Blogging from #AtoZChallenge - Lay/Lie and Lad

Oh boy is this a fun one! There are just some grammar rules I can't remember no matter how hard I try and how logical they sound. When do you use lay or lie? I found a handy-dandy little table that has saved my writing butt many times. One of my very low-tech tools is to keep open a draft email. I've titled it To Do, but it can be anything. For me it's a running list of things I want to remember, things I must remember but don't feel like scheduling in Outlook. Right now I've got a list of all the blogs I want to visit for A to Z every day, the html for my signature, a few songs I want to buy...and...down at the bottom where I'll never lose it, this table:

Lay vs. Lie Chart

Infinitive Definition         Present             Past     Past Participle   Present Participle

to lay to put or place     lay(s)                laid       laid                   laying
something down

to lie to rest or recline    lie(s)                 lay        lain                   lying

Occasionally I find my first guess is correct, but I still check. Just in case my brain is playing tricks on me. Is your brain as stubborn on lay vs lie? Or something else? Please share your hints!

We owned a boarding facility for six years. Both the best and worst experience of my life. I learned more about horses and riding and training in those six years than the entire rest of my life. I learned more about bad people than I ever wanted to know. Not all were bad of course and many are still friends. But some just shouldn't be allowed to walk the streets without a big E for evil branding their forehead.

One of our early boarders seemed wonderful. Then one day she quit showing up. Didn't pay her board. Wouldn't answer her phone or emails or door. We never learned what happened. We told her in messages that we could work things out if she'd give us the paperwork to sell the horses. We'd make sure they got good homes.

Maybe the electric company can turn off the power when people don't pay. Now way we'd stop feeding the horses. We talked to the authorities and found out the legal course is the file a lien, appear in court (automatically win when the owner doesn't show up). But winning only means you have the right to take the horses to auction. Running a horse through auction is a horrible thing. They're treated impersonally and you must take them to the nearest auction. In this case it was one more suited for small animals. They ran the horses through a cement tunnel into the ring. Many fell down on the slick cement.

We weren't about to take a chance that these two horses go to a bad home, so we bid on them ourselves. Yes, we were paying ourselves for horses we'd already won the right to own, but this is the only way to get the paperwork. We still had to pay the auction house a percentage too.

The two horses were Lad, a small, bay untrained Quarterhorse and Maria, a very nice, gray mare of unknown breeding. I finished Maria's training and she turned into a fabulous trail and steady endurance horse. I trained Lad as well. Probably the easiest horse I'd ever trained. One day in the round pen, one in the arena, and then out on the trail. He became a safe kids horse. I'm picturing Maria here too because I have a different horse planned for M.