Hazmat Suit, Check. Shovel, Check. Housecleaning in 3, 2, 1…
These past couple months have been… well…
Around Christmas, I walked into my apartment and stared at a big white box. My first thought was to wonder who sent me a present. My second thought was to wonder how it ended up in my apartment, since I didn’t put it there. A couple minutes later, I looked at it again and realized it wasn’t a box or a present at all. It was the package of toilet paper I’d bought the night before and hadn’t put away yet.
That is what the past few months have been like for me.
So today, since I had a bit of a breather from things, I decided to put away all the things I hadn’t put away yet.
First the toilet paper. Then the brand new box of kitty litter that was hiding behind it. Then the stack of saddle pads one of the guys at the barn gave me—they finally made it over to the washing machine. Then I put away another brand-new box of kitty litter. Then I piled up the pile of papers I need to go through sometime, since they had fallen off the table. Then there was another brand-new box of kitty litter.
This explains one thing, at least: I’d thought I’d been going through the kitty litter awfully quickly. It turns out I just kept forgetting where I put the boxes after I bought them.
On the plus side, I found almost $100. People who know me know I never carry cash, so that’s a small miracle in and of itself.
I also found my stall guard. I’m kind of glad and a little annoyed—I just ordered a new one, since this one was AWOL. Turns out in my last cleaning spree, I got clever and put it in my bridle bag. Who puts stall guards in bridle bags, anyway? This is why I hate cleaning. You can never find anything later.
As long as I was being productive, I brought in my old saddle rack from the truck, where it has been sitting for the last week or so. With my extra saddles sitting on that, I now have a tub I can use for other stuff—good timing, since I have saddle pads coming out my ears and need someplace to put them.
And so on and so forth, all day long, much to the cats’ amusement. I found all their toys, too, and they decided this was a game: drag the toys out so I could put them back again.
But I think I am just about done. There are a couple loads of laundry to finish up, and next weekend I need to do a thorough spring cleaning, but at least my apartment no longer looks like a small and very localized tornado struck it. I even waved a dust rag around and shamed some books back into their dust jackets.
My life may just be getting back to something approaching normal. Finally.
And I won’t have to buy kitty litter for months.
Goodbye and Good Riddance, 2011
2011 went out with a bang.
With fireworks, to be precise. A whole week of them.
And thanks to the neighbors and their exuberant pyrotechnics, it also went out with two colic episodes.
Fortunately both were pretty mild and, given her history with fireworks (not good), I was at the barn keeping an eye on her anyway. So I caught them very early, and sedatives and Banamine resolved them both pretty quickly. She bounced back like nothing happened, but this only confirms (as if I needed confirmation) how much I hate fireworks.
Now on to the good news.
Over the Black Friday sales, I picked up a mid-range H/J saddle for a steal. The price was good enough that I knew I could resell for a profit if needed, but it’s a surprisingly good fit for a leap of faith buy. Ro likes it well enough; I’m trying to figure out if *I* like it, but I think it’ll do just fine to get us going.
The only real problem with the saddle is that my tack box had no room to keep two saddles in it. The saddle rack I was using took up half the box and was so tall I could only fit one saddle on it before hitting the roof of the box.
Enter one of the awesome ropers—we talked for a few minutes, he made some measurements (using baling twine, natch), and the next day showed up with a fabulous new stand for me. It’s welded pipe, very simple—V-shaped base, post at the back, two arms. It’s actually smaller than my other stand but will let me keep both saddles in my box. I just need to cap the pipe ends so I don’t accidentally scratch my saddles on them.
This also solves my other saddle problem—I have two saddles at home that Ro outgrew (narrow and medium trees). They’ve been sitting on the floor of my closet, so now I can bring my old rack home and store them on that. I ought to sell those saddles, but you know what they say—as soon as you sell a saddle, you buy a horse that it would have fit.
And, finally, I’m starting to leg Ro up in earnest. We are both horribly out of shape after two months with no real work (walking around behind the steers doesn’t count), but I am thrilled to say we did not backslide as much as I expected. In particular, Ro came right back into work with a horse trot. We’re both suffering from a lack of strength and we both need to relax and unlock our bodies again, but we haven’t gone all the way back to pony trot territory, so I’m very happy about that.
So on to 2012 we go. No resolutions—trying to plan for the future was a total failure last year, so we’re just going to take things a day at a time and see where we go.
Ok, one resolution: I’ve been a lazy slug the past couple months, and I need to fix that. After I eat this last bag of M&Ms.