Thursday, August 19

Today I am grateful for:

A nice enough day. There were some clouds and it kind of tried to rain, but we could have used a REAL rain.

I went to clean for the family, and for quite some time now our agreed method of payment is to leave some cash in an agreed upon spot. That way I don't have to wait around for G to get home from work.

Today, I went in, and no cash. Now, once or twice I have chosen to allow G to just pay me next time, but I don't like doing that. My services are basically given the moment that I am cleaning, and I can't get back my time if I don't get paid.

Things are also different. G used to be very regular and got me to clean every week, but gradually it has gotten to where I am almost just cleaning for him casually; as in maybe every couple of weeks, but I don't know when for sure.

SO, I do not feel like just cleaning for him, and getting paid "next time" because I don't know when next time will be anymore. It isn't fair to assume that I would be okay with that, and maybe get paid some time in the next month.

It also means keeping track, and having to owe money is always a chance of people disagreeing later over whether or not you got paid.

Anyhow, when I saw that there was no cash, I texted G and asked him if he was going to be home early enough to pay me before I left. I cleaned for about half an hour, and when I got no reply, I decided to go home.

So, I texted him that I was going home, and I could clean next week if he needed me to. By the time I got home, he texted, saying he would be able to bring cash today, but that was a little late to be useful.

I don't know if I'll be cleaning for him anymore, but it wasn't amounting to much work anymore either. I like G well enough, and cleaning for him is fine, but I did make it clear that I needed to be paid per cleaning appointment. If nothing else I've made my point.

Anyhow, it messed with my day. I had to get up earlier than I'm used to to clean, so I was tired. Also kind of pissed off. So I had a nap, which is sometimes the best action.

I got some fantastic kitty snuggles. All four cats!

Then I managed to do a few small, useful things like empty the compost pail.

I spent some time just sitting in the pasture with the goats and ponies, and that was lovely.

I spent a bit of time working with Wonder, one of my mares at home. I'm thinking she would do well with the liberty work that I'm learning.

My husband's Uncle K died today. It's sad, but it's one of those cases where his suffering was so great that death is a kindness. I''m glad my husband was able to see him a few times this summer, and to connect a bit with family.

We watched "Standing up, Falling down", which was okay but kind of formulaic.

Wednesday: I had a good lesson with River. We broke down the pattern we need to learn and worked on one small part of it that I was having trouble with.

There is a lot going on with everyone at the barn, so we spent some time talking about things.