hqueen's collection of Far From the Usual stuff.

I hear ya on the family drama. But for me, it's from my hubby. I don't know how many times I've been ready to leave. I still may one day.

We're getting all the warm weather as well. My fear is for the fruit trees. I'm afraid they'll get blossoms too early, then lose them to a frost.

Deb I'm afraid our trees will get bit back too. It has been in the 60's all week. The fruit trees bloomed last year by March and then by April was bit back by a hard frost. That's Arkansas though.

Yeah, Deb, I think you're right. I'm afraid that it will end up causing problems for crops, and that there will be an explosion of bugs this year!
And it stinks that it's your hubby that's the drama. Hard to get away from At least we can just not go to family functions. The BF's mom has a gift certificate to the yoga studio where I go, and right now I just don't feel like bugging her to go with me. I'm just not interested in spending time with her because I don't want to say anything that will make matters worse. And I have a feeling they probably can't handle the intensity of my emotions all that well, either. I try to keep things dialed down around them, but lord help them if I ever have a reason to get upset or angry. It scares most people because my emotions are strong and most people really feel them.

I had all sorts of good stuff planned for today, and I'm only going to get to a fraction of it, and that's the stuff that couldn't be avoided. I'm coming down with a cold Yesterday I thought it was just allergies, which would have been not outside of the realm of possibility since it's been so warm, and it was only one side of my nose/throat that was bothering me. This morning, it has settled in and I have that ick feeling in my throat.

I managed to get fecal samples collected on the horses (see aforementioned note about bugs...), and taken to the feed store to get them processed. Thank goodness I have an extra feed job this weekend that will cover that expense! I dropped off some stuff at the consignment tack shop, and then ran by the grocery store. Completely forgot to get lemons so I can make my honey lemon tea Got gas for cheap and then came home. I had one phone call today, and then had planned to do a guided energy healing on my facebook page, but I just don't have the energy to do it. I probably should do it for myself, but I don't have the energy to guide anyone else through it. So I'm just going to lay low and hope that I feel better super fast because I ain't got time for this $h!t!!!!

Hope you feel better soooooon!!!

frustratedearthmother said:

Hope you feel better soooooon!!!

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sumi said:

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Thanks a bunch, yall. You can tell I've been moving fast cause I haven't been around.
I did manage to recover in time to work the Expo. I clocked 57 hours in 5 days. My friend and I worked together in the barn, and the only downer was the volume of DUST in the barns. It was HORRID. I use a netipot and I was blowing gunk out of my nose that was awful!! Combined with recovering from the cold, it was a really bad thing. But other than that, everything went great. Everybody in the barns were super nice, and we only had a few minor bumps in the road. Also managed to get everyone into the arena that we were next to through the back door at their appropriate times. So it all worked out. I expect I'll be back again next year, we'll see I guess.

I was mostly recovering from that when we got hit with the March snow storm. That just threw my entire schedule off. It was great to spend an extra day with my BF since he stayed home from work that day. We cleared everything out, and got stuff going again. Gratefully the wind wasn't as bad as they were saying it could have been, so we never lost power, either. I guess that's what 100 gallons of water in barrels will do for you

The storm caused the schedule to get nutty. JS was supposed to come into town Tuesday afternoon. Her flight got cancelled, and so she managed to get a new flight coming in on Wed instead. I had to reshuffle her schedule three times before we settled in. That just made my whole week strange since pretty much nothing I planned on happened the way I planned it. I was soooooooo glad to have her body work for me though. I felt SOOOOO much better after she worked on me. I have missed her a lot! We managed to do a little essential oils class, so that was a little more money in my pocket, which was nice.

Other than that, the BF got a fat return, and I netted a whopping $41.00. That's better than taking a loss, at least, so I'll take it. The BF paid off one of his cards (he was hoping for paying off 2 but the silly head went and blew a bunch of money so it's only one. It's his own fault, for real...), and then is able to make a payment on another one, so that's good news. I made a mess of my accounts, completely forgot to pay a couple of my cards, and then paid one of them out of the wrong account (again). See above mentioned confusion regarding snow. It was bad! I straightened everything out and got back on track, so hopefully things will resolve soon. It seems to be going out faster than it is coming in still, but I am determined to turn that tide very very soon. I just won 90 days of coaching with a gal who does awesome work for financial/biz stuff, and I'm so stoked about it!

Not much else to report in the news... Riding lessons happen again this weekend for the first time since winter, and I'm very happy about that. I have had some good reports from JS and the farrier on Storm, so hopefully this will translate into our lessons, too. He did get trimmed this week, and my farrier let me do the nipping. I did a decent job, even if it was really really hard to do. His legs are heavy!! The farrier noticed that we have finally worked him out of a pattern of growing too long on the outside of this front feet, so he is now growing much more level, which is great news. She's been working with him now for about 2 years, that plus the work I've done with him on his balance is a big amount of progress. He's 15 now (just turned 15 on the 18th!), so he should really be in a good place to start showing some of those tiny signs that we're making good progress. He was also a trooper and stood in the cross ties (I never cross tie him, usually), and even behaved with it being somewhat windy. I love my farrier, she has helped me and Storm so much. I'm also super grateful that when I do the work she doesn't charge me as much for trimming him, so I save $$ too!

I'm doing research on broilers, because my friend TW and I are going to go in together to get birds so that we can have them butchered and processed. We will probably pay for it, I'm not really interested in the learning curve of butchering a whole lot of meat birds myself. Maybe someday, but not yet. So now I'm trying to figure out what kind I want, and how much it is going to cost to do this. In the mean time, we have to get the other coop repaired so that we have a place to put said broilers (actually the broilers will go where the layers are now, and the layers will come up the hill next to the house). Hopefully we can get that project done soon.
Speaking of the layers, the darn birds aren't laying in the pretty nesting boxes that the BF made for them. What the heck!? Can't figure that one out at all. They'd rather lay on the floor in the corners. I am wondering if it doesn't have enough of a lip at the front of the boxes, but I can't imagine that is the only thing holding them back. No idea... I guess we can try adding something to it and see if that helps. Crazy birds. They also still won't let Princess chicken into their midst. I've tried a few times, the first time I let her out in the morning, and that didn't work. The second time I intended to let her out in the dark at night, but the BF didn't listen to what I said, and so he let her out later, but the light was still on in the coop, so they beat her up again. I'm afraid she's going to be doomed to live in a dog crate inside the coop for the rest of her life. My friend has offered to take her and she said if she didn't fit with her flock she'd butcher her. But she's a really good layer and lays BIG eggs (like beyond jumbo size!), so I really don't want to get rid of her. JS pointed out that she lives a way better life than factory birds, and that she technically has enough room inside the crate, so technically she's ok. I just don't like that she gets no sun and can't roam around. JS also thinks that she's an older bird that somehow got into my group, which doesn't match what the woman told TM when she picked them up, but whatever. She's a good layer and I'm ok with that. She hasn't been eating or drinking as much as she was over the winter, but I have no idea what to do about that.

I'm covering in the office this afternoon, which makes up for missing Monday because JS was here. It's not my full hours, but it's still something. I've just decided that the money will cover itself and I can't stress about it. I need to be focusing more on my biz, and so if I don't make my usual hours in the office, then that's that.

This weekend is supposed to be warmer, but cloudy. They're calling for 70 tomorrow. That will feel good if it makes it there. I'm thinking of all the things I need to do around the farm that haven't been done in a while. Hopefully I can be uber productive! We'll see. Sunday I think we might go to a museum, not sure. It's supposed to rain, but I'd rather go on a rainy day if it means the crowds won't be there, too.

Alright, done blathering. I should lock things up here. Yall have a great weekend!!

@hqueen13 my goodness you're busy but I guess time flies when y'all are having fun!

Man - oh man! You are still busier than anybody I know, lol. 57 hours in 5 days is a lot - and along with all the dust I don't know how you dealt with it.

Congrats on your refund, lol. Receiving 41 dollars is better than paying it!

Hope ya get some nice weather.

LOL, yes, FEM, $41 is better than paying!!
57 hours wasn't by choice, it's just what the job required. And it was a FAT paycheck. I keep myself going through it by knowing that it's ONLY a total of 5 days. Then I forget about the torture for the next year, when I repeat it again!

The weekend was good, for the most part. Friday night I didn't get back from the airport with KN until almost 11:30, which stunk. On top of that my elder dog, Toby, had a really bad night, and ended up crying out a couple times. He was really struggling to walk in the morning on top of it. KN told me I really should put him down. And while I know that it will be soon, he has rallied a little bit again. He is dying, and it is difficult to watch, but I am trying to hold space for him in the best way that I know how. I immediately checked in with a friend of mine that helps me with my animals. She connected to him and he isn't quite ready to go. He's not in good shape, and it will be very soon, but not just yet it seems.

So that put a cloud on my morning start with my lesson. When I went to get Storm, I told him that I wasn't doing so great and he needed to help me. I got him set up to do the lunging work, and then we headed out to go to the round pen. He was being all snorty and huffing at the other person already working in the round pen, and so I was worried that it wasn't going to go well. I haven't worked in in a little while between working the expo and the snow and everything, so I wasn't sure what I was going to get! We got to the round pen, and I got the line set up, and then let him go, and he walked off. His head was still in the air, but at least he didn't blow a cork. So we got to work, and he really settled in. KN helped guide us through the exercises and helped me get a little more clarity. He was doing so well that she opened the round pen gate, and it took us a lap or so, but we just went right out the gate (I'm on the ground, btw, not in the saddle!). We worked out in the grass field for a while, and he did great. I can really see his balance coming together. His frame of mind was a big help, too. KN was extremely encouraging of how far we've come, and the fact that it's ME that has done all the work. Everything good that he does is because of ME and the effort that I have put in over the past 8 years. She reminded me that I KNOW pretty much all of this, now it is a matter of putting things together with my intuition to figure out what to do next, and when to change things. She gave me some other suggestions making sure that I know how to handle various scenarios when he loses his balance, and then really encouraged us to explore and get out of the round pen for his own benefit. So here's hoping that next month's lesson will have me in the saddle, even if it is only for a few moments.

After the lesson was over, I had intended to feed everybody to get that out of the way, but I had a splitting headache. It ended up warm very quickly, we hit the low 70's on Saturday, and so I was too warm in my sweatshirt. I called my good friend KD to help me with Toby, and then after sitting on the couch for a bit, and being given ibuprofen by my BF, I decided to crawl in bed to rest. I ended up passing out for almost 3 hours. I was dead. The windows were open, and I didn't hear a thing. I must have really needed it. The BF finally woke me up, and I was starving by that time, so we went and grabbed Chickfila, since I had a coupon for some free nuggets, and he wanted to give me a little treat to make me feel better. We came home and ate, and then went out to take care of the horses and get things put away from the winter storms. This time we are trying to make sure things get taken care of early so that they are where they need to be and ready to go next time we need them. (Unlike this time when we had to scrub out the barrels and find all the snow shovels!)

We finished with that and jumped in the shower real fast before getting ready to head over to TW's house for dinner. She had an awesome dinner of corned beef and cabbage planned, and it was so yummy! She always makes amazing food, though. We stayed way too late (as usual) and finally drug ourselves home to bed.

Sunday, we got up late, and lazed around for a while before finally getting up to feed the horses and do chores. I went to meet a new farm sitting client, and then we headed into the city to visit the Museum of Industry. The BF was like a kid in a candy store. He loved it, and it was really cool to see all sorts of different industrial innovations that have happened over the years. We finally stopped for a very late lunch before heading home again. We just chilled out before I had my Reiki 2 class for the evening. I was pleased that I managed to get quite a few things done before I had to start my call, so I didn't have as much to do after the call was over, which wasn't until 9. We were both in bed before I remembered to ask the BF if he remembered the close up the chickens. He so easily forgets to take care of the animals sometimes. This is why I worry when I go away!

This week is shaping up to be fast, but it should be pretty good. Today I'm in the office, tomorrow I have brunch with a friend plus the start of an 8 week mindfulness course. Wed I'm at home and also doing some reiki work with a friend, and then Thurs and Fri I'm in the office again. Extra hours are a good thing on the paycheck! I start farm sitting for the new client later this week. It's a short trip, so that is a good thing, but it's extra cash. Next weekend will be busy, too, with a fair at the yoga studio, and then Alexander technique lessons on Sunday. We're finally swinging into spring and that means lots to do!