August Already?

Where did the summer go? Where did the year go?? I can't believe that I have only blogged one time this month. I can't believe that it is already the 14th of August. Christmas is just around the corner. I am trying not to panic...

If you are young, enjoy your youth while you still have time because as you get older the faster time goes by. I was young once and it wasn't that long ago. Days used to have so much time in them. Weeks took forever to go by. A month was nearly an eternity. Not anymore, years are more like weeks used to be.

This summer has just flown by. School has already started or is getting ready to start. I have been spending some quality time with the Grandchildren and they are about to kill me. Seriously, swimming with Grandkids can be hazardous to your health when you are an old Granny. I am so sore tonight as I type this that I can barely move my head and the calf of my left leg is swollen and tender from horrible leg cramps.

The problem is when your oldest Grandson says that you can't dunk him, well, then you just have to prove to him that you are still in control and he isn't as big and tough as he thinks he is at 10 years old. He is big enough and tough enough for me to lean on while trying to walk to the house after I had dunked him several times and my leg cramped up when I tried to go up the ladder to get out of the pool.

I got the pool because I wanted my Grandkids to learn to swim, which is something that I never got to do when I was a kid. They are all doing pretty well, the oldest can swim like a fish and the next to the oldest is diving and swimming with her face under the water with water wings on.

The others still have a ways to go but the trick is to keep them in the water as much as possible. Our two year old Granddaughter is just sure that she can swim. She has no fear and tries to break free of your grasp. Her Mother, Papaw and I just do not have the courage to let her try it.

Faith Restored

Shopping online was made just for me. I hate to shop and even shopping online is not my favorite pastime. I would much rather read a good book. But online shopping has definitely made my life easier. Sometimes I try to imagine what life must have been like before the internet, it must have been a dark and difficult time.

Consider this, I am 50 years old and am only half kidding. I really do have a hard time remembering what it was like. Think about the kids of today who have a hard time understanding that our generation was actually able to live without cell phones.

I didn't mean to get side tracked with this train of thought. I was really going to blog about having my faith restored in an eBayer.

I purchased a Christmas present on eBay and when it arrived it was not even close to the way it was described. It was suppose to be NWT (new with tags) and not only did it not have tags but it was dirty, scratched and definitely used, parts of it were even missing.

I shot off a message to the seller about my disappointment and started proceedings against the seller through Paypal. I didn't hear anything back for a couple of days and then got a reply that said that they had sold the item for a friend and would refund my money if I would return the item.

I didn't want to get caught paying for return postage, lose my money plus the item, so I sent another message that I wanted the return postage paid before I returned the item. Not only did they send the return postage but they also refunded all of my money. I will return the item tomorrow.

I have had some bad dealings through eBay a couple of times both as a Seller and a Buyer and there are times that you begin to think that everyone out there is a swindler.

I bought some Avon on eBay once and I have to say this made me madder than buying something then never receiving it. The Avon came and it was the wrong item, I sent a message to the Seller in New Orleans that they had sent the wrong item. They said to return it and they would send what I had actually bought. The right stuff finally showed up but they did not refund my return shipping. When I ask about it, they sent me a message that said that the tubes that I had returned were half empty and that they would not reimburse me. I wonder if they survived Katrina.

Perfect Horses

We currently have a large herd of horses, and have had many horses pass through our gates in the last several years. We have not had very many perfect horses, some have gotten close but just didn't reach the level of what I would consider a perfect horse.

Several years ago we purchased an appaloosa mare and an ugly sorrel gelding along with everything that went with them, even the trailer. The family just didn't have time to mess with them anymore and had lost interest. They did a lot of trail riding and camping with friends but they weren't really horse people.

They told us that the mare was wonderful and that the gelding was good too as long as you didn't separate him from the mare. He would follow her on the trail but that was about all he was capable of. Well, the gelding was just impossible and we were lucky to find him a home but the mare was nice, she just didn't seem to have any flaws. We advertised her as a great trail horse because that is all that these people did with her.

We only had her for about one month. A lady contacted us from a therapy riding facility and we talked about her a few times by phone but she was being careful and we ended up selling her to a young local girl to show in 4-H, just in time for the season to begin. Her 4-H leader was just overwhelmed by this mare and called to tell us so.

The lady from the therapy place called me back when she seen that the mare had been sold to ask me is she was as good as we had said that she was. I told her, "No, she is much better than we thought she was." She asked me how much we sold her for and I told her $1200, which was fairly good at the time for an unregistered horse. She wanted us to call the girl who had purchased her and offer her $2400 for her. We did and she refused.

This girl went on to win every class that the mare was entered in that year and every year after. She was passed down to other girls after her owner was too old for 4-H and got interested in cars and boys. She is an old mare now and is owned by the 4-H leader's timid daughter.

I am going to talk some more about perfect horses that have passed through my life in coming blogs, so stay tuned...