Month: January 2016

In Memorium: Glenn Frey

Anna Blankenheim Death, Music

It’s taken me a couple of days to pull my thoughts together on this one. On January 18, 2016, Eagles member Glenn Frey passed away at the relatively young age of 67. The Eagles have always been one of my very favorite bands, and there’s not many snapshots from my childhood that don’t play in my head to their music. I learned to sing harmonies to their songs and learned to appreciate amazing musical talent. Glenn co-wrote many of my Eagles favorites, including “After the Thrill is Gone”, “Desperado”, “Doolin’ Dalton”, and, of course, “Hotel California”. In addition to singing lead vocals on some of my favorites (“Tequila Sunrise” and “Take It Easy”) with the band, he also held his own as a solo artist (“The Heat Is On”).

In college, I was lucky enough to get to see the Eagles live in San Diego with my family. I must admit, Don Henley had my attention (I love his voice), but the band really wouldn’t be what it was without Glenn as well. The show was amazing and his voice and musicianship will be missed.

I’ll leave you with a link to one of my favorite songs the Eagles performed once they reunited, “Hole in the World”. Rest in peace, Glenn.

 

A Little Slice of Heaven

Anna Blankenheim Equestrian, Religion , ,

I had a serious to do list today. I was going to work in the yard, clean up around the house, and catch up on some tv shows I have taped. Instead, I abandoned it all and headed over to the barn to ride. I spent most of my weekend over there in between rain storms and I can’t stress how therapeutic it’s been!

IMG_1776

 

I read the quote below the other day… I’ve searched high and low for the author, but can’t find him/her.

“Religion is a person sitting in a church thinking about kayaking. Spirituality is sitting in a kayak thinking about God.”

As I sat there on Sue’s back and just looked out at the lake, I felt a calm come over me. Call it God, call it relaxation, call it just enjoying the moment. It was great. I could even feel Sue relax under me. There was something so spiritual about being out there, one with my horse, in the great outdoors.

The housework will always be there, but moments like this are far and few between!

New Years, Two Weeks Late

Anna Blankenheim Holidays

As always, we had our annual New Year’s pig roast. I’m pretty sure that even if I didn’t send out an Evite, people would still show up at my house. This was the 12th year and I have a feeling we’ll be doing it forever!

The day starts with the dressing of the pig in the morning – once it’s all stuffed with potatoes and other yummy spices, it’s put on the spit and starts cooking.

IMG_7888.JPG
Headed for the spit
IMG_7892.JPG
Ready to cook!

This pig was a little bit smaller than we’ve done in the past couple years – so it went on around 10am rather than earlier in the day.

After the pig goes on, we wait. People stop by all day to check in on it and enjoy the “cracklins” – basically the tasty skin that starts to form as it cooks. Mike has a special marinade that he pours on throughout the day that makes it taste even better!

IMG_7893.JPG
Enter a caption

Finally it’s time to cut the pig up. It’s quite the process that requires skilled butchers… or just a bunch of dudes with electric knives.

IMG_7898.JPG
Creating a cutting strategy

We had a blast this year, as always. We never really know how many people are going to be there, and every year it’s a great mix of people we’ve seen every year and new faces. Our friends and family all bring side dishes and we get to sample all sorts of amazing cooking! We celebrated both the New York (9pm) countdown as well as our own west coast countdown. It was a wonderful time!

 

 

Running Like The Wind

Anna Blankenheim Equestrian , ,

Winter is a tough time for cowgirls, especially cowgirls with day jobs. It’s dark for what feels like most of the day. It’s cold. And don’t even get me started on the rain…

Knowing that I hadn’t done much ride over the period of a couple weeks (only once, actually), I decided that a wise move would be to turn Sue out for a bit in one of the pastures to run his jollies out.

And run he did.

It was amazing to watch. I love nothing more than to just stand there and listen to his thundering hooves and watch him romp. He ran around for about 20 minutes until he was covered in sweat. It was such a beautiful thing to watch and just made my heart sing.

IMG_1660
Running Like The Wind
IMG_1687
I Like Big Butts…
IMG_1653
What Mom?