gottawonder

Today I am grateful for:

Good sleep.

Time with my Sweetie at home.

He spent some time cleanin' the ol' garage. A never-ending task that doesn't last long.

I did dishes, washed dog diapers, filled the cat water tower, took the tops off of the beets I pulled a few days ago, and tried to put at least a few things in their proper location (and directed my husband's attention to specific things that belonged in the garage that have been just sitting in the house for ages).

We did chores, then took the truck to the nearby gas station to fill the jerry cans.

We came home, and by then it was around 5 pm, and my husband was going to go to the horse pasture to mow some more, and I'm like..."if we're going to see a movie like we talked about, we have to leave by 6 pm, but it's already 5, don't you want to clean up and eat first?".

So yeah, we went inside and cleaned up and ate first, and we got to town in reasonable time for the show.

We saw "Wildwood", which was quite incredible. It took 16 years to make, it's all stop motion animation, and it's absolutely amazing.

There were a few things with the story that bugged me, but the art of the process is worth seeing on the big screen.

Even more fascinating are the videos on YouTube about the process.

Very beautiful film.

At home we watched some of those videos and chatted before my Sweetie headed to bed.

Today I am grateful for:

Good sleep.

No turds on the floor today!

My back is still bad when I get up, though it improved after some stretches. Not perfect, just better.

Enough that I could go do some house stuff. I did dishes, some laundry, and went outside with the pails of carrots to wash them outside by filling the pails and sloshing the carrots around and changing the water a few times.

They came out pretty clean.

When my husband got home we laid the carrots out on kitchen towels to dry before putting them in the salad fridge (which now contains a lot of carrots. Maybe the salad fridge wasn't such a frivolous purchase after all).

I did also toss all the yucky tomatoes I had "ripening" (rotting) in the mud room. I had them laid out on sheets of cardboard, and they rapidly ripened, then went bad almost instantly. I didn't eat many of them.

Sigh.

What can you do. I'm not too worried about making sauce or canning or anything. I don't eat more than a few tomatoes a week.

Shrug.

We took them out with the normal vegetable waste buildup out to the compost pile.

Then we went for a walk at the park down the road. It was a nice evening for it. Cool but not too cold yet.

We saw two different cats in the now empty camping areas (a walking path goes all around them) at different times. They ran away from us into the bush. I don't know if they are feral cats who live there, or ones that come from a farm to hunt and have a warm barn to go to...? A cat likely wouldn't live too long in the park over winter.

I've never even seen a cat there before, never mind two.

These Thursday walks have been really nice. We end up talking a lot on these walks, and I think it's nice for my husband to do something after work besides eat and go to bed.

We probably will run out of daylight soon, though. The sun sets pretty early as it is.

Then we came home, ate, and watched an episode of "Sopranos".

Today I am grateful for:

Good sleep.

My back was really bugging me today, but I still did some household tidying and displayed the Breyer horses I got by making some room on a cabinet.

I did things like put away clean dishes and refilling the cat water tower and sweeping. By then my back had loosened a bit.

I did outdoor chores, and walked around the pasture with Roxy. It feels very "wild" in the horse pasture since no one is grazing it down (that was dear Hollywood's job, the horse in my icon).

It's about the right time now for my husband to mow the pasture with our rough mower, and it will be nice to be able to walk there more easily.

I will note that by fall, the stars are very bright again. In the summer, you don't see much of the stars because it doesn't really get dark enough. Right now, the sky is dark when I do chores, and we live in a pretty dark area (except for our neighbor's glaring light, which we have spoken to him about, but he hasn't done anything about it. Arrr). It's one of the perks of the shorter days.

Then I went to see River. My back wasn't too bad by then. His shoulder seemed a lot better, which is a relief.

I didn't push it, and worked him moderately. He had a nice, forward walk after we warmed up a bit, and his trot seemed fine.

R says that L used the bigger hoop with Pickles, and it is big enough for him to pass through without ducking.

My Sweetie showed up just to say hello on his way home, and we chatted with R for a while about her new to her saddle.

River was very soft in his back up and yields, which is nice. It was very pretty for riding outside, near twilight and the moon out.

I often see the little neighbor girl, who does take lessons (their yard is right beside the barn property). She plays by herself a lot, and comes up to the fence to see the horses. I wave to her when I'm riding.

Then I went home. My Sweetie made borscht with our garden beets, and it was WONDERFUL.

We watched an episode of "Sopranos".

Last night I watched part of "Arrival", and will hopefully finish it tonight. It is an excellent movie. One of my favorites.

Edit: I saw the orange and white cat outside today. He was sitting on our rail fence, very happily absorbing sun.

I pet him for a while, and he is SO affectionate. He does belong to someone as he is neutered, fat, and content with life. It's fun to see him from time to time.

Today I am grateful for:

Good sleep.

Some time with my Sweetie before leaping into action.

Then we leapt into action.

My Sweetie did the dishes. I started quinoa, then started (later finished) the dense salad for lunches. I washed dog diapers. We folded and put away clothes.

I changed the cat litter and then swept the floors.

My Sweetie found the length of PEX tubing to make a larger hoop for L at the barn.

He also put the screen door back on the North entrance, where it has long been absent.

He pulled more carrots, and you know, I think they grew quite a lot more in the last month or so. They're very sweet, since we had some frosts.

He washed them and put them in the "salad fridge", which has quite a lot of carrots in it right now.

He also pulled some beets.

After chores and such (more picking up things that were displaced for pouring concrete being returned to their places), I headed to the barn.

River was sore today, it seems to be his right shoulder. So we took it easy and didn't do much. Some walking, some massage, some stretching.

L had wanted to do some video today for stuff she posts for the barn page, so it was a little disappointing.

I gave her the larger hoop, and she thinks THIS will be big enough for Pickles to jump through, and I hope it works out.

I tried to hula with it, and actually managed to do it for a while!

Then I came home, and my Sweetie had supper ready (garden veggies!).

We watched an episode of "Sopranos".

Today I am grateful for:

Good sleep.

Doing some of the many small but useful things that need doing. Dishes. Laundry. Hand washing some of my summer clothes to put them away for the winter.

I did chores outside, and tried to clean up some of the plastic shreds from cutting the deck boards (they're made mostly of recycled plastic) on the driveway, but it's pretty tough not to pick up all the gravel when doing so.

I went to the barn to see River. He was very tired and pokey today, and his breathing seemed not great when we started but better by the end of our work. That oddly happens sometimes.

He was still pretty soft today in the back up and yields, even if he didn't have a lot of oomph.

Then I stayed for the young woman's lesson. She was in a funny mood today because she wanted to wear her new mitts at the barn, but her parents said no.

It's a funny situation. This young woman is in her early 20's, and she's smart, but her life of being cared for by her parents makes her seem like she's a teen. I don't know that she would ever be able to look after herself, even though to me she seems intelligent. She doesn't seem emotionally mature, but is that because of how she's been raised?

I wonder if she looks at people like L, who is close to her age, and was a child at the same time (she's been taking lessons for about 8 years now), and is now an adult, and wonders how that happened.

It must be frustrating to have people telling her what she can and can't do, and I wonder if they always SHOULD be telling her what to do.

I worked with Ferrari, and we had a good session. He's a very sweet horse, if almost TOO eager to please.

I came home and my Sweetie had supper ready (Yay!).

We watched a good movie, "Bankers".

I did go out late last night and spend some time in the pottery studio. I had some success with throwing, at least.

Today I am grateful for:

Good sleep.

I didn't go outside or anything until I absolutely had to, since the wind was howling all day long.

When I did go to do chores, it was pretty unpleasant.

I did text R to see if we would be able to have a lesson (it was that bad), I didn't get a reply until I was already on my way.

We did end up having a lesson, and the wind continued to howl. River did great in the indoor arena, ignoring the wind whipping the arena cover and rattling the doors.

We had a good lesson, working on exercises to improve his back up and to get more lightness (always more lightness).

Our ridden work was about going forward, and then trying for collection. We did get some collection, though at this stage he can't hold it for very long.

River did work hard today, and I am proud of how much he tries, and that he could even focus with all the wind going on.

My Sweetie met me at the barn, we left my car at the barn for the time being, and we drove in his car to the town where our "early poll station" was located. Neither one of us had ever even been to that town before, as there is really no reason to go there.

The polling station is located in a community center, and there were LOTS and LOTS of people there. The people working there said it had been very, very busy all day long.

I'm thinking we are going to get a record voter turnout for this stupid referendum, and I hope that it is conclusive enough that we can settle these issues,....but I bet Smith is going to just keep stirring the pot.

The questions themselves are all so awful and racist, and not really even plausible (as in, there's just no way we would ever be able to make the changes she's proposing in the questions. They would require us to be a separate country first, and separation would not be a simple or fast process were it to happen, so why ask those questions first?). Several of the questions were just blatantly out of the sphere of a province to decide, so a waste of our time and money.

The whole thing is awful. Yet, I bet there's going to be enough idiots willing to say yes to some of the questions that Smith can keep rattling the cages and keep everyone angry.

Sigh.

I'm glad we voted. It's been really on my mind, and I was so worried that there would be some glitch in my I.D. or something that I'd get turned away, or that I would mess up my ballots. I'm fairly sure I did everything correctly, and at least I've done what I can.

We had to stand there for about 45 minutes before we could vote, as the line was pretty long, and the process for this referendum seemed pretty slow. Well, it IS ten separate questions.

We drove back to my car, then we headed home.

It was late enough by then that my Sweetie had to head straight to bed.

Today I am grateful for:

Okay sleep, but good to be up a tad bit earlier.

I wanted to be able to get to the pottery studio earlier today, as a person was going to be waiting with the paper we need to sign to have access to the code for the front door of the building.

I did chores first, and talked to my Sweetie (hands free) for a while as he was driving.

The weather was nicer today. Sunny and clear, but still pretty cool.

I headed to town and made it to the studio in reasonable time.

I sighed a bit over the unnecessarily hostile language of the craft center agreement, which listed things like "do not abuse members of the Rosehaven staff" (the people who work at the senior's residence part of the building, and aggressively detailed descriptions of how to clean up after yourself, and on and on.

It makes you feel like a child to be told things like that, in a way that suggests that you would ABSOLUTELY abuse staff and leave a mess, and do all kinds of rude and horrible things except for this piece of paper. That one piece of paper that says all the evil things you were plotting are off limits.

Sigh.

On top of that, the woman who was there for me to sign the agreement went on to TELL ME TO CLEAN UP AFTER MYSELF PROPERLY as she was leaving.

Dear lord. Do I look like a troll? Do I look like I am a rebel, a teenage dropout, a vandal, a member of a roving horde of barbarians?

I have been attending this studio for eleven years now, and I ALWAYS CLEAN UP AFTER MYSELF. In fact, I often spend extra time cleaning things that other people have missed.

The obsession with cleanliness in this studio surpasses any actual focus to make pottery there. Their real goal is to obsessively clean the studio as an exercise. It's ridiculous.

Anyhow. I was using a similar white clay to the stuff I'm trying to throw at home. It's very hard to throw, and I struggle with it. I threw several more failures, and ended up sadly with one bowl that may or may not make the cut when I come back to trim it.

If I ever get the hang of throwing with this clay I will likely achieve some elevated level of pottery, the equivalent of a black belt. Hi-ya!

I talked with my Sweetie again for a while in the parking lot, just to give him some mental stimulation. It's a loooong drive.

Then I went to Winner's, looked at the same sweater I looked at a while ago, still liked it, but still recognizing that I have many, many nice sweaters at home. Also that I don't wear sweaters a lot.

I did find a very nice blue velvet cushion.

There was a family there, that looked to be the very elderly grandmother, her middle aged adult daughter, and probably the youngish grand daughter who was maybe in her 20's. They were remarkable in that they really came across as, if possible NOT be be mean-spirited, but straight up odd ducks. VERY ODD DUCKS. Kind of hillbillies, and VERY ODD.

They did seem delighted to be shopping, and I hope they had a wonderful time together and found what they wanted/needed.

There was a tiny, elfin young woman at the check out, and I did have to mention with delight that she was very little, in a way that hopefully didn't insult her. I find tiny people to be kind of adorable because I am kind of large. Not because I think they are like children, but just...remarkable? She probably hates people remarking on her being tiny, and I hope I was respectful about it.

Then I got groceries, not a huge haul this time but still necessary. I am grateful as always to have the means to do so, the physical ability, and so on.

I got home, brought everything inside and put it away, and talked with my Sweetie some more until he was nearly home. It's such a long drive.

He came in, the animals all went nuts for a while, and he sat and we visited for a while before he went to bed. He didn't want to go straight to sleep, as that sensation of still driving/moving stays with you for a while.

Today I am grateful for:

Good sleep.

A warm house. It's been snowing all day today. Melting as it hits the ground, but snowing.

So it's cold. Not quite freezing, but cold.

I felt kind of petulant about the weather being so bad this early, and bored because my Sweetie is away, but what can you do.

I washed dog diapers, washed the dishes, and vacuumed. I did animal care/chores.

I spent a fair amount of time on the phone with friend D, which was a nice distraction.

I did speak with my Sweetie in the afternoon, they all went somewhere for lunch, and then were going to spend the evening with his sister and her husband.

I decided to FINALLY go to the pottery studio and mess around. The building was cold and it actually warmed up pretty quickly with the heater turned on.

I threw over and over again, but wasn't happy enough to keep anything. One vase I kept, but I don't know. I was throwing with a porcelain clay that's very tricky to work with, as it gets too soft after a while and collapses if you take too long to throw something.

Still, it was better than sitting around being bored. It's nice just to throw, and it often takes a few sessions for me to throw better again after a long break.

I talked with my Sweetie again before he went to bed. He said they had a nice evening, played some cribbage.

I found "Cannibals! The Musical" by the guys who write South Park on YouTube, and it was a lot of fun.

Last night I watched "Moulin Rouge", and even though I've watched it a few times before, as I get older I think I'm paying more attention to how movies look and the quality of the performances, etc. and I really was blown away by what a good movie that is. I wonder if we'll ever see anything like that again, made with real people and real sets with real singing to that degree of excellence.

Today I am grateful for:

Having a bed to sleep in, even if I don't get to sleep properly. The guys came to work, which is great, but also noisy. It makes the cats wake up and think "it's time". Sigh.

I got up and did very little. Some dishes. Washed dog diapers.

I got a call from a person at the bank wondering if we're coming in to talk about our mortgage, which will come due for renewal in November. That will require my husband being able to get to a bank during business hours, which won't be easy.

I went outside to see how the deck is progressing. It actually looks very well made, but I honestly don't like the overall design, and how it's panning out, even though I guess I was informed of the dimensions.

The deck on the ground is large, but the stairs coming down from the door on the main floor (which is off the ground by about five/six feet because of the basement being partly above ground) just cut the entire deck in two.

Literally. There is a small deck right at the door, which I guess I knew would be there, and it projects about a third of the way into the other deck's breadth. Then the stairs come down in fairly low risers, which is great, but the whole thing is massive, and it comes all the way across the deck underneath and ends pretty much at the end of the deck, leaving a small path at the bottom that is all you have to walk from one side of the deck to the other.

That is not how I imagined it. I did not think the steps would completely bisect the deck like that. It kind of defeats the purpose of having a big deck. What we actually have is two smaller decks with a set of stairs coming down between them.

It's pointless. What are we going to do, have a seating area on one side of the deck, and not bother doing anything at all on the other side because you can't even see it from the side with the seating?

Plus, now that I see the sheer size of the deck, and how much space the stairs take up, I can't even see how it would benefit from having a roof. We were going to extend the roof of the house over it when we tinned it, but now that I see it, the roof would seem claustrophobic. Somehow, with the stairs, it just doesn't work at all.

It's disappointing. And expensive. And not really fixable. The stairs are built, and we need stairs there. We have to have stairs. The deck was built to be symmetrical on each side of the stairs, and that made sense too. Somehow, taken as a whole, it both looks fine and isn't what I wanted.

It's not Dan's fault. He built exactly what he was told to build.

It's not my husband's fault. He told me what he was doing every step of the way.

I just didn't think the steps were going to cut the deck in half. No one said they would do that, no drawings were shown to me. My husband just said we'll be building stairs, and said "great".

How stupid of us. A huge deck split like that. Pointless. You can barely walk from one side to the other on the strip of deck in front of the steps. It's literally just a little wider than another step.

Also, the guys are cutting the plastic decking on our driveway, and leaving a big pile of plastic shavings there, and NO ONE IS CLEANING IT UP!!

I mentioned that to Dan, and he was like "we can just sweep it under the deck... Yeah, no.

I will likely have to go out there and clean it up myself. Imagine not cutting over a tarp or something and cleaning it up properly.

I tried to be positive about the deck. I did. I don't like it.

I went to see River, we had a lesson today.

He had a chiropractic adjustment earlier, and I talked to R about how that went (I wasn't present, as they were doing him early in the day). He was out in the neck, and in the pelvis, but mostly good. Pretty good for an older horse.

I don't generally bother with the chiro treatments, but R kind of hounds me to do them, because her horses for some reason are all very much in need of them all the time, so she assumes River is a giant mess too. I do it once in a while just to see...and usually he's not too bad. It's generally the exact same thing every time, and I wonder how much difference it makes to even get him done, if the patterns in his body don't change.

Our lesson went okay. We worked on that back up from behind, and it was much better. After more work on a pattern on the ground that always gives us trouble, I got on and we ran through a very basic dressage pattern, which went fairly well.

Throughout everything, he could have been more forward.

I saw K and chatted with him a bit. I'm a bit surprised that he seems pretty chill about the coming of winter, because usually he's freaking out trying to get everything done that needs doing before the snow flies, but he seems okay this year.

I'm not really too worried about winter either, except for getting the yard cleaned up from the construction and getting that huge slab of concrete off of our property.

I came home and my Sweetie was cooking, and he said he was feeling kind of down in general, some of it because he is going home tomorrow. I guess he's feeling a bit like I do, just not looking forward to the disruption.

I know he doesn't like the shock of going home and seeing aging family, just like I have a hard time with that too. I don't see them for a year, and I go home and I forget how old everyone is, and I feel so unable to help them.

Yet, my husband usually enjoys seeing his family, just like I usually do too, and I know he HAS to see his parent's aging, you don't get to opt out of that.

He's just leaving straight from work tomorrow, driving until he's tired and getting a room, and finishing the next day. I won't see him before he goes.

So I told him my honest feelings about the deck, and of course that helps nothing. We aren't going to be able to change it, as it stems from circumstances of how the house itself is built. I don't know how we could have avoided it looking like that.

I guess it would have helped if we didn't have the little deck right up at the door. That's much bigger than I thought. I don't even know why my husband WANTED another little deck up there. Just to put junk on, I guess. Too small to sit there, but too big and pointless.

Okay, I'm just really disappointed in how it's turning out. It's well built, it's a nice color, the layout is just stupid.

So we ate our supper in silence, and we did chat a bit about other things after a while, but what do we do about a deck we just spent a ton of money on that I hate?

Today I am grateful for:

Good sleep.

Not being too rushed to get to town. I have an appointment for Roxy regarding her odd behavior.

I did say hi to Dan and Brandon, as they were here working on the deck (rather loudly) from about 10 am.

Feeling some relief that the color of plastic deck material looks good. Nice that I won't have to stain it.

I still felt a little pressured to get to the vet appointment on time, but we were good.

So the description I had was not a classic match to seizures, and of course I got a brand new vet who doesn't know Roxy's history.

That's something that gets to me. This is the only vet clinic in that town, and the vets change frequently. You don't end up with experienced vets often, and they don't know my dog. It's frustrating.

Anyhow, her vitals are all really good, and her blood work came back with mostly normal results. Roxy's cholesterol was a little high, and at first the vet made a big deal out of it, but I said "well, what would we look for" and she suggested a whole bunch more tests we COULD do, but for what? Our dog is already on low fat food and so on...then the vet shrugs and says "yeah, it's really not that high. Just a little".

That was frustrating. Not only did she have a list of about five possible things that might cause the seizures, and the blood work would rule out kidney or liver issues, and she was saying we should test for a bunch of those things...but Roxy doesn't have symptoms that matched those possible problems.

So, I guess if I WANTED TO, I could spend about two grand or more on test to rule out a whole shwack of potential diseases.

She also said I could try putting her on Gabapentin, and see if that helps, but I was like....well, if she's not having actual seizures (because she said it didn't sound like seizures), then I give her Gabapentin, and voila no more seizures, that doesn't prove whether or not she was having a seizure.

Frustrating. I could have left with Gabapentin and x-rays that might or might not have shown Cancer, and a whole bunch of other tests.

Instead, I just sighed, and said "how about we just see how she does". She smiled and said "that sounds great!".

Mostly, I wanted to see if there was anything BIG that the vet would see, but I guess if there isn't, then....?

Well, that's okay. This can count as her annual check up, as she hasn't been in since last year.

Then I briefly went to Winner's, and saw some nice sweaters, but really, I have a lot of sweaters. It's still nice to look around.

Then I got groceries, and I am grateful to be able to buy groceries, and have the physical ability to do so, and a car to get it all home.

It rained a little, strong in some places, nothing in others, and I could literally see on one place on the gravel road, a line across it where on one side it had rained enough to make the dirt dark, and on the other side bone dry. No gradient. Like someone had used a ruler.

I got home and it was rainy and windy, and we brought the groceries in and put them away. My Sweetie was cooking.

We watched the first episode of "The Sopranos". He's never seen it, and I saw...most of it several years ago but never finished the last season (or two?). It's been long enough ago that I won't be bored.

My Sweetie is going to go visit his parents this weekend, in a fairly short trip. He wants to leave Thursday and be back the following Monday. He will likely feel weird about seeing his Dad, since no one has even let his Dad know that they know about the half brother (that even his Dad might not know about), and no one feels like confronting him about cheating on their Mom.

He will also see his sister and her family. Probably some of the other family in the area will show up to visit if he lets them know.