i just saw a picture of the olympian Lea Neal, who is 17 and won a medal at the olympics this year, when she was 9 years old with Michael Phelps, like she was getting something signed from him or something. and this year she was his teammate. that's so crazy to me. i love it!

so i planned earlier to talk about 4 pet peeves/annoyances i have. i'm trying to decide if i'm still in the mood to talk about them. sure. what were they again?

- taxes

- paying for college

- riding

- crap, what was the last one, fudge muffins

but i'll start with the riding one - that Bella can go and ride in a show after riding her horse maybe once since the last show she went to over a month ago, and before that she rode her horse maybe once. and she does well, so she thinks that she doesn't have to ride. i hate that she is getting rewarded for not working hard. she has a perfectly healthy horse that she doesn't ride, when Maeve has a lame horse with ringbone that maybe never be healthy again that she would love to ride but can't. life sucks sometimes. and not to mention Dvora too also has a healthy horse that she never rode, but i can't say if she has been riding him more since she came back from camp because he is at a different barn currently.

okay, now i don't usually talk about politics because i'm not well educated about either side. all i know is that i hate it when people make comments and digs about people who believe the opposite that they do, or whatever. but one thing that annoys me is when people think that rich people should pay more taxes. it's like saying: "oh, you have worked hard to get all this money? let's penalize you make you give us a lot of your hard earned money." i'm not saying they should pay less taxes than everyone else, they can pay the same amount. actually, why the heck do we have to pay so much taxes anyways? taxes on this, taxes on that. and also back to the rich people. i think people might think that rich people should pay more taxes because they were just handed their money - but that is an incorrect belief. most rich people today worked hard and earned their money, very few inherit their money. if you don't believe me there are a few people who agree with me: Luke Landes (of consumer commentary), Robert Frank (of Wall Street Journal) who uses stats from three different research groups, Stephen D. Simpson (of Investopedia), and Bert Whitehead (of Fiscalisadvisory). i'm sure people who believe that the rich should be taxed hardcore could find some studies that prove that since they have a ton of money they now need to give more to their government than everyone else.

but this leads right into my next complaint. this is a little different because i'm sort of annoyed at myself and just frustrated in general i guess. i'm frustrated because Babson didn't give me a scholarship, and my parents never applied for financial aide, maybe because they thought they wouldn't qualify? i mean maybe they wouldn't have, but there are a lot of kids who have parents that make a lot more money than i do who are going to Babson. so my parents have to pay the full amount for me to go to school. according to collegeboard, my parents will have to pay $59,170 this year for me to go to school at Babson. that is including $1,020 for supplies - i don't know how they calculate that so i don't know how accurate it is, but seeing how much i've had to pay for books and stuff...yeah. i know that it is my choice to go to Babson, and i know that is an expensive school, and i also know that if i had worked harder in school or maybe done more extracurricular actives or tried to find more scholarships to apply to i could have paid for that. i told my parents when i was little that i would get a scholarhip so they wouldn't have to pay for college. well i failed because they get to pay all $60,000 this year and if that keeps up, they get to pay a total of $240,000 just for me to go to school for four years. i'm like about to cry. i feel terrible. why didn't i study for another half an hour? or do something else with my life that would have made my application better, like join another club? intially i said that the last paragraph led right into this one, that was when i was going to say if my parents didn't have to pay so much taxes (they have to pay a lot, my mom has to spend so much time figuring out how much money to give the government for all her employees and stuff. sure they have money coming in, but most of it is going right back out. we aren't making a lot of money now. we've lost money the last year so now my dad has to get more involved in the company when before he was trying to delegate so he could focus on a new business idea, but now he's back in the office everyday - probably because he realizes he needs to make more money if he is going to pay for Babson) then maybe they would have enough money to send me to college without me feeling like crap like they are wasting all their money. there are so many kids who are going to college for free, or their family barely has to pay anything. do i really need a fancy business education from Babson? can't i just get some decent education from some college then just start up my own business and be set? save my parents a bunch of money? 

okay, new plan. i'm still going to Babson because i know it is a phenomenal college and i'm lucky i got accepted. out of the 5,000 something kids that applied there are only 400 something in the freshman class. i would be stupid to give up this opportunity (and by the way, i was never considering not going even with me being mad about the money thing). so what i'm going to do is i'm going to work my ass off at Babson. i'm going to get the most out of it i can. if i have to pay for it then i'm going to make sure i get very penny's worth. and then when i'm done with my four years of college i'm going to go out and get a kick-ass job and then eventually start my own business and become a successful business woman and then pay back my parents for college by sending them on trips and buying them a nice house. and then i will be able to die happy, or else i'll always feel bad for my parents spending all that money on me. right now they are making an investment in me, a big investment, so i'm going to have to deliver. better get started.

and i still can't remember what that last thing i was going to talk about was. shucks.

and now i will reply to you Abby because none of that was directed at you, that was me just blowing off steam.

you are daring taking your blog off private!

and yeah the whole party was kind of awkward because i'm not friends with anyone who was there except for you and josh. i barely even saw jayna this year, i maybe said 30 words with her the entire year. and the same last year. so really it was just strange all around. it makes me want to go to college when i don't know anyone there and no one knows me so there are no preconceived notions and you can just go strike up a conversation with anyone about anything and introduce yourself and yeah. i found when i went to the babson family day, i like talking to new people and learning about them and stuff. it's fun! so if i had thought about it some more i probably wouldn't have ended up going, but that's that and unless i go to reunions or more parties like that during vacations i will probably never see those people again, which is a strange thought but it is what it is.

and i don't think i really need help because it's all pretty much packed except for what i need to wear the next few days. i just have one more shopping trip left then i'm ready! but it's starting to get real. and sad. i'm still so excited but the goodbyes are getting closer and i'm already getting sad and teary eyed and all. and it's going to be so bad. but the good thing is that it isn't goodbye forever even when it might seem like it the first time. but yeah vacation should be good!

and monday sounds good, could we do maybe an early afternoon thing? then we can still do other things before or after. i'm just freaking out about how little time i have left. tomorrow i'm going to be at six flags all day. so that leaves me monday, tuesday, wednesday. and then thursday i'm going to the dentist and i want to spend the rest of the day with josh. and i want to ride Dolly everyday this year. and i still need to find time to go shopping and finish packing and Mollie wanted to try to do something this week too, and josh of course would like to see me more than just on thursday and i'm supposed to go to my 4h's leaders house sometime and oh my goodness, so much to do.

i can't believe i wrote so much. i really should have just went to sleep when i came upstairs instead of writing all this. i went to bed at 11:30 last night, woke up at 6:15, worked at a horse show all day, got home at 3 and literally crashed on my bed and slept for 3 hours, and then went to the barn 6:30, got home at 8 and ate dinner and have been on my laptop since then even though i'm still so tired. and now it's already 10 and i am spending the day at six flags. so woo. i need to sleep now.

but before i go, this quote of the day goes along well with what i was talking about before:

"Too often we...enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." – John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)

goodnight world!