Back to Venezuela

I’m headed back to my beloved Venezuela in a few short weeks. This is absolutely my first trip in seven years that is on a whim, last minute and doesn’t involve six months of planning or dieting. It is probably the most irresponsible decision that I’ve made in a very long time. It’s actually breaking a responsible streak that I’ve had lately. My Dad would say that I finally gained the adult-like quality of common sense. I’ve heard varying stories on at what age one usually receives this gift. Maybe it’s 28 and that’s why I’ve been making good decisions. Who knows. 

But alas, if something is going to break a responsibility streak, it might as well be a trip to Venezuela. Truth be told, it’s pretty exciting that at this young(ish) age I can decide to pick up and go abroad for two weeks without breaking the bank. Not everyone is too happy about the decision and in a moment of “oh my God, what have I done?!” I tried to cancel my ticket, though to no avail. So I’m headed to Venezuela on April 4th. Here we go again!

Saturday

It was peaceful on the farm this morning. I woke up late at 7:30. The horses usually eat just before that and I heard them nickering as soon as our creaky back porch door slammed. It was a balmy 35 degrees instead of yesterday’s 23 and the birds were all a twitter, chirping and singing. At one point our roosters crowed at exactly the same moment, which was generally awesome and hilarious- they sound so different. I still feel guilty taking the eggs from the hens. They seem to look at me and say “why?!” These are unusually expressive hens. As usual the goats were noisily following Winston, their guard llama around. He was equally noisy, humming impatiently for breakfast. 

Looks like it’s going to be a good Saturday! 

Wait, what?!

So there is a big marketing event coming up focusing on social media. They are holding a panel discussion in which successful companies will advise small companies on their social media presence and such. The list includes giants like Duke Energy, UPS, Wells Fargo and Chiquita Banana. Oh yeah… and Amelie’s. 

Really?! But… but… we’re a small little bakery. Ok, so our social media presence is anything but small (can you say ranked #1 for check-ins on Foursquare for the whole city? 20,000 Facebook fans?) but still, if someone had told me that I’d be sitting on a panel next to the big minds behind those big brands I would have fallen over with laughter. 

That’s right, I will be sitting on the panel. Why? Well, because I am in charge of all things social media (which basically means I tweet, Facebook and blog all day long… it’s a tough job but someone has to do it.) So as a result, I finally get to use my lovely and unusual head shots from that cover story I did way back when. But I also had to write myself a bio. Ok, so it shouldn’t be a big deal. But when your fellow panelists all have MBAs and PhDs and you don’t have much of an education to speak of (I’m an eternal student!) it feels like an awfully big task. So my solution was to do it Amelie’s style! Here is the bio I will be using, taken from snippets of various magazine articles and news broadcasts:

“As an echo boomer, Lexi St. Laurent understands the ins and outs of her generation’s unique online culture. Armed with a love of food, a keen intuition and a BlackBerry, she has led her family business to social media fame by encouraging meaningful conversation and real interaction. With an active following of nearly twenty thousand fans on Facebook by her side, Lexi has helped to establish Amelie’s French Bakery as one of the most followed, tweeted and “checked into” restaurants in Charlotte.”

See y’all on the flip side! 

FYI

In honor of my new MacBook Pro, I have temporarily switched to a wordpress iTheme… <3

28 Second Days- 02-08-12

 

Waking up, BBM chat, booger filled horse nose, driving, swinging, shopping, and our llama nearly runs over a chicken.

28 Second Days- 02-07-12

My first ever 28 Second Days video.

Good advice

From my BFF/Brother from another mother Gustavo:

“Make it conscious. Live it. Feel it. Release it. And cry if you want to.”

Thank you dear brother, I think I will.

God is good

Or as my Mom says, GUS is good. GUS stands for God Universe Spirit. 

When you ask for an answer, you will invariably get it. The question is, will you listen? That is my problem. For a very long time I have begged and pleaded with God for an answer. I have cried, kicked and screamed and demanded. I have turned my back when the answer wasn’t the one I wanted and demanded a new one, convincing myself successfully that I simply didn’t hear it right, or it wasn’t clear enough. I’ve repeated this cycle over and over. And over and over again. Sometimes things looked up, and I thought I was on the verge of hearing my long awaited “yes” only to get yet another unclear “maybe.”

But finally, thanks to the help and patience of some very dear friends, I was able to step back just far enough away from the noise to hear the answer and accept it. At long last I understand it, and the answer is a definite “no.” 

Thank you, God for clarity and peace despite the pain. 

Light at the end of the tunnel

Since my horse Willow arrived just over a month and a half ago, we’ve had a series of ups and downs.

Coming back into riding after a seven year break is no easy task. Things that seemed second nature to me then are now physically impossible in my current condition. Minor misbehaviors on the part of a grumpy mare now seem life threatening. Willow is an incredible horse. She is, by all accounts, my dream horse. A big, beautiful bay mare, one of those horses that any high level rider would drool over. She shouldn’t have been mine- too fancy and too expensive. But miraculously she now resides in our humble, cozy barn.

But we’ve had to take things day by day. Near constant rain has turned our fields to slippery mush. This type of horse is not known to be the most sure footed. A lack of work has made our infrequent rides even more challenging and our attitudes have reached a boiling point more than once. We’ve had a few major disagreements, most notably a hoof aimed at my head. It wasn’t intentional, but it sent me into a shaky stupor for quite a while as I remembered why I quit riding to begin with. I’m not immortal.

But it is these very incidents that have given us hope. I was reminded why horses never ceased to amaze me. She could kill me at any moment if she wanted to. She weighs nearly two thousand pounds and I weigh- well – about fifteen more than I should. But she follows me around in the pasture and puts her head on my shoulder, allowing me to scratch behind her ears. She lowers her massive head voluntarily for me to place a bit in her mouth even though I could never reach on my own. She stands still while I unfold a ladder, yes, a ladder,  to climb on her back and bounce clumsily around as she trots. She objects sometimes, a little hop reminding me that I am unbalanced. Sometimes she throws her head down trying to take the reins from me, only because my hands are too heavy. But still, she tolerates me and I suddenly remembered what is undoubtedly the most important ingredient for a successful horse/rider relationship. Trust.

I built a dressage arena- a 60 by 20 meter riding ring for a riding discipline called dressage. I built it out of cinderblocks and landscaping timbers on the only flat part of our hay field. It looks lovely and has given us a real place to work. We rode there for the first time today, and for the first time at all in a while. Having that ring brought make so many memories and I was able to do more than I had been able to do in a long time. Simply having a consistent space in which to work has given us a whole new outlook on things. We will go out there almost every day, weather permitting.

Today I finally feel that it really might all come back to me. It’s a good feeling.

Riding in the Hay Field

Absentee blogger

I know, I know. I swore I wouldn’t abandon my blog again.

I haven’t, I promise. Actually I have quite a good reason for my lack of blogging. Aside from near constant rain which inevitably leads to grumpy, wet, muddy horses. I am moving!

Yes, I did just move to a farm. No that farm isn’t going anywhere. Cardinal Ridge Farm (www.cardinalridgenc.com) is the family farm and is home to- yep, you guessed it-  a lot of my family. Carlos and I are leaving and everyone else is staying. To be specific, Carlos and I, our two cats Moonchie and Panterita and our horse Willow are moving to Phoenix, Arizona.

Carlos is a physician. Having graduated in his native Venezuela, we have been in a long and arduous struggle with a lovely organization called the ECFMG. It is an organization which was somehow granted the authority to certify foreign doctors by comparing their medical education to the U.S. system. Basically it is about bureaucracy and paperwork. Lots and lots of paperwork. It’s been a three year process, during which Carlos took a series of eight hour board exams and generally studied his butt off. Long story short, after the fight of our lives, Carlos was finally certified. He applied for several residency programs all over the country and was granted several interviews. I’ll be honest with everyone. My husband is a damn good doctor, but half of all U.S. applicants don’t get positions let alone foreign graduates. Things looked pretty grim. Lo and behold though, Carlos was offered a “pre-match” which basically means that a program wanted him so badly they offered him a contract outside of the match. The Match is a computer system which uses an algorithm to “match” applicants to programs based on a ranking system. All results are released in March. He didn’t have to go through that, and never will again!

So that’s it. The next three to four years of our lives will be spent thirty five hours from home. We spent the past week in the Valley of the Sun looking for houses. Forgive me if my posts are sparse, there is a lot to do to move our little household across the country!