2024, the year in review, more or less.
Jan. 1st, 2025 02:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gottawonderThis is what stands out. I'm sure it's not everything important, but it's what I remember.
I don't remember much of the last part of winter last year. We must have done SOMETHING, but I don't know that I could be specific.
I did go home to visit family in the spring, in May, and had an overall good visit with everyone. It's always emotional, because you see how much everyone has changed all at once (many members of my family are pretty frail now, and it hits you like a ton of bricks).
One of my brothers separated from his wife of almost 20 years this year, and I'm sure it's been very hard for him.
The garden was not great this year, it was very dry once the spring rains were done, and watering didn't seem to do enough to keep things growing. We got some root vegetables and lettuce, a few beans but not many. The raspberries did well.
Over the summer my Sweetie was able to hire help to get the soffits and fascia done on the house. We also cleared off a concrete pad beside the house that had been a dumping ground for years. I hope to do something nicer with it than just stack building stuff on it.
Our riding barn had a very good Liberty trainer from the U.S. come for a week. His name is Patrick Sullivan and he does have stuff online. I really enjoyed the brief lesson I had with him, and he has the most wonderful energy about him. One of the most positive people I've ever met, without ever feeling fake.
River did well at the barn's summer show, unexpectedly winning a pole bending class, which to me is hilarious because River is NOT a speed demon. He won by being fairly quick but very accurate.
I feel like I am getting a lot more secure with River using a bareback pad, and we're doing pretty well using the neck rope for communication. It's not something I was ever expecting to do with a horse, but here we are.
For a large part of the year we were not sure what we were going to do about Roxy's hind legs, since she had damaged both of them at that point. Her ACLs. The surgery for each leg was going to be very expensive, but an incredibly difficult program for recovery involving her being pretty much immobile for four weeks then only a bit more mobile for four weeks after that, for EACH LEG.
She had a stealthy but very real bout of pancreatitis that was also pretty scary, but oddly enough once that settled down her legs seemed a bit better. Maybe her odd gait had more to do with what was going on inside than her joints.
Anyhow, she seems to be doing okay with her legs the way they are, walking well and not limping. You can tell she's a bit stiff, but it doesn't seem to cause her much pain.
We sold our old truck and bought a new one, and have at least emotionally parted with our old X-Terra, though it sits at our mechanic's place and has not sold.
Dear little Thistle passed. He seemed in fine spirits one day, and the next was gone, so at least he didn't seem to suffer. He lived for close to five years, which is incredible for a mouse.
River and I had a great deal of fun dressing up and doing a Halloween freestyle.
One of our "home helpers" friends had a heart attack while we were visiting with them at Thanksgiving. He seems to be doing okay, but that was pretty scary.
Trainwreck finally moved from her very awful trailer to the lodge in town (though that might have been last winter before the new year) and that felt like a win. This October she almost died from complications from being an alcoholic, so her sons moved her from the lodge to an apartment in kind of a senior's/fixed income building close to them where they could help her more, and where it goes from there is up to her.
My Sweetie did a lot of work to prepare the area downstairs for the wood stove, putting in the proper tile and so on, and we got a beautiful wood stove installed in November. We had a fire place in the trailer, and knew we wanted a wood stove for this house when we moved it here. It's been very nice to have already.
We also set up a pottery area in the garage, so that we can throw at home. We still have to take things in to be fired, but we can create the shapes and trim them on the wheel in the garage.
Our Uncle moved to the Personal Care unit just before Christmas, and I'm glad he did. I feel like it was time, and for my Aunt's sake, since she was unable to care for him anymore.
I was pretty unhappy with a lot of the things that were happening with the pottery studio, mainly to do with how one person ended up making all of the decisions, even though decisions were supposed to be being made more democratically. A few other people had their own issues, some also were not happy with the one person somehow being an authority, so I asked that we have a meeting to work on ways to go back to involving more people in running the studio, and starting the process for creating committees to address certain things people wanted.
Nothing has come back yet from that meeting, but I hope it makes some positive changes.
I spent some time with a woman I knew in my 20's and didn't see for a long time, and connected with her again when we realized how close we lived to each other.
I feel like D from pottery is an actual friend outside of pottery class, which is also great.
I've been working more with Wonder and Dandy this year, doing some Liberty work with them, and doing more with Dandy to prepare him for driving.
Trying to work in deep snow though, did a number on my back. It seems to be doing better now, but I was pretty sore for a few weeks.
I am able to stand on River's back! Just in the last two weeks; I hope to be able to incorporate this into a freestyle.
We had a small Christmas with just us, but this year I felt okay about it, whereas in other years it made me sad to not have a bigger gathering. I felt a lot of gratitude for what we had, and for having a good husband to celebrate with, and all of our animals.
We did get together with our "house work" friends, and a couple from the Ukraine, and I felt very grateful to have such good friends who have done so much for us on our house, and who really are good friends to us.
It's been a pretty good year, over all.
I don't remember much of the last part of winter last year. We must have done SOMETHING, but I don't know that I could be specific.
I did go home to visit family in the spring, in May, and had an overall good visit with everyone. It's always emotional, because you see how much everyone has changed all at once (many members of my family are pretty frail now, and it hits you like a ton of bricks).
One of my brothers separated from his wife of almost 20 years this year, and I'm sure it's been very hard for him.
The garden was not great this year, it was very dry once the spring rains were done, and watering didn't seem to do enough to keep things growing. We got some root vegetables and lettuce, a few beans but not many. The raspberries did well.
Over the summer my Sweetie was able to hire help to get the soffits and fascia done on the house. We also cleared off a concrete pad beside the house that had been a dumping ground for years. I hope to do something nicer with it than just stack building stuff on it.
Our riding barn had a very good Liberty trainer from the U.S. come for a week. His name is Patrick Sullivan and he does have stuff online. I really enjoyed the brief lesson I had with him, and he has the most wonderful energy about him. One of the most positive people I've ever met, without ever feeling fake.
River did well at the barn's summer show, unexpectedly winning a pole bending class, which to me is hilarious because River is NOT a speed demon. He won by being fairly quick but very accurate.
I feel like I am getting a lot more secure with River using a bareback pad, and we're doing pretty well using the neck rope for communication. It's not something I was ever expecting to do with a horse, but here we are.
For a large part of the year we were not sure what we were going to do about Roxy's hind legs, since she had damaged both of them at that point. Her ACLs. The surgery for each leg was going to be very expensive, but an incredibly difficult program for recovery involving her being pretty much immobile for four weeks then only a bit more mobile for four weeks after that, for EACH LEG.
She had a stealthy but very real bout of pancreatitis that was also pretty scary, but oddly enough once that settled down her legs seemed a bit better. Maybe her odd gait had more to do with what was going on inside than her joints.
Anyhow, she seems to be doing okay with her legs the way they are, walking well and not limping. You can tell she's a bit stiff, but it doesn't seem to cause her much pain.
We sold our old truck and bought a new one, and have at least emotionally parted with our old X-Terra, though it sits at our mechanic's place and has not sold.
Dear little Thistle passed. He seemed in fine spirits one day, and the next was gone, so at least he didn't seem to suffer. He lived for close to five years, which is incredible for a mouse.
River and I had a great deal of fun dressing up and doing a Halloween freestyle.
One of our "home helpers" friends had a heart attack while we were visiting with them at Thanksgiving. He seems to be doing okay, but that was pretty scary.
Trainwreck finally moved from her very awful trailer to the lodge in town (though that might have been last winter before the new year) and that felt like a win. This October she almost died from complications from being an alcoholic, so her sons moved her from the lodge to an apartment in kind of a senior's/fixed income building close to them where they could help her more, and where it goes from there is up to her.
My Sweetie did a lot of work to prepare the area downstairs for the wood stove, putting in the proper tile and so on, and we got a beautiful wood stove installed in November. We had a fire place in the trailer, and knew we wanted a wood stove for this house when we moved it here. It's been very nice to have already.
We also set up a pottery area in the garage, so that we can throw at home. We still have to take things in to be fired, but we can create the shapes and trim them on the wheel in the garage.
Our Uncle moved to the Personal Care unit just before Christmas, and I'm glad he did. I feel like it was time, and for my Aunt's sake, since she was unable to care for him anymore.
I was pretty unhappy with a lot of the things that were happening with the pottery studio, mainly to do with how one person ended up making all of the decisions, even though decisions were supposed to be being made more democratically. A few other people had their own issues, some also were not happy with the one person somehow being an authority, so I asked that we have a meeting to work on ways to go back to involving more people in running the studio, and starting the process for creating committees to address certain things people wanted.
Nothing has come back yet from that meeting, but I hope it makes some positive changes.
I spent some time with a woman I knew in my 20's and didn't see for a long time, and connected with her again when we realized how close we lived to each other.
I feel like D from pottery is an actual friend outside of pottery class, which is also great.
I've been working more with Wonder and Dandy this year, doing some Liberty work with them, and doing more with Dandy to prepare him for driving.
Trying to work in deep snow though, did a number on my back. It seems to be doing better now, but I was pretty sore for a few weeks.
I am able to stand on River's back! Just in the last two weeks; I hope to be able to incorporate this into a freestyle.
We had a small Christmas with just us, but this year I felt okay about it, whereas in other years it made me sad to not have a bigger gathering. I felt a lot of gratitude for what we had, and for having a good husband to celebrate with, and all of our animals.
We did get together with our "house work" friends, and a couple from the Ukraine, and I felt very grateful to have such good friends who have done so much for us on our house, and who really are good friends to us.
It's been a pretty good year, over all.
