hqueen's collection of Far From the Usual stuff.

[hqueen13]

Thank you, FEM!
It went ok. Not as smooth as I would have liked, but it could have been worse. It took an hour to load him, which wasn't fun at all. When we got him off the trailer at the new place he was all sweaty and shaking. I felt bad for him, but he did really good once we got there. We put him in his stall for a bit so he could get to know his new girlfriend through the bars, and he behaved pretty good, so we turned them out. She was all about him, and was very frustrated that he was so indifferent. He finally did kick out at her after she annoyed him too much, and then she pouted by the gate not being able to figure out why he wasn't adoring her. It was pretty funny, and she was all in a huff. He did very well, even with the chicken coop being right next to the door to the pastures, he's never seen chickens up close, so that was an adventure, too.
I finally headed home, and I was exhausted. I didn't sleep great that night, but I think it was just from all the exertion and effort of the day. IH was a HUGE help, and that made a big difference for me having her extra set of hands around. I got several updates over the weekend from B, and he did very good, so I was pleased. She even moved him and his girlfriend to different fields because they were being snotty to each other for a bit, so that was a good thing, too.
The weekend was pretty laid back all things considered. We did as much outside work as we could on Saturday since the weather was still holding. We got some things picked up and I managed to get my truck vacuumed out. I planted some daffodil bulbs I thought I had killed, but they were attempting to sprout in pots, so I shoved them in the dirt, and hopefully they'll hold over until spring. The neighbor was getting rid of a bunch of stuff because he is moving (BOO!) and so we went over there to load up the truck with what he didn't want anymore. He gave us a LOT of stuff, some of which had come from the old man's tool collection here anyway, and the sisters had instructed him to give it back to us since it came from our house. So we collected all that stuff, and had to go back for a second load later. We got it all sorted and at least protected from the weather, so that was a good thing. He was also getting rid of a guitar and 2 bikes, so we bought those off of him for cheap, which was nice because they were things we had wanted to purchase. The bikes need a little TLC, but should work out pretty well. Now I just have to learn to ride it.
Sunday morning we worked on cleaning up the stuff that he gave us because so much of it was really gross from sitting in his basement for so long. I don't want it sitting around my basement for very long, so we worked on getting it organized and cleaned up. We should be able to rehome most of it pretty quickly, so that will keep it from sitting around cluttering up our space. There's more that we need to go back and get, including some brand new carpet. I think we'll be able to use that on the steps to redo the really old threadbare 1970's orange and brown crap that I really loathe. The BF has watched several youtube videos, so hopefully that's enough for him to figure out how to get it right. The current carpet doesn't even have padding under it, but that's the cheap part, so we should be able to get this done for a very minimal cost. There is a second piece that I think we can probably have bound off so that the cats don't tear it up, and then we'll be able to have a nice rug for the basement, too. Very grateful to EL for giving us so much stuff, even if I do have to regive half of it away.
Other than that, not much happening right now. Still waiting to hear back from SH again since I sent him the numbers that he asked for (which say I'm right). Now he'll have to eat his humble pie and say "you're right" which is the hardest thing to have to say. So we'll see what he comes back to me with, and how long it takes him to get back to me... I could REALLY use that money now to make sure I've got my December bills covered, which are clearly not covered at the moment. I'm still working in my business, so I'm still chugging along and so hopefully that will start turning into money soon, too.

 

[hqueen13]

Dang, I guess I should update a bit more often....
Storm has settled in beautifully at the new farm. I am SO happy with how he is behaving. IH and I arrived to the farm last week, and I didn't realize it but BG had left them in overnight. We were late on top of everything, and so it was almost 10:30 when we got there. We opened the doors, and all 4 of them were just as calm as could be. And even while we were mixing up their breakfast, they still stayed chill. And after we made their breakfast, they were still chill. THAT makes me SO happy. BG runs the place very similar to the way I used to, she just leaves them in a lot more often, but also in an unpredictable pattern so that they never really know when they are going to be in or out, and are happy no matter what. I haven't had many more chances to work with him since it's gotten so gross, which stinks, but it is what it is. Lately I've been pretty busy so I haven't felt like I've had the time, anyway.

Christmas was pretty nice, all in all. Packages are finally arriving after being delayed, but that's just made the holiday last longer. The BF's parents gave $500 to each of the 3 couples to put towards the Hawaii wedding trip in the fall. AND they still bought presents. She spent way too much money, but she loves to have gifts to open, so she has to buy things, too. We were there for breakfast since W makes breakfast for the family on Christmas morning, and we decided that was too early for us to do our christmas, so we just left the house and headed down there. We didn't get home until the afternoon, and then finally opened our presents after my family zoom call. The BF went way overboard on me (he learned from his mother, of course), but everything he got me is really lovely. He bought me a new body pillow because my old one was wearing out. He also bought me a ring light and a mic to use for my online business stuff. That was a total surprise and a really overwhelming gift. I did NOT expect that at all. After we finished opening gifts, we went and messed around in the office and got it all hooked up. The room was messy, and that only added to the chaos, but we got it working, and I'm impressed with the quality.

Saturday morning we got up and headed over to Lowe's to get a new shower head. I bought a shower water filter (to try to help my poor damaged hair), and so we decided it wasn't worth putting the old nasty crappy shower head back up again. We bought the fancy new one that we knew we really wanted, and so the BF got it installed on Saturday. Of course our crappy water pressure doesn't make it work quite as well as I'd like, but it's way better than the old one, so that's a win.

Sunday the BF was going over to his dad's house again to help him and our neighbor get a new heat pump installed because theirs crapped out right before Christmas. He expected to be there for a few hours, and I was supposed to go over and help them load up firewood since we are really low and we never did come get the split wood after we worked over there a while ago. Long story short, he didn't get home until 7:30, and I stayed at home and enjoyed myself all day. I was able to get a bunch of cleaning up and decluttering done. I got the office totally organized so that it's functional again, which makes me feel SO much better. I was able to mostly figure out how to keep the mic and the ring light on the desk so that I have access to them, but can work on my desk when I want to. I also wrapped up the November financial tracking, which hadn't been done yet, either. I did some reading, ran a load of laundry, folded 2 loads of laundry, and in general got some things picked up. It was a really good day to just take care of loose ends, and that felt good.

This week should hopefully be sort of slow. TW goes out of town, I think tomorrow, so that will be a farm to take care of for a while. The only good news is that it's going to be a good chunk of change for me so that will help boost my business a little. I'll at least be able to pay most of the bills for January at least. December has not been pretty.

So that's the scoop from this corner of the world. We did get a bit of snow, but mostly a snowy/icy/wet mess out of the storm before Christmas. Then rain for Christmas, and now it looks like rain just about once a week for the next couple weeks. I'm not very happy about that... it would be different if it was just snow, but it's not. It's gross stuff. And more mud. Onward and upward from here.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Hey - good to hear from you....finally, lol! Glad your holiday was so nice. Especially glad that Storm is doing so well in his new digs!

 

[hqueen13]

Well I've been under a rock for a hot minute. Missed yall!
Things are rocking along. We expanded the garden this year and added a 3rd bed, so I now have 3 4x12' beds. It's a really comfortable amount of space, and with my friend that has been hanging out with me we can do a little more with my space than she can where she is right now.
I've got lettuce and mixed greens, onions, potatoes (2 different purples), tomatoes, and volunteer pumpkins in the ground now. Still waiting to go in is one or two zukes (we don't eat many of them, but I like a few), green beans, some peppers and okra.
We've been doing lots of work on the house, FINALLY got the power panel upgraded, so now we can add lights and fans in rooms and fix these outlets so that they are 3 prong and actually are located in places that make SENSE. Hopefully we'll begin that soon, of course it's hot now so work in the attic is almost impossible.
Finally finished a curtain for the basement window, and made a valence for that window and one for the basement door. It's nice to have things a bit more polished down there.
Of course, since the BF put in the lights in the basement now that it's bright down there I can see how ugly the paint is. It's a mint green, and apparently they painted one side of the basement, but not the other. We didn't really notice it until we rearranged some things and discovered the line where they quit painting. And the not painted recently side is MUCH dingier and dirtier than the other side, and that is gross. So now we're contemplating repainting the whole dang thing. Not like we NEED another project to do at the moment...
Part of the motivation for all of this is my sister is visiting at the end of July with 2 of her kiddos. I'm very excited to have them up, they've never come to visit us in MD so it will be really fun to have them here. And of course I want to get everything in the house all nice and tidy.
So I've been working on catching up with projects, taking care of loose ends, and in general trying to make some progress again. Nothing like guests to light a fire under you!
Hope everyone is well, I'll try to pop on here more often and stay in the loop!

 

[Britesea]

When a friend of mine moved into her new home, she noticed a big square of blue paint in the middle of the white painted walls of the living room. It took her a bit to realize that the previous owners painted the rooms like the real estate agent suggested, but they didn't bother to remove the television on the wall so they could paint BEHIND it....

 

[hqueen13]

Oh man, @Britesea that's hilarious. Good grief, some people are silly!

I haven't updated here in a long time, so I should probably try to remember what's happened since then.... which may or may not be possible....
I did get Storm moved, finally. Took an hour to get him loaded, but everything else went super smooth. The new farm is FANTASTIC. BG takes fantastic care of everything, better than I did when I ran my place, so I'm very happy. Storm looks better than he has since he was in my care daily, and THAT makes me happy. He's 18 now so I worry about that stuff. I think that's the biggest thing that has happened since I stopped updating...
The BF's mom is still crazy, but she's sort of settled down. I just don't trust her now, but that's what happens when you deal with someone who acts like a victim no matter what happens.

Got the hardware to make new shades for the bedrooms, so now I have to actually DO that. That's the project for this week, to see how many I can knock out. I also need to finish the picture I'm working on for my parents, that should probably be done before I fuss with the shades, but we'll see how I feel about it. I'm at another point where I'm sort of stalled out, and I can't quite figure out how to finish out the corner of it, so we'll see how that comes together.

Not much else to report from the weekend. Bought ceilings fans for the bedrooms and living room so we'll be prepared whenever the weather cooperates and we can get into the attic to run the wire to install them. Who knows, might be next week, might be October.... I just can't wait until that's done because we'll be able to save so much on our power bill!

 

[baymule]

I’m glad Storm is happy and you are happy. He’s 18, he has a lot of good years left. I have a TWH mare, 34 years old, she’s been retired for several years. But I bet I could saddle her up and she’d still be the spirited, snorty, booger hunting, spooky thing she has always been. Maybe not for long, before she pooped out tired, though.

 

[hqueen13]

@baymule I certainly hope so. As a draft knowing that he isn't as likely to live as long as a regular horse I've always really tried to keep him as healthy as possible. I think he's doing better than he has now, even with him struggling to pick up his hind feet a little. I just need to make sure I'm working him frequently and that should help.

The BF is super stressed about the new job position he took. He says he doesn't like it, but I think that has more to do with the fact that he's out of his normal element than anything. Of course, I won't sugar coat the fact that the company has done a crap job at training and supporting him in the new role. I pointed out last night that new drivers have HOURS of video safety crap they have to watch on the computer, then they ride with a driver for about a week to 2 weeks, then they're driving with a driver riding with them before they're turned loose. He was pretty much thrown to the wolves and the guy he's supposed to be working with as a team is still doing a lot of the work so he isn't figuring out how to do stuff when he's alone. Even with that, there's a LOT of stuff to juggle with this job, so getting someone fully up to speed will take a while, especially depending on what they were doing before. He is also a bit upset that the guy that he's working with has applied for a managers job at another location, and he's worried they won't bring someone else in to work with him. I told him that he's just going to have to insist on it. Their store does more volume than some of the other locations that have 2 dispatchers, and always have, so there's no reason that they shouldn't have someone working as a team with him. I also told him that it was pretty crappy that for all the formulas and algorithms that exist that they don't have a formula for the amount of staff and specific roles that each store has. Like if they do more than X business consistently, then they need Y number of employees of each type. That seems to elementary, but here we are. So he hasn't been sleeping well, he has decision fatigue and can't make decisions when he's home, and he's just not that much fun to be around at the moment. I've been supporting him as best I can, but that is challenging for me with the stuff I've had going on, too.

I am very relieved that I've got some farm sitting jobs. Not excited about needing to actually go do them (taking up my time, dang it!) but VERY happy about the income. I also got some things sold that had been sitting around, so that's out of my house and a little cash flow back into my business, too. I think I'll be able to cover my expenses this month, which is a relief since I've been covering so much of my bills with personal money for the past several months.

The BF decided he wanted to use some of his tax return which just came in finally to get a smoker grill, so that's set up and rolling. We ran the first test run with spare ribs, which turned out nice. He was trying to flip them over after we brought them back in the house, and the bone slide right out. We grilled chicken leg quarters last night, and di some with a rub and some with barbecue sauce, and they came out really delicious, too.

The heat has been almost unbearable this week, highs in the 90's, and pretty dang humid. I was pruning my tomato plants yesterday morning, and just sitting still was sweating buckets. I think we're getting a break, though, it's raining today, with possible thunderstorms, and tomorrow is supposed to be much cooler. Praying that it really does cool down because we want to put the fans in this weekend, but if it's crazy hot in the attic we can't do it, so keeping fingers crossed on that.

Not much else to report at the moment. Just trying to keep on keeping on.

 

[baymule]

I hope you get cooler weather! It’s in the 90’s here, not unusual, but the humidity is 96%!!! We change clothes twice a day because we are soaking wet, sweat just drips off us.