thanks, popular kids

Seems my whining about being all alone and dweeked out on the Facebook Interwebs worked, and I'd like to thank those who came to my rescue by either accepting my friend requests or friending me of their own volition. Bear with me in this digression, but it reminds me of the boost of confidence I was supposed to get when I was thirteen, and a kindly neighbor lady stopped by to chat with my mother. I was wearing braces to fix the diastema (which I hear is all the rage among the supermodel set nowadays) and coke bottle glasses to correct the myopia.

After chatting with me for a while, the neighbor lady said something along the lines of, "You know, you're going to be a pretty girl...Some day, I mean. When you get rid of the glasses and braces."

I assume my response looked something like this:

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overheard at the school bus carpool drop-off

A 6th grade boy (mine) and a 4th grade boy (not mine) were vehemently agreeing on the general principle of teachers seeming to go easier on girls when it comes to warnings, discipline "and stuff."

The conversation was peppered with exclamations like, "I know!" and "Dude, it's so unfair!"

Until finally, the whole thing was summed up by an observation delivered by the fourth grader in the most authoritative tone imaginable:

"That just proves my theory that girls get more publicity and stuff than boys."

Touché.

Wait...what?Follow @nicole_mcinnes

the lone FB-er

After a long hiatus, I've decided to return to Facebook. I know, I know: It's breaking news capable of stopping the Earth's very rotation. It's a bit of a sad state of affairs, though, since I apparently deleted my profile with such vehemence that I managed to wipe all traces of myself from the FB system (some may question whether this is even possible: I say, yes it is).

So, I'm starting from scratch, with NO FRIENDS! It's like a bad junior high nightmare where you walk into the cafeteria holding your lunch tray, your headgear strapped firmly into place, and look around, hoping that someone - anyone - will summon you to their table.

Oh, and you're in your underwear, too.

Can you feel my pain? Can you??

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"note to self:

must use the words midget, Saluki and galoshes in next novel (man, I love NaNoWriMo)."

Thus begins the first 2,000-word installment of my 2010 NaNoWriMo journey. My mom's getting in on the action this year, too, which is awesome. She's long been a prolific journaler, but her big quandary for this undertaking is deciding whether to write in English or Spanish. My advice? Do both! It's NaNo, fer cryin' out loud!

What are YOUR NaNoWriMo plans?

What?

Don't have any?

Well, shoot - come on! Jump on the bandwagon! It's a literary (I use the term loosely) free-for-all, and it's going to be fun!

Go ahead and sign up at the official NaNoWriMo site.Follow @nicole_mcinnes

crunched

October, as promised, has been...how shall I put this?....

COMPLETELY INSANE!!!!

There have been tornadoes, birthday parties galore, the loss of a beloved canine friend who was like my first baby, special events at kids' school, work, work, work and more work....

Deep, cleansing breaths are in order.

November promises to be fairly jam-packed, too, but hopefully in a slightly less frenetic way. The final (hopefully) edit of the new YA novel will be (fingers crossed) zipping across the Interwebs to my agent tomorrow, at which point I'll have approximately 2 days to catch my breath before the onset of NaNoWriMo on November 1. Of course, I must help prepare Princess Tiger and Pancho Villa for the Halloween festivities first.

Phew! Yoga, anyone?Follow @nicole_mcinnes

was seriously blessed

to spend this past weekend in some of the prettiest parts of SoCal, like Pasadena and Malibu, where I attended an amazing wedding. Good people, good food and good ceremony (not to mention dancing like a crazed 16-year-old to Cyndi Lauper, Journey, and Hava Nagila) were just what the doctor ordered. It's good to be reminded these days - when so much of the news we all hear is bleak and dour - that simple things, like a young couple, aloft in chairs on their wedding night, starting a new life together under the watchful and tearfully joyful eyes of the families that nurtured them, are what matter most. (Was that a run-on sentence, or am I just up typing too late?) Actually, the older I get, the more I think that those are the kinds of things that matter at all, really.

It's always good to be home, though, even if it means I'll be knee-deep in last-minute novel editing until the end of the month and teaching until the Christmas season offers a break.

It's okay, though. It's all good.

I am exhausted by work and kids, and love and responsibility. But mostly, like I said, I am blessed.Follow @nicole_mcinnes

and speaking of education

A book-banning hornets nest has been stirred up yet again, this time around books such as Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak.

The man with the whisk seems to be this guy - and, hey, I guess it takes all kinds to make the world go around. But, seriously? Having just finished - and loved - The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, I find some of the bashers' comments about that book hilarious as well. OMG - a high school boy talking about (gasp!) sex!

This blogger and this one have some interesting thoughts on the matter, as do many others out there.

What do you think, boys and girls?Follow @nicole_mcinnes

Tune in now!

NBC News is presenting a pretty neat show called Education Nation. It's hosted by Brian Williams, and I'm happy to be a part of the Teacher Town Hall going on live online right now! Check it out - it's an important conversation about where we are and where we're going as a nation where education is concerned.Follow @nicole_mcinnes

to all my non-helmet wearing, horseback-riding friends out there...

...(and, confoundingly, that list includes most of the equestrians I know in Arizona):

Please read this touching, funny (especially the "testicles of steel" part) article by Jody Jaffe in The Chronicle of the Horse.

I was uber-impressed this past weekend when a new student came out for a trial dressage lesson and told me that not only does she have a normal riding helmet, but she also has a western style helmet. It's a bit of an odd look - a "cowboy hat" with a huge noggin' bucket, but the last time I checked, it was possible to fall off a horse while riding western as well.

>:-)Follow @nicole_mcinnes

was gonna sell it

Found it this past spring at Goodwill, tossed into a bin with the random castoffs of various lives.

Figure it's from the 40's or 50's - even got the card of a quilt appraiser so I could get an idea of what it might fetch on eBay.

I'm gonna keep it, though.

Clearly, it has important work to do here.

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this post brought to you by the letters k, v, e, s and h

One of the first things I did when I bought this place was head out with a tape measure to the half-acre that was going to be my arena. I wanted to make sure that the fence lines already in place were going to work for at least a standard-sized dressage arena. They were, and I was a happy camper. Still, a big part of one of the long sides was missing, which was just one more thing to add to the infinite to-do list that perhaps inevitably comes with a fixer-upper. Fortunately, whoever built the original fence did it right, with anchored and cross-braced railroad ties for all the corners, so it’s not like the entire arena had to be built from scratch. Still, running fence is a lot of work, and it’s a hard thing to put at the top of said to-do list with fall fast approaching and other, more practical, issues at hand (firewood stockpiling, front gate replacement so the seasonal cattle don’t invade the property like they did last year when I left one of the gates open, etc.).

Enter The Man, who decided to just show up with the necessary corner posts to finish the job and run that last bit of fence line for me. We’re still waiting for one more fence delivery to make it really really complete, but for all intents and purposes I’m once again blessed with a fully-enclosed arena. I’ll probably wait until spring to hang my dressage letters (the side just completed almost spells out "kvetch," which seems somehow appropriate), since they’ll just spend all winter buried in snow if I do it now, but in the meantime I can feel more secure when my kids and beginning riders are working in there. Also, it’s a nifty turnout for the boys, who have spent the past few days weeding the arena for me.

Oh, did I say boys? Plural? I haven’t mentioned the Project Pony yet? Ah well, there’s a topic for another post.Follow @nicole_mcinnes

grandpa crush

I’ll admit to never having heard of Get Low until this morning when I partook of this TNB Review along with my morning coffee (French press, thank you – I’ve been inducted into the tribe and don’t think I’ll ever go back to drip. Oh, maybe in a pinch, but there’s no comparison between the two…anyway, I digress). So, Cynthia Hawkins absolutely nails what I’ve been feeling about Robert Duvall ever since I first saw Lonesome Dove. Case in point: Last week I Netflixed Crazy Heart, and when RD appeared on the screen, I literally gasped and went, “Oooooh!” One of the commenters on the Hawkins article then used the term “grandpa crush” which is just so…perfect somehow. Because that’s what I often tell people when trying to describe my thing about Duvall: “He reminds me of my grandpa.”

Source: AskMen.com

Speaking of May and December, I recently re-watched Harold and Maude after something like a two-decade hiatus. I remember loving this movie as a kid, but it’s actually gotten better with time. Favorite lines include, “Harold! That was your last date!” among others.

Blogging about movie watching…gah, how trite. But if you knew how summer’s been (mostly crammed full of work and schedules and to do lists – not like a summer at all, really) then you’d be rejoicing with me at these simple pleasures. And, oh! I actually read! A book! So, things are looking up, and I have pictures and stories to share. Like it or not.

>;-)Follow @nicole_mcinnes

bulls & blood, dust & mud

Spent Sunday at the Arizona Cowpuncher's Reunion. Monsoons have been intense for the past few weeks, so the muck and the mud were, too. I took too many pics to post them all, so here are a few I picked and chose. Yeehaw!

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oh hai (been almost a month...oops!)

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mayday 2010 - sycamore rim trail

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So, the last day of the ski season was tons of fun. Snowbowl ended up extending the closing for another weekend because of the great snow base still in place. It was a little hairy at first, because they only had one chairlift turning - and it was the one that went all the way to the top of the mountain. Sure, you can get off at Midway, but on the last day? Who wants to do that? So, our first run of the day, sans warm-up on the more bunny slope-like Hart Prairie, was straight down from the top. We made it just fine, though, and throughout the rest of the day we got to see all the beautiful sights, like Sumo wrestlers, cross dressers and chickens.

...er...huh?

Fortunately, for the guys, there were plenty of cute ski bunnies dressed as fairies, butterflies, etc. at this end-of-the-season tradition as well. (And, yes, that is a bottle of ketchup standing to the left of the chicken. I didn't get his friend Mustard in the picture, but she was there...as was their mutual friend, Hot Dog. I wish I'd gotten a pic of the three of them loading the triple chair.)

So, that was big fun. But then things got a bit rough last week. We were walloped by another out-of-the-blue snowstorm, for one - and Snowbowl was already closed by that point, so it's not like we got to really enjoy it. And I guess it wasn't totally out-of-the-blue. The weather folks saw it coming, and I think it was somehow tied into the rain system that's been walloping California as well. At any rate, my body went back into Permafrost/hibernation mode, and back out came the boots for keeping our tootsies warm and the snowscraper for clearing the windshield every morning before driving the kids to the bus stop. Have I mentioned that I am SO OVER winter?

Then, my daughter's very best friend in the entire universe (VBFEU) moved to another state. The girls were born on the same day in the same hospital, though her mom and I didn't meet each other until they were in preschool. They've been pretty much joined at the hip ever since, and my heart hurts not only for my sad girl, but because I'm going to miss that cute little mug myself. I got to give VBFEU a ride on Zzari before she left (she's completely horse crazy, much like I was at that age), and I made her promise that she'd come back for more rides someday.

But then things got a little better. Friday night was cooking group night, hosted at the lovely home of one of the ladies in the group. She made these outrageous seafood enchiladas with cilantro cream sauce. The rest of us brought things like seasoned rice, a shrimp dip, an avocado salad and flan (that last one was my contribution. It's a tempermental thing, flan: Turn your back on that carmelizing sugar for just one second too long and you'll have charred goo on your hands. The caramel sauce turned out great the second time I tried it, though).

Then, yesterday, the snow and rain finally cleared off, leaving me with the perfect opportunity to dive into my outside chores. First, I planted the live Christmas tree I bought back in December. Then, I finished clearing the dead foliage from around the red hot pokers on the side of the house. I'll know how to handle those better this fall (clipping the greenery back after the blooms are done), so I don't end up with quite as much ugly dead stuff next spring. While I was doing this, one of my neighbors whistled to me from across the fence. He had told me about the divinity that is pickled eggplant (I'd taken his word for it, but I'd had my doubts), and now he had brought over a sample. Okay, have you ever eaten pickled eggplant? It really is divine. This version was from an old "secret" (not anymore) family recipe from southern Italy, and it involved cider vinegar, garlic and crushed red pepper. I can't wait to make it myself.

This morning, I got some work done and then said to heck with it and saddled up Zzari for a long ride out in the National Forest. The trail was slippery in places from the recent moisture, and there were still some patches of snow in the shady spots. But it was good for both of us to head out and stretch our legs and our brains. It was good to remember that life has a way of providing opportunities for re-balancing when things seem to tilt toward the not-much-fun side.Follow @nicole_mcinnes

both hands

For some reason, it seems like everyone I know is tired lately. What's up with that? Is it the change of seasons? The pollen in the air? All I know is we're all acting like we're about ninety years old - everyone from my kids to their teachers to our neighbors... Maybe it's not necessarily a bad thing, though. Maybe we're gathering our energy and strength for the months to come - months that are shaping up for my family to be full of baseball games and barbecues, horseback rides and hikes, visits with family and friends scattered far and wide...and let's not forget home improvement projects (which promise to be ongoing, possibly for years). But it's okay. There's not much I'd trade for our little house on our little acre, especially now that the spring bulbs are sprouting up along with the red hot pokers and new buffalo grass.

I was blessed with an awesome hike with some cool chicks down in Sedona last weekend. We did the Brin's Mesa trail, which involved a drive in to the trailhead that was shockingly reminiscent of the Indiana Jones thrill ride at Disneyland. I didn't feel like schlepping my camera along this time (which I, of course, regretted as soon as we set foot on the lovely trail and were immersed in all that wildness). The halfway point is an outcropping that affords a 360 degree view of Sedona's famed Red Rocks. Vortices and rock cairns abound, as do cacti and some surprisingly lush greenery - even a creek or two to cross. We ate lunch, sunned like lizards on the mesa for a while, and then headed back toward home, stopping at a Sedona watering hole on the way. Oh, we got some yard sales in as well. All in all, a lovely day spent with the girls.

What else? Oh, yeah. Wanna laugh and cry? See Young at Heart. I added it to my NetFlix queue on a whim, and I was so glad I did. Never seen anything else quite like it. Reminds me a bit of what Eddie V. has to say in one of my favorite Pearl Jam songs.

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Happy Easter!

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a place in the clouds, a foundation of stone

A dear friend and I hiked The Bell Trail last Friday. While downtown Sedona and the Village of Oak Creek may be chock full of fruits, nuts and flakes (just like a good gorp), the outlying areas around the various plateaus and otherwordly rock formations are nothing short of sensational. Okay, yes, you can still probably get mother nature to cleanse your chakras and/or fluff your aura by visiting one of the many vortices in the area, but if you're just looking for a good, basic day hike (as we were), then the azure Arizona sky is the limit. Here is what you see at the start of the first climb, heading toward the rock:

We found that March is a great time to make this hike, which is largely in full sun. Get too far beyond April and it's no doubt a scorcher.

Here are some lovely, hearty, trailside agave (I think). Any botanists out there who know better, feel free to correct me. 

And here's the rock as you pass right by and look up:

Our halfway point was a rushing creek fed by the intense run-off from all the melting snow up here in the high country. Not a bad place to have lunch, as we discovered:

Of course, now we're hooked and ready to do more. And I can't think of a more fitting way to celebrate the beautiful, sunny months to come here in our state of wide open spaces.

:-)

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the gnar

I am such a huge fan of spring, especially this year, when we're coming out of a record-breaking/really tough winter. But even I have to admit that there are some things I'm going to miss until that first snow falls again somewhere around the holidays later this year. I'm going to miss these views, for instance, and I feel lucky to have been able to enjoy them several times this season:

I have to say, I felt like an especially brave cookie this week when I was convinced (railroaded? Nah, I was definitely ready) to go all the way to the top of the mountain and ski down:

Up, up you go, and when you finally reach the summit of Agassiz (pronounced "Ag'-u-see" for you non-Northern Arizonans), you're at 11,500 feet. The first thing you see getting off the chair is the Ski Patrol building with all the emergency rescue equipment ready to go:

But what instills even more confidence are the signs at the entrance to the Backcountry (which is where most of the headline-making accidents and avalanches take place):

I especially love the skulls and crossbones. Who says the US Forest Service doesn't have a morbid sense of humor?

Then you turn around to look back at the lift, and you realize what you've gotten yourself into (Black Diamond, be-atches):

What, me worry? (Okay, yes, I am aware that I look like The Great Gazoo from the Flintstones, but as a horse girl, I'm a big believer in brain buckets):

Plus, how worried can a person really be when you look out across the horizon and see this? My house is somewhere over there in the distance:

So, I had a blast making it down to the lodge. The snow was a perfect combination of crunchy and soft - sort of like skiing on a mostly-frozen Slurpee. I've discovered that I don't like icy conditions and that even super deep powder can be a bit heavy for my taste. Before heading home to see the kids off the school bus, I got in one more run. This time, we decided to hit the Terrain Park, which is where the snowboarders like to play:

Not everyone was having a great day. This guy was later heard saying he thought he broke his collarbone:

But when it worked, it was beautiful:

We'll all have to say goodbye to the local ski season on April 11, which is when Snowbowl closes. But I like to think I have some improved skills under my belt for later this year.

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gettin' my bingo on

So, I turn 40 in a matter of days.

FORTY, People.

I don't know who was more in shock last week when my sister-in-law unveiled a co-pre-birthday cake for me and my big brother (whose odometer turns over this week) - we or our parents.

"I can't beLIEVE I'm going to be 40," I whined to my mom.

"I can't believe I'm going to be the mother of a 40-year-old," she replied.

Touché.

So, I wonder what the Song of my 40th year will be? It was Linkin Park's emo-hit What I've Done (a song I still love dearly) for my 39th.

Maybe I'll go with something a little more upbeat this year, something more along the lines of my general feelings on the whole turning-40-thing. I think this might do nicely:

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