Playing the "I" game

Flipping through some books on our shelves I came across one from the 60's a psychology book on how to make friends and influence people....hmm I thought I wounder how interesting this could be, just to give it a kick, I skipped around in it and read a bit.
The book talked about how to be a good conversationalist. What is a good conversationalist? To sum it up, its basically being a good listener.
Well I thought to my-self I know people's favorite person is always "me, my self and I" so...the next day I tried an experiment...

I sat down to eat lunch with one of my new class mates...I asked her a few questions about her self, general stuff...where she was from, what she did for work, where she went to school before...need I say more? No, the rest of the meal I hardly got two words in. And even by the end I was getting just a bit annoyed for not being able to talk about "Me" I chided my self when I realized what I was thinking-

I hadn't really cared about hearing that she worked at the pizza place, or about her long distance relationship. However I thought about this as I drove home from school. As a human race how far have we fallen into selfishness and pride, I see it a lot in my school, I hear conversations I do not even want to hear or imagine. Conversations are filled with mindless chatter and degrading to the human intelligence (at least to mine). How often do people take a genuine interest in someone else life, of others' thoughts and opinions? I had to ask myself How did Jesus talk in His conversations and how did he listen to people as they talked? taking a look at myself I realized, I have fallen short of a good Christian conversationalist. Lord please let it not be "I" but "You" and "Others!"

Horsein Around

what adventures you can have when you work at the horse barn...so here are just a few of them... :) hope you enjoy this horse staff, ;-)

The first thing that always makes me wounder is why on earth you put children with animals that have the mind capacity of a 6 year old and are about 800-1000 pounds. why? I ask my-self, but we do.

"can I ride pixie," "I want to ride Pixie," "no I asked first"..."I WANT Queenie," "I am going to ride Yankee,please Please!!!" "I am not going to ride Red," "I want to ride Abby." All rings in my ears I wish I could climb the flag pole to escape the crowd that clamors around me squeezing in tighter, tighter, they pull on my sleeves. gasping for air,I call out roll call. then bracing my-self I desperately try to keep the kids charge up to the horse barn, over the fence cantering into the stalls.

You know you've worked to long at the horse barn when you start calling the riders the horse's names and the horse the rider's name.

You adjust stirrups for the billionth time and give the rider on Pixie a crash course in 5 seconds on how to steer the horse. While Red wanders out of his stall and his rider is yelling to me, "my horse is backing up!! what do I DO!!" while at the same time Gent and Kiwi are having a squabble over personal space issues.

The real adventures start when your on the trail and the horse trot through the mud...I here shouts of WHOA WHOA Queenie! I grit my teeth as I see her rider pull the reins up past his chin, as he clings to the the saddle horn with a white knuckles.
Then there are the adventures with...
Gent and Yankee, they hungrily eye the leafy branches that grace our trails. They wait wait...then yank their heads around at the right moments and shred the innocent trees of their leaves. If Yankee happens to see the fern bed that is rich with vitamins and fiber he dives in into the mist of them and up roots as many as he can before the drag rider can call to his rider to "tighten up the reins" tearing Yankee's tongue away from the leafy deliciousness.

Pixie what an Innocent name you would think... A calm spirit, a dusky brown color with a long tail and mane she seems so relaxed...but ah don't be fooled the adventure campers will warn you that she for sure was trying to kill them by barrelling straight through the brush and nearly knocked them off by going so close to the trees.

Queenie and Yankee made good friends with two crafty girls this summer and begged me every day if they could visit the craft house.
There is Thunder hooves Abby who has tried to kiss Alex however he strictly told her that was unacceptable!
...oh and don't ride George bare-back, at least not un-till he gets a little more meat on his bones, hmm...need I say more?

yet there is one more lark I must add(since Alex did bring it up in one of our conversations)
once upon a time there was lots of water and lots of dirt in our stable area, this was so thick, that when trekking across it you had to yank one foot out at a time...and on some occasion by the time you reached your destination you may find to your dismay, you left your boot about ten steps back. the only comforting thought as the mud squeezed between your toes, as you trekked back for the boot, was that the soil was well fertilized and for sure you was grow tall and strong. However thanks to my parents for make it possible for us to have gravel for this area, we no longer have to worry about growing too tall.

there is quiet a few more adventures I am sure our four legged friends could tell if they could blog...do ask them however to tell a story to you... :)