Goodbye Gary...Finally.

I haven't written anything in a week or two.  I have to be inspired.  I need something important to share.  On that note, have you been watching Celebrity Apprentice? 

I am a loyal Apprentice fan.  Well usually.  Except for the last one.  The one that casted all unemployed candidates.  I'm telling you, there is a reason they were unemployed.  What a bunch of whiners.  I made it two weeks before calling it quits on that season.  I quit, I was not fired.

Anyway, I have always thought that I would have a good time on the show and could actually be an asset to the team.  I'm sure everyone thinks that though.  I also have thought, since the first Celebrity Apprentice aired, that John Rich should be on the show.  First, because he's my boyfriend (I'll tell him later, and yes, JD already knows), but also because he's a pretty smart business man with a great work ethic.  I told "The Donald" my idea.  He listened.  We're tight like that.

Back to the topic of my boyfriend.  Its funny really.  Probably not a surprise why I picked him.

The boyfriend

The husband

See any similarities?  John Rich is a little more daring in the style department than JD but I'm sure that's just because its hard to weld in rhinestones...or so I imagine.  They are both pretty good singers, sport mustaches, and look best in a black cowboy hat.

Nice pants!

I'm recently back on speaking terms with John after our short breakup after he wrote the sellout song, Shutting Detroit Down.  Come on now, I could have written that. I'm currently working on my next hit, Dear Japan, Thinking of You.

So this week on Celebrity Apprentice...they fired Gary Busey...finally!  I almost quit watching after Mr. Trump failed to fire him last week.  I was really mad and had decided to boycott the Trump Towers on my next visit to New York.  But I couldn't abandon John Rich in his time of need...of my support...it was the right thing to do...to keep watching.  So with Crazy Gary out of the way, and the ladies on a path of certain destruction with Star Jones leading the march, my John is sure to go all the way.

Crazy Gary

"Gary Busey is like a one-legged cat trying to bury a turd on a frozen pond.  Just spinning." 

 John Rich

Oh, and JD has a girlfriend on the show and no, not the playboy model and no, she doesn't look anything like me.  Hmmm....

Will Work for Cookies

A month or so ago, we went down to Lloyd Cox's (a cutting horse trainer) place in Colorado to pick up a horse we were buying.  What a beautiful place!  It had a huge barn and a very nice indoor arena.  Mr. Cox has a small crew who works for him to clean stalls, feed, saddle and exercise the horses that he has in training.

Upon returning home...I was thinking...I need a crew.  Well maybe not need but definitely want.  But...since my win record isn't quite that of Lloyd's...I had to sacrifice some...on the size of my crew...well height anyway.

I hired this guy.  He works for cookies.

Not sure what he's doing here, maybe teaching Bo to dance.

He's nice to the animals.

He brushes.

He saddles...well sorta...need a taller bucket.

Ok, got the taller bucket, now its backwards.

There, got it!

Cooling off my super-duper, high octane show horse, Lou.

Good boy Lou.

I'm going to talk with him about his attitude.  Good help is hard to come by around here!

Thanks for the ride Lou.

Sesame Street Cowboy

 

 

 

Don (on cremello), Ryan (on buckskin) and JD on the ground

When I saw the pictures from this day, all I could think about was that Sesame Street song, One of These Kids is Doing His Own Thing. It also makes me think of Conway Twitty's song, Don't Call Him A Cowboy (until you've seen him ride).  Watch the link to this song, Don't Call Him A Cowboy,  no cowboy would be caught dead in that outfit and what is he standing on?  A trampoline?

Two cowboys and a..."wowboy".  That's a welder/cowboy.  The wind was howling that evening, thus the backwards hat.  I don't know how those other boys kept their hats on!

You never know what you'll see our family wearing while out riding.  I wear a stocking cap about six months out of the year and have also been known to wear my Carhartt bibs.  If its under 25 degrees, I pull out the bibs.  Most of our horses are pretty broke and I figure if I hit the ground, at least I'll be padded.

I have a friend who trains reined cowhorses for a living.  He is 19 and drives a lowrider.  After posting some of his show pictures on his Facebook page, one of his friends made a comment, "Dude, I didn't know you were a cowboy!".  Hilarious!  Apparently he lives the double life of a ganster/cowboy.

So...I guess the old Sesame Street lesson still applies...you can't judge a book by its cover...or can't judge a cowboy by their cover/hat/lid (as JD calls it).  But in my opinion, you can almost always judge them by their boots!

Black Heels to Tractor Wheels

It is well known in our family that I am not an avid reader...of books anyway.  I enjoy magazines...reading to the kids...online information...anything with pictures basically.  Just about anytime I sit down with a book, my mind wanders to the list of tasks that I should be doing instead of sitting and reading.  If I lye in bed and read, I'm out in no time flat.  It takes me about three months to read a book in bed.  or six months...

My mom sent me Black Heels to Tractor Wheels for my birthday.  I read it in about three days.  I loved it, couldn't put it down.  The only other book I can remember having this kind of hold on me was Helter Skelter, a book about serial killer Charles Manson.  Weird, I know, but I love serial killer stories for some reason and I had to finish the book to know that he was behind bars.  That story haunted me for years.  Before pulling off the murders they were famous for, members of the Manson family would practice breaking into homes and just sneaking around while the families slept, and then they would leave.  Can you imagine!  Creepy! 

Anyway, now that I've freaked you out with Charles Manson stories, back to Black Heels...it was a really funny, uplifting, funny, romantic, funny, funny, did I say funny? story.   That Pioneer Woman has my kind of humor.  She embraces her dorkiness.

The book is about how Ree, The Pioneer Woman, meets, falls in love and marries her husband, Marlboro Man.  Ree grew up living the country club lifestyle and after high school moved to LA to attend college.  She loves every bit of her big city  lifestyle including being a vegetarian.  When a relationship with a boyfriend is headed for the end, she decides to make a move to Chicago.  She makes a quick pit stop over the holidays in her Oklahoma home town and meets the Marlboro Man in a bar while out with friends.  She is quickly swept off her black heeled feet...

Black Heels to Tractor Wheels is filled with hilarious situations, as you can imagine, of city girl comes to the country.  It will definitely make you want a Marlboro Man of your own!  And thankfully I do.