hqueen's collection of Far From the Usual stuff.

I feel for you! I know it's a pain to have your schedule altered like that, but at least you might enjoy a trip to the tack store. Stay safe!

I always stop at tack stores when I go past them as well.

It was a good day. GH and i had fun, we haven't seen each other in a long time due to various things so it was great to catch up.
I spent Saturday doing things for myself which was nice. The bf needed to pick up a few more things in the morning, so i rode with him and then putzed around the house. I got some things organized and worked on the logo for my friend's business again. I went to a mediation again which was nice. I ended up being the only one there. It was kinda nice to just work with them but i still don't feel really successful.
Got home and cleaned a bit more whole waiting on the bf and his dad to get to a stopping point. Turns out one of the valves that i bought at the store was wrong. The package was open and the wrong valve was put back into the box and obviously had been returned. Whether someone put it into the wrong box on purpose or not, either way it was the wrong thing, so the bf was stalled out again. He was curious, and of course no one had another part this side of SC! So he took my truck to work today and is going to call to get that straightened out, we'll see how far quadratec is willing to go to make something right for a customer.
Sunday i ended up going to a pet expo with my good friend NP. We had a blast hanging out and looking at all the dogs and other animals. There were some gorgeous dogs the. We watched dock dogs jumping into a pool of water for a while and then watched agility for a while too. I found a new breed of dog that sounds awesome, it is a Nova Scotia Duck Toller. Apparently they lure ducks into shore to hunt the same way that a fox plays to lure its prey. Brilliant! If love to have one but I'm not sure i can cope. I guess we'll see what happens someday. I got to talk to a lady that is a natural vet for a while which was really nice. She gave me some really great resources and ideas, so i have some things to research for the dogs. I'm a little worried about Bear, his breath smells really bad so I'm afraid he's got something going on.
I also stopped by the moose antler booth to see the lady there and get a couple softer pieces of antler for the dogs so maybe they'll chew more to help with the bad breath. She was so sweet and have me two larges for the price of one. I was really grateful.
We headed home and i worked Othello for a bit. It was terribly muddy, i worked him in the paddock since CP was in the round pen. We didn't work as long as i would have liked, but he did really good.
The bf and i got a bale out as soon as i put Othello away. The horses were really hungry. It was so muddy trying to get the bale out there, thankfully we didn't get stuck.
So the bf has my truck today and we'll see what happens with this part. I'm ok being sick at home on a snowy day. I have a lot of stuff i need to do anyway!

How bad is the weather there?

Not that bad, we only ended up with about 2" or so. And its kinda wet/slushy on the bottom since the temp didn't really go down far enough that it froze hard. They said we could have a few more snow showers today, but I doubt that will amount to anything. Then we get to see what the snowflake on Thursday and Sunday turn out to be in the 10 day forecast....
Yesterday wasn't really a good day. It was ok, but it wasn't great. I managed to get some things done in the morning. I started the crock pot for dinner with chicken in it, but then realized I had nothing to go with the chicken. The BF got off early and was able to take the valve to a machine shop and get them to do something to it so that it was fixed (no clue what... LOL), and then he headed down to start working on his jeep again. His brother came over in the evening and helped him, which was great. What wasn't great was that he didn't really bother texting me or letting me know how things were going. So I ended up eating leftover pizza alone, and then getting ready for bed because I had no idea what he was doing. I left all the lights on for him and everything, and then it turns out he worked all night. They took the thing apart 4 times because it kept leaking, come to find out the new head had an extra hole for a bolt that the old head didn't have that was causing it to leak since they didn't put a bolt in it. I couldn't believe that he would take it apart and put it back together expecting a different result 4 times. I'm not his mother so I shouldn't have to tell him he needs to take a break and go to bed. Why do women always end up needing to be the voice of reason?? He came in finally at 6:00 and said he was going to work. I'm like no you're not, you're calling out today. You've been awake for 24 hours, there is no way in the world I feel comfortable enough to let you leave this house, drive an hour in traffic on snowed on roads, to get into a 26' truck and drive all day. I don't think so!! He called his boss and his boss gave him a raft of crap that he didn't have anyone to replace him. I told him to call his boss back and explain (kindly) that he was in no condition to drive, he understands its his error, and that he will get some sleep and be in as soon as he feels a little better. I couldn't in good conscious allow him to leave the house and put himself, his CDL license and his job at risk just because he wasn't smart enough to come to bed and take a break. He had other options, I could have taken him to work this morning if he didn't get his jeep running, and he could have had my truck again on Wednesday, since I didn't have to go anywhere. It would have been a challenge, but we could have done it. But he didn't bother to think about anything else or check in, so he suffered all night, and is going to be really tired today.
I tried to get a few things done while he was out of the house, and got the sheets changed, and the bed remade. I got most of the finances straightened out and caught up, I need to make an appointment with the accountant now. I tried to put up another blind to replace the one that broke in my window, but I couldn't get it done. I didn't have the right tools, but tried to do it anyway, and got frustrated, and then ended up breaking my ceramic cup coaster that my mom gave me from their trip to Glacier, MO. Can we say Mercury in Retrograde AND Seasonal Affected Disorder?! UGH. I'm just not doing so well right now. My mom keeps bugging me to talk on the phone, but truth be told, I don't really want to talk to anyone. I want to spend time with the BF, and maybe a few other people that I choose, but I'm not really interested in talking to my mom. I don't know what it is exactly about the way that our conversations go, but I'm not interested right now. I wish she'd back off about it, and I don't have a kind way to tell her to do so. We haven't talked in a few weeks, and I know she misses me, but I'm just not in the head space to connect right now.
So I'm in the office today, worrying about the BF driving around on an hour of sleep, and have way too much to do outside of work, and am not really interested in anything!
Wheeee, fun times.

I think we've mostly recovered from the adventures of the jeep early this week. I crashed hard for the past few nights, thankfully we've mostly been getting to bed pretty early.
Otherwise, not too much going on. I've been trying to do what I need to do to take care of myself lately, which is helping. I've remembered to turn on my full spectrum lamp at my desk in the office, which is probably a good thing. I went to yoga Wednesday morning, since I missed going on Tuesday evening because the BF distracted me into helping him clean up the shop and I didn't leave early enough. It was the right thing to skip Tuesday and go Wednesday because I ended up being the only person in class on Wednesday! I got a private lesson for the price of my monthly pass. I kinda hope it keeps happening, the only bummer is that I won't be able to make it again on Wednesday this week. I'm hoping to go twice on Friday, and hoping that I can drag the BF with me on Friday evening. If I can get him past the woowoo stuff and just let him work with the movement, I think it will really help him in the long run. We'll see anyway. I have a monthly pass, and I aim to go as much as possible over the next several months so I can learn and figure things out, then by the time its warm and I am on the veggie farm again I should be able to do some maintenance myself. We'll see how it goes anyway.
There's supposed to be snow this afternoon/evening and then again on Sunday & Monday. We'll see what actually happens. It looks like snow out there, I guess we'll see... It was 14 this morning when I left.
I did manage to work Othello yesterday, he is such a pleasure to work with. He tries so hard and is making some really great changes in his body very quickly. I can't wait for it to be warm so that I can spend more time hanging out and grooming and help him feel good. Right now its too cold to stand around like that. I have to keep moving to be comfortable doing the work at all, so we'll just do this for a while, and start doing more of that on good days when the weather finally breaks.

I'll be glad when the weather breaks as well. But, it does look like it's going to be warmer for part of the week.

Yup, which means mud. Can't win, really!
Friday I managed to get to yoga twice, which was awesome. I'm really enjoying going, even though its going to be a bit strain on my budget to pay for it.
Saturday we helped friends move. We were down there by 8:30 in the morning, and found out they had 5 people not show up to help. It took almost 11 hours, and we finally left because the BF had a horrid headache. They were still getting things moved into the house. They had a 26' truck, and there were a few things that didn't get moved, so they had to rent a van and get that taken care of on Sunday. The good news was that they were only moving a few blocks. They put less than 15 miles on the uhaul truck round trip from the uhaul place to the old house and to the new house and then returning the uhaul. We crashed when we got home.
Sunday was a slow start because we were both sore and achy. I took the dogs out and took care of the horses. The dogs got into the extra bag of supplements that I have for them, and as a result they had a really good GI clean out. Thankfully, no messes in the house, but they were both crazy thirsty all day and pooped a LOT. I was kinda laughing at them, though it was my fault for leaving the plastic bag where they could reach it. I should have known.
I got a load of 42 small bales yesterday. That was a big relief, I think we were down to only 4 bales left. I have one round bale left, so hopefully I can arrange to get a load of large squares this week to check and see how fast they go through those. I'm hoping that they will last at least as long as the rounds because the big squares are SO much easier to handle. If they do last as long, I'll be ordering a whole lot more. I'm tired of dealing with messy round bales, even if the square bales will cost more.
The BF and I had a long talk about everything that's been going on lately with the stress of money and things. This month is crazy tight because of all the repairs he needed to have done on his jeep. I'm just praying that my meeting with the accountant next week brings really good news for the returns that we'll have. I need to wrap up just a few more things on the tracking sheets that I have to make sure that I have everything prepared for her, and then hopefully we'll get a big fat tax return! That will be a HUGE help. Frankly, it will pay off the immediate bills, plus put some in savings, and then pay down our loan as well if that is an issue. Keep your fingers crossed that I've played my cards right...

Hope it turns out the way you want!

Hope it works out for you.

Have you ever read the book, The Compete Cheapskate? It's full of really helpful suggestions for not only keeping track of expenses, but preparing for them. If it wasn't for hubby, I'd be doing a lot of them.