reporting on MY birthday bash...or was that "hash?" She's right, it is my birthday week, but it actually started last night when Dennis finally succumbed to my nagging for chocolate chip cookies. No one makes better chocolate chip cookies than he does and I've been craving them for awhile now. So last night I ate chocolate chip cookies to my heart's content and nearly fainted from the sugar high.

This morning we had brunch at the La Posta Casino and tonight we will have chocolate cake that both Dennis and Mom have had a hand in making.

All this talk about food is significant because I've been on a no or low carb diet since June. I was doing fairly well until Christmas and have been trying to set my diet back to the new normal (carb-less) all month. So this birthday frivolity must end. But when will it end? My birthday isn't until Thursday. Egad.

It wasn't all about food. Khirla gave me a present by feeling better today and blasting out her gate to the pasture just like old times. Dennis surprised me with a bouquet of flowers, no mean feat since the nearest florist is 30 miles away. I know what he does--he hides them somewhere until I go to bed then leaves them for me to find in the morning. A card came with the flowers and another one was hidden in my laptop. It fell out when I opened the lid this morning.

My sister says there will be presents tonight because she's running out of time to return it if necessary. Dennis says there will be no presents as far as he's concerned until Thursday...my REAL birthday. That probably means he hasn't gotten me anything yet, you never know with him.

Khirla

The vet came over again today to see Khirla, our 24-yr-old Arabian mare. She's not eating and curls her lip up, signifying pain. She doesn't seem to be in the severe, sweat-producing pain that accompanies colic (big stomach ache); but she's not eating or pooping, the two things horses normally excel at.

The vet gave her intravenous liquids, pumped oil through a hose inserted in her nose to lubricate her stomach and intestines, took blood samples and gave a rectal exam. Yikes! Poor Khirla.

We will watch her through the weekend; with any luck she will get better and feel like eating again.

Country Strong

Movie Tuesday was a success. Perhaps because of our diminished expectations (movies haven't been great lately), we all enjoyed and stayed awake throughout the movie, Country Strong. The best scene, I think, was Gwyneth Paltrow's comeback performance after being laid low by alcoholism. The popcorn was hot, too.

Movie Tuesday

Today is Movie Day. I think we are going to see Country Strong with Gwyneth Paltrow. More on this later.

Email Mystery

My Outlook stopped working correctly on January 2. Since then, for some mysterious reason, my incoming mail briefly lands in my inbox, then after a minute or so it clunks down into the Deleted folder. What's that about?

January 2011

The year started in the right way: Tacos at our house with the usual suspects: Mom, Angie, Gary, Dennis & me. And Spike & 50-50, of course. Can you tell they are not happy?

It's all ready Jan. 10, so I'm late starting the 2011 blog. I had to catch up with the last two years of no entries. It's been a good year so far. I had a horseback riding lesson with by trainer and friend, Betsy, on Wednesday and went trail riding with my friend Joyce for the first time since my knee accident on August 3, 2010. We went to the Laguna Mountains and the entire trail was under snow. My horse, Doc, loved it. I was wearing my new ACL brace and was a little nervous about slipping on the ice (either me or Doc). But there were no mishaps. On the trail someone had built a small, 3-ft. tall snowman. Doc took one look at it and I could just hear him thinking, "No way I'm going past that horse-eating monster!" He did eventually, of course, or I'd still be out there.