Almost Done

      I am almost done with all of the making of things for my Black Friday sale. But not quite. I finished up these 3 huntseat ladies the other day. I think I have 4 total for the sale. I MIGHT squeeze in a cowboy or two, but that really depends on how today goes. I just might not have time. Over the weekend I spent some time working on saddlebags, which I was also working on last week, and I put down some ideas for trivia questions. I don't even know what I have for prize for trivia. I'll have to look. but I ALWAYS have things, I am sure I can come up with something. 

     Saturday morning started out with changing the password on the SmugMug site for the show so Marisa, Liesl, and I could start judging. It was a huge pain and I managed to lock myself out of my account! Or at least that was what I thought it said. When I emailed the SmugMug Hero team they got back to me and said they did see a few failed login attempts but that it did not show my IP address as being locked out. OK. So I tried again, deleted everything from the saved password stuff, reentered the new, correct password. and got in. I figured I would just start. Maybe judge OF harness and then take a break. Ha ha ha, that doesn't sound like me AT ALL! What I actually ended up doing was sitting staring at the computer for way too long while I judged all of the OF Other Performance division. Photo show judging is actually super ideal if you are confronted with something you have never seen before or that seems questionable. What does that mean? It means I researched the crap out of all sorts of performance entries. It means I stared at photos and went back and forth to the documentation, seeing if I could picture it. It means I watched videos, read rules, and so on.

      I am a fast judge. Some people might think that means I don't do a good or careful job of judging. But personally I think it means I just get hyper focused. I narrow things down and then pick the entries apart to see if I missed something. And sometimes, when I thought I was almost finished, I would see a hanging strap, a dropped rein that was almost hidden, or a chain that was definitely longer than it should have been. And that would change everything. 

    So with those cryptic remarks, I will stop staring at a computer screen and maybe go and read a book or something. But let me just say, the competition so far is FIERCE. And I can't wait to see more of it!