hqueen's collection of Far From the Usual stuff.

[Denim Deb]

 

[creativetwinszoo]

hope you are doing OK hqueen!
How's the wasp situation going?.?

 

[hqueen13]

Hiya folks! I seemed to have gotten stuck under my rock there for a while. Maybe I can keep up around here a little more again. I miss yall!!
Well, I guess the wasps are dead/in hibernation finally for the season. It took long enough. We had that cold snap in November and they slowed wayy wayyyy down, but then it still took weeks for them to finally disappear since it didn't get cold for so long. It still isn't cold, really. We keep getting little snaps of cold, which are more annoying than anything, but its supposed to be 70 by Christmas, and RAINING. UGH! There is rain in the forecast for a WEEK. The mud will be knee high again...
I am VERY glad that a friend will be returning tomorrow from her trip before the rain really starts! Her place is very flat, so there is no where for the water to go, so it stays nasty muddy forever. She raises poultry, alpacas, goats, 2 sheep and 2 pigs, and it can get pretty rank! And I hate slip sliding in the mud praying that you don't go down into the icky sloppy mess. Her boys help me with the chores, I am just the overseer, lol, and I am grateful that I can easily send them into the ick if something needs to be done!
Let's see... catching up....
My other grandmother is in the hospital now with pneumonia, and is struggling. She's been there since before thanksgiving. My mom is bugging me to come home, but this is the toughest season to make that happen. Many of my friends go out of town during this season (my other 3 clients are going out of town starting on Wednesday, my calendar looks like a crazy house because there are so many entries in it reminding me who I need to go take care of when), and I can't not have that extra money right now. The barn is currently full enough, but one of my friends is leaving (she got her own property, I'm happy for her, but I will miss her horse and the income!), and my other friend that has her 4 horses with me is considering taking them back to her property as she lost the job she just got in FL and has to return here to where her house is on the market. I'm trying to persuade her not to take the horses home because her property is NOT suited to keep horses (any smart horse person knows that), and it turns into a sty in winter, and nobody is going to want to buy it if it looks like that. In addition to that I take FAR better care of her animals than she does, so they are finally getting healthy now that they've been with me for 5 months. I do have another friend that is probably going to bring her horse to me, so that will be at least one. If I can find one or two more I'll be ok. I don't need to have the barn full to make ends meet, but by the same token, I'm not sure how we'll survive if we don't have any horses on the property at all...
I did end up picking up a job at the true value hardware store about a mile from our house. We ran in to pick up something the other day and saw a sign on the door for part time cashier evenings and weekends. That's about the only time I have left in the schedule, so I asked, and they gave me an application and I made arrangements with the manager to bring it back on Sunday. He took me back and had a chat with me and hired me on the spot. I'm not sure if it is because he knows SR well since he's only a 1/4 mile further down the road and shops there all the time or what, but I sort of had that funny hunch I would get the job. The pay is crap, but he said there is room for advancement, so I plan to ask him about that for clarification because I need real money. The job will be easy though and shouldn't be very stressful. It'll be about 20+/- hours a week, which for the money isn't all that great, but hopefully it will be helpful and not more trouble than it is worth.
The other job in audiology is still going well. I'm working a couple days week, so that's good. Anything to keep the bills paid...
We have begun kicking around ideas to try to get our own piece of property. As of right now we're not looking at much, and I don't think anything will come through for a while, but we realized if we never started the process we wouldn't ever know. So we're trying to get our ducks in a row. I love living where we are and it is a sweet deal for sure, but it isn't OURS and that is stressful. I can't paint a room if I want to, we can't leave things sitting out because they might get moved or pitched in the dumpster. We have people walking past our windows and right outside the house. Whatever the deal is it will have to be a really good deal in order for us to make a move, but it is possible that something could come along that is worth it.
I think that's just about all the random news from this neck of the woods. Trying to get ready for the holidays despite the gray gray gray days that just never seem to end.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Good to hear from you and sounds like you are busy as ever! Hope the job works out well and that you eventually end up with the perfect place of your own!

 

[Britesea]

Just pitch your needs out to the heavens and you WILL get an answer

 

[Denim Deb]

I'm not looking forward to all the rain either. The farm was just drying up from the last storm.

 

[hqueen13]

We survived the rain, and thankfully now its just frozen. I almost feel bad saying that because I dislike the labor of cold, but I'd rather have frozen than mud. The mud gets exhaustively tiring after a while, as much or more so than the ice/cold. I'm sure in a while I'll be super tired of that too.

I ended up not taking the job at the hardware store. The $8.75/hr is just NOT enough to balance out my time spent at home doing things to conserve money. I didn't crunch hard numbers, but I have a feeling that if I pay attention and mind the groceries and eating out I could save more than $400, or at least more than $200, and $200 is what I would have left at most if we ate out 2 more times per week if I was working instead of eating at home. I suspect it would have been almost every night (though I have no idea what would have ended up happening with me working a 4-8pm shift), so I'd rather be at home and have the freedom and flexibility to take care of what I need to take care of and save money on the groceries at the same time.

So far this week I've done pretty well in the cooking department. I've managed to cook every night, and decent food. We've also eaten a salad (read: greens dumped in a bowl. But that is an accomplishment that I am proud of) pretty much every night. I've managed to slice bread for the BF's lunch, and keep up with making him chicken salad. He's done very well eating his lunches and has managed to eat breakfast some mornings before he leaves, or hasn't eaten at all. So that is an accomplishment. It doesn't feel like much, and I just hope we can keep it up long enough to see an affect on the checking account... that's where the difference needs to show up.

In news of the animals, Bear ripped one of his toenails off the other morning and bled like a stuck pig all over the house. Thank GOD for tile/brick floors... The next morning, Mercury decided to eat the tiny plastic cap from the essential oil sample vial that I had. Thankfully they are oils designed for use with animals, so I'm sure it was so yummy she just ate it up (so I also put some on her right after that, I figured she must have needed it if she was willing to eat it!) but she seems to be right as rain, so that's ok, too. Bear is ok now, it took a while to get the bleeding stopped, but once I did he was fine, too. He took a walk with me yesterday and seemed to be pretty much his usual self.

Since it is January I did have the sit down talk with my boss about where we are at and discussed goals and a raise. He said the company isn't in a position to give raises (which I can respect because we had a terrible end of the year), so he would have to hold off on that, but he could allow me to get a few more hours. I have been increasing to 7 1/2 each day that I am here, so we'll see if that helps just a little bit. First check of the year didn't look much different, but then that was only 1 week of the extra time, so that isn't much. It was a good conversation, and I like the fact that I can share things with my boss about my business and how we are doing. He genuinely wants to know what is going on and how I'm doing, and I like that. I like the fact that we can have an understanding about what it means to really run a business and all of the blood sweat and tears that go into it. He's really supportive of anything I want to do, both inside the office and outside, so it is nice. He's only 6 months older than I am, and so we are a bit more like peers in a lot of ways.

So my friend did give me her notice to take the horses out of the barn by the end of this month. I have 2 other horses coming in, which is just enough to cover the rent each month. With the money that I have saved, I should be able to be stable even if I don't get anyone in the barn for another couple months. The monkey wrench in the equation is that another friend emailed me this morning and said that she saw online that ML's house is pending sale. If she sells the property then she won't really be able to take the horses home... which means I'd have hers plus the 2 that are coming in. I have plenty of space, so that isn't an issue at all, and in fact it would TREMENDOUSLY help the budget. Sooo here's hoping that she decides to leave them here. I don't want to get my hopes up, but the secondary reality is if she takes them home the property will be trashed and nobody will want to buy it looking like that anyway. People like to see pristine even if they wouldn't keep it that way.

In fun news, the yoga studio that I go to announced a volunteer position to assist with the logicists of classes in exchange for free classes. I was like SIGN ME UP! I have to do 2 shifts per week, and get to attend class for free so long as I do the duties that I am responsible for while in class (which mostly involves registering anyone that is late, helping people get set up, etc), plus I can come to any other classes, and special workshops are likely a reduced rate. Wahoo!! Now I just have to figure out the juggling act of how to fit it all in! I'm stoked, and go over tomorrow morning and chat with them and run through the process with the early class. There are some other classes I'd like to take but I don't know how well they'll fit in my schedule.

That's pretty much all the news on the home front as of right now... I so wish I could catch up on some reading of yalls journals, but there just isn't time I miss reading about your lives and decompressing on mine!

 

[Britesea]

Sounds busy, but maybe things are looking up, financially? I know that when I started cooking from scratch instead of eating out or buying prepared foods (almost as expensive!) our finances really started to improve. In fact, I lay the fact that we are debt free except for the mortgage squarely on that one thing alone. One thing I found very helpful was to spend a bit of time on the weekend making up meals for the week that would be fast and easy. Things like putting together rice and lentils with all the seasonings needed in a jar so all I had to do was dump it into a pan and add water. (Red lentils cook in about the same time as white rice, so it's a very quick meal). I have 3 different versions that I got from somewhere online (can't remember where right now)-- a garlic version, a mexican one (good meatless tacos!) and an italian one. You can also make Salads in a Jar, which will stay good for several days (a week if you can vacuum seal the jar) in the fridge. I especially like making a Antipasto style, with salami and cubes of mozzarella in there, or miniature raviolis. I have also made up a big pot of mexican spiced beans and made a bunch of bean and cheese burritos that I freeze- great way to grab a quick lunch or light dinner.

About Bear's toenail- did you know that plain old talcum powder makes a great styptic? I've used it on birds, dogs, and even myself for things like ripped toenails.

 

[Denim Deb]

You can also use black pepper.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

OUCH! I would think pepper would burn... but, I don't really know...