Bloggity-blog

Hello fam! Long-overdue blog... sorry for the radio silence! Not because I'm jam-packed with awesome... rather because life here is rather monotonous unless you distill 1.5 months into concentrated Elly life.

ANYWHOO!!!! Life is good here in Superior. It's still mostly work-sleep-work-sleep, but we occasionally have some fun. =)

For example, on October 22nd, my work sponsored a volunteer day for all the employees. I personally volunteered at a place called Zuma's Rescue Ranch in Littleton. It's a very inspirational and awesome ranch that started out as a for-profit horse ranch. Sometime several years ago, the couple that owned it was going to sell it, but as they were in the process of getting ready to do so, a friend of theirs called them up and told them that if they didn't step in, seven perfectly good horses were going to slaughter that day.

Thus began the rescue ranch... they rescued neglected and abused horses, horses that would otherwise have gone to slaughter, and became a boarding house for people who couldn't keep their own horses for whatever reason. For a while they were doing this out of their own savings. Then, a close foster-mother friend of Jodi, the woman who, with her husband Paul, founded Zuma's, called her up and asked if she could bring her foster kids up to the ranch to spend time with the horses. Then, Zuma's became interested in the therapeutic influences of horses on troubled kids who had been neglected, abused, or forgotten by the system. They're currently working on making equine therapy a "legitimate" therapy so that it can be covered by insurance and they can open their doors to as many kids as need them. It's apparently a very effective therapy; that it teaches kids to relate and attach to other beings. The therapists can see more about the kid's true state of mind when they interact with the horses than they can through one-on-one verbal therapy, and there have been many reported cases of kids who work with horses having vast improvements in communication, self-control, and compassion in a short time.

If you can't tell, I was pretty moved by the organization and their mission, and I wish I had more time to volunteer there. I think they're doing great things.

Anyway, then on October 24, we had a huge Halloween party over at the community center! We rented out the big room, the breakfast room, and the movie theater--for free, since I'm an employee. It was pretty awesome, but not as epic as last year's party. *sigh* There will never again be a party that epic.

Halloween itself was awesome. We ran out of candy because we had a whole bunch of trick-or-treaters (which was all my fault! I did that), and then we went to Westminster for an insanely fun haunted house, where I made a complete fool of myself and learned, to my chagrin, that if I was confronted with zombies or chainsaw murderers I'd probably be the first one killed. Here I thought I'd be able to keep my cool. But no.

Then, as ma said, that next Monday, my infusion went immeasurably smoothly, and we had such a nice visit, I was very sad when it ended. =(

Unfortunately, since then, this week has been very long. Not for any particular reason, just ... blah. I don't want to work this week. But what can you do? Not much...

Okay so I'm gonna try to blog more often! Take care, mah peeps!