hqueen's collection of Far From the Usual stuff.

[hqueen13]

FEM! I hear ya!!
Looking forward to pay day at the end of the week so I can organize my money again! I think I've made it without going over my budget, though I'm REALLY close... Like crazy super close.
The BF's budget is not in as good of shape as it has been, but we're still hanging in there. I don't know if his work from Saturday will be on this pay period or not, but I hope so because he hit 60 hours last week, so this should be a FAT pay check, and we could use it. We'll see how all that comes together.

Other than that, not much happening at the moment. I'm riding with the BF's mom down to pick up his brother at the DC airport this afternoon. I have no idea what time we'll get home. At least I don't have any farms to go to at all! That is the awesome part.
Tomorrow I have a lot of business stuff to do, and I want to get a lot of cleaning done because it's LONG overdue. And I'm tired of wasting weekend time cleaning when we could be doing other things. At least the weather tomorrow looks pretty good, too. SO we'll see what all I can get done tomorrow. I'm going to try to intersperse cleaning and computer work and see how much I can get checked off the list.
I still need to write up the invoice for GH and SH to get paid for that work. If I don't get to that today while I'm in the office I'll have to do tomorrow. I have a call this afternoon at noon, so that will suck up the afternoon. I need to make sure I get crap done this morning while I have time, too!

Not much else to report. It rained yesterday, mostly just a steady rain. I guess we could have used it. I don't mind if it is like that. It's when we get weeks of rain that it's a problem.

SO here's to getting stuff done so that we can keep moving on other projects!!

 

[hqueen13]

We made progress on the shed this weekend! The walls are UP! It didn't take us too long, and we had the help of our neighbors at a couple of key spots, so that was great, but we now have 4 walls and a framed out door! We didn't get to keep working yesterday because of father's day, but that was ok because the next step is the roof and that's going to be a bit more involved, and the BF keeps changing his mind on how he wants to do it. SO we laid everything against the wall and wrapped it in a tarp and will hope for the best this week. I wish we could have gotten the roof on before it was going to rain, but oh well. Nothing much to be done about that. It gives us time to plan for the roof, which is probably better anyway. The budget would probably prefer that we wait, too, LOL I'm just thrilled that we got that much done, even without working yesterday.
We didn't spend a huge amount of money this weekend, which was certainly for the better, too. We did take his dad out to a distillery for fathers day, and we paid for all the tickets, but they paid for our dinner, so that was nice.
Other than that, not much happened. I just hope the rain isn't too rough this week, there is rain in the forecast all the way through until Friday.

I did get a message from a friend that her barn is offering a work exchange for board for 1 horse spot. It's 4 days a week feedings, which is the not great part about it, and right now it's BOTH Saturday and Sunday, which I'm not super keen on. But it's FREE board, vs the over $200 I'm paying right now by the time I buy my own hay and sawdust. So we'll have to see how things come together, but I need to sit with that for a bit and decide if that's worth it to me or not. Money is valuable, but my time is also worth something, too. So we'll see how that works out. It IS closer to me, and a little more direct on my route than the current place, so that would be helpful. So I don't know what I'll do, but we'll figure it out.

Not much else to report, I guess that's good news.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Fantastic news about shed. Sure does make you feel good when you make progress on a project that you want finished! Trip to the distillery for father's day sounds like fun. My son grilled hamburgers for us and that was nice.

God to know that you can get free board for Storm in exchange for work if you need to go that route. It's really nice to have options!

 

[baymule]

Free board....saves you $200....sure is tempting.....

Hooray for the shed going up! I know it all takes time, money, more time, more money and the help of friends and family.

 

[hqueen13]

It IS tempting, @baymule I'm actually going to stop by tonight to see what the feeding routine is and maybe ask to see if there is any way that it can be changed from both Sat and Sun to another week day. I would even take Fri at this point (I already feed on Fri, so what's the difference...). So we'll see what happens. I know Storm would be happier because he'd be out all the time and he'd have buddies again. I would appreciate him not being in a stinky ammonia filled barn for half the day, and a weed filled field with no shelter the rest of the day. It would be nice to have a tack room that's NICE enough that I could keep my tack IN it instead of it riding around in my car with me constantly. I only keep stuff that's really durable like my brushes and such in the tack room at the barn. Those things would all be really nice to have, so it's just a matter of whether or not I can arrange the timing so that I don't end up spending more time there and lose the time that I could use elsewhere. We'll see. Keep your fingers crossed and send good vibes!

In other news the office is driving me nuts. We took on a new marketing company and it's ended up being a disaster. They have messed up everything that they said they were going to do, and it's cost us a LOT more money than we should have been paying. The worst part is that things are just plain wrong. There's no rhyme or reason to what is or isn't getting done. None of it makes sense. I think we're going to end up firing them as soon as we figure out a plan B because we like the concept, so now we just have to figure out how to do it without them.

Only good news is that I'm picking up a few extra hours here and there dealing with it, and the boss was super nice and is giving us a tiny bonus on the next check for having a great month last month. Every little bit helps!

I have another lesson on Saturday morning, so I'll talk to KN about the boarding situation and see what she thinks, too. Hopefully Storm isn't in too frisky of a mood, he has been rather rowdy when I've turned him out the past several mornings. He'll be polite with me, but as soon as the lead rope is off he bolts off with a buck and squeal and runs across his pasture. Not exactly what I'm interested in riding. We'll see how THAT goes.

Hopefully we can get more done on the shed this weekend. It's rained almost every day (or night) this week, but I think the weekend is mostly clear, thankfully.

 

[baymule]

I hope things smooth out at work. Sounds like a screwy mess.

Yep, you need to investigate more on that free board, tack room, it is sounding better and better.

 

[hqueen13]

We had a busy weekend! Whew!!
I spoke with JO again, and there is another person that is considering moving into the barn, and has been there before, but has had problems with one of the farm staff (who is reportedly 'crazy' and has caused several different barn folks to leave... but that's likely to be another story for another day), so I'm not sure what will happen. I plan to shoot her another message today because I'd like to make a decision before I pay the July board since I'm supposed to give 30 days notice.
Saturday morning I had a great lesson with my instructor. Storm is doing so well, and even though he had been excited earlier in the week, he was really laid back, so it was nice to work with him. My legs were jello when we finished, and he was pretty well tired out, too. He stood nicely at the car while I untacked him and put his saddle and stuff into my trunk where I keep it. I haven't done that with him before, but he behaved really well.
I headed home after that, and relaxed for a bit and ate some lunch before I decided to dive into rearranging things in the office. We had a big heavy metal file cabinet that was in the house when we moved in, and I decided it would be put to much better use if it were in the office, but I didn't want to put it in the room, so we decided to put it in the closet, but it's too deep to fit in the closet with the drawers facing out, so it has to go in sideways, which does make it awkward storing other stuff in there, but a large portion of what is in the cabinet is old files in the first place, so not a huge reason to need to open the drawers constantly. So I dove in Saturday morning and started dragging started dragging stuff out of the closet and rearranging. Since the "desk" in the office is just a drafting table there isn't much drawer storage, so some things really never got settled in, so I moved things around in the antique chiffarobe that is in there and made some space for desk stuff. I was able to empty about 3 boxes right there. I got the file cabinet out of the basement, but it was SO heavy that I couldn't move it on the dolly by myself to bring it around the house and in the front door, which has 3 steps up. I was good and didn't try to do it alone! So I just kept rearranging! I managed to clear out a bunch of stuff, got quite a few things organized to give away, sell or go to goodwill.
Finally when the BF got home after working all day on an extra job with the neighbor, he got a shower and we headed to grab dinner and take care of Cowboy and Coyote. When we got back home he kindly helped bring the cabinet around even though he was really tired. It was late, but I REALLY wanted to get stuff done, so I kept working and managed to get most of the things into the cabinet, and the stuff back in the closet. I was able to empty 2 more boxes at that point, which made me really happy! I'm very pleased with how it all went back in, even though it requires taking things out of the closet in order to get into the bottom 2 drawers. I won't need them all that much, so that's fine.
Sunday I got up and ran down to Cowboy and Coyote and then came back and kept working on straightening up in the office. It's about 90% done, and I was able to get the room vacuumed which was a really good thing. I'm SO relieved to not have stuff sitting around on the floor piled in every corner anymore. Now I just have to get it all moved OUT before Thursday when JS comes!
I headed to the barn and Cowboy and Coyote's to get the chores done for the evening. I enjoy not having to go to the barn crazy early in the morning, but by the same token I don't enjoy finishing at the barn at 7:00 at night when I haven't eaten dinner and I need a shower. TK didn't come help again even though she said she would. I told her it was fine, but also sent her a little note to remind her that if she owns animals she can't just back out. She's really young and has a lot of growing up to do. She says she wants to have a farm and animals and horses and everything, but that's not going to happen if she can't bother to show up to the opportunities that present themselves for her to learn. No skin off my back, but I don't appreciate being told that I'll have help and then the help backs out. We'll see what happens with that.
So through Wednesday to get the house cleaned up for JS to be here. The office is mostly finished, just a few pieces of paperwork that I need to put away on the desk, and probably wipe the desk down since it hasn't been dusted in forever. There's a couple more things I might move to put away in new spots, but I'll have to think about that. The guest room bed is currently FULL of all the crap that I moved out of the office... SO that all has to be taken care of. I'll make a goodwill run on Wednesday, I have a large pile of clothes that I'm actually going to take over to a friend when JS goes to work on the horses over there on Friday, so I'm not as worried about that, but I do need to get it put into a bag or something. I have some more boxes to go into the attic. I have a couple old Parelli things that need to be sold, so I need to get those relisted. I had them listed at one time, and now the listing is gone, which is annoying. I don't remember how much I listed them for, so now I have to do all that research all over again. I think I still have the photos at least, I just need to dig them up. I should probably put that on my list to do this afternoon when I get home so that I have a chance of getting them out of the house before JS is here. I also need to get the candles that were in the windows for the holidays (and winter, it made the house look so much cuter) put away in the box and back up in the attic. And then of course in addition to that is all the usual cleaning that is over due... vacuuming, cleaning the bathroom, cleaning Lilith's cage, vacuuming the basement and cleaning the basement bathroom.... I think I have my work cut out for me!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

When you get finished will you come do my house? I soooo need to do some of that deep cleaning. I keep saying..."when I retire..."

 

[Britesea]

Hah! retirement just means "twice as much work to do, for half as much pay"

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Hah! retirement just means "twice as much work to do, for half as much pay"

I'm sure, lol. But, I'm still looking forward to it...