Slacker!

Okay, so I think by this point everyone realizes that my procrastination is a serious problem? I've not posted in weeks! Luckily, not much has been going on so there aren't many updates to do. Mostly I just have to say what I didn't do. That's not so good. I haven't ridden in over two weeks by now and it's really bothering me. I want to go see my horse but every time it's been even slightly possible something's always come up, like my sister's musical or just having a crapload of stuff to do. Yes, a crapload. But honestly, I'd rather have been mucking a stall than mucking through homework.

The one really productive thing I have done lately is to update my deviantART accounts and make a cover for my school's literary magazine in conjunction with Sara (the talented hand model). 

My two dA accounts have very different purposes. The older one, Snickersluv, was created in 5th or 6th grade, when I was riding Snickers, taking bad photos with a terrible camera, and making bad photomanipulations. Most of the stuff on it is junk. However, I did add a few photos that raised the bar of expectations for it. 

The crown jewel is a series of "bokeh" photos that I took at Christmas this year. 

One example from the 5 part series

They're not very good but it was fun to experiment.

The other account, Ophelia-Stock, is full of stock photos. Before about two weeks ago there wasn't much of note in it, but I have uploaded quite a few photos since then and got a pretty decent popular response to most of it. I guess people like my stock photos... but then again being sort-of a manipulator I know what could look good, so I can get those shots. Already a few people have manipulated some of the photos and the results look pretty impressive! Some people are extremely creative and it really shows.
This is one of the photos I have up...

Might as well share a stock photo, too

To see what was made with this background, click here.

It's one of my favorites because it's Eowyn from LOTR, and she's from Rohan--AKA the definitive horse country.

And what about the cover, you ask? Sara and I were asked to design a cover for our school's literary magazine, Papercuts. The seventh-graders voted on the name and, as Sara said, what we came up with is probably not what they envisioned. 

Anyway, Sara came home with me on Thursday and we set up the photo with scraps of paper and ketchup for blood. The ketchup wasn't really convincing so we had to add it in later, and I think we pretty much succeeded in making a good droplet of blood... it is a bit large but that's neither here nor there.

Sara was the hand model and I took the photo.

I'm very proud of it and I show it off every chance I get (Sara will attest to this fact). Oh well, I think it's cool.

If all this seems productive to you, remember that this happened over the course of a couple weeks so I'm actually a total slacker.

I have to study for finals so I don't know when my next post will be. Here's hoping it's soon!

LOST... and other stuff

I just got the first three seasons of LOST on DVD. Yay! Not having the other three doesn't bother me all that much, because Season Three is undoubtedly my favorite and I also like the first two where all the people on the Island are totally clueless/becoming a little less clueless. The fifth is my least favorite (just like with Harry Potter, how funny!) so no worries there... though I would rather like to have The End at my fingertips. But now I get to watch the end of Season Three and start bawling at Charlie's death! What fun! (Actually, I might have teared up last time I watched it because of sleep deprivation. I'm not sure. If I watched it again now I know it would have been because of sleep deprivation.)

Now for the other stuff. I haven't been posting as much lately because I feel bad about not posting any pictures from the show and such. But I have to get down to it, because if I post a show report any later than tomorrow afternoon there won't be much of a point, will there? That will get finished up today or tomorrow.

Later this evening I'll hopefully also have pictures from riding tonight. We didn't go to the barn last week because almost everyone was at an A show for the whole week, but we could have gone on Saturday and I feel awful that I didn't. Still, I did get homework done... that doesn't make up for it, does it? No, it does not. We are riding tonight though. Wonder how Jones and I will do after a week off?

The last thing is that I am trying to convince my mom to adopt just one more cat. I'm not getting very far, so I  might have to just settle for volunteering at the shelter this summer. Hopefully my mom will be relieved enough that I'm laying off getting another cat that she'll let me volunteer.

Show report and a new addition

The most recent addition to my herd is Maynard's Miss Sheba.

I apologize for the bad photo. She has no name from me yet, but she's already a favorite.

This weekend was the second show of the year. It was a two-day show held at the local Expo center (which, by the way, is a total mess). I was there three days, because Friday was a day off from school and I wanted to help set up and do show prep. There were a lot of people there and I got plenty of good photos.

OK, so there aren't that many good ones from Friday. At least I got some with all the setting up I was doing! 

Of course we also had to practice in the ring on Friday. When I first started trotting Jones around he was definitely off and felt very lame. Thankfully, after warming him up and working the stiffness out he was fine. As it turns out he had been messing around in the pasture the night before and got a bunch of bruises/shallow cuts on his hind leg.  They were already scabbed so all we could do was warm him up really well. 

That's all for Friday... there's more talk coming later but I needed to get this post up!