Well, okay, to be honest, my favorite Christmas present this year was just to be able to spend it with my husband and children. We almost lost my husband this year and, thus, almost could never have watched "A Christmas Story" together again, or sit together and gaze at the tree lights on Christmas Eve, when the tree is always it's most beautiful. So, truly "The Man Who Lived" was my favorite gift this season.
However, that said, I did get something that's almost as useful as my husband, if not as much fun to be around. A Wet/Dry ShopVac. Not high on the list of most women's dreams, but it rated in the top 5 of my Christmas wishes and was certainly the most realistic of them. Diamonds or a Lexus were not even in the top 50, although one day... a new used F-250 would be cool...
Several weeks before Christmas, as we were gathering gift lists, I was asked what I wanted. "A ShopVac" was not what my husband expected me to say. Not that he expected me to say anything in particular, but "A ShopVac" was not an answer that wasn't even in the top 50 of his wildest expectations.
"uhh.. okay... umm...Why?"
"I want to vacuum the horses."
Then he understood. He giggled, but he understood. We live in a desert. I have extremely hairy miniature horses. It's very VERY dry. We have a ton of dirt and enough static electricity to power the metro Phoenix area. The combination of lots of hair, lots of dirt and lots of static cling, makes for horses that can't be touched without raising a cloud of dust thick enough to obscure the landscape in several directions. Brushing only moves the dirt around because the static just sucks the dust back into the hair. I've long since given up brushing as an exercise in futility.
In the summer I can bathe them. However, since they're so hairy, it takes about 4 hours for them to dry. If you turn them loose before they are dry they roll in the dirt, making a mud pack in the hair that I just spent 20 minutes scrubbing. The mud dries and the cycle of hair, dirt and static begins again.
One of our neighbors uses a leaf blower on one of his mules. I sold the only one of my horses that would put up with a leaf blower cycloning him clean. I needed a ShopVac. Bless Santa, he brought me one! I happydanced. I raced out to the barn to pick the first victim. Braveheart was so good about getting a shave, that we decided to try him first. He was a real trooper. The hose is pretty long and the Shop Vac is pretty quiet. While giving us an "I'm REALLY trying to trust you here" look, he stood his ground and soon realized that the weird suctioning snake actually felt pretty good in some spots. I patted his rump and there was NO dust cloud. I patted him all over and got NO dust!! WOOHOO!! On to the next victim!
We vacuumed 4 horses, if you consider little "Weena" a horse. I consider her more a woolley pot bellied pig with hooves myself. Her hair is the densest of the bunch. It's long, it's thick and that's just the top coat! She's got an undercoat that can rival any sheep. I thought we'd need to have at her with a rug beater before vacuuming to have any success, but lo and behold that Shop Vac sucked every bit of dust out of the Weena Wool. Now, if we could only use it for a bit of Weena Liposuction, she might start looking like a horse by spring.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Thursday, December 27, 2007
See title choices
This post has two title options, so just pick your favorite.
Magic and Those Who Just Don't Get It
or
The Ball Cap of Christian Kindness
Call me childish and I'll thank you because youth is what my heart strives for. Children believe in magic. In spite of the disappointments of their unanswered wishes they do not fail in this belief unless some fool of an adult preaches it out of them. Someone too "grown up" inside to bother with such things and thus decides that others shouldn't bother either.
There are people who twinkle. The twinkle comes from the magic of the heart and shines in the eyes. There are people who cannot twinkle because they are too grown up for magic. I endeavor to twinkle, although I cannot always. I tend to allow others to douse my spark and it is this tendency that should become my resolution to abolish each and every new year.
Some people lose their twinkle because of life experiences. They daily see vile things and soon grow to expect vile things everywhere and in the hearts of all others. They cannot live freely and always attempt to warn others away from living freely. Here are a couple of clues. Not everyone is out to rip you off. MOST people are honest. If you do not feel this way, then this is a dark spot on your own soul that is begging to be healed and needs your attention so that you can twinkle once again. Unless such people heal their souls, they grow more and more untrusting and more and more miserable. Unable to contain all that fear, sadness and paranoia, they want to spread it around and have everyone looking over their shoulder or looking suspiciously at their neighbors.
There are some people who cannot twinkle because they assume that their favorite deity will twinkle through them without assistance. They confuse what amounts to wearing a bright ball cap with a giant logo of the words Christian Kindness with a true twinkle. As long as everyone knows they believe in this logo they're good to go and just fine and dandy individuals. Magic? HAH Phooey. No time for that silliness! Just do the Christian Kindness thing and we can be to dinner in an hour. Our deity will take care of the sparkle in our souls so we don't have to! Wrong.
Becoming too grown up is easy, that's why so many people are. If retaining the twinkle of childhood magic were as easy as becoming too grown up, I'd be better at it and more people would attempt it. Being grown up or mature are what we've always been told we're supposed to strive for. We are not often told to strive for wisdom, which is a helluva lot more important than just being mature and only on the rarest of instances are we told to retain magic. Being mature is "In". Retaining a child-like nature is silly.
What is truly sad, however, is when non-twinklers work to ruin the enchanted moments that twinklers work very hard to gift to others. They feel like they'll just burst open if they don't run around waving that ball cap with the giant logo around showing how wonderful we all have been. "TADA! There was no magic, it was us, in all our Christian Kindness glory because you were so hard up and we were so fabulous and care so very deeply that you're in deep doo doo!! Aren't we just the greatest! Here, give us a hug because we care so much! Okay gotta jet, we're running late". Or they rain on the magic parade by instilling the fear that something will go horribly wrong and all will be lost because evil beings lurk in every shadow ready to pounce.
Non-twinklers can really pee on my spark, because deep down everyone needs magic. Even as our brains hand us a list of probabilities and facts surrounding an unexpected boon, a healthy heart will flutter with the excitement of magical possibilities. Why? BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT MAGIC IS! It's not evil, it's not vile, it's not from satan, nor is it foolish. Magic is from the heart. It is an invisible gift to share with others. If you are too mature, too saintly, too busy or too careful to nurture and share this magic then you and the world around you grow colder.
Magic and Those Who Just Don't Get It
or
The Ball Cap of Christian Kindness
Call me childish and I'll thank you because youth is what my heart strives for. Children believe in magic. In spite of the disappointments of their unanswered wishes they do not fail in this belief unless some fool of an adult preaches it out of them. Someone too "grown up" inside to bother with such things and thus decides that others shouldn't bother either.
There are people who twinkle. The twinkle comes from the magic of the heart and shines in the eyes. There are people who cannot twinkle because they are too grown up for magic. I endeavor to twinkle, although I cannot always. I tend to allow others to douse my spark and it is this tendency that should become my resolution to abolish each and every new year.
Some people lose their twinkle because of life experiences. They daily see vile things and soon grow to expect vile things everywhere and in the hearts of all others. They cannot live freely and always attempt to warn others away from living freely. Here are a couple of clues. Not everyone is out to rip you off. MOST people are honest. If you do not feel this way, then this is a dark spot on your own soul that is begging to be healed and needs your attention so that you can twinkle once again. Unless such people heal their souls, they grow more and more untrusting and more and more miserable. Unable to contain all that fear, sadness and paranoia, they want to spread it around and have everyone looking over their shoulder or looking suspiciously at their neighbors.
There are some people who cannot twinkle because they assume that their favorite deity will twinkle through them without assistance. They confuse what amounts to wearing a bright ball cap with a giant logo of the words Christian Kindness with a true twinkle. As long as everyone knows they believe in this logo they're good to go and just fine and dandy individuals. Magic? HAH Phooey. No time for that silliness! Just do the Christian Kindness thing and we can be to dinner in an hour. Our deity will take care of the sparkle in our souls so we don't have to! Wrong.
Becoming too grown up is easy, that's why so many people are. If retaining the twinkle of childhood magic were as easy as becoming too grown up, I'd be better at it and more people would attempt it. Being grown up or mature are what we've always been told we're supposed to strive for. We are not often told to strive for wisdom, which is a helluva lot more important than just being mature and only on the rarest of instances are we told to retain magic. Being mature is "In". Retaining a child-like nature is silly.
What is truly sad, however, is when non-twinklers work to ruin the enchanted moments that twinklers work very hard to gift to others. They feel like they'll just burst open if they don't run around waving that ball cap with the giant logo around showing how wonderful we all have been. "TADA! There was no magic, it was us, in all our Christian Kindness glory because you were so hard up and we were so fabulous and care so very deeply that you're in deep doo doo!! Aren't we just the greatest! Here, give us a hug because we care so much! Okay gotta jet, we're running late". Or they rain on the magic parade by instilling the fear that something will go horribly wrong and all will be lost because evil beings lurk in every shadow ready to pounce.
Non-twinklers can really pee on my spark, because deep down everyone needs magic. Even as our brains hand us a list of probabilities and facts surrounding an unexpected boon, a healthy heart will flutter with the excitement of magical possibilities. Why? BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT MAGIC IS! It's not evil, it's not vile, it's not from satan, nor is it foolish. Magic is from the heart. It is an invisible gift to share with others. If you are too mature, too saintly, too busy or too careful to nurture and share this magic then you and the world around you grow colder.
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