I finished finals... but I'm still recovering from them.

All I can say, at this point is:

My first law finals experience was like every school nightmare you have about taking a test. It all happened to me... (except the not wearing clothes part).

At least I've finished.

One semester down, seven to go!

Read more...

What motivates me...

I've learned recently some things about my personality and character, (more on that later) including what motivates me. I am a generally laid back carefree person who would rather have fun and relax than get a lot done... unless I convince myself to be competitive and challenged. It has to be an internal motivation, not someone "coaching" me or kicking me in the butt.

I am motivated by rewards, by the carrot at the end of the stick. I need that carrot to be motivated to actually get things done.

It's an interesting thing to think about, and as I struggle through the last home stretch this week with finals, I wanted to share my motivation with you.

My motivation to study at least 8 hours today and at least 6 hours tomorrow-- if I do that I will let myself spend my entire Sunday afternoon watching movies and reading. That's it, after church I'll go home, snuggle up under a blanket and completely veg out.  However, if I don't hit the goal of 14 hours of studying between know and my Civ Pro final tomorrow... instead of laying around watching movies, I'm going to clean out and reorganize my bedroom closet (something I don't want to do, but know I probably should).

That's it, the carrot dangling in front of me to motivate me to actually study instead of read blogs and cybershop on my computer.

Ok... and my ultimate goal/reward and why I'm going to law school?

I want to live here:

Well, not in the barn, but I do want to own land in Boulder County, Colorado and raise my kids with the principles and values that comes from living in the country, having chores, and taking care of animals. This cowgirl married a city boy, and while I am desparately in love with the Chef, I do miss my open spaces. I keep telling my husband, The Chef, that if we live in the country I'll have a milk cow and will milk it everyday so he can have organic raw milk and cream to cook with. While that, the promises of grassfed beef and homegrown vegetables are appealing, he keeps smiling and just says, "Maybe someday."


This farm has been on the market for a while, and I would love to buy it and move in...

But since that's not going to happen any time soon, I am using this as my visualization to get me through law school, to do my best so I can get a great job, and maybe one day be able to afford this little farm (or one like it).

That's my motivation... what's yours?

Read more...

Creation of Apparel

I'm in the middle of law school finals… My first finals period during my first semester of Law School.


I am surviving, barely.

Yesterday was my Torts final (I survived it!), so one down and one to go.

As I was preparing for my Torts final, I went through my notes and outline. One of the terms completely flummoxed me... Creation of Apparel.

What in the world was that?

And how did that relate to Torts- (a wrongful act other than a breach of contract for which relief may be obtained in the form of damages or an injunction)???

I puzzled over the term and the fact that I had elements and notes written about it.

Then it dawned on me.

Creation of a Peril-- not Creation of Apparel.

No wonder I'm having trouble with this class-- maybe I should be on Project Runway instead of Law School. Or maybe I've been spending too much time studying in the law school library.

Read more...

The Wild West isn't Totally Dead... or Tame

Cattle Rustling isn't just a thing of the past. Please read the following story The Oregonian, talking about cattle rustling in the area where I grew up.

The picture below is my Dad and Cody trailing cows in Malheur county in 2001-- they are Ten Mile Ranch cattle-- definately not stolen!

Stolen Cattle from Oregon Cross over into Idaho  
By RICHARD COCKLE - The Oregonian
JORDAN VALLEY, Oregon— They were spotted from a small airplane, two cattle rustlers on horseback hazing 125 white-faced cows across Malheur County's forbidding empty quarter in Oregon's far southeast corner.


The men, sighted last spring, were pushing the stolen herd south through a high-desert tapestry of chaparral, manzanita, juniper and sagebrush. They looked like ordinary cowboys.

The pilot descended for a closer view but the men didn't look up, said brand inspector Rodger Huffman of the Oregon Department of Agriculture. The pilot finally had to break away, and the Malheur County Sheriff's Office didn't hear about the sighting until a week later.

It was one of the few glimpses anyone has caught of men suspected of stealing 1,240 cattle worth $1.2 million over the past three years from Malheur County ranches. Hundreds more cows have been taken in neighboring areas of Idaho and Nevada.

Cattle rustling did not fade away with the Old West. What makes these thieves unusual, investigators said, is the scale and duration of their operations, their use of horses to reach areas inaccessible to car or truck, and the fact that they sometimes drive their plundered herds for days, carefully sweeping around ranches and people.

Ranchers are circulating wanted posters offering a $47,500 reward for information that leads to a conviction. Some are also spending spare time on horseback, ATVs and in pickups and airplanes trying to hunt the rustlers down, Malheur County Undersheriff Brian Wolfe said.

Malheur County sheriff's Deputy Bob Wroten and others suspect the thefts are the work of one group of four to six men who are well-acquainted with the territory.

"The way these cattle are ending up missing, those guys grew up tough," he said. "They lived the life all their lives. They aren't outsiders."

The losses have been devastating. Most of the stolen cattle were females that each year produce calves worth $600 apiece.

About 20 Oregon ranches have been hit, with a dozen taking the brunt of losses, Huffman said. In Humboldt County in Nevada, at least 500 cattle are missing, and still more have been stolen in Owyhee County in Idaho.

Rand and Jayne Collins had 150 cows swiped from their remote Malheur County ranch three years ago.

"The people who stole them had to know this many cattle would be beyond a hardship; it was a catastrophe," said Jayne Collins, 59, of the $150,000 hit. She cried and had a lot of sleepless nights. Lots of sleepless nights.

The cattle were taken from an area so isolated that it's reachable from most of Oregon only by a road that winds into rural Nevada, said Rand Collins, 60. The couple spent hours searching canyons in a friend's airplane without finding a trace.

"I'd like to find them and talk to them for a few minutes," said Jayne Collins, taking a break last week at the Old Basque Inn restaurant in Jordan Valley. "I felt like cutting their ears off."

The rustlers' theater of operations is roughly bounded by Oregon's 30-mile-long Steens Mountain to the west, Winnemucca, Nev., to the south and Murphy, Idaho, to the east. After stealing a herd, the gang sometimes moves across 50 miles of Oregon desert into Idaho, then Nevada.

"Finally, they get them to a place far enough away and move them into a semi-truck and away they go," Malheur County Sheriff Andrew Bentz said. "They may end up four states away from us."

Investigators don't know what's being done with the cows but said Nebraska and Oklahoma don't have brand inspectors to make sure cows are with their owners.

On the rare occasion when someone spots the thieves in the desert, the men usually appear to be cowhands out riding for a few hours, Deputy Wroten said. They're never seen with bedrolls on their saddles or halters on their horses, he said, probably to avoid signaling that they plan to camp and picket their horses.

The men seem to time their thefts for stormy weather when almost nobody is on the desert, said Wroten, a former rancher who patrols a region with about 600 residents in more territory than Connecticut and Rhode Island combined.

When a range detective hired by a Malheur County ranch spotted two of them during a spring snowstorm, they jumped their horses off a dangerous rimrock and vanished like smoke, Wroten said.

"It's kind of like the old days, way back," said Sheriff Ed Kilgore of Humboldt County. "Sometimes these guys are traveling two, three, four days at a time to get where they are going. They are not in danger of being seen because nobody is out there."

Complicating matters, the cattle sometimes aren't discovered missing for months. Some ranchers still haven't gathered all their cows for winter and don't know if any are gone, Undersheriff Wolfe said. Ranchers also sometimes have too much pride to report a theft.

"People not in the cattle industry don't understand how big a hit this is for the rancher," Kilgore said. "It really hurts."

Like Wroten, Kilgore thinks that if he catches the rustlers, he won't be slapping handcuffs on complete strangers.

"It's people who know cows, who know the country," Kilgore said. "The people who are the victims of the cattle thefts are going to know them."

Read more...

Finals...

I'm up to my eyeballs in law school books, outlines, and my final legal memo. I'll catch you up on all the crazy (and somewhat exciting) adventures of the end of my first semester in law school soon...


Happy Thanksgiving!

Read more...

We will never forget... honoring our veterans!

Happy Veterans Day!

Let’s celebrate and thank all of our friends and family who have served, devoting life, sweat, and blood so that we might have freedom!

This is my mom’s dad, my Grandpa Gordon who served in World War II.

My brother has almost completed his service in the Army, and went to Iraq (twice!), Afghanistan, and Thailand to help promote freedom.

Whatever your politics are, today (and always) let’s celebrate and honor the members of the United States Armed Services!

Read more...

Hope Unfurled...

One woman took some extra time she had and started writing, started a blog. That blog became ridiculously popular and she was interviewed on CNN and other media. She got a book deal and wrote a cookbook.

The week that cookbook comes out, it goes to the top of the New York Times Best Seller List!

That's right, Pioneer Woman (whom I love) is at the top of the New York Times Best Seller list in her category! The Pioneer Woman Cooks has beat out Julia Childs' Mastering the Art of French Cooking!

I'm excited for Ree, and at the same time, feel a wave of hope that sometime, somewhere, all of this time I've spent putting effort into my blog will help pay off in the end... and maybe something I write and publish will appear on the New York Times Best Seller list too! (although I never can imagine myself beating both Julia Childs or Ree Drummond!

Read more...