hqueen's collection of Far From the Usual stuff.

[frustratedearthmother]

You are definitely too busy to be down...get better!!

 

[hqueen13]

Thanks, FEM! I am finally feeling better! And yes, I ain't got time for that crap! I'm feeling about 90% better at this point, probably mostly thanks to the kenisio tape on my back and laying on the floor in constructive rest (knees and hips at 90 degrees, with a few thin books under my head for support) at least once a day for 20 minutes, sometimes twice a day. That is keeping me moving at all right now. Still need to be thoughtful about most things, particularly bending or lifting a load, but for the most part I'm back to usual.
The good news is that the extra 2 horses that were in our co-op left on Friday. So we're back to just 3 and that means I can get the chores done in about an hour and a half or so. WHEW SO relieved to be back to 'normal' on that. I liked the people, but the horses were PIGS in their stalls, and it was AWFUL to have them added to the to do list. Plus having to walk 2 more horses out was just extra time. Really relieved to just be me and the one other gal with 2 horses now. I like all of them just fine and they aren't that messy in their stalls at all.
Saturday I went over to the new farm in the morning to go through the feed/turnout routine with the woman that's covering things right now. She was really nice, and we got done in about an hour, mostly because she had to walk me through things first. It's a bit confusing because there are several situations that you have to turn out a group of horses first, then go close a gate, then turn out another group next, and then go close another gate, and so forth, but I'm sure I'll get the hang of it fairly quickly. The only other sort of annoying thing is that the stalls aren't labeled, so I'm going to have to figure out how to make myself notes or something so I can remember who is who. It seems like it's going to be a good fit, though, so I'm looking forward to getting settled into the routine and then getting Storm over there. Wednesday will be the first day of doing morning feed/turnout and then doing chores right after, so we'll see how THAT goes. I might keel over. We'll see. Thankfully I have lunch planned with friends right after that, so I'll be able to EAT because I know I'm going to be starving at that point. Hopefully I won't stink too much by then.
After I got home from helping to feed on Saturday, we didn't do a whole lot. The BF was helping his cousin and his kiddos make a pinewood derby car, which turned out fantastic. They needed to run home to take the youngest kiddo home for lunch and to get put down for a nap, and so we ran some errands and grabbed lunch. When we got back home I headed to the office which was in desperate need of some attention. I sorted out the bills that needed filing which had been piling up for a while, and found it was about 3 months of stuff I hadn't put away. I hate it when it gets that bad. Got that all squared away, and sorted, and then filed, and then finished up my tracking for the business for December. I'm glad I got that done, and I just scheduled the meeting with my accountant, I'm really close to having her entire fee together now, which is way better than how long it took me to get it paid last year. I swore that wouldn't be happening again, and I'm most of the way there, I just have to get a bit of extra in and I should have it covered. I'm ready to get the tax returns back, though, because there are things we need to take care of! I'm tired of being behind.
Planning to discuss things around my pay with my boss very, very soon, too. I have to get the accountants in the office to reset my user name for our stupid online payroll system because it's locked me out permanently. It keeps telling me to change the password, but nothing I do actually lets me in. So once I can get back into that I'll crunch some numbers and make sure that what I ask for is reasonable. It's going to be a stretch, but with some of the shifts that we are about to make I think it will be fair.
Sunday I did chores (YAY for faster times with less horses!) and then came back home, for once Cowboy and Coyote's owners are home so I only had one stop to make. It's such a relief when I only have one stop to make. We relaxed most of the day, he was waiting on his brother to come up to work on a table they're making, but he ended up super late somehow, which pissed off the BF, and I don't blame him because we could have done other things if we had known that we would have had that much uninterrupted time. So it goes.
Not much else happened at the moment. We've been discussing how to bring in extra cash, and now I just need to nudge the BF to get some things DONE so that we can start listing them for sale. Hopefully we'll have some of that together soon.

 

[hqueen13]

Yesterday I did feeding/turnout and chores at the new farm again. Once the morning feeder gal and I were finished, I started on chores and worked for a little while alone. CD came back and asked if I could help getting a round bale into the field, and I of course told her yes. We started on the stalls together when we got that done, and it was nice to have the company. We talked a bit more about the schedule and she said that she was going to keep the other girl who is helping out on board, so there will be 3 of us working on the chores together. I was REALLY relieved to hear that, because doing all 19 stalls alone after turning out the horses is a lot, and would take probably close to 4 hours or so, and having to do that 4 days a week would be exhausting. So I feel even better about this whole situation at this point. I was also talking to the morning feeder, and told her the hold up was that CD needs to move at least one horse out before I can bring my horse in. I mentioned that one of the horses was for sale, and that CD had talked about trying to get him to go to a friend's house temporarily, and the morning feeder was pretty interested in him, so I told CD later that she needs to talk it over with her and see if maybe she can work out a free lease for a month or something and then she can decide, and that way I can get Storm in there and start actually working and making money!!
My other friend, TW, also texted and asked me to take care of her place for the next week, so that's extra cash, too. My appointment with my accountant is tomorrow, and I'm really happy I'm going to be able to pay her quickly this year, instead of dragging it out an embarrassingly long time. I'm NOT doing that again. I also know exactly how much I need to set aside each month to have that covered next year at tax time, and it should be easy to do, particularly with the extra income.
I'm SO relieved with the direction things are moving right now. Last thing left to do is talk with my boss about restructuring my pay. If he gives me what I want it will reduce SO much stress for me and allow me to really make headway with a number of things. Now things just need to roll along so I can get on with it!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Sounds like the new place will work out pretty well. Now, if you can just get Storm moved over there! Hope the talk with the boss goes well!!

 

[hqueen13]

Thanks, FEM!!
I'm SO ready to get Storm moved. I love TM, she's a wonderful person, and a great friend, but dang she drives me batty as a barn manager. This morning I rolled into the barn a few minutes after 6. She knows I get there early, and she usually comes up with her son to drop feed really quick before she takes him to the school bus, and then comes back to turn the horses out later after he's gone. No problem. Normally she pulls up next to the front of the barn, also no problem. This morning she parks DIRECTLY in front of the barn door, like literally feet from the door, AND has her wipers ON scraping the windshield which has frost all over it so they were making a really weird noise. And of course, I can't figure this out until I'm AT the door with TWO horses in my hand. The one was fine, but the other one (of course closest to the car) kind of freaked out and ran into the back of me. I yanked the rope for a second and she backed up and then just swung wide around the car (which was hard since the other horse was on that side). She settled down as soon as we got past the car and the freaky windshield wipers. I was REALLY irritated. For real. She knows better. I texted her and was like thanks for scaring the crap out of Bella. She wrote back sorry!!! I replied 'no worries, she settled down after she got past it. I thought for a sec she was going to run over me but she didn't'. She had the GALL to write back that I should have waited on her (I was in the barn first....) and shouldn't have gone out the door. I really wanted to write her back a nasty note, but I didn't. I pointed out that she was afraid of the noise of the wipers, and not really the car (seriously, those horses have seen plenty of cars, especially hers) and that I didn't know the wipers were on until I was coming out of the door. She wrote back, oh, yeah, sorry. I was like WTF. For real. You've lived around horses now for probably 25+ years. YOU should know better than to put a car right in front of the barn door when someone else is WORKING and moving horses in and out. I'm REALLY ready to not have to deal with this stuff anymore. I know the new barn won't be perfect, but the fact that I'll be getting PAID to be there helps SO much with overlooking the small things. I nudged CD again today to see if she's figured out a way to get that horse that she has for sale off the farm, so hopefully she can figure that out in the next week or so because I really don't want to have to give TM another entire month's board. I'm just ready to get out.
The rest of the day has just continued with the same general energy. IT has been in the office upgrading some computers, and that's been challenging to take care of. My brain is fried at this point, and I'm pretty much exhausted.
The good news is that my friend TW went away again, and texted me that she had made french onion soup but her daughter who is home probably won't eat it, so she gave it to us. That's for dinner tonight, assuming I like french onion soup. I didn't when I was a kid, but everything TW makes is really good, so I'm going to give it a try. The BF hasn't ever had it either, so we'll see if he likes it. I bought a big loaf of italian bread to do with it so worst case we'll have garlic bread....
So not much else to report.... which I guess is a good thing!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

French onion soup is so yummy! With some good bread you'll probably love it! And, some melted cheese on top...gruyere, French, Jarlsberg...something really yummy - or your own fave! Now I'm hungry, lol.

Silly TM - she shoulda known better... And, for her to blame you - not ok!

 

[hqueen13]

Oh, it was really good, FEM! I'm still not totally a fan, I wouldn't go out of my way to order it somewhere. We did put Gruyere on it, and some mozzarella. We made garlic bread, the BF melted butter and mixed garlic powder with it, brushed that over the bread and then we sprinkled parm-romano cheese on top (the REALLY good kind). That dunked in the soup was AMAZING. TW's cooking is amazing no matter what, I almost always like what she cooks.

Yeah, I'm just looking forward to moving on so that I can go back to just being friends with TM and I don't have to deal with all the stupid stuff that goes on in the barn. I think I'll be much happier that way.

I texted CD and she said she has someone coming to look at the horse for sale on the 7th. I REALLY don't want to pay TM another month of board. I've already given her the notice that she needs, so really, it's a matter of figuring out the date. I also don't want to pay her for a full month if I'm not going to be there the whole month. I'm afraid she won't give me my money back if I do that. I'm going to have to text her and ask how she wants me to handle it. I have a feeling she's going to tell me that I have to pay for the whole month and she'll give me a refund, but I'm concerned that isn't quite going to work out that way. I will also owe her for the sawdust that we've used (almost 100 wheel barrow loads for the 3 horses at this point because she never bothers to total it up and actually CHARGE us for it... for someone who complains about not having money all the time she doesn't do things that get her paid easily which leads me (and others) to not take her all that seriously about paying her on time... but I digress), so I don't know if she'll be willing to take it out of what she would owe me or not. She's so weird about money, drives me nuts.

I ended up super tired yestereday. It was just one of those days... it started with the goofiness at the barn, and then I was on the way to the office and got a text from BO saying she would be out. Thankfully I was actually early (I didn't expect to be since I had 3 stops to make on the way in), so I got to the office and discover that the fire alarm is going off. REALLY LOUD with flashy lights. I hang out for a sec, and then hear the front door unlocking, and go check and it's the fire marshal guys checking the system, so I just start getting set up for the day, despite the alarm blaring. Finally the gals who cover the front desk get there, and so I head to my office to start some stuff, and then at 9 the IT guy comes to help load some new computers. That took until 1, and my brain was totally fried by then. I barely got to catch up with my boss about a couple things that were most important, and then I headed out. By then I had a pretty bad tension headache, and I still had 2 stops to make on the way home. We threw on that french onion soup for dinner and then I relaxed the rest of the evening and crashed into bed. I still don't feel great this morning, but I feel better than I did at least. Hopefully the day goes by quickly and I can get home and relax again!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Now I'm craving French onion soup - so I'll be making some soon enough. I was gifted a bunch of onions so I'm caramelizing some to can and have on hand to make the soup with.

Hope the horse sells quickly so you don't have to pay another month of board. Maybe she'll pro-rate it for you? That would be the nice thing to do.

 

[hqueen13]

I'm glad I've inspired you! And perfect timing since you've got the onions!
I think she will pro-rate it, it's just a question of whether or not she makes me pay for the whole month and then attempts to refund me (NOT how I would prefer to do this...) or if she'll let me just pay her once I know the date that I'll be leaving. We'll see... I'm not thrilled about asking her because I never know what kind of mood she'll be in. She's seriously bi-polar and you just never know what you're gonna get.
Yall. I have the best clients ever. I texted GH to find out when they would be returning because she hadn't let me know yet, and she said they won't be back until the 14th of Feb (last trip was Dec 27th - Jan 18th, and now it's Jan 26th - Feb 14th... they're gone a LOT), and she also aid that SH is now teaching quite a bit more on Saturdays, so the trips are ending up longer (and I'm sure they are going back to the FL house in between), and she said they were increasing my retainer by $100 a month. I was going to email him and let him know that they were away a bit more than the previous year and ask for an increase, but that's well above what I was going to ask for. I'm SO grateful right now. So between that, plus not paying board, plus the income from working at the new farm I'll have almost $1000 extra EVERY MONTH. I'm really excited, but I'm also a bit nervous that I need to make sure that I don't blow it all before it's in my hot little hands. I have so many things that I want and need to take care of, particularly focused on getting Storm HOME. But I also want to cut the massive amount of interest I'm paying towards my credit card (thankfully as a business it's deductible, but STILL....), I'd really rather not hand the credit card company $150 each month! So now I need to put a plan together for myself so that I can get things squared away and organized so that I don't blow this influx of money and I can start making progress every month.
AND if I can have a little chat with my boss and restructure my pay in the office then I'll be doing extra amazingly good!!!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

WooHoo for all that extra income! That's fantastic and I know you will allocate it wisely! Right? But, you might wanna allow yourself a tiny little treat in celebration!