2019 will go down in my memory as a mix of ups and downs. Sadly, it ended on a very sad note for me as my very dearest friend lost her battle with cancer and died the day after Christmas. But there were good times, too, with visits to all six of our kids, a new dog, and lots of fun hobby events including a trip to BreyerFest. Here's a look back at the first six months of the year.
January, 2019
How thrilled I was to discover that the family of Sam Savitt, the illustrator of so many of the horse books I'd read as a child, was selling his original artwork and that I could actually afford to buy a piece.
Sam Savitt was (and is) my favorite illustrator. To have a signed original was huge for me.
In other news, on January 16 I began a new weight loss journey.
Tired of being heavy and in pain much of the time, I decided that I had to do something now as I did not have the quality of life that I wanted.
February, 2019
Much of this month was spent writing. I wrote the elementary curriculum for Purdue University's Pollinator Protection Project.
Me with a draft of the curriculum at at the annual convention of HASTI (the Hoosier Association of Science Teachers, Inc.) in Indianapolis.
Barn owner, Tim, is an entomology professor at Purdue and got a large grant from The National Science Foundation for the project. The high school curriculum is done and was released to Indiana teachers in June. The elementary curriculum that I wrote is now in review and will hopefully be released this coming summer.
I also worked on writing the thirty-five year history of Great Lakes Congress during February and got some preliminary work done on a book I am writing about the history of those who helped the model horse hobby get up and running. I shared some snippets from that here on Horsiemama in a series called Four Pillars and a Pair of Wings.
March, 2019
Show season began! I attended Silver Star Classic in Carmel, Indiana.
And I was finding success in my weight loss.
I was now thirty pounds lighter at the end of March!
April, 2019
April brought me not only my most-sought after piece, the Metlox Poppytrail Medium Circus Pony in grey,
but it also brought the same piece in palomino!
I was over the moon at adding these two models to my circus pony collection.
In April I also came out of retirement and took over SOAR, a program run by my school district designed to help deeply troubled kids who have been expelled from their schools continue their education. The teacher had had to suddenly leave due to health issues, and so I stepped in for the last seven weeks of the school year.
I am an experienced, veteran teacher, and this was absolutely the most difficult group of kids I have ever taught. Many days I drove home in tears, not only for their behavior during the day or the ugly things they said to me (and to each other), but more so for the heartbreaking situations and homes they came from.
April, 2019
Model horse showing season was now in full swing.
I attended the April Great Lakes Congress show and was surprised to be named Most Valued Member 2019 as a result of having written the history of the club. (I'm with Jamie Rott and Liz Cory.)
There was wild weather as I drove home from that show. I started back to Indiana from Illinois in a heavy snowstorm
and wrapped the trip up with no snow and encountering a cold air funnel about ten miles from home.
Weight loss continued - I had lost forty-eight pounds by the end of April! I'd had this tee shirt since the late 1980s and had kept it due to its Star Wars reference ("May the horse be with you") To my delight, I discovered that I could wear it once again.
May, 2019
Finally, finally, finally in May, I finished replacing my old, assorted brown shelves in my office.
Now they are all beautiful matching white Billy shelves from Ikea. It was quite a project, but so worth it!
I spent time at the barn with Pony Pal Mila and her brothers, Ian and Lukas.
Lukie gives Tim's pony saddle a try in the tack room.
Craig and I traveled west to visit Denver Daughter Sarah and her family in Colorado, and then up to Santaquin, Utah to see Mountain Mama Jessica and her family.
I also visited two of my favorite hobby people, Cristine Holt and her daughter, Tara Oliver. (From left: Chris, Tara, Tara's son, Jessica, and me.)
While in Utah, I met Riggs, an 18.3 hand black Percheron and the biggest horse I have ever been around.
May is a time for bad weather, especially when you are driving through tornado alley like we were.
While passing through Junction City, Kansas we encountered not one
but three tornadoes! This photo is of one on the ground while a second one to the left of it is forming. It came down and touched the ground and then they both dissipated.
Sadly, there were tornadoes back home in Indiana and the blue barn and property took a hit. Tim sent me this text.
That's twice that tornadoes have been close to the barn since I began boarding with Tim, but this is the first time that we actually sustained damage.
By the end of May, I had lost sixty pounds and my clothes were starting to hang on me. But I wasn't complaining!
June, 2019
Preparing for Happy Trails II, the fun show and pony party that I hold in my home, took up much of my time in June. I spent nearly two weeks deep cleaning in preparation.
Back row: me, Yvonne Rott, Jamie Rott, Michelle Evans, Liz Cory, and Sande Schneider. Front row: Pat Reed, Steff Bodamer, Allison Pareis, and Stan Sollars.
The stick pony competition during lunch was a blast.
Allison and Stan did a hilarious "free reining" exhibition to the song, "It's Not Unusual" by Tom Jones.
Sande shared the joys of having Buddy with her wherever she goes and her motto to always, "Speak softly and carry a big stick."
Liz directed a herd of liberty horses who obeyed all her commands and even knew their leads. Oh, how we laughed at all three entries!
But during Happy Trails, something was overshadowing the fun for me and was very much on my mind. I'd just had a routine CT scan of a tiny mass on my pancreas (it had been discovered three years prior during a CT scan for something else). Since past checks had confirmed that the mass was stable and not growing, I hadn't given this scan a second thought. Until I got a phone call just a day or two before Happy Trails telling me that the tumor was growing (the size of a baseball) and that I was being sent for further tests and to see a pancreatic specialist in Indianapolis.
That information would derail most of my summer plans and impact the next six months.
As kids, Leslie and I used to pretend that we were "circus girls" and had an elaborate game that involved "traveling" to different towns and performing as bareback riders. I treasure Circus Girl.
