22 Pieces of Advice for Girls in Their Teens

You’re mother is actually right. You’re not fat.

 You don’t like it when people are mean to you…so always stand up for the weak and the defenseless and don’t ever bully someone.

Wear less makeup rather than more.

Read as many old books as you can get your hands on.

Get in the habit of making your bed every morning and caring for your shoes.

Focus on the amazing, beautiful things in your life rather than the negative.

Realize that the woman you look up to is human. She wakes up with mascara under her eyes, dragon’s breath and zits...just like you do.

Ask your mom if you can plan and make dinner one night a week. Follow through. It’s a pity for a girl to reach 20 and still not be comfortable in a kitchen.

If you don’t know how to drive a stick shift or change a tire, ask someone that does to teach you how.

Always take the time to listen to the elderly’s stories.

Don’t use tanning beds.

Learn to iron.

Be kind. Don’t hate on yourself, or others.

Work hard to be friends with your mother. She’s really a badass.

If you’re in a room full of people and no one has introduced you, step up and introduce yourself. Look ‘em in the eye, smile, and shake hands. You don’t need to depend on others to help you out socially.

Always leave a good tip for the waitress.

If you borrow someone’s car or pickup, wash and fill it up with fuel before you return it.

Train like an athlete even if you don't feel like one. A healthy, strong body is better than gold. 

Carry a knife and a lighter with you.

Promise yourself you’ll watch as many sunrises as possible.

Don’t hang all your hope and happiness on someone else. That comes from within.

Set yourself some really big goals. Realize that it’s hard work alone that YOU put in is what's going to make them come true.

Photo Credit: Nike

xo xo Liz 

Quote of the Week

“Stars got tangled in her hair whenever she played in the sky.” - Lanini Taylor

xo xo Liz

Spring Time

If it hadn't been for the posts of my friends on Facebook, the fact that today is the first day of Spring would have completely passed me by! Which actually makes me disgusted with myself. Insert me snorting in disgust (here).

I take my math final on Friday and then sweet relief, I'm free!! Happy Dance!

Until the next semester, that is.

When I first got sick, I had a really hard time allowing myself to A) be sick, and B) let people help me. I wanted to do it all by myself, even if that meant I'd get sicker, feel crappier and make my entire family frustrated with me. I can be alarmingly like a toddler learning to feed itself.

I'm hard headed. But I've slowly been learning to listen to my body, swallow my pride and let people help me so that I can do more things on days I don't feel so great.

Lyme disease is weird, one day I can be feeling great, go for run, do pushups, ride, do homework, braid some rawhide and then BAM, not be able to walk by myself the next day. And then I can be back up and at it again the very next day. I'm hoping to make it to a friend's branding this weekend and because I haven't been feeling too hot lately, I've been taking it easy.

Which means that on this glorious first day of spring, I went for a little ride with Adrian. Not the long, "training" adventure I wanted, because hopefully I'm finally starting to carry learning forward and me babying myself today will make it so I can brand later. Sigh. Sometimes it takes me a long time to learn an easy lesson.

So my little sister was incredibly kind, caught and saddled my fat man and let me go on a short little ride around. And it was a wonderful way to celebrate the beginning of spring. As are the storm clouds hovering in the background...come on rain!!

Sometimes when Adrian sings I have to do a little fist pump.

Does anyone else do that? You finally learn a lesson that you had been bashing your head against for the longest time, and realize that it wasn't that hard to begin with?!

xo xo Liz 

The Adventures of Tilly, Liz, A Border Collie Dog And A Metal Trap

I can’t remember what we were doing that day. All I can remember for sure is that the colors seemed incredibly intense in the summer heat, and that it was just Tilly and I and our pack of oddly assorted dogs.

We’d just trot off a hill and had fallen into single file right next to the fence, and I feel like we had been in a hurry.

I can’t remember what we were talking about, but all of a sudden terrible howling, squalling noises erupted from the black and white airborne form that was Tilly’s Border Collie dog.

Her dog was on the other side of the barbed wire fence and her body was flipping up in the air and all the while she was screaming in a completely non-animal way. Or a very animal way, if you’ve ever been around an animal in pain.

At first I thought she was loosing in a very sore manner to something that was very pissed off, like a badger attached to her nose, and then I realized her front paw was caught in a trap. We jumped off our horses, snagged our way through the fence and shoved our way past the rest of the now very concerned pack of dogs milling around their friend.

“If you can hold her, I’ll try and get this off.” I said. I was stronger than Tilly, plus her dog never really liked me.

Tilly latched onto her dog’s collar and as soon as my fingertips touched the trap holding her paw she tried to bite me.

I yanked my hand back, cursing under my breath while Tilly wrestled with her dog and got her head locked down, effectively cutting off her air and ability to bite me, I hoped.

The trap attached to her paw thankfully had no teeth and on the first try I couldn’t get it open. Second try and she was free, skulking through the sagebrush like WE were the ones who had hurt her, not rescued her.

I patted Tilly on the back when her dog continued to run around just fine, no limping or broken bones. We climbed back through the fence and as soon as Tilly’s butt hit the saddle, her horse bucked straight up in the air, very neatly and very hard, about 4 or 5 times. Which her horse very rarely did.

“Ride ‘em, Tilly!!” I hollered in what I hoped what was an encouraging yell.

And like that it was over.

Reins fixed, chinks settled into back place and we trotted off.

It’s always funny to me how short wrecks or blowups of any kind really are. A seemingly still and calm scene is briefly thrown into the sharp relief of colors, sounds and smells and then all is still yet again. And life continues on.

Kind of funny, isn’t it?

xo xo Liz

Cherry Creek

 The family was headed for a weekend of visiting friends

Eating casino food and reata roping in Reno town

But she opted

To help a friend doctor yearlings instead

Bedroll, check,

Saddle, snaffle, blanket, chinks, warmest coat you’ve got

Happy little gal

Brown hair covered up with a red winter cap

Bounced her way into a bitter spring camp

And spent

A very happy 4 days

Necking her first steer

Doctoring with fingers frozen stiff

Greasy breakfast mornings

And watching the boys puff cigars to help stay warm

Meander along,

Step down

Cinch up

Build to him, poor little sick fella

Yeller’s feet feel awfully slick on this icy, frozen tundra that used to be a pivot

Oh God I feel like an idiot

Boys keeping pace, offering good-humored advice, like swing harder!

Swing

ONE TWO THREE times and throw

Loop sailing, sailing, why does it feel so heavy and slow?

Finally settles clumsily around the neck

And dear lord I think we’re falling,

I’d rather not watch if you don’t mind, so I’ll just squeeze my eyes tight shut

But no, it’s just nerves and cold

Slide a little rope

And hold your dallies like the boys do

A pretty pink cross on this yellow calf’s head to say that’s he’s been done

All right, who’s next?!

Replay and Repeat

And how about a lazy lunch

And waste some time in the machine barn

Roping a dummy

Perfecting that shot till you’re warm with exertion and shoulder is sore

And the days pass and fill up with memories of

Generators and Mel Brooks quotes

Broken in ropes and where it feels right to throw

Before she knows it

It’s time for her to head back

To family and chores and school

But first a nap in the saddle shop parking lot

While she waits for them to open up

An hour there and our little brown haired, red-capped miss

Leaves $100 lighter

And with silver rings glinting in her ears

xo xo Liz