hqueen's collection of Far From the Usual stuff.

[hqueen13]

Ahh poop. I had a whole post written, got distracted, and now it looks like it's gone. Oh well, nothing earth shattering anyway.

It was a great holiday, and my weekend was pretty good, too. It was full of body work and reiki, which was lovely.
I've got a dog with me, who is the Best Dog Ever, and so she's going to spend the week hanging out with me and stuff. She's a take everywhere dog which is awesome. So she's in the office with me today. We have patients today, so she's back in my office with the door shut, and perfectly content. I've taken her for a couple walks in between stuff, and then we'll go for a walk again before I leave for the day. I'll bring her tomorrow, but she'll be able to roam around since there isn't anyone in the office tomorrow.

I'm picking up extra hours this week, which is a good thing. I can use all the extra help that I can get!
Not much else going on really.

We have the best neighbors ever. So our neighbor is one of the sisters that grew up in the house, the 3 of them all still live on the street. So the one that is our next door neighbor wasn't feeling well and ended up in the hospital with major surgery due to cancer. We're all really worried about her, and she should have some sort of answers today from the pathology report. Well, it's her husband that has been mowing for us since we don't have a mower. We got home yesterday from errands and discovered that the other sister and her partner/husband/boyfriend (don't really know what his official title is...) had come down and done all the mowing, not just the sister's house, but also our yard, too. They're seriously the best.

So that's about all that's happening... nothing interesting.
Oh, other than the weather, which has been GORGEOUS since Saturday, FINALLY! We woke up Saturday morning and it was 65 with almost no humidity, and it barely broke 80 that day. It's slightly warmer today, but still really comfortable with low humidity! I wish it would stay like this for a LONG time!!!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Good neighbors really ARE the best! Glad you got some of 'em - they can be hard to come by!

 

[hqueen13]

They are hard to come by!
My neighbor is home now, so that's a good thing. I haven't heard about any of her reports to know what the next step is, other than making sure she heals up from this surgery. I hope they have good news.

I'm dog sitting this week, and I'm really looking forward to them getting home. The dog gets really antsy if she's not walked every 3 hours or so, so I've been taking 10 - 15 minutes about 6 times a day to walk her. I don't have an open area where she can play and run without concern of her ending up somewhere she shouldn't be. I tried taking her to the farm to play with the young lab there, but it was too hot for them to really romp and play. My other client that has a pool doesn't let dogs swim since it does clog up the filter with their hair. I don't want to take her to the river because I just don't trust taking her off leash where there are other people and dogs. She's not mine, otherwise I probably would. I'm exhausted from all the additional walking on top of having to be in the office for 4 full days this week. It's made for a fat paycheck, but still, the two things combined have really made me exhausted. I'm leaving the office today at 2:30 and will swing by my friend's place and then go home. If I get home early enough I might even take a nap. We'll see. I might do that tomorrow instead, since I'll have 3 stop to make tomorrow evening, including turning out at the barn where Storm is and doing 2 stalls.

I'm feeling rather restless and unsettled otherwise. I just can't seem to figure out what direction to go for my business next, and posting content just isn't feeling good in the way that I used to do it. I don't know what to do next, but I'm ready to bring in some income. I can't figure out what action to take that feels good. I did do a live on facebook this week, which was fun, and while I do wish I'd done a few things differently, it was decent. I don't know much of what else to discuss. I suppose I need to sit down and really journal a bunch of stuff, to see if I can sort out the next direction to take. It would also be good for me to actually sit my rear down and start meditating again, for any length of time. I was really good about it for a long time, and I really haven't been since we moved. There's a class I want to take starting next week, and while I'm not totally sure where the funds are going to come from it feels like the right thing to do, so I'll just trust that it will all work itself out.

It's warming back up again, but still not terrible. The humidity is ok, it could be so much worse (and was), so that's a good thing. It's the kind of weather that is hot, but if you're in the shade, and can catch a breeze it's really decent. It sort of feels like beach weather to me. Sadly, there's no beach. But my friend with the pool is going out of town for a week. Her son will be home for the last half of the week so I guess I won't use the pool then, but at least I get to use it for a few days. Maybe I can work on getting my legs to be not so white anymore. I need to soak in the goodness of their home and pool and see if I can sort out some direction for myself.

 

[baymule]

You need some down time. You run in so many different directions, seemingly all at once. You need to check out for at least one day and go sit in the woods, go somewhere quiet, commune with nature and blank out everything pulling on you, claiming your attention.

 

[hqueen13]

I agree, @baymule I'd love some down time. The struggle lately is that I don't get paid if I take down time. And running on such a razor thin margin with the finances keeps me working as much as I can manage. I was thinking about that this morning, I need to figure out how to adjust my schedule and not do so much, but it is what it is at the moment.

The weekend was good, but busy. I had the dog with me until Sunday afternoon, and I couldn't find anybody that would let me swim her in their pool, so she stayed at home. I could tell she wanted a good romp, but I just didn't have a safe space to do it. Unless they pay me more next time I'm not going to accept (though thankfully they go on vacation so rarely that I don't expect to hear from them any time soon). They paid me $150 to keep her from Sunday morning through the following Sunday afternoon. That's less than $20.00 per day to have her in my house, and walk her a minimum of 4 times a day for 10 to 15 minutes, usually more than that, and attempt to exercise her, which would have taken more time. So it is no less than an additional hour of work, generally closer to 2 hours of extra attention that has to be squeezed in my schedule. Not to mention that I don't have a dog, so things need to be cleaned now that she's gone. I got more exercise which is good, lol, but still, it was a lot of work, on top of my already busy schedule. If she were my dog I'd have a remote shock collar for her, which would teach her not to go too far and to come back when called, but she's not my dog, so I had to deal with what she was. She'd be super obedient if she were given just a little more boundaries to work from.

My one friend with the super awesome pool is away for a week, which is great, but her sons are probably coming home tomorrow, so while I won't have to worry about the cats, I won't really want to get in the pool if they're home. That would be kinda awkward. So we'll see if she wants me to keep taking care of the horses, too. I know I'll do a better job than her sons, but we'll see what she wants. I'd be ok if she just wants me to take care of them in the morning, turn them out and clean stalls, and then let her sons put them in at night. It'll save me a trip, and make my life easier, even though it will mean not making quite as much per day. We'll see what happens. Oh, the other bonus is that her blackberry bushes are producing like gangbusters, so I get to pick those. I haven't had blackberries that look like these since I was a kid picking them wild in NC. They don't grow like that up here, unless you plant them. I don't know what I'm going to do with them, but we'll see. I was thinking it might be yummy to make some kind of an icecream topping, but I don't know how to do that with blackberries. With strawberries you just slice them and add a little sugar and you get that syrupy awesomeness. I don't think blackberries are quite the same.

So, not really much else going on. I'm either working in the office or taking care of someone's horses somewhere.

Today is the BF and my anniversary of dating. Neither one of us remember exactly, so we just picked this date since we knew we went out together for the first time on this date 6 years ago. I can't believe it's been that long. I'm debating what to do, I don't want to spend money since we really don't have money to spend right now, but I'd like to do something nice. I might just come up with something for dinner at home, and then go out for ice cream or cupcakes and maybe a swim at my friend's pool. We'll see how thing go.

 

[sumi]

Happy anniversary you two! 6 Years is a long time.

 

[hqueen13]

Thanks, @sumi It doesn't feel like it's been that long.... but it really has!
I made dinner, I'm proud to say I used things I had. I made what was supposed to be "Squash Au Gratin" but it didn't turn out quite as "Au Gratin-y" as I would have hoped. I'll work with a different recipe next time to see if I can get something that's a little closer. I also baked chicken in the oven with the squash, and then I added a salad (greens that I dumped ranch on). Then we headed down, and I stopped by our favorite cupcake shop (well, the only one in our area), and we got cupcakes as a treat, and then went to my friend's farm. I put the ponies in for the night and then we sat in the awesome chairs with our feet in the pool. Her pool has a shallow spot at the end with an umbrella stand, and you can put chairs in it and then sit with your feet in the water, it's sooooo luxurious! So we drank our wine and sat with our feet in the pool. I picked a really awesome bunch of blackberries out of her garden (ya gotta plant them up here, LOL) and then we headed home and ate our cupcakes before crashing in bed. It was a really great evening, and even annoying texts from his dad didn't get in the way.

We got rain! I'm so glad it's finally rained!! It was a downpour, but at least it was a decent one. We'll see how much we got when I get home this afternoon.

Otherwise, not much else to update. I'm starting an energy healing class tonight that will last 6 weeks, so that's exciting. I just hope that it's not raining again when I have to stop by the barn on the way there to turn the horses out!

 

[baymule]

Gently wash the blackberries. Put them on several layers of paper towels or a bath towel that you don't care about, to drain. Put them on cookie sheets and freeze. After they are frozen, you can bag them up and they won't be one solid frozen mass.

E-Z Blackberry Buckle

1 stick real butter
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 to 1 cup of sugar, depending on your taste
Oatmeal

Melt the butter, stir the cinnamon and sugar in it. Add enough oatmeal to make it crumbly.Pour black berries in oven proof container, drizzle the oatmeal mixture over the top and bake at 350 until hot and bubbly, usually about 30 minutes. It is real easy and goes together quick.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

we sat in the awesome chairs with our feet in the pool. Her pool has a shallow spot at the end with an umbrella stand, and you can put chairs in it and then sit with your feet in the water, it's sooooo luxurious! So we drank our wine and sat with our feet in the pool.

That sounds so good!

 

[hqueen13]

It was super nice!! I already miss the pool, though it's been raining so much it doesn't matter.

Oh man, @baymule that sounds yummy!! I might have to do that. They're still sitting in the fridge, we've had so much going on that I haven't had time to deal with them. The BF says he wants to make syrup out of them, but he hasn't had time either.

We've spent way too much money lately. It's STILL an issue. I'm so frustrated right now I don't know what to do. There isn't anything to do but keep chugging along.

The BF decided he wanted to clean the hardwood floors and put some polish on them this week. Over $100 later we ended up with a fancy system, and our floors are mostly shiny. I fell for it, too, so I'll take partial credit for that. I'm glad we did it because I don't want the floors getting damaged, but by the same token we really didn't need to spend THAT much money. For real. So now we've just got to catch up. Again. I'm so frustrated with it! He always complains that he feels like he never has any money. And I'm like well yeah, when you keep over spending you never have any money! He's SO close to being able to be comfortable. But that can't happen when we continually over spend every single paycheck. When I have to rob peter to pay paul just to keep things covered when we get paid it just doesn't work. I keep pushing him to get rid of the Jeep because that will be over $100 every month that will stay in our pocket instead of paying the car insurance. He's just been dragging his feet on it, which is frustrating me SO much. I just want him to get it listed. I think the next time it's not raining I'm going to go out there and just take photos of it and tell him to list the dang thing, and that he can add updated pictures when he gets things fixed.

Speaking of rain. We've had about 3 1/2" since Saturday morning. And there's rain in the forecast for the next 2 weeks. This week is rough, 90% today, 100% tomorrow and Wednesday, then it drops to about 60% for as far as I can see on the forecast. And, thank goodness we were home, because the roof started leaking. The BF got a bucket under it, and it caught almost 2" of water after we started to catch it. Sunday morning we had a break in the rain, so he went to Lowe's and got some roof stuff, and started to repair it. Well, either that didn't work, or trying to repair it made it worse, because when the rain started back up again yesterday evening, he went up there and checked, and it was now running down one of the rafters. Thank goodness he hadn't taken the second a/c pan back, because we grabbed it and put it up there because it was dripping off the rafter in so many different spots that a bucket just wouldn't work. He's going to get his dad to stop over to see if they can figure out what's going on to fix it. I just hope we don't have to deal with a whole new roof right now. NOT in the budget what so ever.

Saturday morning I had my lesson, which was good. And of course it was raining. She seems to bring the rain every time she comes. Of course the last rain that we had was last month when she was here. Storm did really well, and I did get to ride him for a little bit, but at the end he got fussy and it made me pretty nervous. I don't know if he was getting fussy because his body was changing, or if I wasn't doing what she was asking quite in the right way. I'm going to have to work with it more and see what happens. She was very complimentary of him and how he was doing, despite the fact that we really hadn't worked at all since she was here last. So he's holding onto what he's learning really well, which is good.

So yeah, things are going, but it's not a fun ride right now. But this, too, shall pass. Maybe like a kidney stone, but it shall pass.