Wednesday, September 7

Today I am grateful for:

Not overly warm. Just nice for this time of year.

The contractor did spray insulation in the basement today, so I put all the cats in the sun room, which is not connected in any way to the air movement from the basement. I opened the windows and got a fan going, so that any fumes would not be as bad in there.

I sat on the deck outside with Roxy, keeping an eye on the cats.

I briefly talked with my Mom, and she had all kinds of people visiting, so I didn't talk for very long. I'm glad she gets lots of visitors.

I did a bit of laundry, some dishes, sweeping up cat litter in the sun room (half of it ends up on the floor, it seems. Even with those tracking mats.).

I didn't notice any kind of smell after the first hour after the spraying was finished. It sets quickly, so hopefully airing the basement thoroughly means the worst is past.

I went to see River, and we had a lesson. While none of this is R's fault (her instruction is good), I felt very discouraged today. Nothing bad happened, but we are supposed to be preparing for a lead line class. I felt like for whatever reason, River and I were failing to do things that should be fairly simple at this point.

There is a movement where I have him make a circle around me, and I draw him back and he does a circle in the opposite direction on the other side. In the middle, he kind of has to shift his direction to move past me and do the other circle. We are having the same problem as last year, when we were also trying to master this movement for a class.

He stops or slows down in the middle part, because I am either a little in the wrong place and I'm blocking his shoulder, or I'm a little too sharp in my drawing back angle.

Overall, I am starting to feel like we are "training for a class", but not necessarily towards a greater level in horsemanship. We did this movement last year, and never did it again until this year. So, once again, I have a short time to master it again for a class, but in between it apparently holds no relevance.

A few weeks ago, I worked really hard to get to a certain point with riding with just the neck rope, and suddenly it is no longer mentioned in our lessons because we are perfecting whatever we need to do for the next class R has in mind for us.

So, if I were now to go back and work on riding with just the neck rope, I haven't done it in three weeks.

What exactly was our goal with that?

Then, there is collection. We were working on that with the bitless bridle earlier, and that has just been abandoned. I haven't worked on that in lessons for quite some time.

I feel like the lessons are kind of...disjointed, and I'm not sure if there is some connection anywhere.

So, I was not really happy with my own inability to perform the relatively simple elements needed for this leadline class, not really happy to be feeling like I was starting from nearly the beginning on some of it because we haven't done it in a year, and kind of feeling like I'm not sure where we are going with it, if we're just going to abandon that work for something else in two weeks.


Today I learned that the Carmen Sandiego Show (1991-1995; 295 episodes) was created partially in response to the results of a National Geographic survey that indicated Americans had alarmingly little knowledge of geography, with one in four being unable to locate the Soviet Union or the Pacific Ocean.

I wonder if it helped?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_in_the_World_Is_Carmen_Sandiego%3F_(game_show)

Thursday, September 8

Today I am grateful for:

Cool and sunny, even with some strange, intermittent storms that come and go quickly.

The contractors got some of the drywall up in the bedroom in the basement. It's funny, the contractor thought it would be "too big" for a bedroom, but when you stand in it, it feels fine. The weird jog in the wall he wanted to put in "to make better use of the space" would have just been weird, instead we just have a spacious bedroom.

The contractor seems a little less freaked out by my sense of humor. Having his wife around seems to help. Maybe he's not understanding my jokes, but he's at least got her cue to go by (she seems to get my jokes, and when she laughs he seems to understand that I'm joking).

I'm feeling a bit more confident about the mandala paint night I am hoping to do to raise money for the horse rescue. I worked at it some more last night, and I feel like I understand the process a bit better, and I can explain how to do a simple pattern in dots (made by found objects like dowels cut to size, a pencil end, and a wine cork).

I finally got to talk with Sister S on the phone about how she's doing after her surgery (she had a kidney removed because it had Cancer in it). The surgery went as smoothly as it could be expected, and my sister is recovering, but it's still very sore and she's exhausted. It was over a week ago already, and she's starting to do things again. She has her own tax/accounting business, and she's gone in to catch up on the messages.

She told me that one of our adult nephews (that I stopped being Facebook friends with both him and his Mom because of the stupid things they posted, and I was tired of the drama, so I didn't see their post on our family page about the incident) had to be hospitalized for difficulty breathing. They think it might be a fungal infection. It was quite serious and he was very ill. He has always had serious allergies and asthma, and now they think he might also have some scarring from Covid that made this worse. He is in stable condition, at least.

R texted to let me know that River was better about taking his oral antibiotics last night. She's been really struggling with that, and working on getting him not to turn away. She still wants me to pay her to do a bunch of work on him at some point. Sigh.

She really lost it about that. Part of me understands, part of me thinks she's too angry/ego hurt over it.

I spent some time in the garden digging potatoes. Not a huge yield per hill this year, and I don't know why. I did water them a fair bit, and we had LOTS of rain in the early summer, and lots of heat in the later summer. Should have been a good year for them.

I want my Sweetie to take this pail with him to work so he actually eats them. He is the one who wants potatoes, and then he doesn't eat them. I don't eat that many because of the high carbs.

I spent some more time picking up pony poop. Trying to get it all cleaned up before it gets cold.

I let everyone out into their pastures for a while.

My Sweetie is home for one night, mainly to get stuff he needs before going BACK to his apartment with his adult nephew (who will be at the airport on the way back tomorrow night) because the two of them are biking in an MS bike ride to raise money, and it is in the same town as where he works.

My husband says when he was talking to his sister about this newly adult nephew, she said "she wasn't sure G would be okay with eating vegetarian" while he was here. It's literally for three days, and it isn't vegan. He will still have eggs and milk and cheese if he wants them. My husband replied "he knew he would be eating vegetarian when he said he wanted to come visit. He's an adult now, he'll have to deal with it." It's tough to think that she's still treating him like a kid at that age.

There are one or two things he needs to talk to the contractor about tomorrow.

We basically had supper, watched one episode of "Picard" and he needed to go to bed.

Today I learned about The London Eye/Millennium Wheel. It is Europe's tallest cantilevered Ferris wheel, and one of the most popular attractions in the U.K. with 3 million people a year riding it.

"The London Eye was formally opened by the Prime Minister Tony Blair on 31 December 1999, but did not open to the paying public until 9 March 2000 because of a capsule clutch problem.[2]

The London Eye was originally intended as a temporary attraction, with a five-year lease. In December 2001, operators submitted an application to Lambeth Council to give the London Eye permanent status, and the application was granted in July 2002.[29][30][31]

On 5 June 2008 it was announced that 30 million people had ridden the London Eye since it opened.[32]"

It is still in operation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Eye