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silverthorne-studios

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    I didn’t see the sign telling me I had a stop sign ahead. I didn’t see the stop sign. I didn’t see the van right in front of me.

    One second, I was listening to music, driving down the road to work. The next, I was screaming as I braced myself against the wheel of my car, slamming on my brakes and skidding into the ditch. One second. One second of not paying attention was all it took to make me realize maybe I wasn’t as safe of a driver as I thought I was.  I didn’t understand what happened at first. In a daze, I saw my deployed air bags and the crumpled hood of my car, smoke leaking out. Lurching out of my vehicle, I stared in disbelief behind me at the stop sign I somehow missed. I couldn’t breathe. I saw the van I hit. Kids. There were kids in the backseat. A man was running over to me, shouting profanities in my face. All I could do was stutter, tears streaming down my cheeks.

                I got lucky. Nobody was hurt in the accident I caused. If I had been a split second earlier, I would have T-boned the other vehicle, and the accident could have been much worse. Instead, I was shaken up with a couple bruised knees. The couple in the other vehicle, and their children, were just shaken up as well.

                After my accident, I became a different driver. I got a ticket for running a stop sign and had to go to court for it. I had to complete six months of probation where I couldn’t get any moving traffic violations, so I basically didn’t drive anywhere. I was too afraid to risk getting a ticket or getting into another accident and ruining my record. Once I did start driving again, I felt like I was starting over. After an entire winter of little to no driving after my accident, getting behind the wheel again was nerve wracking. I felt like I was starting over. Now, I’m comfortable driving again. However, almost every time I get into my car, I still think about my accident. When I pass an intersection (even an empty one), I still cringe and slow down. If there’s another car coming up to a stop sign, I still tense up, almost expecting them to blow through it, like I did. However, that has led me to drive more carefully. I don’t “space out” like I used to. I watch other drivers more too. I expect the worst and plan for it.

                Of course I had known about distracted driving before my accident. Just like everyone else, I had heard the warnings not to text and drive or eat while driving, etc. Nobody ever told me that my own mind could be my greatest threat while driving. I’ve never eaten while driving. I don’t apply makeup or text or do anything but drive while I’m behind the wheel. I don’t speed or drive aggressively, and I always wear my seatbelt. I don’t even listen to my music very loudly. I envisioned myself as a pretty safe driver. Until the day I didn’t see a stop sign and hit another vehicle. Maybe I was just too comfortable. I was used to driving on one road to work, but that road was closed. I took another way and the new route had a stop sign in a spot that my normal route didn’t. I was on autopilot, listening to my music and thinking about something, I’m sure. But I wasn’t on my road. I was on a different road and my distracted driving led me to get into an accident.

                I’m grateful my accident wasn’t worse. Despite scaring myself and my family, going through court and insurance processes, and having to buy myself a new car, at the very least no one was seriously injured. I was startled into developing better driving habits.  I pay more attention to the road and those around me now.  I also understand the importance of having good car insurance.  The driver of the vehicle I hit did not have insurance but I did.  My insurance paid for my expenses, making it easier for me to move forward.  I feel in the end that I have learned a lot and am better off having gone through this horrible ordeal.

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"Wait a second, let me catch my breath
Remind me how it feels to hear your voice
Your lips are movin', I can't hear a thing
Livin' life as if we had a choice..."

-- Sing Me To Sleep, by Alan Walker

Oh hi. The last time I wrote a journal was three months ago. Oops. Here's my update.
For the possibly two people who actually will read this. Go you. You're amazing.
Also. Apologizing in advance because I'm currently overly tired, fueled by caffeine, procrastinating on homework, slightly sick, and a little emotionally unstable so this may be a mess.

Let's start with [community] college.
I love it. I tell everyone that it's like a more relaxed version of high school. I love driving myself in, having time in between and after classes to get stuff done, having more freedom, and feeling more in control. I'm taking 5 classes. Stats, Intro to Communications, Critical Thinking, Sociology, and Diversity. My favorite class is Critical Thinking. The teacher is really awesome and the class is really laid back and easy. Plus, the content itself is actually interesting. My least favorite is either Sociology or Diversity. Sociology is a subject I am actually interested in. I took sociology in high school but had an awful teacher. The same thing has happened in college. The teacher, Becky, is super nice and I like her as a person... but the way she runs her class doesn't work for me. She says she's not gonna lecture for more than a few minutes a day but then she ends up taking up the entire ninety minutes with lecture. And it's boring, unrelated, weird crap that I can't follow and don't get anything out of. The only good parts about the class is my friend sitting next to me and the tests. We just screw around and write notes and I doodle and zone Becky out. And for the tests, they're online and taken at home so... no studying needed (sorry not sorry.) Diversity is okay I guess. The teacher is a nice guy. The class isn't insanely hard. However, what bothers me is this giant group project we're working on right now that my group is procrastinating on and causing me stress, as well as the fact that he doesn't have any tests until the huge cumulative final. How the hell do you study for a cumulative final when you haven't tested on any of the material before? Not a fan.
But like I said. I generally really like the school. I'm not looking forward to next semester though, I'll have a couple harder classes I think, especially Human Bio. Completely dreading that class. But even more than that, I'm not looking forward to next year when I transfer to the university. I know I won't like it there nearly as much as the community college. Huge classes, lots of people... no thanks.

So I guess the other thing that keeps me busy is work. All-in-all, not going too badly. However.
I quit at the horse barn I was working at. Straight up quit. Said I wasn't going in the next day and that was that. Here's the deal with that place. I didn't feel appreciated. I felt like I was constantly being attacked and my work was being picked apart and I could never do anything right. Also, originally I just wanted to do every other weekend. However, one of the weekends required that you do a Tuesday evening shift. I knew that, but I didn't want it. I kind of assumed that the other girl who was hired to do the opposite weekend as me could/would do it. However, she told the owner she couldn't, so the owner came to me and kind of cornered me into it. She was like "So you can open up your Tuesdays for the evening shift, right?" When I told her I would prefer not to, she was kind of snotty and said "Well the other girl can't do it so you have to." That night, I ended up messaging the owner and telling her that I didn't want to do the Tuesdays because it would be too much for me. What ended up happening is the owner (I'm trying not to say names here, heh) made a group chat with me and the other girl, said we needed to work something out otherwise she'd have to choose between us. Me and the other girl decided we would share the Tuesday shift and do it together so the chores would take less time and we didn't have to do it all alone. I should have just quit then. But I decided to stick with it. But like I said, it was constant nit-picking. For our Tuesday shift, me and the other girl would triple check everything, try to make sure we didn't miss anything or forget anything, but every damn time we would get a message saying the stuff we missed or didn't do right. I understand we need to learn to get things right, but it felt very accusatory and never like "Oh, your stalls looked amazing but just please remember to do this..." No. It was "You guys need to remember to pull Ron and Mo's feed pans. It seems like you forget every time." Like, excuse me? I was never explicitly told to pull their pans. Maybe it should have clicked with me that you pull the outside horse's pans so you should pull the inside ones too, but it didn't. And if we missed it three weeks in a row, why didn't you tell us sooner? So just crap like that. It felt very negative and I wasn't ever happy or comfortable there. So I decided to tell the owner a month in advance, that I would be leaving. A month. Far as I am concerned, I only needed to give her two weeks, but I decided to give her a month so she could hire someone to replace me on my weekend and Tuesday shifts. Problem was, when I was hired, I verbally agreed to committing to six months. However, I never signed anything. I probably never even said out loud that I would stay that long. I didn't forget about that fact. But my own mental health and comfort is more important to me than making myself miserable staying somewhere I don't want to be. Apparently not to the owner. I got told I would need to repay my training pay. There was no understanding that I was doing this because I needed to. There was just bitterness and sass about how I said I would stay for six months and if I didn't do that then I would need to repay the training pay. This was all through messaging on Saturday night after I'd done my morning shift. I was supposed to go back on Sunday morning, but I was afraid the owner would be pissy at me and treat me poorly. So I just quit. I said I wasn't coming back the next day. The owner got pissy, said some bitchy things ("I thought you were better than that but I guess my judgement was wrong"), and I never said a word more. I lost out on a month of pay, because I didn't get my September check from her (she pays monthly.) And I'm sure I'll never see it. So overall... that was a really crappy situation and it was handled poorly but I'm glad I'm done there and can focus on school and shopko and other things.

Even though this journal is already wayy too long, I'm gonna write about the ranch in here too. Because I got to visit there again a couple weeks ago.
I brought my friend with me. This was kind of a big deal for me, because I don't like inviting friends out there. I don't know why, but I've only done it a couple times over the six years I've been there. Now that Melissa has moved, it was even stranger for me, because I don't feel as comfortable there and I feel like an outsider half the time. But. He really wanted to come with and ride a horse, so alas, we went to Hinckley and rode horses. And it was awesome. I put my friend on Little Joe, our big faithful lesson horse, and I rode, of course, Dream. I missed her so much. We were in the barn and we had Dream and Joe tied to the stalls so we could groom and tack up, and every time I went out of sight and wasn't right next to her, Dream would start shifting around and whinnying and looking for me. As soon as I came back, she calmed down and stood quietly. I taught my friend how to groom, tack up, put a bridle on, lunge, and of course ride. For some reason, I really like sharing my horse knowledge with people, sometimes. Sometimes I get really uptight and spazzy, but not this time. We rode in the indoor for the most part, mostly so my friend could get the hang of steering and get a little more comfortable with Joe. I forget sometimes that I used to be like that too. Now it comes so natural to me, even though I know I have SO MUCH more to learn and I'm not even that good of a rider. Dream was really good that day though. I walked/trotted her in the indoor, working a little on collection and slowing down that damn bouncy trot of hers. I also loped her both ways, which is stupid of me because she just lifts her head and runs around and doesn't listen, but... I love the feel of her lope and I didn't wanna go without it. So we did, even though it accomplished nothing. Then we went and rode bareback in the yard outside. Dream behaved better than Joe did. Or maybe it was more the fact that I know how to handle my horse a little better than my newbie friend on Joe, who likes to get away with things sometimes. Joe walked into one of the sheds with my friend riding him. He also started trotting towards the barn and took my friend off guard, so he just kind of.. slid right off. I'm sorry, but it was so hilarious. I felt kinda bad, but I couldn't stop laughing. But walking around bareback with Dream is my favorite. Just relaxing. It was a really good day. That was really messily explained, but oh well. I miss my Dreamer again.

So I would believe that's the main points of life in general right now. I should probably go get some stuff done before I go into work later. Yay shopko. Yay school. Is it winter break yet?
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Rise | Update

6 min read
"Oh, ye of so little faith
Don't doubt it, don't doubt it
Victory is in your veins
You know it, you know it
And you will not negotiate
Just fight it, just fight it
And be transformed

'Cause when, when the fire's at my feet again
And the vultures all start circling
They're whispering, "You're out of time”
But still I rise"

--Rise, by Katy Perry

I can't really explain my lack of presence on here anymore. Something with me has changed. I came to this site five years ago on a whim after discovering my like for creating photo-manipulations. Since then, I've expanded my artistic side into writing and photography. I still enjoy all of those things. It's just, these past couple years a lot has changed for me. I'd like to believe that I am growing and maturing as I go. I haven't quite let go of this site-- I grow too attached to things for that-- but I haven't dedicated myself to it either. Sometimes I go weeks without checking this and I come back to over a thousand notifications to sift through, because I can't bring myself to just delete them without looking through everyone's amazing artwork. In any case, I can't promise more artwork, more activity. And I know that I'm not exactly popular enough on here that anyone is really bothered by that anyway. But I thought I should post a little update, because, once again, a lot has changed since my last update, and if anyone wants to know, well, here it is (ft. long run-on sentences).

Basic things?

I graduated high school with a 3.9 GPA in the top 10% of my class (out of 207). I pulled off all A's for my last year of high school. However, I'm not even as proud of that as I once would have been. Almost everyone graduates nowadays and a lot of people get good grades and all. Now I'm off to college. I'll be attending the community college in town first to complete my generals (which should be done after the fall and spring semester, plus one summer class) then I'll be moving onto the university. I'll be staying at home to say money. I've applied for, and received, multiple scholarships to help with that as well. I just bought a laptop (which I'm now using to type this journal, hehe) which will be used for classes in the fall. I'm generally pretty excited and anxious to start this new step in my life. (Could I have said that and sounded more like a robot?)

I'm still working at Shopko, a little over a year later. I've made some pretty decent friends there but I've also grown tired of some of the lazy, less responsible people who lack work ethic. As one of the people who've been there the longest (a very weird feeling, since its only been a year) I kind of know my way around and am feeling pretty comfortable there. However, even though I may not financially need it right now, I have gotten a second part time job working at a horse farm! I do the basic feeding, turning horses out, and cleaning stalls. It's a boarding stable with forty some horses there (thankfully, I only have to do half the stalls!) It will only be every other weekend, starting at the end of August, but it will be a little something extra and I will be around horses and will hopefully create some more horse contacts. Maybe at some point I can work to pay off board or lessons or something like a few of the other girls who work there. Which brings me to the next point...

The ranch. I've only visited once more since March, a couple weeks ago. I rode a 3 year old named Button and she did really well. (See her picture below) Melissa got pictures and video of me riding her and working with her. I also rode Dream. She was her usual sassy self. I was going to just bareback her around the yard for a little bit, but when she humped up on me and refused to walk around, I had to saddle her up and we did some real work. She bucked and messed around on the lunge line, so she loped a while until she calmed down then I got on. We worked on collection and slowing down our trot, since she was just running around on me, like usual. According to Melissa, we made progress, but I didn't really feel it. In any case, we ended on a good note and it was a pretty good day. Melissa moved Blaze to South Dakota (without telling me) and so I didn't get to see my favorite boy. I left feeling empty. I still feel empty. Melissa's horses are like my horses. I know all of them by name and have watched a few of them grow up, and have been around all the others for years. So even though Dream and Blaze are my favorites, the ones I would buy if I ever got the chance, they all feel like my own in a way. I love just walking out to pasture and spending time with all of them. Now that she's moved, I just haven't felt as connected anymore. I feel out of the loop and replaced. I don't want to let go. I don't want to leave behind Dream and Blaze, and the rest of my herd, but I also feel something pulling me away. This need to move on. And it's breaking my heart. Now I go to the horse farm I work at and I see the boarders with their horses, living my dream. It's harder than I thought it would be. I wish I could bring Dream and Blaze away from Melissa's and keep them at the farm. It's impossible. But I wish I could.

So now I'm working on straightening everything out before I start college in the fall. Getting both my jobs comfortable, getting everything situated for classes, and trying to stay positive in the process. I think I have really high expectations for what college will bring, and I also think I am going to be disappointed. I think it's going to be a lot of work. I think I'm going to be swamped and stressed out and it's not going to be anything like I expect. But I guess that's life. That's what I signed up for. And I know I'm ready.

fading by silverthorne-studios


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I had a kiriban at 19,999 page views, but I didn't really.. "advertise" it, I guess? so nobody caught it, unsurprisingly xD
But yeah. Over 20,000 page views.  Wooo!

I know I haven't been super active lately, which has led to lost interest in anything I do. Plus, my account is a mix of a lot of stuff, not just focused on one thing, which has also contributed to the lack of interest. But I honestly could care less. If even one person looks at something I do and likes it, that's good enough for me c;

(However, back to the point of this journal..)

Is anyone interested in doing a photomanipulation art trade with me?
-I will say that I'm going to require that you do your half first, because there have been a few times now that I never got my half (or was waiting for a really long time) and to the honest, it will be beneficial to you to do yours first, because it will make me work on yours and get it done quicker because I won't want to keep you waiting when I already got mine ;p
-I'm not against a little more difficult characters, but I also want to be able to do a good job, so if I think I can't handle a character or idea or whatever, I'll let you know

Most recent manips of mine:


A Walk in the Riverbed by silverthorne-studios  lurking iniquity by silverthorne-studios  galaxia by silverthorne-studios

Comment or note me if interested please!
 
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Dream

9 min read
We all are living in a dream,
But life ain’t what it seems
Oh everything’s a mess
And all these sorrows I have seen
They lead me to believe
That everything’s a mess

But I wanna dream
I wanna dream
Leave me to dream

--Dream, Imagine Dragons

My last journal entry was kind of an update mainly on what's been going on with the ranch and why I haven't seen Dream or the other horses in forever. However, since then, I have been out to the ranch in Hinckley once (on Jan. 25th) and I would like to finally write a journal about it! Title is appropriate, is it not? c;

I ended up going out to Hinckley way late at night on a Sunday night after work. Not totally ideal, considering it was snowing and the roads were shit and I can't see well in the darkness and get stressed out when I don't know where I'm going. (My mom was in the car with me, but she made me drive.) I spent the night and I didn't go out to see the horses until the next day, Monday. Which works because we had that day off of school. But anyway, I slept like crap that night because 1) I can't sleep decently in a place/bed that isn't home/mine and 2) I had a giant Mastador (MastiffxLab) taking up my entire bed and I didn't have the heart to move her because she was just happy to see me so I had like six inches of space crammed between a dog and the wall to sleep. Awesome, right? Yeah, I know. The next morning Melissa putzed around and took her time taking care of the dogs/puppies (long story) and we didn't eat breakfast until like 11:30 and by then I was getting ridiculously antsy to go out and see Dream and Blaze. I finally asked her if I could just go out to the barn without her and she said yeah because she had some work to do and would join me in a bit (which never happened, unsurprisingly.)

Alright. So I finally got outside. It was chilly (25-30ish?) and snowing and the horses were all snowy messes and of course, Dream ran away from me. As per usual. So instead of trying to chase her around the yard/pasture, I cheated and used grain. Dream is always a pain to catch, even for me, after all these years. At the old place, I was able to call the horses up into this alleyway that's attached to the main barn/arena and give them all grain and close up a gate so I could get Dream in. At the new place, there isn't really an area like that, so I just carried a bucket around and had a herd of like 20 horses following me around with Dream running around the outskirts of the clump and avoiding me. When I finally did catch her, it was another task to get her inside the barn. She's never been inside the new barn before and I had to take her through a people-sized door instead of the big garage-like door on it and it was kinda dark inside and she was not easily convinced. Then I had to go back for Blaze and since there isn't a decent foal-sized halter to fit him in his awkward growing stage, I just had a lead rope, looped it around his neck and asked him to follow me. Surprisingly, he did. He's such a good boy c:

So the barn at the new place is really nice. It has a tack room, a viewing room looking into the completely covered indoor arena, three or four stalls (I didn't count for sure), and a hay loft that someday Melissa wants to make into some kind of apartment area for someone like a trainer or ranch-hand to live in. So I had Dream tied to one of the stalls and since she was nervous, she pooped everywhere and was pawing and pacing and constantly looking for me when I went out of sight. Since she was all wet from the snow, I couldn't just tack her up or even groom her decently. So instead we went into the arena and just walked around together. Blaze came with us as well. I took off her halter and she was stuck to me like glue. It's called working at liberty. With no halter and lead or anything to keep her with me, she could have run off and went to explore the new arena by herself, but instead she chose to stick with me and walk around exploring together. We checked out all the corners and the big garage-like door at the far end of it where there is a little slit to see out of, and we just walked around a lot. I tried running around to see if she would trot after me, but she wouldn't. Just kind of stared at me, but that's okay xD  Even if she did stop walking with me for a little while, all I had to do was call her name and she would come right to me. It was the greatest thing in the world to me. Dream is a really stubborn, almost bratty mare who wants to do things her way and get out of work sometimes and if you start loping on her, that's all she wants to do. She's been a difficult mare for me to work with, but something about her has just always clicked with me that she's different and she's mine. Back in the old arena, she wouldn't just follow me around with absolutely no prior work that day. If we rode for a while and then I got off and wanted to walk around with her, she might kind of follow me for a little while, but she would lose interest or get distracted by hay or other horses or want to be done and get grain. In the new arena, because there aren't any other distractions, she was really focused on me and wanted to be with me. I even left the arena and had her loose in there so she could roll or do whatever if she wanted, but she just stood by the gate and waited for me to come back inside and when I did, I didn't ask her to follow me, I just started walking around and she just came right after me. It was the best thing ever to me. Any non-horse person reading this probably wouldn't understand how big of a deal that was, but I value any time I can spend with Dream, and it does not have to be just riding. Like I said in my last journal, last summer I spent a bunch of time just hanging out with both Dream and Blaze and it helped our relationship out a lot.

I did ride Dream a little bit eventually, but it was not our main activity. I spent a solid two hours between grooming her and walking around at liberty with her and then only spent about a half hour riding her. I rode her bareback because 1) I was too lazy to put her saddle on her and 2) Dream has a hard time keeping weight on in the winter and especially with a foal, Blaze, still nursing off her, her top line is really skinny and then she has a big hay belly. She's way out of shape, so even if I had put the saddle on her, we wouldn't be able to do any serious work anyway. So instead we worked on tackless and bareback riding! The bareback part was annoying because of her high withers an skinny top line it was kind of uncomfortable and hard to balance, but I did it anyway. I had her side pull and reins on, but I barely had to touch them. Instead, I worked on really using my body and legs to communicate with her, and surprisingly, she followed me really, really well with just that. Another thing with her is that she is soft, but does require the use of reins usually. Again, in the other arena I had lots of problems with her running off on me and wanting to go to the hay or the mats where we untacked and stuff. This new arena is such a fresh start and I love it!

After I put Dream and Blaze back out in the snow (which I felt pretty bad about doing because I had just finally gotten them dry inside) I had my parents camera with me and I used that to take some awesome pictures of the horses in the snow, then went inside to warm up, play with puppies, eat some dinner, and watch a movie with Melissa. Not too bad of a day (:  I just wish I could go out to see Dream and all of them again soon... I didn't have to work AT ALL this entire weekend, and I even have today, Monday, off of school. It would have been perfect to go out to the ranch, but the weather has been cold and shitty and my mom doesn't want to drive me again so soon after the last time. My friend Bridget who also goes out to the ranch is going this coming weekend and the weather looks warm and glorious... but of course I have to work. I am so bummed. Maybe next time I guess...

Dream and Blaze - Winter by silverthorne-studios
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