Wife of Craig, mom of Sarah, Jessica, Kyle, Lisa, Curt, and Cole, mom-in-love to Todd, Andrew, Vanessa, and Emily. Called Grammy by JC, Jayci, Trinity, Cambria, Titan, Braden, Adelaide, Cory, Whitney, Melissa, Ian, Mila, Lukas, Julie, Kate, and Susie, and Great Grammy by Elsie Mae. Black Lab Pepper rounds out the family!
Lukie has saddled up and is riding across the range!
Vanessa sent me this video of Lukie enjoying the wooden rocking horse that we gave their family last Christmas. He's the third generation of rocking horse cowboys and cowgirls in our family.
One of my earliest memories is of riding one very similar to this wooden rocking horse.
Ours was almost all red and aptly (if unimaginatively) named Reddy. I spent hours in Reddy's saddle!
I outgrew Reddy and moved on to Buttermilk. (This was in the early 1960s and Dale Evans and her horse, Buttermilk, were quite popular.) My dad named my horse, but I never knew why until I was an adult and learned about Roy Rogers and Dale Evans!
Like Reddy, I spent countless hours riding Buttermilk, and although I shared her with my brother and sister, no one rode her as much as I did. You could bounce up and down or you could rock back and forth like I had on Reddy. (Funny thing, all these years later I still like motion when I am sitting - give me a rocking chair any day!)
Having known the joys of rocking horse-dom, I made sure that my children had the same opportunity to ride the horse of their dreams when they were children.
Santa brought this horse, Lightning, for Christmas when our two oldest were toddlers. They both loved it, but it was Jessica who, like me, was constantly in the saddle. (Somewhere I have the cutest picture of her cuddled up on the floor underneath Lightning, sound asleep.) But Jessica outgrew her horsiness just as she outgrew Lightning.
I have fifteen grandchildren and one more due in June, so surely SOMEONE will be a horse lover like their Grammy. So far Mila and Cambria seem the most likely candidates, but you never know - there may be a sleeper in the family somewhere!
Jessica, Andrew, and the kids moved from Virginia to Utah, and as they drove across country with their things, they stopped by March 18 for a quick visit and to spend the night.
Curt and crew came over to see them, and we had a pizza dinner and then popcornpalooza and watched a movie. (Popcornpalooza is popcorn mixed with M&Ms, gummi bears, pretzels, goldfish crackers, and anything else you want to toss into the mix. It is HUGELY popular in our family.)
Pony Pal Cambria requested a tour of my collection and I let her select a ribbon that I'd won the previous weekend at Silver Star Classic down in Carmel. She promptly hung it on her shirt.
I'd also made the kids care packages with things like fun pads, snacks, and small toys to keep them entertained as the family drove across the country. If you look at the bag, you can see that my pony pal is also taking home a palomino Grazing Mare. (Her brother, Titan, got the matching foal.)
Cambria really does seem to have the horsey gene. Time will tell, but her Grammy has her fingers crossed!
I had a bit of a shock this week. There was a homicide/suicide Sunday morning in a neighborhood that my school serves. Domestic violence; argument in the garage and the husband shot his wife then killed himself. Her children were in the home and called 911.
Since I didn't recognize the name, I did not think I had any connections to the family as a teacher. Then my principal texted me; it was one of my families. The mother had divorced/remarried since I'd had her son in my class so I had not recognized her name. (I also used to babysit the mom when I was a teenager and she was a child.)
Jane was not a stable person, and her first husband, the one I knew, had a lengthy police record. (The kids are now with him; not good.) I only had the son for a year, and it did not end well. I caught him cheating multiple times and she felt I was picking on him. It didn't matter that I had physical proof (he'd plagiarized a paper off the internet that he presented as his own work) yet somehow I was the problem and picking on her son. (He had told me that she knew he was using the paper off the internet; perhaps that added fuel to her ire.)
After two incidents where she blew up at me over his cheating (and with the full support of my principal), I quit telling her about other cheating and handled things directly with him in the classroom. She hadn't wanted to hear it and certainly was not supportive in trying to help me help her son. The school year ended on a sour note with Jane but a better one with her son.
I feel sad that I will never run into her in the grocery or around town and have the opportunity to maybe have a cordial hello-type conversation. But, there is nothing I can do about it now.
LAFAYETTE — Jane and Jason Moore's domestic fight late Saturday and early Sunday wasn't their first, but unlike earlier fights, this one ended tragically.
Fifty-three-year-old Jason Moore shot his 50-year-old wife several times with a .38-caliber revolver inside the garage of their upscale home at 50 Mill Drive in rural Tippecanoe County, northeast of Lafayette, Tippecanoe County Coroner Donna Avolt said.
Then Jason turned the gun on himself, according to preliminary autopsy results released by Avolt on Monday afternoon.
Jane Moore's two teenage children were inside the house in their bedrooms, according to Tippecanoe County Sheriff's Office. Both went downstairs after hearing the shots, and one of the teens, went into the garage to see if he could help his mother and stepfather, Avolt and Tippecanoe County Sheriff Bob Goldsmith said.
The couple, however, was dead, Avolt said.
The teens then called 911 at 12:08 a.m. Sunday, according to Tippecanoe County Sheriff's Office.
No one will ever know what Jane and Jason argued about because both of the teens were in their rooms during the fight and shooting, so they didn't hear what sparked the fight, Goldsmith said.
The children are with family, Goldsmith said.
The shootings marked the end to a rocky relationship that was punctuated by domestic upheaval.
In November, Moore went to jail accused of landing an uppercut to Jane's chin during a fight, according to the probable cause affidavit. He was scheduled for trial on April 4 on a felony charge of domestic battery.
At the time, the affidavit says Jane told deputies, "This always happens when he starts drinking."
Deputies reported that Jane also told them, "He's always the aggressor."
In the Nov. 27 fight, Jane told deputies that they were arguing about "distant family issues," according to the affidavit.
Jason told deputies the argument was about "a thousand different things," according to the affidavit.
The Moores married in October 2014, but in July 2017, Jason filed for divorce from Jane, according to court documents, which indicated that the two did not have any children together.
The court case remained active for six months, then on Jan. 16, 2018, Jane Moore petitioned to have the case dismissed, stating she and Jason reconciled. Jane Moore's motion was was granted two days later.
The violence shatters the stereotype that domestic violence only occurs in lower social economic classes, said Leah Giorgini, director of Lafayette's YWCA Domestic Violence Intervention and Prevention Program.
"It happened in a very affluent, nice neighborhood where you wouldn't think domestic violence would happen," Giorgini said. "It can happen in any means and circumstances."
I got an update from the lady I call the #1 mom of my entire career about her brilliant son who has issues including high functioning autism and anxiety. He had a very rough 6th grade year (he actually got suspended and missed the tail end of 6th grade) and is entering the fourth quarter of 7th grade.
She wrote:
SR is really kicking butt this year! It must be a mixture of the 6th grade horror year being over, some maturity, and a medicine change. The 7th grade teachers have been wonderful with him - especially two of the male teachers. They recognized early that he was prone to meltdowns and worked with him to give him options when he felt them coming on. He’s been such a happy kid. He’s gotten pretty chunky but I’m hoping that will stretch out with a growth spurt. One more grading period to go!
I could not be happier to hear this - way to go, SR!
I love to read, so much so that I always have at least one book in progress (and often two.) I especially love classic literature, so when I found this classic book about my favorite animal and illustrated by a well-loved equine illustrator, I snagged it. ($6! Yay!)
The Red Pony by John Steinbeck.
This book belonged to someone lucky enough to have his own bookplates! (I always wanted a set of those but never had any.)
The 1945 edition of The Red Pony was the first to have illustrations, and equine artist Wesley Dennis was selected to do the job.
There are some smaller illustrations interspersed throughout the book, but this edition also has special pages that are full sized and have no text on the back.
People used to cut these out of books with a knife and frame them. Honestly, I am tempted - if I had a second copy of this edition, I just might do it!
There is also a pony in the book named Gabilan. One of my carpet herd horses is named that, but I had not remembered where I'd gotten the name. I'd searched once and found a mountain range called the Gabilan Range (presumably where Steinbeck got the name for the pony) but I did not find a connection to this book years ago when I searched. Now I know.
I am not a fan of John Steinbeck as I find his books to be depressing. And after reading The Red Pony in grade school, I set the book aside, never to read it again. But I am going to reread it again and see if time has changed my opinion of the book.
And even if I end up not liking it, I still have a lovely vintage book with beautiful illustrations to put on my shelf and enjoy.
