And on this farm we have some horses, E-I-E-I-O....

 With the one-year anniversary of our closing date inching nearer and nearer, our little home sweet home received a major upgrade this weekend 😍  From "house in the country" to "house in the country, with horses"!  

At first I wrote "...to FARM!", but that doesn't quite fit, and I think that's something I've been kind of sad about for the last year.  I suppose, it might have been a stretch calling our old place a farm.  It had been a dairy farm at one time, and it had a cool old dairy barn on it when we first moved in.  It had (has) a silo.  It had the words "hobby farm" in the listing.  It was a farm without animals until we put up fences and built a few stalls and added a couple of horses.  (And, later, chickens.)  It has farm history.  I have the aerial picture from about the 60's  or so, I'm guessing, to prove it!

(Actually, I don't have it. The boy has it. It's in the house. It was in the house when we bought it, and you can't take something like that with you when you move!  And on a side note, there are old aerial pics available online as well...)

All this reminiscing just to announce that we finally brought the horses home this weekend!  I will absolutely positively NOT point out that when we first moved in, the plan was that we'd move them in the spring...or maybe early summer, at the latest.  As soon as the ground thawed, and we could get the posts in the ground, and the hubby could get the addition on the pole barn put up.  That wouldn't take very long, right?  MAYBE mid-summer, but not much longer.  

Definitely NOT almost a year.  

Hey kids, guess what?!  Life happens.  You make plans, other things happen that get in the way.  In this case, to make a long story short, my hubby (who does all the building of things in this household -- I'm not very productive in that area) got called to work on a few other projects before he was able to complete the pole barn project.  I mean, he didn't absolutely have to, but he wouldn't have declined, which is just another reason why I love him.  And the horses were fine at the boy's place -- heck, they'd been there for 17+ years, what was a few more months?!

Anywho, the big day was last Saturday.  Of course, it was a cold, windy, snowy, crappy day, and a part of me wanted to cancel and wait until Sunday for better weather.  I barely slept the night before, worrying about all the things that could go wrong.  What if the trailer wouldn't work?  (I had arranged to borrow a horse trailer, sight unseen, from some good friends...who weren't completely sure it was going to be what we needed but said if it would work, we were welcome to use it.  Do you know how rare that is? To be able to just use someone's horse trailer like that?  It's very rare. I am very, very thankful for our friends and the huge favor they did for us!)  What if something went wrong with it, if a tire blew, or the floor was bad, or the doors flew open while we were driving?  And the roads were crappy, and I've seen enough pics of horse trailer accidents online to have all kinds of nightmare-ish images going through my mind all week night.  

But, I'm getting ahead of myself, because to even get that far, I'd have to get the horse into the trailer.  Sounds easy enough, right? But do you know how many things can go wrong just trying to get a horse to load into a trailer?!  For one thing, neither one of my horses has even seen the inside of a trailer in at least 16 years.  Suddenly, the advise of a riding instructor I once had came back to haunt me: "You should trailer your horse every now and then, just to get her used to it, because you never know."  Thanks, Kare...RIP.  A lot of good that does me now because I adopted Nicker like 20 years ago and have never owned a trailer in that time, but I digress.  So many things can go wrong. They can refuse to get in. There are literal weeks-long workshops and videos and training programs whose sole intent is to help you train your horse help your horse trust you enough and learn how to feel comfortable getting into a trailer and standing there, trying to balance inside this strange little closed-in area with it's unfamiliar sounds and smells, for God-only-knows-how-long, while you pull it down the highway in what has to be a terrifying ordeal for a horse who is used to being in her quiet, familiar, predictable environment.  Especially a 29-year-old chestnut mare who likes to act up on windy days.  I reminded myself so many times that *I* had to remain calm and confident, because horses totally pick up on insecurity and fear in their people.  So, I did my best.  

And my beautiful, beautiful 29yo boss mare walked into that trailer like she does it every day of her life.  I love my horse!!

The original plan was to take the back roads home, but the back roads hadn't been plowed yet, so it was actually safer to take the main roads.  I was nervous about that, going faster than I wanted to go, but at the same time I wanted to go fast so we'd get home sooner.  Oh, and I wasn't driving -- that job went to my hubby.  If the weather had been perfect and there'd been no snow or ice on the roads and it wasn't windy, I like to think I could've done it but still would've been nervous about it.  Do you know how many things can go wrong with horses?!?!  So I felt better with our safety in his hands for that drive.

The drive actually went well.  Uneventful.  I rode almost backward the whole time, watching Nic's silhouette out the back window.  Then we got home, and faced a bit of a dilemma.  She walked into the trailer like nobody's business, but...we haven't done groundwork in a long time. She used to back on verbal command, but it's different when she's stressed out and can't feel any ground behind her to step on (no ramp on the trailer).  For a moment I thought she could turn around and walk out, but nope, she was just a bit too long to turn around in the trailer.  Finally, after a few minutes of coaxing, she agreed to step out backward, even though it was a little slippery, and I breathed the biggest sigh of relief ever.  Well, it felt like it, anyway.  Maybe it was just another big gust of wind.

You may have noticed this story was all about Nicker, and you may be astute enough to recall that I actually have two horses.  The trailer was only big enough for one, so we had to make two trips.  I was planning on having to make two trips anyway, unless the trailer had a divider, because...let's just say Nicker doesn't get along with other horses, especially in small spaces.  Not even Shasta, who has been her pasturemate for the last 16 years.  Are you kidding? Just this morning, Shasta stepped too close to Nic while they were out in the pasture and Nic pinned her ears back and nipped at her.  After 16 years together.  

Anyway...I wasn't nearly as worried about trailering Shasta as I was about Nicker. For one thing, Shasta's a lot smaller.  Which isn't to say that things don't go wrong with smaller horses, too, because they certainly do.  I don't know how to explain it, exactly.  I just realized I'm more concerned about getting hurt by Nicker than I am by Shasta. Maybe because I actually have been hurt by/with Nicker and I haven't been hurt by Shasta? I don't mean maliciously, of course; but, you know, (or maybe you don't if you're not a horse person), but you do stupid things like fall off or stand where you shouldn't and get bumped into or stepped on or kicked, etc., or get your pride hurt, or whatever.  It's a whole thing.  Horses aren't toys, they're living things with emotions and moods and personalities.  Anyway...I digress, again.  After going through the first trip and knowing more about what to expect, I wasn't as nervous when we went back to get Shasta.

Except that the little shit doesn't like to be caught.  I was hoping that she'd be so distraught about the fact that I'd taken her best friend away, that she'd be pacing the fence (like she does when I take Nic out of the pasture without her and she can't see her) and would let herself be caught easily, because it was really cold and I wasn't in the mood to go chasing a crazy pony across the frozen tundra.  But noooooooo, little miss had other plans!  She does this thing where she stands still and lets me get like five feet away from her, then she charges off.  I know, I know; I should work with her and build up the trust so she doesn't feel the need to run away, yadda yadda yadda.  I know.  Short story long, it only took about 5 minutes of "chasing" her (I put that in quotes because it's hard to explain to non-horse people how you "chase" a horse, because you don't chase it by running after it;  you chase it by trying to push it toward where you want it to go, basically.) before I could catch her.  She did fine in the trailer -- she's so short, she couldn't see out the windows, and the drive was again uneventful, and now they're both safe and sound in the pasture (I don't know what else to call it.  Is it a paddock? A pasture? It doesn't seem big enough to be a pasture, but too big to be a paddock or a pen. Hmmmmm.) and settling in just fine.  

Alright, that's all the time I want to spend writing for now.  It's just nice to have them here.  I feel complete!  And I didn't even get to tell you about the new cat, but I'll save that for next time! :)

It's all in my head.

 

Recently, I have written so many beautiful, eloquent, insightful and informative essays (in the form of blog entries)...I mean, honestly. Sometimes I just amaze myself with the things I come up with.  And to think, thanks to the wonder of the internet, I can share my thoughts with all the world!  What a great time to be alive!

Unfortunately, all of those essays (excluding the present) have been exclusively written in my head.  So the "beautiful, eloquent, insightful and informative" may be a bit of a stretch.  It's more like bits and pieces of occasional wonder and borderline brilliance that pops into my mind and ruminates from time to time, with the best chunks generally hitting me at the most opportune times (she says, the sarcasm so thick and tender you could cut it with a butter knife), like when I'm driving home from work, or trying to fall asleep.  

It's hard to remember everything a person needs to remember.

And so this is Christmas, and what have you done?

 

PSYCH! Happy April Fools! It's not Christmas, it's only September! 

...and I've been a most neglectful blogger.  "Neglectful" doesn't feel like the right word, but I'm going with it for now.  

September is my happy month: the month of my birth!  For 21 years it was My Month and mine alone.  And then, on my 22nd birthday, I did a crazy silly* thing: I got married, to my one true love, my soul mate, the man with whom I still want to spend the rest of my life, my best friend and (then future-)father of my child. Whose birthday is the very same day as mine.  Yep, in case you didn't already know, you read that correctly: my hubby and I were born on the very same day, in the very same year, and even in the very same city.  So of course we had to get married on that day!  The birthaversary. I've probably written about it before.  (*Just to clarify: the crazy silly part is that we got married on our birthdays, which means we celebrate EVERYTHING on the one day, and that's it.  If I had to go back and do it all over again, I would still do that, but sometimes my inner child throws a hissy fit because my birthday isn't a day all about ME anymore.  That's the "silly" part.  No matter how old I get, my inner child can still be a bratty, stereotypical youngest sibling sometimes.)

This year, we spent our birthaversary camping in the woods in northeastern Wisconsin with our dog.  We had our camper, but didn't have electricity or water hook-ups. We had limited running water (the camper has a solar panel but we basically only use that to try to keep the battery from dying so we can keep the fridge running) and very spotty cell phone service. The weather was just about perfect and we had a lakeside campsite, and no deadlines to meet or places to be.  Perfecto!  Couldn't have asked for a better time, even though I slept like crap every single night.  I'm getting teary-eyed thinking about it right now.  The relaxing fun parts, not the sleeping like crap parts.  I'd actually forgotten about that until just now.  That, and the fact that we didn't have quite enough sunlight to actually keep the battery charged, so we weren't actually able to shower like we'd planned...lol.  

And so I learned that my personal threshold for days I can go without showering is 4.  I don't know if my hubby would agree with me, I didn't ask him, but for my own personal comfort and ability to tolerate myself, it's 4.  😇  Granted, the temperature was under about 85*F for three of those days, and the humidity was also, I don't know the exact reading, but it wasn't horrendous for three of those days, so that number would change depending on the weather.  This wasn't planned; see, with the camper, and the solar panel keeping the battery charged, we should have been able to use the hot water heater and the shower and take "camper showers" for lack of a better term -- not full, luxurious showers like you'd take at home, of course, but a sufficient and refreshing cleansing of one's entire body (including scalp) with soap and as little hot water as possible.  However, our campsite had just enough shade that the solar panel didn't get quite as much direct sunlight as it needed, and the battery died about halfway through our stay.  Have you ever tried to take a shower with cold water?  I'm pretty sure everyone has at some point, for some reason or another.  If you haven't, count your blessings!  It's not fun. It's not refreshing. It's at least cleansing, marginally, but it's not something most people would choose unless absolutely necessary.  And in this case, it was not absolutely necessary.  For the sake of this story, there were other ways to charge up the camper battery so we could keep the fridge running -- by hooking the camper back up to the truck and running it for a while. Not ideal, because who wants to sit next to a running vehicle at their relaxing campsite? And who wants to just let their truck sit there and idle, knowing how much gasoline costs? Anyway, the moral of the story, kids, is that we really liked the campground except that the campsite was too shady. But that wasn't even the end of the world.  We had some food in the freezer that thawed, but it was almost the end of our trip anyway, and it wasn't a big deal.  The end.

But the shower I took after we got home and got everything unpacked was probably The Best Shower I have ever had in my entire life...oh, my, lanta!!  So nice. 

And now, in what seems like a few blinks of the eye, September is almost over.  The Minnesota State Fair has come and gone. It's officially autumn. The leaves are changing colors and falling off the trees. I'm pretty sure the hummingbirds have migrated away, the amount of feed in the feeder hasn't changed in over a week now and I should probably take it down before it starts to ferment.  The camper has been winterized and is packed away for the season (well, technically it's been un-packed away temporarily, so the hubby can put siding up on the new addition to the pole barn where the camper will live when it's not being used, but for all intents and purposes, it's packed away for the season).  

Speaking of packing and un-packing, can you believe we've lived here almost a year already?!  I was trying to figure out when exactly our offer on this place was officially accepted. I purposely didn't write about it on social media or in here, which has made figuring that out a bit more difficult for me, ha ha.  I mean, I could just look at the paperwork, because I know exactly where it is, but that would be too easy.  I'd rather stumble across it in a FB post or a blog entry so I can remember the emotions I was feeling at the time.  Or...perhaps I don't want to remember the emotions I was feeling at the time!  😁

It's funny, how many times we'll be driving somewhere and I'll randomly think, 'Hey, we looked at a house that was down this road!'.  We looked at a lot of houses last summer.  

But, I digress.  There actually was a FB post that came up in my "Memories" today that made me think the acceptance date is coming up very soon.  It was one year ago today, and I'd written, "Remind me to ask our realtor if we can invent a Buyer Anxiety Clause stating that the buyer has severe anxiety and needs to know ASAP if the seller is going to accept the fricking offer or not...#PrayingTheThirdTimesTheCharm".  I think, if memory serves (which is iffy), this was the third place we put an offer on, so this could very well be the transaction to which I was referencing one year ago.  Which still means our closing date anniversary is still two months away, but that, my friends, is another story...

I suppose I should sign off and get some housework done. My hubby is out of town this weekend, and I don't know why but I'm on a cleaning kick.  Actually, I do know why! Yesterday (Saturday), he had to be at the airport by 6:30-7am'ish for an 8am flight.  Bless his heart, he does believe in arriving way early so there is plenty of time to get through security and everything.  I grumble about it, but in my heart I appreciate it, too, because I tend to underestimate the amount of time needed to get places, and flying/going to airports heightens my anxiety three billionfold, so his foresight in planning is a blessing in disguise because the thought of missing a flight really sends my anxiety through the roof...but I digress.  The airport is about a 1.5 hour drive from our place, so we had to leave at 5am, so we got up about 4am, ON A SATURDAY mind you, and so by the time I got back home it was just before 8am.  Our Saturday morning Bible Study group meets (online) at 9am, and I didn't want to miss it, and I knew that if I sat down or laid back down I would fall asleep, so I started Doing Things.  Not normal typical things like the dishes or the laundry, I started Projects.  Like hanging up things on the walls. then I decided I was going to tackle the boxes that still need to be unpacked that are in the guest bedroom, which lead to some minor re-decorating in my office (since most of the things in the closet were framed photos).  Anyway, long story short, I ended up with one bag for the Goodwill, two bags to the garbage, a few more decorations thoughtfully placed throughout the house, and the huge satisfaction of ticking a long-standing project off of my To-Do list. Today I shall catch up on the housework I usually do on Saturdays, and I've already got a good start on that, and it's only 1:30pm!  Wow.  Despite being tired last night (because, hello, I had to get up at 4am!), I don't sleep well when the hubby isn't home, and last night was no exception. So today I somehow still slept in until about 10am, but I'm all groggy and discombobulated and feel like I should be cleaning and organizing instead of sitting here writing.  

So, with that, I leave you. For now.  See you next time!

Wake me up when September ends-- oh, that's NEXT month. Sorry.

 

August makes me sad. I don't want summer to be almost over!  July needs to march itself right back here and stick around a while longer, I tell you what.  I went to one of the local artsy-craftsy boutique-type places this weekend and while I was utterly delighted that the summer décor stuff was on sale (because that's what I was there to purchase), I wasn't ready to face the onslaught of fall décor yet.  I'm not ready for pumpkins and colorful leaves and apple cider and sweaters!  It's NOT fall, y'all!  It's still very much summer (it's supposed to be in the 90's this week, thank you very much) so I'm just going to pretend I didn't see all that other crap yet.  Fall will be in October.  It's barely August.  Hold your dang horses.

And before you start telling me that autumn technically starts in September: I know, I know.  But September is my birthday month and out of respect thereof, we shan't mention such things.  Capisce?

I took the hummingbird feeder down last week to clean and refill it, and haven't put it back up yet, and I swear they know.  Two times now, as I've been sitting here in my office on the computer, a hummingbird has come up to the window, hovered there for a few seconds as if looking in at me, and then flown away.  I should note that the window I'm sitting at is not the window where the feeder is usually located, and that I have never seen hummingbirds at this window before, either.  

Next year I need to get shepherd's hooks or something to get the bird feeder (the one that holds bird seed, not the hummingbird feeder) farther away from the house, though. To keep the deer from eating the hostas that are closer to the house.  Did I tell you?  I planted some hostas around the one tree in the yard, because I love the way it looks when there is a ring of hostas around a tree so I started a "ring" with like two hostas around one of the smaller trees in the back yard.  Anyway, that turned out to be a bad idea because the deer ate the hostas.  At first I was like -- Oh well, they ate the leaves, but it should still come back next year.  But do you know what those dang forest rats did?  They dug up those hostas and ate the roots and everything.  So no, the new hostas won't come back next year.  !!!!  Except the new striped ones I planted in the front yard next to the trees by the driveway.  For some reason, those are invisible to deer (so far).  And the ones I planted out in the front by the road by the fire sign, I'm pretty sure they ate those, too.  So what I've learned this year is, if I'm going to plant more hostas, I have to protect them from the deer.  There's not much room left to put them right by the house.  IDK.  I'll think on it and see.  

We planted some lilac trees, too, and I'm really hoping those take!  Otherwise I haven't really done much gardening-wise this year, just kind of watched to see what's come up and where.  We had a bunch of asparagus but by the time we realized it, it was too late.  (Did you know asparagus can get to be 6-8 feet tall?!)  We have a whole bunch of berries out there that I'm watching closely because I do love me some berries (raspberry and blackberry), but there are so many birds and deer that I don't think I'll get to them before they do.  

And...this is about what I've been up to lately.  Trying to identify plants and trees around our place, trying to keep up with housework (actually doing pretty well on that front!), working -- sometimes from home, sometimes making the trek to the office for the day.  I've discovered the absolute joy that is listening to audiobooks 😍 Yes, I'm a little late to the game sometimes!  I actually don't know why I didn't try this sooner, other than the fact that I just really, really love music.  It's not that I don't like books -- I do!  I love reading, and I've missed it, I just worried that it would be too distracting to listen to a good story while driving.  It's not.  I mean, I did try listening to some lectures on neuroscience and those are maybe not good to listen to while driving, because I did end up rewinding a lot when I missed an important part when traffic got bad or something.  But stories like the one I'm currently listening to (Where the Crawdads Sing) seem to be ideal. 

Alright, I suppose I should grab something to eat and then get back to work.  TTYL!

The incredible, edible egg.

Wasn't that just the best tagline ever? "The incredible, edible egg."  There's simply no better adjective for food than "edible".  And it rhymes with "incredible".  Win-win!

I don't like writing about my own personal weight loss journey, because it's been a two-steps-forward, five-steps-back process over the last 20 years.  Ha, ha.  

But a few years ago, I found something that actually worked.  Remember?  I lost around 60 pounds on a program that I won't name, not because I don't like it (au contraire, it obviously worked very well!) but because this isn't a commercial and it also wasn't a good long-term solution for me because once I went off it I, um, kinda gained all that weight back.  Easy come, easy go, as they say.  Only it was the opposite in this case. Easy go, easy come back.  

Anyway, I've found something that works again, and it's not a program that I won't be able to keep up this time.  Well, I mean, maybe sometime the effects will wear off, but hopefully by that time the better habits will be fully ingrained and I'll continue to make better decisions.  To be fair, the program I was on before had a component where we were supposed to be learning how to make better decisions so that we didn't gain all the weight back, but I glossed over that part because I didn't want to have to buy my food online from a certain website for the rest of my life.  

I'll tell you what started my current "program", but I don't recommend it for anyone playing along at home: COVID.  More specifically, losing my senses of taste and smell due to COVID.  When food stopped tasting right, it really made me stop and look at what I was eating and why.  Especially the junk food.  I used to hate the fact that I binged on junk food when I was stressed out because it only made me feel worse about whatever I was stressed out about in the long run.  But when I could no longer taste the yummy goodness of whatever I was bingeing on, it was really like, Why am I doing this?  This hurts.  I don't want to do this anymore.  

And pretty much just like that, something clicked and I stopped doing that.  Pretty much. I can look at junk food that I used to binge on and it just doesn't look appealing anymore, because I know that it won't taste good like it used to, and I know that it will only hurt me.  I can still have some sweet things (my kryptonite) in moderation, but I don't binge on them any more.  So far.  I'm always afraid I'm going get my old sense of taste back and relapse, but I'll deal with that if it happens.  One day at a time, right?

So, that's my secret.  That, and being on mood-stabilizing medications that also have appetite-suppressing side effects.  :D  And drinking lots and lots of water.  With food not tasting right anymore, I'm more mindful about what I'm actually eating.  It's easier to cut back on carbs this way.  I think I had to eat 10 dozen eggs to lose 15 pounds, but hey...whatever works. 

I'm not talking about it now to get attention.  I don't like drawing attention to myself. I just wanted to take a few minutes to write about the little things I'm noticing, like how my pants are fitting better again.  And my shoes, too.  It's weird, I know, but apparently I lose weight in my feet when I start losing weight.  I know, it's probably edema, but I'll take it.  And my elbows don't hurt anymore already. That's a new one, the elbow pain thing.  My elbows had NEVER hurt before, and it was starting to get annoying. So I'm glad that's starting to go away.  

I'm also amused by these little things I found on the internet that equate a weight in pounds to number of random objects.  That's the real reason I wanted to share.  15 pounds is the same as 10 dozen eggs.  It's a darn good start.  My birthday is in about 5 weeks, and I hope to be at 25 pounds lost by then.  I also hate giving myself goals like that, but, we'll see.

TTFN!

It's like a heat wave!

I just went to Google, searched on "current temperature in [name of my town]", then went to Images, and this is the first picture that came up.  

I don't understand how a cute little tiny baby deer standing on wood chips is supposed to portray how hot it is right now, but I don't feel like digging any further, so, there ya go.  It's so hot that little tiny baby deer (yes, I know they're called fawns) would apparently prefer to stand on wood chips than blacktop.  I wouldn't blame them.  It's hot.  According to the WeatherBug app on my phone, it's currently 91ºF outside but feels like 91ºF.  

I'll take their word for it. I'm currently working from home inside, where the thermostat is set to 78ºF which might sound hot but it actually doesn't feel hot.  I don't have the data to back this up, but I'd say it feels about 72ºF in here.  But that's literally just my word.  I'm sitting at the computer desk wearing shorts and a t-shirt and not sweating.  Max is sleeping on the floor in front of the fan and not panting.  We're good.

You know what's weird about COVID? Or should I say, post-COVID?  Sometimes everything smells the same, just in varying degrees.  This morning when I woke up, I could smell popcorn.  Not buttery hot yummy popcorn, but just plain, white popcorn with maybe a hint of salt.  I don't know how else to describe it.  I wasn't anywhere near food at the time.  It wasn't overwhelming or bothersome, it was just like -- oh, I smell popcorn. How interesting.  It varied in intensity for a bit, and now I just noticed that it's gone. I don't smell anything now.  

Sometimes I smell the correct things for a short time. Yesterday we were driving around in the rain and I could suddenly smell the wet earth. It was actually amazing!  It reminded me of how frustrated I was when we went camping Memorial Day weekend, and I couldn't smell the campfire. One of the simple joys of camping -- one of the simple joys of living, is the smell of wood smoke.  Anyway, for about 10 seconds I could smell rich, earthy, damp soil, and it made me feel alive and renewed, and then it went away.  

On Saturday, the hubby was frying fish on the back deck.  I couldn't smell a dang thing.  I sat about 10 feet away (or less) and could not smell a single solitary thing at all.  I'm not complaining about this one, I just like to prove that it's not such a bad thing sometimes.  Hee hee hee!

Also on Saturday morning, everything smelled citrus-like, for no apparent reason.  We don't have any citrus fruit in the house, no citrus-scented soaps or anything like that.  It was there for a while, varying in intensity, and I went to several different places Saturday morning where there were several different smells but all I could smell was citrus.  Until I couldn't smell anything anymore.

What the heck is going on in my brain!?!?

Anyway, I had my annual physical last week. I'm overall pretty healthy, at least according to my blood work. My lipid panel, hepatic panel, CBC, CMP, and A1C were all normal (except my fasting glucose level which has been annoyingly mildly elevated for the past few years).  My BP was even textbook normal, 120/80 on the dot.  :D  

Alright, time to get back to work.  TTFN!

 

Hmm-mm-mm-mm...

Did you know that hummingbirds are LOUD?

They are. I promise.  I know this personally.

I mean, they're not, like, "Oh my gosh, my ears are bleeding!" loud. They're more like, if you're sitting on your deck and they're half a deck below you at a feeder, you could hear them. And at first, if you've never heard one before, you might be like, What the heck is that?! It almost sounds like a really loud mosquito, but the pitch is off... it's actually more like a light saber, but... and then you might see the bird itself fly by and then you'd be like ohhhhhh, that's what it was!  Damn, that little thing makes a lot of noise!

Or you might not.

It's kinda handy if you're sitting outside relaxing in the vicinity of the aforementioned feeder, though.  As in, on the same level as the aforementioned feeder, and not half a level above it.  That way, you just have to listen for the humming and then look over at the feeder to see the tiny little helicopter bird, instead of staring at the feeder itself.

Yep.  It's only Tuesday and it's been a loooooong week already.  The hubby is out of town, out of state, out of his mind (ha ha, just kidding) chaperoning the church youth mission trip.  I've said it before and I'll say it again, I do NOT make a good single lady.  I don't like being responsible for everything.  I don't like making decisions.  I'm kinda looking around for the adultier adult...ha ha ha.  No, it's all good. It's going fine.  The house is still standing, the dog hasn't run away, and I've been getting some yard work done.  

And I've watched some hummingbirds :) 

I can't believe we've lived here almost, what, 8 months already?!  Going into the 8th month.  I definitely like summer out here better than winter.  It's weird, though, going back to the boy's place now.  (Which I still have to do because the horses are still there.)  He has a roommate now, so the house inside looks and feels even less like the home it was when we lived there.  Which I'm not complaining about -- that's the goal, right?  It's not my home anymore, so it shouldn't look and feel like my home anymore.  

IDK.  I mean, I do love where we live now, but sometimes I miss living on the little farm, too.  I miss my horses.  I miss the cats.  (This is NOT helped at all by the fact that, shortly after we moved, my cat Bo disappeared and hasn't been seen since.  I know, I know; he was a farm cat, it happens.  Plus, he had been diagnosed with feline leukemia a few years ago.  But he was my Bocephus kitten and I miss him, even if I was going to let him stay at the boy's place.)  I don't mean to sound like I'm sorry we moved, because I'm definitely not!  I think I just needed some quality time to make this place more our own, which I definitely got this weekend while working in the gardens.  Getting to know the land better.  Well, the landscaping, anyway.  I'm tempted to put my super-water-resistant wader boots on and go out into the back 4 again, like we did last winter, and see what the marshland looks like now in full bloom.  

Oh! The other night I was laying in bed, playing on my phone before falling asleep, and I heard an owl hoot!  It was SO FREAKING COOL!!  It sounded like it was right in my backyard.  I didn't get my glasses on fast enough to see where it was, but man, that was awesome.  I hadn't seen any owls since this winter, so it was nice to hear it.  I haven't seen any eagles for a while, either.  I need to find a way to identify birds by their sounds.  There's probably an app or at least a website for that.  It actually makes me want to go to the MN Zoo and hit up the local animal exhibits again.  I remember listening to the owls there when we were kids.  They sounded so cool, I never imagined I'd get to hear them in my own backyard, from my own bedroom window.  Elementary-school-aged me would have LOVED to have known that!

Elementary-school-aged me would have LOVED to have known a LOT about my life right now, most definitely.  

But, I digress.  Speaking of my bedroom window, it's just about time for me to go to bed.  Even though my hubby is out doing wonderful things God's name, I'm stuck here at home doing regular things in God's name.  Ha, ha.  Which means I still have to work.  Luckily, I get to work from home most of this week, including tomorrow.  So! I'm gonna sign off and get to bed.  Soon.  Adios!

Hello, sunshine...

One amusing side effect of being me is having bizarre, recurring dreams.  Once upon a time, the recurrenceness (if that's not a word, it should be) of them bothered me to what seemed like no end, but now I find it amusing. After all, it's not like they're prophetic, or anything; just the by-products of my goofy mind.

For instance, every so often I have dreams about going back to work at previous jobs.  Not every previous job, just specific jobs.  Namely the hospital, or Wards. I have had a dream or two about going back to work at the humane society, but usually it's the hospital or Wards.  Sometimes they merge together -- one of the last times I had that particular dream, the hospital was laid out just like Wards (like with the clothes racks and everything, and the cashier station was the nurses' station. It was too weird.).  Thankfully that was too bizarre to be realistic, obviously.  But some of them are realistic enough that I wake up feeling bad because I forgot to get room 1101 a new pitcher of water before I woke up...but wait a minute, where the heck would room 1101 even be?!? There was no such room 1101 when I worked there.

That's usually what the hospital dreams are like. I show up for report (usually late, which stresses me out greatly) and I can't find my favorite report sheets so I grab whatever I can find, but by then report is over and I'm running around trying to find out what my assignment is while everyone else is going out and starting their first set of vitals and assessments and meds and such, and I'm completely lost because I'm at the new hospital and I've never been there before and I don't know where anything is and my password isn't working and it's not day shift so no one is around to reset my password.  And I don't know anyone because I'm not a regular there anymore, I'm just a PRN.  Then, once I get my assignment, I don't know where any of the rooms are because the numbers don't make sense to me and I can't find the vitals on a sticks, and other people are asking for help so I'm helping them and the next thing I know it's meal time (so it must be PM shift, lol) and I haven't laid eyes on a single one of my patients.  That's usually when I either wake up, or my dream changes, although sometimes at that point in the dream I'll go down to the ER instead.  Which is even more of a clusterfudge because it's set up like a maze, literally.  

But then, when I end up going back to Wards, it's a clusterfudge, too.  But my password at least works there (WTF?!), I just can't remember which menu to go to for refunds or exchanges. And then when I get a quick break from ringing up customers and I look at the schedule, I get annoyed because the manager has me scheduled for daytime hours, and I can't possibly work daytime hours because I have my day job as a nurse, and I specifically told her I wasn't available during the day! 

Yep.  Dreams are can be fun.  

OK, so, I know I told you about the deer and the fireflies, but did I mention the hummingbirds?!  Oh em gee!! I had never seen a live hummingbird (well, any hummingbird, really) in real life until a few years ago, at our old place. I thought it was super cool and kind of instantly felt bad because I didn't have a hummingbird feeder.  So, my dearest darlingest son got me a hummingbird feeder that Mother's Day. And I never saw another hummingbird out there again.  :(  

Earlier this spring, we were working down in the basement (or outside in the back yard or some combination of the two, I don't remember) and you can probably imagine my excitement when I saw a hummingbird back there! I hadn't put up my hummingbird feeder yet, but that very day you better believe I did.  And it wasn't long before I saw an actual hummingbird actually using my feeder.  Which I still just think is the freaking coolest thing ever!  I never realized I liked birds so much, but man, I could sit down there and just watch them at the feeder (I have another feeder, one with bird seed etc. in it) for a long time. If it wasn't a construction zone down there, still.  Although, last week I did bring a couple of the chairs that were still on the deck at the boy's house over and put them down there, so theoretically I can sit down there now and watch the bird feeders and the back yard...but now I'm out of bird seed and also need to refill the hummingbird feeder... 

Anyway, our basement is almost finished and it's going to be awesome!!  Well, I mean, it was finished before, but it was one big room and now it's divided into one big room with a couple of medium-sized rooms.  And instead of the walls being dark purplish-brownish, they are a light, cheery, bright yellowish color.  It just needs new carpet. The carpet that was down there didn't look that bad, but man, once the hubby started pulling it up...I don't think there's a clean spot on it (the previous owners had cats, and I think a dog at one point, too).  Yecch!  So, nope, not going to try to save the carpet.  I tell you what, though, it is nice and cool down in that basement...might need to relocate my office once we get that bad boy finished...at least for the summer :)

Speaking of work, lunch break is over, I should get back to it. TTFN!

 

Happy Friday! Wait, what?

Such a creature of habit, I am. 

I usually go to my parents' on Thursdays after work.  
This week, I went on Monday after work.
Every day since Tuesday has, therefore, felt like it should be Friday.  

Hmmmm, maybe that's why I'm having such a good week.  I've subconsciously tricked myself into thinking every day is Friday, at least for a few seconds.  

It's a theory, anyway.  

Have I mentioned yet that there are a lot of deer where we live?  Like, a LOT of deer.  It's like that movie, Field of Dreams.  "If you build it, they will come..."  Someone named the town Deer Park, and allllllll the deer decided it'd be a nice place to hang out.  😆

Honestly, I've seen more deer in the last 6 months than I had in the entire 40-some years prior to that.  And the vast majority of them have been alive, much to my delight.  It's pretty cool.  The other morning I rolled out of bed (almost literally) actually kind of quickly because my bladder sort of functions inversely to the Maverick gas gauge: it'll seem fine, and fine, and fine, and then all of a sudden, BAM!, you (or, in both cases, I) better make alternate plans like now because it's either about to be really full or really empty, respectively.  So I sort of jumped up (yeah, right...I sat up a little faster than usual) and when I did, I saw a flash of tan and white go by my bedroom window.  I gracefully and smoothly placed my glasses delicately on my face (yeah, right...I fumbled to grab them from the bedside table and pushed them on my sleepy face on the second or third try as usual) and looked outside, and there was a deer standing in the yard, looking up at my window and flipping her (?) little tail at me like, WTF is going on up there?!  So what did I do? I layed (lied?) back down to see if it would come back by the window again.  

Yeah.  It did not.  It precariously walked away, flipping it's tail and glancing back at the house as if it had just seen a crazy person, or something.  Pfffft. Fine with me, I had to empty my bladder anyway.

(This is probably why I don't, or shouldn't, hunt. I would try to talk to the deer.  I would whisper, "OK, come over here, just a little more, no! Wait!  Come back!!"   It wouldn't go well.)  (I mean, it would go well for the deer...)

When I got back to my bed, though, there were two more deer in another part of the yard.  That was pretty cool.  And then?  Later that same day? (At least I think it was the same day...they are all blending together now, and there have only been three of them! And I know it wasn't today so technically there are only two of them!!) I was out in the yard with Max. This was on the super hot day, so it must've been yesterday. Anyway, we were doing the Perimeter Stroll. I was taking pics of plants to upload to the plant identifier app, and he was sniffing literally everything, as he does.  For once, I was ahead of him, and I got to the corner and heard a whoosh sound in the leaves followed by little hoofbeats running away, and I looked up and there had been a deer just on the other side of the trees from where we were -- maybe 20-25 feet away. Maxwell House didn't even notice, bless his little heart.

Yep, seeing deer is awesome. As long as they're not sliding into the side of my car.

Another amazing wonderful thing I discovered out here very recently is fireflies. Oh my gosh!  This must've been Monday night.  Now, usually I'm asleep by the time it's dark out (don't judge, I get up early in the morning! Not as early as my hubby, but still early, and a girl needs her beauty sleep!) but on this particular occasion, I had to, well, I had to empty my bladder.  (Yes, I do that a lot.  No, I'm not having urinary problems, I just drink a lot of water, okay?  I've cut way back on the diet Dew and am drinking more ice water instead.)  When I put on my glasses so I could actually see, what I saw out the window was just breath-taking.  It was literally sparkling outside with fireflies!  When I got back to bed, I kept my glasses on for a while -- I am quite literally blind as a bat without them -- just so I could watch the light show.  I tried to decide if I liked "fireflies" or "lightning bugs" better, and I decided I don't like either term, because flies are ewww and bugs are Volkswagens.  Actually, it just occurred to me now that Bugs are Volkswagens (shhhhh, don't tell my hubby or my Dad that it just occurred to me NOW) but still.  I can't think of a better name for them, so I guess I'll go with fireflies.  

The things you miss out on, living in the city.

I think that's all I've got for now.  I'm actually kind of tired today.  This morning I got up early, even though I was working from home, and went to White Bear Lake for a blood draw and a semi-doctor appointment. It wasn't a real doctor's appointment, but I still had to get weighed and vitaled and I got my 2nd Hep A vaccine, too.  Then I came home and worked from home, but it's been a gloomy, stormy day.  Storms give me headaches, now, so I've had one of those off and on all day, plus something I ate (I think it was either too much sugar yesterday, or the apple juice I drank this morning after having my labs drawn at the doctor...) disagreed with me. Whatever, you don't want to hear about that, so I'm gonna be like a tree and leaf.  TTYL!

One of those weeks...

It's been one of "those" weeks, alright, and it's only Tuesday evening!

I can't wait to see what the rest of the week brings!

You probably think I'm being sarcastic.  Because I usually am.  This time, though, I'm not kidding.  It has been a simply amazing week.  Literally.  There have been so many simple (as in small, non-dramatic, easily overlooked or taken for granted) things to marvel over in my little world, it's just...I don't know how to explain it yet.  

It's been a very nice difference, for one thing.  I've been feeling overwhelmed lately with life, and work, mostly with work, but that spills out into life because when I'm behind in work I spend more time there both physically and mentally, which takes time out of the rest of my life.  I know, I know; this was covered long, long ago in Adulting 101.  These things ebb and they flow and eventually the pressures normalize again.  

On Sunday, the hubby and I went out to breakfast at our favorite place by our old house, and someone paid for our breakfast!  I won't say who it was here, but I literally am still just completely touched and honored by their thoughtfulness and generosity.  And so very humbled.  That act of extreme kindness really has set the tone for the week.  THANK YOU "MYSTERY" BREAKFAST BUYER!!!  You are such a blessing!

Then, after that, we were at church. Do you ever just get hit with random thoughts at church that utterly and completely blow your mind and make you feel like crying out of pure joy?  If that ain't the Holy Spirit reaching right out and slapping you upside the head, I don't know what is.  As a little background here, I didn't grow up going to church.  I was baptized, and I went to Sunday School once or twice, but as a family we didn't go to church.  Come to think of it, I don't know how I even knew we were Christians (much less Lutherans); I suppose because I saw the pictures of my baptism and asked questions about it, and because we had a Bible and a decorative plate with the Lord's Prayer, and a few other various religious-type things around the house when I was little.  I went through some really crappy stuff in my teens that forced me to do some serious soul-searching, and that is when I guess I, as they say, "found" Jesus.  *shrugs*  I don't know, it wasn't like some big epiphany or anything, it was just that I needed my higher power and realized it was there all along.  Then, fast forward a few years or so, and I married my hubby who was brought up in an active church-going environment.  I started going to church on a regular basis after we got married. Actually, after our son was born.  I'm learning all of the stories and the parables and the "rules" if you will.  It's like my head has to catch up with everything my heart has known most of my life, if that makes sense.  

ANYWAY, for reasons I can't explain, we were sitting in church on Sunday and it just hit me like a ton of bricks (or a ton of feathers, take your pick) how utterly amazing it is that God forgives us of all of our sins; that He loves us unconditionally, no matter what we've done in the past.  I seriously wanted to just fall down and start crying.  There are so many times when I don't feel worthy, by He says I am.  So many times, even to this day, when I let the opinions of others hurt me or anger me; but why?  It's not worth it.  With all of the beautiful and amazing things in the world today, God also thought the world needed one of me.  I'm one of those beautiful and amazing things, too.  And anyone who doesn't think so can suck it.  *ahem*  Alright, alright, I can't keep the enlightened and sappy thing going for too long, or I really will start to take myself too seriously.

So. As I was saying...

Yesterday I went to my parents' house after work, for our weekly dinner date and errand running excursion.  (Which reminds me, I have to log off in a few minutes so I can order their groceries.)  I'm not sure why, but my Dad was having a tough day walking yesterday.  He's been doing great (for him) lately, but yesterday he could barely make it from the house to my car.  Anyway, as we were walking to the car, there were some young ladies (like mid to late teens? I'm such a bad age guesstimator, everyone looks 12 to me) going door to door, and they stopped at my parents' house and invited us to a block party happening later this week.  We did the polite thing of taking their flyer and listening to their invitation, and then after they walked away we kept motorvating toward the car.  A minute or so later, one of the girls came walking back toward us and . . . asked if she could pray for us.  My parents both looked shocked but I immediately answered, "YES!!" (hopefully not yelling it like that, though I felt like I was in my head.)  So this young lady, who was like 15-16 or maybe 17 or 18 years old, stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and prayed for us, specifically for my Dad, that God would heal him and take away his suffering (actually I was like WHOA there, could you rephrase that, I want to keep him here on Earth for a while longer, kthx lol) and watch over us all.  ALRIGHT I'M AN EMOTIONAL SAP NOW.  It was very touching.  You just don't see that, especially in their neighborhood.  I prayed for that young lady and the others who were working with her.  I also prayed that I might be more like her, more willing to share my faith with others no matter where I am.  

This seems like a good place to stop for now.  Time to go order some groceries! TTYL.

April, May...

Um, oooops! I knew I'd neglected this blog but I didn't realized it'd been just over two months.  Whatever the hell?!  And now I only have a couple minutes left to write, because I spent my lunch break boiling some eggs, doing some laundry, and letting the dog outside twice.  Oh, and actually eating lunch. And taking care of some personal business.  And logging into this website, twice, because I'm working from home today and thus had the EHR program open in another window and whilst I was ignoring it (because I was on break) it timed out closed and took the whole internet browser out with it, as it does.  

So! That brings you about up to speed for the last 45 minutes or so. Heh.

I didn't read the last blog entry I wrote in here, I just skimmed the title -- Soggy Spring -- and already I can tell you there is a huge, lovely difference in my environment since then.  I remember this winter when I wrote about how I longed to see the green grass, and all these trees full of leaves.  Well, to quote that one chick from Poltergeist, "They're heeeeeere!"  It is SO beautiful!  We can't see the neighbors' houses anymore because there are so many leaves on the trees, and when the wind blows (which it is doing often and muchly today) it makes the most relaxing whoooooooshing sound, and I could honestly just sit and stare at the trees and the sky and watch the birds and occasional other wildlife all day.  

Which is pretty much what I did all weekend, but not at home; we went camping for the first and maybe only time this summer.  It was awesome! But I'm blogging in the lightning round right now so can't spend too much time on one topic, so I'll table the rest of that for now because I absolutely positively have to mention...

...the a-ha concert(s)!  I keep thinking that was the beginning of May, but no, that was back in the beginning of April already!  Insert sad face here.  I could write for hours about that trip!  My 3rd and 4th times seeing them in concert, my first trip to L.A., it was all in all a pretty overwhelming four days as well.  But definitely memorable and definitely over much too soon.  

And on that note, it's time to go back to adulting. Catch ya later.

Soggy Spring

Somewhere between winter and spring lies that little-known season that is the bane of the existences of pet owners and anyone who lives on any parcel of land where green space > asphalt: Mud Season.

That's where we are right now.  The calendar says it's spring, the sky says it's winter, and the ground is just mud.  Except where it's still snow.  But it's not really snow anymore, it's snow and mud mixed together.  People are already complaining of allergies, thinking that the trees are already releasing pollen or something.  Nope.  That's the mold mixed in with the mud that's in the snow banks that are melting.  

Spring is here, but still feels so far away.  We have patches in our yard with no snow, but the grass beneath is brown and yellow and dirty, and you don't have to walk through it to know it's just all muddy.  And if you do have to walk through it, you better wear your boots (or shoes that you don't mind getting muddy) and have good balance.  Seriously.  That stuff's worse'n ice.  I'd rather fall on ice than in mud.

The water hydrant at the boy's house is still frozen, so I had to wade through ankle-deep puddles of water and mud to water the horses last weekend, while my favorite chestnut mare stood at the gate and watched with bored amusement.  She's lucky I love her so much.  She's also lucky that my awesome hubby bought me these amazing boots last winter that are warm and waterproof, and I can literally walk through anything in them and my feet stay warm and dry!  So the fifty begillion trips I had to make back and forth from the end of the hose to the horses' water tank to top it off, one 5-gallon bucket at a time, wasn't horrible because my feet weren't wet and cold.  Anyhoo, I figure the hydrant will thaw in about June, as it usually does.  Hopefully the mud will be gone by then.

I was at my parents' house yesterday, and their yard has, like, no snow in it.  I almost want to complain about how not fair that is, but I don't want to imply that I'd rather have a small yard in the city with no snow instead of acreage in the country with snow.  :D  

Speaking of my parents, my Dad had his last PT session yesterday.  He says he's going to keep doing exercises now so he doesn't regress again, and my Mom says she's going to make sure he makes good on that promise.  She's been good about doing exercises, too.  She only had one official PT session after her hip replacement last November, and they said she was doing so well she didn't need to come back.  They gave her more exercises to do and basically said to call them if she thought she needed more work.  So she's been doing those, and the ones they've given my Dad to do, as well.  Anyway, I hope my Dad really does keep up with those exercises.  Now that I'm going over there more often, I'll have to nag him about remind him why it's important to keep doing them as well.

In other news...I don't know, I just realized I hadn't written in here for a while and since I had a little lunch break time to kill, I thought I'd sit down and write and see what I came up with.  Didn't have anything in particular in mind to write about today.  Suppose I should get back to work now.  The sooner I get back to work, the sooner I can finish for today! Because it's one of those rare days where it actually works that way!  Ha, ha, ha. TTYL

 

It's like raaaaaaain on your wedding day...

You know what's cruel?

Well, lots of things are cruel, but I'm referring to two specific things that are probably more along the lines of ironic than cruel.  "Cruel" sounds kind of harsh.  

I love trees.  For as long as I can remember, I've dreamed of living in the country, surrounded by trees.  They're just so beautiful and perfect!  I love them in the springtime when the new leaves start to bud, and I love them in the summer when they're full and gorgeous and provide all kinds of shade and green-ness everywhere, and I love them in the autumn when everyone else loves them, too, and I even love them in the winter because no matter how cold and snowy and icy it gets out there, they stand tall and ride out the storm until spring when they show signs of life again.  (Well, a lot of them do, anyway.)  There's a message in there for all of us, isn't there?  But, I digress; I love just being amongst the trees.  It's my favorite part of camping, and going Up North.  

The irony is that my hubby is allergic to trees.  So many trees.  He had allergy testing done last year, and there were so many different kinds of trees listed on his "reactive" report (or whatever it was called, I don't remember, that sounds pretty official tho).  The trees that I love so much are trying to suffocate my beloved soulmate.  It's not okay!

You know what else I love? Animals.  Mostly dogs and horses and okay I'll admit that I like cats, too.  I didn't grow up with cats.  Not that I didn't like them, but we were a Dog Household and never had cats.  I got my first cat, 7 (yes, his name was 7 -- no, I didn't name him), after I moved into my first apartment, because I couldn't have a dog.  I've had dogs all of my life, and probably hopefully always will.  I didn't grow up with horses, either.  I adopted Nic about, oh my gosh, 19 years ago?!? So maybe I did grow up with her, ha! ha!  Anyway...you get the point.  

The irony here is that my son is allergic to animals.  All of the animals.  He's never had allergy testing done, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the reason he starts wheezing and itching after he touches one of the pets is because he's allergic to them.  I used to blame the fact that we didn't have inside cats anymore on Luger, but it was really the boy's fault (kidding! Mostly.) Ok, I'm not kidding.  I can't have my baby boy mainlining diphenhydramine constantly.  The irony for him is that he likes cats.  But he can only pet them in the winter, when he's wearing gloves and a coat and a scarf...;)

Alright, that's all for now.  TTYL!

Back by popular demand!

Two different people yesterday, in two different locations and two completely different situations, commented to me (in person) that they enjoy reading my blog and I need to update more often. 

You love me! You really love me!  😁😁😁

Before I go getting a complex or something, I do want to thank you for reading this.  It blows my puny human mind that anyone would enjoy reading my rambling thoughts as much as I enjoy putting them into words.  Even if you are just reading to see if I'll slip up, forget that this is a public forum, and talk trash about you or someone you know.  (KIDDING!! Mostly.)

I feel like I haven't been home all week.  I had to work from the office four out of five days last week (GASP, I know, hashtag first world problems) and also had things to do after work four out of four of those days last week.  I don't usually do things after work, partially because I'm an introverted homebody who enjoys living in the middle of freaking nowhere.  Also, because I like sleep, and to get to work by 0730 I need to leave the house by 0630 at the very latest, so I need to get out of bed by 0545 at the very latest (if I'm going to take a shower) although I actually wake up much earlier than that because the hubby's alarm goes off stupid early, I think 0330 or so? And even though I do usually go back to sleep after his alarm goes off, it's rarely ever GOOD sleep.  Long story short, we go to bed early around here, as you might imagine one does when one has to wake up at stupid early every morning.  

I'm not whining. Just documenting. 

It's been a good kind of busy this week, though.  Tuesday I stopped at the boy's house after work to water the horses, but after I got all the hoses hooked up and everything, I discovered one of the hoses was still frozen. So I unhooked all the hoses (to paint this picture for you, the water hydrant is in the rubble of the old barn, and I need to use two hoses put together to reach the pasture where the horse water tanks are...I'm really bad with guestimating distances and I know hoses aren't standard units of measurement, but I think it's maybe like 500 feet or so? Plus or minus 400 feet?) and plugged the one in because luckily for me the one that was frozen is the one that has a built-in heater to keep it from freezing.  But I didn't get to the boy's house until after 6:30pm (because the downfall of working from work is that I never seem to be able to leave before 5pm anymore!) so I didn't get home until, well, the hubby was already in bed when I got home.   Then Wednesday, I went back to the boy's house again to water the horses for real (don't call the ASPCA, they had water already, I just wanted to top off the tank) but then I discovered the water hydrant was frozen. So I had to break out another hose, and with the boy's help, ran the THREE hoses from the spigot on the outside of the house as far as I could, which was about 50 feet away from where it needed to be.  Maybe more, IDK.  In case you don't have horses or outside animals that need to be watered in massive amounts of gallons at a time, the next solution is to haul buckets of water to the tank.  Which isn't so bad when the hose is almost to the tank.  It beats the hell out of hauling buckets from the house to the pasture, which is what I used to have to do when the hydrant froze in the winter! 

So, that took a while, and was messy because it was dark and I spilled some water on myself and it was cold, but I got to spend some time talking with the boy and petting Princess Daisy. For a few seconds, I even thought Bo had returned...I was by the horse barn petting Daisy (the cat) and I heard a loud "meow" coming from the garage, that sounded an awful lot like Bo.  I reflexively called his name, and the cat responded like Bo would have.  In the shadows, I could see a large possibly-Bo-sized cat walking out of the garage, ambling about as cats do. I kept calling his name and he kept ambling closer, and I was just taking my phone out of my pocket to call the boy and tell him to come outside and see who decided to grace us with his presence after being AWOL for about 3 months now, when the chonky boy stepped into the light and I could clearly see that it was NOT my Bocephus kitteh.  It was a very friendly orange tabby cat, who is obviously used to being outside and also seemed pretty familiar with our the boy's place, but it was definitely not Bo.  Sigh.  

Anyway, so by the time I was done with all that and putting everything away, the boy wanted to go to Culver's, and how can I say no to my precious darling son!?!  By the time I got home, the hubby was in bed. ;)

Thursday night, I went over to my parents' house after work, which I do about every other week or so, to take my mom shopping and have dinner with them.  They're doing pretty well.  Physically they're doing good, my Dad still gets in-home PT once a week for a few more weeks, but his strength and balance and mobility have improved greatly from before he was hospitalized last fall.  His dementia is, well, you know.  From what I can tell, his good days still far outweigh his bad days, and his bad days aren't drastic and extreme yet.  There was one day I was over there and he just kind of sat there looking empty the whole time, barely talking or interacting.  The next time I was there, he had the light in his eyes again and he was joking and talking and even said some things that surprised me (memory-wise -- remembering things I didn't think he'd remembered from the previous visit).  

So, yes, I've been busy, but it's a good busy.  But it's still busy and I'm still kind of wanting to be done with people for a while.  :D

Another reason I haven't written much lately is because a lot of what's on my mind isn't my story to share.  But since it's now up on CaringBridge, I will share some of it here.  On 2/22/22, one of my friends (technically he's married to one of my best friends, but I also consider him my friend and they're our friends as a couple, and as a family because our son and their oldest son are friends as well) had a stroke and ended up having emergency brain surgery that night.  I've been trying to make sense of it all, you know? Five years ago this same friend was in a bad car vs truck accident at work (he was driving the truck) and sustained a pretty bad leg injury, was unable to walk for a while, had hardware sticking out of his leg and everything.  A few years later, my friend (his wife) was diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer and has since been through chemo, radiation, and surgery.  And now, this happened.  WTAF?!?!  Of course, I'm also trying to wrap my pretty little head around it, because obviously I know crap like this happens all the time.  I have some patients with stories that you wouldn't believe! But this doesn't happen to people I know.  Definitely not to people I'm friends with.  I want to fix everything, and I can't.  I want to explain everything, and I can't.  I want to assure them that everything will be alright and...I can't.

On that note, I'm signing off for now.  Thanks again for reading.  Be kind to those around you, because you have no idea what they might be going through.

I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, so gosh-darnit, why is this so freaking hard?!?

 

How does a person get confidence?

Why do so many other people have confidence, but I don't?

What is WRONG with me!?!?

Wait...don't answer that last one.

Hi! And welcome to another installation of Tash's Random Thoughts and Outpourings.  If I changed that to Random Outpourings and Thoughts, I could call it TROT, which is horse-related and therefore uber-cool.  Remember when "uber" was a wanna-be-cool way to say "super" and not a driving service?  Man oh man, I have a headache.  I hope it's not a tumor.  It's probably due to the weather change, and/or leftover from me trying to go all day yesterday without any caffeine.  I didn't intend to go without caffeine all day yesterday, but I was out of diet Dew at home and didn't have time to stop and get any before work. I was going to run up to Wal-Mart on my lunch break and get some, but due to minor schedule changes, that didn't happen, and I didn't feel like having coffee at work because I didn't have any creamer there (and I like my creamer with a little bit of coffee) and besides, ice water was suiting me just fine yesterday in the moment.  Work was keeping me busy enough that I could brush off the headache I was getting until after work when I was taking my mom shopping.  That's when I broke down and bought a 6-pack of diet Dew.  OK, I didn't "break down," I was going to buy one anyway.  Actually, my mom bought it for me, which was totally unnecessary but she insisted, and it was easier than arguing with her.  My point being, it'd been a long time since I went that long on so little caffeine, I was pleasantly surprised at how functional I was. I was chugging water all day to try to fend off the headache, but it still hit me, and I still have a headache now which may or may not be related.

I mean, it could be a tumor.  No offense at all to my friends who have actually had (or have) brain tumors.  I should know better than to make light of such a horrible condition.  On the other hand, I know that headaches can sometimes be a sign of something more sinister.  But it's probably just the weather changing. 

But back to my original question, which is inspired by the fact that I had my annual review this week. I always dread the annual review. I always have, since my very first job. It doesn't seem to get any easier, thank you, Anxiety.  I've been ruminating on why that could be, and why I have the particular faults I have.  Not just at work, but in life.  Because, let's face it, one thing I've never been known for is having a lot of self-confidence.

This never seemed to be an issue until the last 10-15 years or so.  I was always "just shy".  In my first semester of nursing school, in our first clinical rotation, our instructor told me I needed to be louder and more outspoken.  I could've died right then and there, yo.  Calling me out like that??  I'm just shy. It's just how I am. I can't fix it.  I don't like drawing attention to myself.  Maybe I'm not cut out to be a nurse.  

I have since come to understand what she was getting at, though.  It wasn't the first time, nor the last, that I was assured in not so many words that I had the knowledge and skills to do exactly what needed to be done, I just lacked the courage to actually do it.  Words that continue to haunt me to this day.

I don't understand it. It's not as though I was constantly belittled when I was growing up.  Au contraire, my parents were very supportive and encouraging.  My sister, not so much, but by the time I was old enough to understand that, I was also old enough to understand sibling rivalry so I tried not to let it get to me.  Maybe it did, anyway?  Your guess is as good as mine at this point.  

One can only ruminate on the past and speculate on these things for so long, though.  

Also, one can only put off finishing a blog entry for so long.  For example, I wrote all of the above last Thursday, and here it is Monday, and I'm trying to remember where I was going with that last sentence.  I hate it when that happens! 

Anywho, even though I don't recall which path I was trying to take to get there, my point was to be that I am hereby officially working on ways to boost my own confidence.  The word "affirmation" keeps running through my mind, so I'm starting there.  Telling myself all the time that I can do the thing.  It sounds so basic, doesn't it?  But this is what depression and anxiety can do to a person.  It's always in the background, telling me I can't do the thing, or I shouldn't do the thing, or if I do the thing incorrectly I'll mess everything else up, or it would be much better if someone else did the thing because they're better at it than me.  I h8 you, Depression and Anxiety.  You suck.  Would you please just leave me alone, for the rest of my life?  Can I break up with Depression and Anxiety?  I never asked them to invade my life, anyway.  Are there any tests out there yet that can localize where exactly in my brain these ideas are coming from so someone can go in and zap them out and I can be a normal person again who doesn't have to psych herself up to do things that normal people just do without even thinking about it because that's just what it's like to be normal?  

Go, me. Identifying the problem is half the solution. Or so I hear.

Feb-Roo-Airy!

...is obviously NOT when this photo was taken! But oh, how I need to see the green grass, and leaves on the trees that have been stark raving bare naked since seemingly forever (or at least as long as we've lived here).  Don't get me wrong, there's still a beauty and a certain peacefulness and calm in the winter woods, where everything is literally black and white and cold and deserted, and all the magic that is hidden away under the shadows of summer is exposed for all the world to see.  The trees are plentiful enough out here that, even sans foliage, they make an impressive barrier between you and whatever is on the other side.  But it's a wall of sticks.  Nothing can hide there.  The silence is as deafening as the air is frigid.  I long to hear the sound of leaves rustling in the warm summer breeze.  I want to be able to stand out there and immerse myself in nature and forget that there's even such a thing as "inside".  All the animal tracks we can see in the snow now just reinforce the idea that those woods, the woods like the ones in the photo above, will be alive and teeming with life in a few short months, rather than standing around desolate and barren and full of potential and/or promise. 

Yep. Gotta love living in the upper Midwest.  I know I've stated this before, but Spring Fever is hitting me particularly hard this winter, and while I don't want to wish time away faster than it needs to go, I do wish spring and summer would hurry up and get here. And then stick around for a while.

In case you haven't seen my FB recently, my latest enamoration is deer in our yard.  This has further led me to all kinds of conflicted feelings.  I'm an animal lover, but not one of those super die-hard animal lovers who is completely and totally against, say, hunting.  I'm not a hunter, but I'm not against other people hunting.  If my hubby, who is (or should I say has been) a hunter, wants to shoot one of those deer in our backyard (legally, in season), theoretically I don't mind.  It's a hunter's perfect scenario, isn't it?  Getting a deer right off your own deck?  I mean, if I could fish from my back step, I totally would, but it doesn't work that way.  I know there's a deer overpopulation problem around here. I know they cause a lot of damage because of that, especially when they get out on the highway and people hit them with their cars, and such.  There are deer in the city, for crying out loud.  There shouldn't be deer in the city.  They should all be out here, in the wilderness, living their little wilderness critter lives.  

But then I see them and their little wilderness critter selves in my backyard, which is all covered in snow, scrounging around for something to eat, and I imagine what it would be like to be a hunter and to pull up my rifle and shoot one of those beautiful, innocent animals that is doing absolutely nothing wrong but trying not to starve to death in the middle of a world that has been taken over by selfless humans... and I can't do it.  I can't pull the imaginary trigger.  It's just a creature trying to survive out there, just like the rest of us.  

My parents always said I'd've made a horrible farm girl.  It's true!  I have nothing against eating meat.  As long as I didn't know it first.  :)  True story -- once upon a time, I went with the hubby when he went deer hunting.  Mostly just to have a weekend away, as I had no intention of joining him in the woods or trying to take down Bambi's dad.  Well, as (my) luck would have it, my hubby got himself a deer that weekend. And we didn't have a trailer with us, just our good ol' trusty Chevy Venture minivan.  So that dead deer rode home from Up North in the back of the minivan.  Well, mostly in the back of the minivan...her head was basically intruding upon the front space (on the floor -- hubby, in his wisdom, had removed the back 2 rows of seats, so picture Bambi's mom laying on the floor...well, on a sled on the floor of the minivan with the back 2 rows of seats removed) with her big, brown eyes looking at me the whole time.

The moral of the story is that I could not eat that deer.  I never saw her alive, but riding home with her body in the back of my minivan was close enough.  Believe me, I wanted to! I want to like venison.  I wanted to enjoy the meat that my hubby had provided for our little family.  But I couldn't.  I just kept seeing those big, brown eyes, staring up at my from the back of my minivan.  I think I tried a bite or two but couldn't do more than that.

But, wait! There's more.  There was the year we raised chickens!  We started out with a couple as pets, and that went well, so we got a bunch of chicks one year with the sole purpose of growing them up to eat them.  Oddly enough, it was easy to NOT get attached to them. Most of them.  ;)  Chickens are fun to watch, and to have around (they eat bugs and rodents and weeds) but they can also be disgusting (they also eat each other if the opportunity arises) and sometimes not friendly.  And they poop all over if they're free-range, which ours were.  I felt no love lost when it came time to butcher them. In fact, I was glad, because they were getting too big for their little legs and it kind of disgusted me that they were even bred that way.  

But, you know what? I still couldn't eat them.  Again, I really wanted to, because chicken is one of the meats I generally love, but I could not eat a single bite of our own chickens.  Even worse, I couldn't eat any of the eggs from the layers, either.  That part really made me mad, because I love me some eggs, and having that many at our disposal was like winning the lottery.  But, nope.  As soon as I cracked one open, my appetite went right out the door.  

I know what you're wondering now.  Do I eat the fish that we catch?  The answer is No, I don't.  But that's because I'm allergic to fish.  I don't know if I would be able to eat them if I were not allergic.  I used to when I was a kid, so maybe?  

And here ends another chapter of Things You Didn't Know You Wanted To Know About Me.  Thanks for reading!

Almost 2 months

I heard on the news the other morning that winter is officially half over!  That's all they said, or at least all I heard, so I don't know* if they meant meteorological winter (which runs from December 1 through the end of February) or astronomical winter (which runs from around December 22 to around March 21).  I'm pretty sure they didn't mean Midwest winter, which runs from November, sometimes October, rarely as late as December, until at least the beginning of April but sometimes into May.  

*And I don't feel like doing the math to figure it out.  Since the meteorologist was the one talking about it, my money would be on meteorological winter, but I'm not in a betting mood today.

Nevertheless, it was nice to hear the words "winter" and "over" in the same sentence from voices other than the ones in my head, for a change.  😆

It's hard to believe that we've lived here almost two months already.  It definitely feels more like home every day.  I think we have all the light switches figured out (ha, ha), at least on the main floor!  I was keeping up with unpacking totes at first, but I finally conceded and now there are some totes out in the garage waiting to be unpacked.  Mostly because I haven't decided how to display the ashtray collection yet.  

Yes, we have an ashtray collection.  No, we don't smoke.  Well, we've been known to enjoy the occasional cigar or flavored cigarillo every now and then, although that hasn't even happened for a few years.  I used to smoke in my late teens/early 20's, but quit when I got pregnant with the boy.  No, the ashtray collection doesn't stem from a smoking habit, it stems from an interest in collecting odd, affordable things.  Hence why I want to find a way to display them, not just keep them in totes in the garage.  There are some really cool pieces in there!  I think one of my favorites is the ashtray that was *ahem* once in a pediatrician's office.  It actually has indentations of baby's feet at different ages.  I can just imagine new moms sitting around in the pediatrician's waiting room with their babies, smoking to pass the time, and comparing their baby's feet to the ones on the ashtray, right before ashing in it.

I know I suck at describing things, so I found a picture of a very similar ashtray on the Googles.  This is not the actual one we own, as far as I know, but it could be.  It's not my picture, though.  The ashtray in question looks just like this: 

See? Craziness!!  It was made (or at least distributed by) Similac.  That is NOT meant to be any kind of slam against formula-makers.  I'm not one of those moms.  My baby was a formula baby and a breastfed baby.  I just think it's funny.  Or brilliant.  Similac knew their target audience with this one.

So, yeah.  Two months.  And I'm tired of seeing everything covered in snow.  Although I do have to say, I have been kicking ass at keeping the house clean!  This is generally not one of my strong points.  I used to joke that I was born without the housekeeping gene.  Have I written about this here before? I feel like I have.  Either way, get this: we were out of laundry detergent for a couple of days last week, and the growing pile of dirty clothes spilling out of the hamper and on to the floor around it was actually disturbing me.  I could feel it in my bones, and grating on my last nerve, and I hated it!  I was so relieved when we finally got more detergent so I could catch up on laundry.  This is so unlike me, at least unlike the me I used to be.  If something like that bothered me before, I just ignored it.  WHO AM I!?!?!  I don't know either, but I like me a lot better now that I have in a really, really long time!

Trust me, I've been doing a lot of self-analysis into why that could be.  I have some theories, but nothing I want to share yet.  Especially not right now, considering my break is over and I have to get back to work. 

Toodles!