Friday, January 24
Jan. 25th, 2025 12:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gottawonderToday I am grateful for:
Good sleep last night.
A low key day, overall. I enjoy pleasant days without much drama.
I managed to finally have a short conversation with my Mom, though it took three tries to get her when she wasn't eating supper. It is still very strange talking with her, as she has ZERO short term memory, and I'm thinking probably almost no long term memory left either. Yet, she seems okay with that, happy enough to live absolutely in the present.
I did normal chores and went to see River.
River did well today, not all that forward in the ground work, but doing very well at the yields. When I rode though, he had a very big, forward trot. I stood up on him again (I'm doing this most sessions now, because I hope to incorporate this into a freestyle), and he did a little better on our side pass under saddle.
His attention was good, and it was overall very positive, and that's how I want our sessions.
The girl with health challenges did come back today, so I stayed and worked with one of R's horses. The mare's name is Halle, and I don't work with her much. She's more or less retired, though R does some work with her when she can, because it's good for her to stay fit if possible. I didn't do anything that would build fitness, but did some work with the Surefoot pads, which she seemed to enjoy.
H's lesson went well, and there seemed to be no added fear or drama, so that's good.
My Sweetie was at the climbing gym, and was home by the time I arrived.
He had seen a friend of his today, who came to the city for a funeral. They had lunch together.
Thursday:
A good 'stay at home' day, that I used to catch up on some house work.
I did talk with Sister S today, the one awaiting back surgery. We talked about politics and...dental work. She did talk about how things were different for the kids that were older before Dad died. She said that at that time, there was no dental work through the schools (when I was a kid, there was, and it made a huge difference).
She said that Dad didn't do a lot to take care of their teeth, pretty much only taking them to a crappy dentist to just pull the rotten ones. She talked about growing up with a horrible abscess for most of one winter from a bad tooth that went untreated for some reason.
She also mentioned that they had pretty bad nutrition growing up.
When Dad died, she said that one of the first things our Mom did was spend a ton on money on the kids that were grown to get their teeth cared for, since Dad would never let her do that when he was alive.
My response was "wow, Dad sounds like an asshole". She defended him, saying "well, he grew up worse".
My thoughts? By 1960 you'd think that taking your kids to the dentist would be a fairly normal activity, as well as recognizing that if one of your kids has a weeping abscess that it needs proper treatment, not just applying a poultice at home until it got so bad you couldn't pretend anymore that a home remedy would fix it.
I looked it up, and apparently children's vitamins were not really a thing until late in the 1960's, and it's hard to imagine that. So by then, my older sisters would already have been over ten years old.
I was born pretty much right as Dad died, and for myself, my two brothers, and one of our sisters who was still at home, it was like we had a different childhood, as we were only raised by Mom. I think in a lot of ways it was better for us, as all I hear about Dad was how he was emotionally volatile, used religion to try to control everyone, worked the kids like hired hands, didn't like "progress", and controlled the money.
I don't think Mom had much fun or freedom, though the older kids always say how much they loved each other.
Yet, I also know that one of the first things that Mom did after Dad died was to finally put a proper toilet and bath tub in the house. Imagine living in the seventies, when everyone else had NORMAL plumbing, and you didn't. How hard it would be to raise nine children without it.
Poor Mom.
I changed the sheets and washed the ones that were on the bed, I did the dishes, changed the cat litter, and used the shop vacuum to clean the rugs. I took out the kitchen garbage too.
My Sweetie, when he got home, did more patching/sanding in the area in the kitchen.
I worked on a painting after he went to bed.
Good sleep last night.
A low key day, overall. I enjoy pleasant days without much drama.
I managed to finally have a short conversation with my Mom, though it took three tries to get her when she wasn't eating supper. It is still very strange talking with her, as she has ZERO short term memory, and I'm thinking probably almost no long term memory left either. Yet, she seems okay with that, happy enough to live absolutely in the present.
I did normal chores and went to see River.
River did well today, not all that forward in the ground work, but doing very well at the yields. When I rode though, he had a very big, forward trot. I stood up on him again (I'm doing this most sessions now, because I hope to incorporate this into a freestyle), and he did a little better on our side pass under saddle.
His attention was good, and it was overall very positive, and that's how I want our sessions.
The girl with health challenges did come back today, so I stayed and worked with one of R's horses. The mare's name is Halle, and I don't work with her much. She's more or less retired, though R does some work with her when she can, because it's good for her to stay fit if possible. I didn't do anything that would build fitness, but did some work with the Surefoot pads, which she seemed to enjoy.
H's lesson went well, and there seemed to be no added fear or drama, so that's good.
My Sweetie was at the climbing gym, and was home by the time I arrived.
He had seen a friend of his today, who came to the city for a funeral. They had lunch together.
Thursday:
A good 'stay at home' day, that I used to catch up on some house work.
I did talk with Sister S today, the one awaiting back surgery. We talked about politics and...dental work. She did talk about how things were different for the kids that were older before Dad died. She said that at that time, there was no dental work through the schools (when I was a kid, there was, and it made a huge difference).
She said that Dad didn't do a lot to take care of their teeth, pretty much only taking them to a crappy dentist to just pull the rotten ones. She talked about growing up with a horrible abscess for most of one winter from a bad tooth that went untreated for some reason.
She also mentioned that they had pretty bad nutrition growing up.
When Dad died, she said that one of the first things our Mom did was spend a ton on money on the kids that were grown to get their teeth cared for, since Dad would never let her do that when he was alive.
My response was "wow, Dad sounds like an asshole". She defended him, saying "well, he grew up worse".
My thoughts? By 1960 you'd think that taking your kids to the dentist would be a fairly normal activity, as well as recognizing that if one of your kids has a weeping abscess that it needs proper treatment, not just applying a poultice at home until it got so bad you couldn't pretend anymore that a home remedy would fix it.
I looked it up, and apparently children's vitamins were not really a thing until late in the 1960's, and it's hard to imagine that. So by then, my older sisters would already have been over ten years old.
I was born pretty much right as Dad died, and for myself, my two brothers, and one of our sisters who was still at home, it was like we had a different childhood, as we were only raised by Mom. I think in a lot of ways it was better for us, as all I hear about Dad was how he was emotionally volatile, used religion to try to control everyone, worked the kids like hired hands, didn't like "progress", and controlled the money.
I don't think Mom had much fun or freedom, though the older kids always say how much they loved each other.
Yet, I also know that one of the first things that Mom did after Dad died was to finally put a proper toilet and bath tub in the house. Imagine living in the seventies, when everyone else had NORMAL plumbing, and you didn't. How hard it would be to raise nine children without it.
Poor Mom.
I changed the sheets and washed the ones that were on the bed, I did the dishes, changed the cat litter, and used the shop vacuum to clean the rugs. I took out the kitchen garbage too.
My Sweetie, when he got home, did more patching/sanding in the area in the kitchen.
I worked on a painting after he went to bed.
no subject
Date: 2025-01-25 08:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-26 07:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-26 08:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-27 06:42 am (UTC)It's more like...a lot of judgement and guilt trips from a conservative/quasi religious perspective?
Instilling in them a sense that their value came from how hard they worked, how practical they were, how well behaved?
Guilt.
You know, the whole "don't wear makeup because it makes me uncomfortable to see you becoming adult women" and it seemed like he was stuck in the past and I don't get the impression that they were okay to listen to modern music and so on in the house.
Controlling. Fearful.
I can't be sure, but I don't think that our family got television until after he died in 1972.