TRXC

      So yesterday was the first day of TRXC. It was AR/CM performance and OF halter. I had a full day of performance showing planned. But first we had to get there. Travis and I left the house at 5:30 to go and get Elecktra. It was gross cold. 

     The first part of our drive was in the dark, but it did get light out about halfway to New York. It was mostly an uneventful trip. Elecktra and I chatted the 2 hour trip passed quickly. We got to the hotel at exactly 8:00 (when I wanted to get there). I have no idea how I did that. I had to take a few pictures of the scenery when we got to the hotel. It is basically in the middle of nowhere. In the middle of a corn field. 

    Down a long, long driveway. 

Really long.

     And there was a lot of corn. The hotel is basically in a bowl surrounded by mountains. The reception here is terrible. I couldn't get any signal in the show hall to call Ethan. I didn't have enough signal to even send him a message. I asked at the desk if I could have the wifi password so I could let my husband know I wasn't dead. The manager was incredibly friendly and had no problem with that. And if I stood out in the entryway I had enough signal to call Ethan.

      The show got started well. I think there were only 6 AR/CM performance showers. But this is region X, the competition was still fierce. 

 I got a couple of pictures of this horse's butt. He looks so soft! Truly amazing detail. 

     Elecktra and Travis went and hung out in the room a bunch after we checked in. Travis made himself right at home. 

I wore several of The Jennifer Show bracelets that Fabian sent me. 

      Travis got to spend a bit of time in the fitness room at the end of the day. Which is something he loves doing. 

     And Travis and I got a selfie in the show hall. Because Travis and I take selfies almost everywhere. I think at this point in the day Elecktra was across the show hall hanging out with Anna. I need to make sure to get a pic with her. I don't see her all that much and I need more pictures. 

     Driving up in the morning was not a big deal at all and it saved me some money. I am all done with showing because I decided to just show one day, instead of both days (also to save money) but I will be at the hall for a few hours to see if anyone wants to shop. I sold a bunch of dolls but I have a good amount left. Plus plenty of accessories and odds and ends. I am still trying to decide if we are going to Howe Caverns or not. We're only 15 minutes away, so maybe. I had a good showing day, and a definitely brought my A-game. But more about that tomorrow. 

Fall Pony Finals Fall Fun

     The last division of the day at Fall Pony Finals was the Fall Fun division. This was the collection of classes that had a loose description and you have a chance to be incredibly creative. I don't remember exactly what the card for the first class said...

Tuesday Afternoon owned by Nancy Timm

But I know this entry was a pony ride at a fair. 

SRF Misti owned by Donna Gruhn

Next up was the Halloween costume class. 

I do not remember who this belongs to or the name. I think there was no tag. 

Tuesday Afternoon owned by Nancy Timm

Then a class called Cats, Bats and Pumpkins. This cat herding entry was awesome!

Tuesday Afternoon owned by Nancy Timm

SRF Picture Perfect owned by Donna Gruhn

The next class was team sports

Tuesday Afternoon, joined by Niangala Jack, owned by Nancy Timm

SRF Picture Perfect and friend, owned by Donna Gruhn

    With fall harvest scene being the last class of the day. 

SRF Dumpling owned by Donna Gruhn

Tuesday Afternoon owned by Nancy Timm

At the end of the division Donna Gruhn's SRF PIcture Perfect was reserve champion.

SRF Picture Perfect owned by Donna Gruhn

With Nancy Timm's Tuesday Afternoon getting Champion. 

Tuesday Afternoon owned by Nancy Timm

     For the overall performance awards the reserve champion was Tuesday Afternoon owned by Nancy Timm.

     And SRF Picture Perfect, owned by Donna Gruhn, was champion.  The performance division was not huge, but the competition was fierce. At the end of the day I was tired and glad that I made it through. I love judging but judging is hard.

      So yesterday was insanely busy and I didn't have time to finish the chaps I wanted to finish. It's not the end of the world. I also didn't do a couple of other things I had planned on. I prepped and tacked and packed right up until it was time for bed. I hope I didn't forget anything. I am hope I am ready. Today is TRXC. 

Fall Pony Finals Western

     The first class in the Western division was Timed Stockwork. I love how Donna's rider really looks like she is part of this scene and not just there. This is really what I love about dolls. If they are used well they can really add that element of realism to our tiny scenes. 

SRF Cup O' Joe owned by Donna Gruhn

I love how the turquoise looks on this horse!

Niangala Jack owned by Nancy Timm

The next class was Judged Stockwork.

SRF Cookies and Cream owned by Donna Gruhn

Another small but solid class. 

Niangala Jack owned by Nancy Timm

     Western Games was tough to judge. It was a five entry class and They were really well done. Again, I am loving how Donna's doll really adds dimension to the entry. The horse looks speedy but the doll make it looks even speedier. 

SRF Cup O' Joe owned by Donna Gruhn

Just Winging It owned by Morgan Hudon

Niangala Jack owned by Nancy Tim

SRF Picture Perfect owned by Donna Gruhn

Crimson N Clover owned by Joan Fauteux

     The western trail class was small but impressive. I realize that it is absolutely not necessary, or realistic, to match your doll/accessories to your trail prop. But when Joan put these poles and flowers up I said if she had a doll that was in sort of an olive green military style top with some gold on it, it would be super perfect. The doll has gold, so that's something. 

Crimson N Clover owned by Joan Fauteux

SRF Picture Perfect owned by Donna Gruhn

This was one of the longest classes to judge. So many details to weigh out. 

Niangala Jack owned by Nancy Timm

       The western pleasure class was also gorgeous. 

SRF Picture Perfect owned by Donna Gruhn

Crimson N Clover owned by Joan Fauteux

Niangala Jack owned by Nancy Timm

The last class in the western division was the Other Western class. 

SRF Picture Perfect owned by Donna Gruhn

Crimson N Clover owned by Joan Fauteux

SRF Cookies ad Cream owned by Donna Gruhn

Niaga;a Jack owned by Nancy Timm

In the end Nancy Timm's Niangala Jack was reserve champion

Niangala Jack owned by Nancy Timm

 And Donna Gruhn's SRF Picture Perfect was champion.

SRF Picture Perfect owned by Donna Gruhn

     I do still have one more division of Fall Pony Final photos. I have the parts about the show written and I can add photos and updates from the end of the day. Unless there are technical difficulties that post will go up tomorrow. And then after that I will have TRXC photos to share! For now though, let me tell you about my Halloween. 
     I did wear my unicorn headband that Angelique gave me. It was awesome. A couple of really awesome things came from that. First was it sparked a conversation with one of the kids in the lifeskills class. He is not overwhelmingly verbal and he has never spoken to me, though I am in the class nearly every morning when he comes in. Today he looked right at me and said hello and told me his name. So I introduced myself to him. He then told me that my headband had a horn, 2 ears and flowers. I said it sure does, do you like it? He said yes and then told me the horn is a unicorn horn and unicorn starts with the letter u. I said yes it does, and unicorns are sort of like horses aren't they? He said they were and I said I knew he liked horses (he was looking up horse pictures the other day). Oh! I have a horse picture that Angelique gave me from her calendar. It has just stayed in a folder in my bag. I wonder if my friend would like to have it. 
     The other really fun thing that came from my unicorn headband was my friend Brandi said I could use her very special unicorn pen to take notes. Taking AP Calc notes in pen is terrifying. But Brandi let me use her pen and it amused both of us. 

     Yesterday was a pretty decent day at school. I don't remember anything annoying, so yeah, good day. When I got home I had several painting projects I needed to do. I needed to do my nails (if I keep polish on them I won't bite them) and I needed to finish painting Tiny Abby.

     So I worked on both at the same time. I would do a layer of whites and then do one hand's worth of nails. The first time around (my first time doing gels myself) they didn't cure properly. So I put on the remover and a glove and I worked more on Abby. I messed up a few things here and there, but it was not too bad.
     I got her all finished up and made her a blue collar. Now she is a proper tiny Abby. Even before the collar I brought her to Travis and asked who it was. He said (quickly) "horse, dog, Abby" I don't think he actually bothered to look right away. But he recognized her as Abby. That's good enough for me. I showed Ethan after he was home and after I got her collar on. He said she looks so young. Tiny Abby will be young forever. And I am really glad I have her. Who would have thought that I could miss that dog so much. She and I used to butt heads often. She was stubborn and sort of stupid at times. But she was sweet and she was fun. She was a good dog. I still miss her. 

     So I got my Tiny Abby finished, which was a very important project, and I got a pair of chaps mostly done. I traced out two more pairs and hopefully I can finish them up tomorrow. We'll see. I also tagged ad cataloged all of the dolls and I have 27 sales dolls for TRXC! I'm kind of impressed with myself. I have a good variety of other things available as well. 
     To wrap up, I painted my nails, painted my dog model, worked on some chaps and I tacked up another horse. So I need to tack 3 horses later today. Two of them need boots. But I can start right after school and get them packed and in the car and get all the props and things in the car that don't already live in the car. I'm almost ready. Tomorrow is TRXC.

Halloween Band Bash

     Yesterday was very busy. Another day that I didn't have time to mess with putting photos from the day into the post with the pics from Fall Pony Finals. I promise, the rest of the divisions are coming. Anyway, my friend, Angelique, sent me a text saying to come see her in the morning because she had a present for me. Well that's intriguing! So I went to visit and she gave me this super cute unicorn headband. She told me it was to make my outsides match my insides, awww! Angelique is braver than I am and she wore hers all day. I said I didn't think I could do it. But today is Halloween and I will do it today. Maybe that will make it normal enough for me to wear it more often. And then it will obviously be worn at horse shows!

     I had to jump right into doll work when I got home. I had goals! I got the western pleasure doll and cowboy from the other day all finished up. I knew they would be easy to get done, since they were super insanely close to done. I also finished the lime green western pleasure doll. I was not as sure I could get her done. But I have the body prepped, the face painted, the clothes sewn and then I found the already made chaps. So I just had to put her together and decorate. I got that taken care of and now have 3 more dolls for my TRXC sale. Later on today I can tag and wrap them all. But I am very pleased with my progress.

      Very shortly after supper yesterday Ethan, Travis and I headed over to LHS for the Halloween Band Bash. Travis had a super good time! He was not particularly loud but you could tell he was having a good time. He was rocking and bouncing in his seat with a huge grin on his face! He does love Halloween music. I also spotted his friend, Vicky, from track. She is not going to a Ludlow school this year so she won't be on the track team in the Spring (which is super sad) but she lives in Ludlow so it's not totally surprising we saw her. She was thrilled to see Travis and he was really happy to see her as well. What a fun night!

      So now later today I need to get the dolls tagged and packed. I need to finish up a pair of cutting chaps I am working on and maybe make a couple more. I should start tacking up more horses so I don't have to do it all last minute. I am pretty sure I am showing an insane amount of horses at TRXC (5 of them). I have Enchanted Eve all tacked up but I'd like to get more of them ready. I should also get my tiny Abby finished and make a list of all the things I need to make sure to pack and bring this weekend. Two days until TRXC.

Tuesday Updates

     I still have two more divisions of Fall Pony Finals to share pictures of, but it takes lot of extra time to put the photos from the day into the post of the show pics. Yesterday was super busy and I don't have the extra time to try to catch up with my projects. So today it's just updates on a variety of things. Tomorrow I will get back to sharing show photos too. 

     I started out in the morning adding some matte polish to my tiny Abby to see if it would cut out the tackiness in the paint. It sometimes does. It didn't work this time. The paint wasn't just tacky, it had not even cured. I have no idea why, but it was just not working out. *sigh*

     In better news, I got my October micro in from Maggie Bennett. When I saw the spoiler photos I was not sure if I was in love with her or not. And then I saw her in person and she is awesome. I am also grateful that this tiny horse was not available when I was challenged to do the micro Arabian costume. She is even smaller than the horse I dressed. 

     Back to tiny Abby and the not great news about her tacky, uncured paint. I decided I couldn't keep hoping she would cure and I stuck her in a bag with some Easy Off to strip her. Some people are completely against Easy Off, but I wear gloves when I use it and always use it outside. I have never had any issues. Today I also didn't have any results from it. 

     Since I had put quite a lot of matte polish on Abby I used acetone to take it off which I hear that can be bad for the model down the road, but I guess I will cross that bridge if I ever come to it. For now I got off her new, uncured paint and her primer. I glued on an ear I messed up, scrubbed her with dawn dish soap and when she was dry I reprimed her. 

Luckily it was before the rain started. It is supposed to rain for the next 3 days. Of course.

      I was hoping to be further than this on her but I did get to the point of drawing on markings. The original tiny Abby that I made for Ethan was done from studying live Abby. She let me move her every which way to exactly map out her markings on the model. She was a good dog. Since I don't have real Abby I used Ethan's tiny Abby to draw the markings on my tiny Abby. I will touch them up as I paint them on. This was actually how I did the original tiny Abby. I drew on the markings in Sharpie and then did both white and black by hand. And I will do it that way again. Hopefully tomorrow I can get the paint out and work on some whites. At least.

     I try not to work after supper, but yesterday I did. I actually got really far on a couple of dolls in a fairly short amount of time. The western pleasure lady needs a hat painted and the smallest amount of bling, but then she will be finished. The cowboy needs a belt, pockets and buttons. And a hat and his chaps put on. So tomorrow I can finish them up quickly. I also realized I have another western pleasure doll I was working on that I forgot about. Oops. So hopefully today I can finish up both of these and the other western pleasure doll. I got a bit behind on things. 

      So I said today was about updates. I updated you on tiny Abby on doll stuff and I have an update on the issue with Elecktra and the DMV. She called United Driving school to see about making a road test appointment through them (because that is a thing) and they said that she had to go to the Springfield office (even though there is also a Ludlow office) to register for everything. We already had a plan to get together to do some parking practice, but I said instead I would drive her over there so she could register and be all set. So we did that and she got a ton of information from the woman at the school. Including finding out that the registry might have charged her for the test they didn't let her take and might have put it in as a failed test. The woman at United said she should call just to make sure that that hadn't happened. I said that since we were already in Springfield we should just go to the registry. 
     Elecktra was nervous since the last time we were there she had such a terrible experience. I told her I would take care of it. When we got in I spoke to the gatekeeper (the guy at the door who asks why you are there and tells you where to go) and he told me to follow the orange line (literally a line or orange rugs). So we got to the counter and Elecktra was still nervous so I said I'd deal with it. I told to the super friendly woman at the counter that we needed to know if Elecktra got charged and I needed to speak to a supervisor. The woman took Elecktra's permit and checked and she had been charged. Not cool. So the road test supervisor is the only one who can remove those charges and conveniently, that was exactly who I needed to talk to. So I went to deal with the supervisor. I explained what had happened and he checked in the computer. He said that the guy had put in the notes that she was not there and then was dropping F-bombs all over the place. Which was not how any of this went down. Elecktra and I explained what happened, again, with Elecktra demonstrating how close the man was and how he waved the book in her face and so on. This went back and forth for a bit and I stayed incredibly calm the whole time and very polite. It was not the supervisor who verbally assaulted Elecktra after all. It took a bit but the supervisor finally got the whole story and realized that what happened really was horrible (at first he said he was there on Friday and didn't hear any of it). He took the charge off of Elecktra's account and said that the man (who he knew who it was immediately when I described him) was going to be reprimanded. He said no matter what there were better ways to deal with the situation. So that was good to hear. It was not immediate and it took a lot of pointing out of things to the supervisor (to get the reprimand, the charge was taken care of quickly) but in the end I fixed it. That situation never should have happened. If I had been there it likely would not have. People need to stop thinking it's OK to abuse their position and pick on young people. I'm glad this got worked out. Hopefully this sort of thing won't happen to anyone else in the future. Now Elecktra has a couple of hours of driving practice with the new school and a newly scheduled road test. Which I can go on. And I will. 
     So yesterday was weird, but not bad. I didn't get a lot of work done, but I got more work done than I thought I would considering it was laundry day and all the other things we did that were not doll work. Progress is being made. Hopefully soon I can stop freaking out. Three days until TRXC.