Have to come up with a raffle item to have table at convention

I'm not sure what I'll do for that.  Bottle of wine would work I suppose, or buy a halter or rein safe from the dude that ties them.  Or possibly I could donate my Cloud stirrups if I get them cleaned up good enough.

I was going to put a broken down cardboard box and a small bag of trash in our dumpster this morning and forgot it;  I was driving down the road and several miles later noticed my trunk lid bouncing.  Thankfully I took a back way so no traffic and was easy to pull over.  So I put the cardboard in the cardboard dumpster at work and will have to deal with the bag this weekend.

But I can see parts of that countertop in the garage.  Now that I have set my mind to it, my stubborn nature should refuse to give in to the stupid clutter.   I got water seal on my old canvas horse blankets that I had never tossed.  So now I will use them as temporary very redneck fix for the shed roof and then throw them away when I fix the roof properly when we get back to warm weather.  So kind of killing 2 birds with one stone.   Hopefully it will keep the stuff in the shed well enough protected from the weather.  

Last year I did an online youtube type course on python programming -- I enjoyed that instructors accent so much that I listened to every lecture instead of skipping the basic stuff.  Python is different enough than perl that it seemed useful to get the extra practice anyway.

This year I bought an introduction course for c++.    I am having NO problem skipping ahead quite a bit with the bits that are close to c which I know at the very beginner level.   I hope I can stand to listen enough to learn the new points when I get to the object oriented lectures.

Yesterday I wandered around the next lab over for 20 minutes trying to find where they were doing the 'free-cycle' collection for office supply things like 3-ring binders, and finally just put the 3 that I had on a shelf in the big copy room in that building.  I don't know why they discontinued having a collection bin in the lobby.   I guess I will sneak some of mom's binders into our own binder area at work that is not completely over flowing.  I'll ask dad if he wants some for his magazines,  he was using binders for some for a while.   I want enough shelf space to get dad's overflow of magazines off the floor in the living room.   That should be doable but I have to get him on board to either take a bookcase downstairs for the 'zines or put them in the downstairs office on shelving which I have cleared of mom's kiddie books and can clear of other stuff by taking that stuff upstairs or whatever.  I'm thinking I may remove the metal binder piece and use them for mulch - at least the 5 that are fiberboard and not plastic/vinyl.

I've been punting all week on texting the hog hunting outfitter.  I don't know why.  Its a bit painful for me to type texts but its not that bad and I need to get that info so I can buy a red dot site or know that I need a bit higher end low light scope and what time we will have to get there on first day of hunt and so on.

Got some waterseal today

Took me two passes down the paint products aisle to spot it.  Its store brand but that is fine.  They also had metal flashing which I guess I'll need to buy when I fix the shed roof properly since the gap is so large at the west end.   I suppose I should find a youtube on roofing to see what all should be done.   

I'm hitting mental resistance on my de-cluttering.   I shall have to push through it.  There is plenty of binders of paper handouts of Mom's that I can just recycle, no thought required.  If I can keep the habit going during these ughhh spells I believe I will keep coming up with ways to re-use or re-home stuff that isn't just plastic or paper to recycle.  

I have to fetch Lady home on Saturday.  Its cool that they kept her this long, I figured I'd get a message shortly after daylight savings ended, but it will mean I have to do a quick redneck fix on the roof between the time dad gets up and when I have to take off with the trailer to fetch her.   Weather forecast is flurries on Sunday so I'd like to get the temporary fix done on Saturday.  

And I have to make a commitment to start sorting out tack items to take to convention on Sunday.  I hope the on-call at work will be nicely behaved just sending emails.   I have to look at my ground-based set up.  Usually I miss something there and have to do some edits to get things going again.

Dad called his sister

So now I'm more up on the family news.   Two of the daughter families celebrated in MN with kids this year so M just had Christmas with youngest daughter.    That daughter and DH have a fairly full house as their daughter and SiL are staying there.   The 2 years married couple sold their condo and are buying a house but couldn't move in right away.    And we got the Christmas card from that daughter, from sis, and from the one farmer up in northern ND that rent the land mom and then dad inherited.  The other farming brother had put in a card with gift box of cookies.   They send the gift cookies annually, I guess they make decent money on the farmland and like to keep the owner happy.  Sure works for us to have the same stable leasers every year too.

I was telling dad we HAVE to do something about shed now there is a big gap in the roof!  -- "I KNOWWW"  Grrrrrr,  if he knew the situation had gotten that bad why didn't he arrange to get the roof fixed before winter hit.  Winter was late coming; we had extra time this fall so he could have bought the felt and manned the tractor so I could tack down the shingles with a bit of instruction in November or first part of December after my ride season had ended.  Or he could have hired it done, I'm pretty sure he isn't hurting for $.   Now I think it is too cold to mess with trying to shingle until well into spring but I will have to put up some kind of redneck fix.  I'm thinking old horse blankets with a coat of WaterSeal and some tires will have to do to keep the shed dry until roofing weather is back.  

Today I have to get the bits of recycling that I will dump at work out of my car later.   I needed to drop M's b-day card in the mail and didn't want to juggle too much in my hands while doing that.  I'm a bit frustrated because I still have so much clutter in the form of extra clothes and various stuff in my bedroom even after I have tossed and donated a lot.   It will be better once I tackle my closet shelves and they are up next now that my walk-in closet is pretty well cleared out and cleaned.    There is also now bookshelf and file cabinet space upstairs and I need to switch to utilizing this new space to remove clutter from downstairs soon.  

I need to find new homes for jigsaw puzzles and adult games and some of mom's kids games and toys.   Need to make some calls to see if VA could use the adult games, and call a place or 2 about the kids stuff.  I suppose if I can't find  happy takers I can just drop them off at Salvation Army, but I'd like to have confirmation that wherever they go expects they'll get used.  Oh well if it comes to it, the stuff will have better odds at SA then remaining on shelves at home.

I also need to get busy with sorting out what I will take to the endurance regional convention, and cleaning, making minor repairs to those things.   As convention approaches I'm getting cold feet about the whole enterprise of taking stuff there and hoping I don't end up having to drag it all back home.  I need to remind myself that even if nothing sells, I will be in a better position to list things on Ebay after organizing and cleaning it for public display so no matter what I wont lose anything by doing that.

Car load of magazines safely dropped off at the recycle place

And it was free, rather than the $3 vehicle fee I expected.   Perhaps they're trying to encourage folks to take in the Christmas aftermath rather than putting all those boxes in the trash.

Around a dozen boxes of magazines dropped off at the recycle place this morning (mom was saving pictures for pre-school kids to cut out and got way carried away). Alas we have got to fix the roof on the storage shed before I want to use the freed up space. When it was just a few shingles off I was ok with ignoring it but now the peak of the roof has a large gap so I will have to get Dad to help me fix it or hire someone to do it.  Sighhh,  always something getting in the way of just making my life easier by getting rid of crap and doing a bit of re-organizing.

My first book listing on Ebay was a no-sell.  I did not re-list with a cheaper initial bid.  If I decide to re-list or change how I'm listing things I will increase the initial bids and Buy it Now prices to include the shipping estimates and offer "free shipping"  

I got the parts ordered to fix dad's big recliner.  Now if I can get him to order me a red-dot scope that will work on the rifle I will take hog hunting.   I suspect I'll have to settle for him just showing/telling me what kind of attachment set up I need.  But I'd rather tear up one or both gift checks from him and have him order me a scope so I may suggest that. 

I am annoyed at sibs again.  Well sis did call last night after I texted her and probably would have called anyway.   Bro called while sis was on phone with us and left a less than 60 second message.   Dad did not call him back later.   I guess that is partly on dad.   I am trying to nag dad into calling his older sister M.  I did not suggest it for Christmas eve or day, I figured she was probably at family celebrations or tired from them.   But he hasn't called her in quite a while.   We got a card from J's widower with the wedding pic of him and new wife.  I'm happy for him, but there was not even a quarter page form note with wedding date, how they met or anything.    We have not gotten cards from M's other 3 daughters and spouses or any of their kids.  Well I didn't send cards/letters out when I was younger so I don't expect from the grown kids and the one cousin has had a habit of February cards to reduce Christmas stress.  

Still its a bit deflating not to get cards from the relatives.  Perhaps they are annoyed with us not doing a summer visit the last couple years, or are just busy and figure they exchange all the news all year on FB now so why mess with Christmas cards and letters.   I do hope we get more cards.  After all the 12th day of Christmas isn't here for another 10 days.  I intend to leave decorations up that long. 

Pecking here, pecking there

It is the total opposite of advice I have read over the years for breaking a cycle of being a clutter bug; but its about 8 weeks and I'm still removing things.  Well I did start with the car, did not finish it before starting some on entry and other things but the car is free of loose clutter (we won't go into the glove box and whether I need 2 shopping bags over the front seat backs worth of stuff right now.)

But in three steps forward, two steps back, dad found a bag of stew meat on the floor.  When he showed it to me I foolishly said "just feed it to the dog"  I was trying to take a computer break.  Dear lord.  That tells me I do NOT want to ever do crime scene cleanup.   I had been thinking "oh I'm not squeamish, I could do that."   Well my nose is sensitive enough that I wouldn't ever want to mess with it.  Sure could use a respirator, but the smell would get into clothes and hair.

So I ended up taking the dog dish outside when the smell hit me,  left the dish even after rinsing and just brought Mia's old dish in for Toby to use for a bit.   Sprayed febreeze heavily.  Opened windows.  Did some more cleaning, including starting laundry.    The coats that were in the entry don't seem too bad so I may not have to wash all of them.   Decided that since the scent might drive me to eat out I might as well baptize the Little Green Machine I bought from Bissel.   It did pull a good amount of dirt out of the chairs, but didn't pull as much of the water out as I had hoped it would.   The web site made it seem like the machine would leave the fabric nearly dry.   Hopefully the chairs will be good and dry by morning.    

I spilled coffee at the meeting today, feels like a metaphor

Not for the day, but for how clumsy I feel with the new POD scientists.  One having become the group manager now.   I don't know the c++ and boost programming styles they use and they seem utterly resistant to taking anything from the old system.  I'm not trying to thwart progress on their new system; but I feel like they could progress faster for some points if they were willing to take level1 files from old system to start to get to the level2s and then go back to fill in the tools for zero to one, versus being dead set on building the tools right away to go from level0 to endpoints.   OH WELL.

I WILL keep taking photos and listing books on Ebay and generally clearing out the house.  I will try to learn the new programming tools so I can remain useful at work; but if worst came to worst I'm not a special snowflake and I could probably make a living until I'm ready to fully retire doing some kind of cleaning business.  Maybe doing yard cleanups if my body would hold up, but for sure I'm willing to use some bleach and elbow grease to clean up grungy bathrooms and so on.

I need to call the hog hunting outfitter in Texas and pick a date.  I've got to get over being so reluctant about making phone calls and committing to do an activity on a given date.

De-cluttering for the day was tossing a couple pairs of of pants.  I had to convince myself that the material is not good for cleaning and I'm not going to need to make any improvised saddle bags; but the pants are in the dumpster in the trash(feed) bag that I tied up before it was filled too full to tie and tossed in the dumpster myself, because dad overfills and then tosses them in w/o tying them shut, NOT GOOD with a shared dumpster,  I do not want our trash to end up spilling on the ground where the neighbors have to pick it up.  

Dad gave me a check for my B-day.  Sigh, I hate checks, I wish he would plan ahead and at least get cash, but I have to go to bank within a couple weeks to sign a paper to catch up on my Roth anyway.
 He did include a nice note thanking me for all I do for him.   I ordered Dave Ramsey "Total Money Makeover" for  my brother's grown stepson.   Ordered online and there was no screen to include any gift message so I will have to text brother that it is for S.  I almost ordered a copy for sis and B but wimped out on them possibly feeling like I was being a judgmental nag.  But I should give them the book or something similar.  If B would pick up on the idea of not wanting to buy fancy cars and furniture for bankers and adjust his habits (if he gets money from insurance company or SS for his disability now) it would really help them reduce financial stress vs his old habit of getting short term loans from the bank (paycheck advances) with fees that equated to interest rates that would make the mob blush.

LOL,  I hate checks but sent them to the sibs.  But mailing cash is risky.  Dad just left my card on the table, so cash would have been perfectly safe.

Almost stayed home today

The roads are not bad but hardly anyone was  coming in and with Christmas bearing down I thought about just staying home.  That lasted until dad got up.   I almost immediately felt restless and irritable at home but realized I was not in a mood to channel that restless energy into clearing anything out upstairs.   So I'm at work.   I should call local nursing home; friend in VA posted a few days ago about one putting out a call for residents needing shampoos and stuff.   I hate phoning and was trying to just search online to see if any homes in this area had residents w/o family needing things but no luck finding any info on the web  I will have to call or just forget about it.

Daily writing therapy

I'm thinking I will drop the bag of clothes for Salvation Army off tomorrow if I am not running too late.   I had thought I would wait and try to have more stuff designated to go to them but I think I need the motivation factor of having that bag gone.   I have the bottom shelf of bookcase in workroom nearly clear.   So I could move some of the horse books and magazines and old mystery books from the downstairs coffee table and then put some of dad's gun magazines in the coffee table.  That would be much more tidy than his stack next to the TV.   As I make progress upstairs it may make sense to bring one bookcase downstairs for those magazines, but this would give me some reward w/o having to get to the point of moving a big bookcase.   There is also now shelf space in the downstairs office and I can probably move magazines there as well.

I am trying to get rid of some of the crap I have just dumped in the garage.  If I get rid of crap that I put there first then Dad should be OK with me moving some of his stuff so we can find things.  It will take me a month or more just to get my crap out of there, but I have recycled enough stuff that Mom had in the storage shed that I can see shelf space there so I am starting to think about moving yard and garden items that have lived in the garage to the storage shed where it makes more sense for them to live.  

I must get moving soon

So of course I'm dashing off a quick blog post instead.   Oh well it is just the Monday blahs.  I'll shake them off in a bit.   DL is ready for me to take Lady back for winter and early spring.  I had been wondering when I might hear from them and just coasting along waiting for them to contact me vs initiating contact.  But this will eat up one day that I had thought I'd have extra time to work on my "take this place back from the clutter" project.   Oh well.    Yesterday I threw away the 2 very ratty quilts from the couch and loveseat and replaced them with some quilts that were not being used on any beds.  Little by little I am gaining ground.    I'll probably add more from work, when I need some blogging therapy.

First item  is posted for sale on Ebay.  I posted the set of 8 Dell Shannon books in the computer room upstairs.   Ebay thinks they have a high chance of selling.  I suppose all the bulky Psychology textbooks will be harder to move.  But we shall see.   The USPS media rate is more expensive than I thought.  But I left in the Ebay shipping estimate tack on so any buyer(s) will pay for most of shipping.   I suppose I should look up whether UPS would be more economical for a heavy box of textbooks but perhaps Ebay does that automatically.  That would be too cool.

Having dipped my toes in the Ebay water, I hope I will stay on track to list things that I don't want to just drop off at a charity thrift store because specialized item or something I want to know will be appreciated and not end up in a dumpster because store staff didn't think it would sell or it sat on shelves for X weeks and proved it would not sell to thrift store browsers.   It is a bit more work, taking pictures and having to type up the listings but at least for these books it was not bad.

I am starting to peck at the garage and garden shed.  I should take before pics of the garage.  Should have taken before pics of entryway and walk-in closet, to remind myself of progress made.  But every morning commute I see my cleared car; although I still need to feed the gas station vacuum again.

This is a great habit to be establishing, and starting with my car has turned out to be a good motivator.  Funny that I got started thanks to B telling me M's story about remedial safe driving course and the picture of the tissue box embedded in someones head.  

Mini retreat on Friday was pretty OK

There was a fair amount of "what training can we arrange to help the group be able to redo the big code monolith in modules and taking advantage of new technology, what we did the past year vs goals announced at AMS meeting and what goals will be set out for this year.

I ended up staying pretty late at work getting something debugged and between that and the fact that more thinking and action will be required to get rid of a lot of remaining clutter I am dragging along today.   Oh well, marathon and new habits, not a sprint on this project.   If I didn't have the retainers I'd be stuffing my face constantly today.  I do take them out and eat when I'm hungry, but so far am resisting taking them out just to stress eat when I don't have hunger pangs or a definite craving for any particular thing.   

I have my walk in closet ready to be swept.  I need to wipe off my shoe shelf and move the cat box to the back of closet and the few items in back of closet to another closet.   I also emptied the old litter into a bucket and took to Tommy's box downstairs so I can see if getting rid of the lightweight kind will reduce the dust level.    I put of box of old "school/HW" papers in my car to go to the recycling bin.   I have peeked at some of my old notes in the past and I can't even read my handwriting at first glance so there is zero reason to keep these.  I'm feeling more like "so why am I only now tossing them?" than "WooHoo, more deadweight gone for good" right now but better way late than never.  

Feeling stressed today

I used to always get holiday/winter blahs in December.   This year I am trying hard to de-clutter and also just have a generally cleaner house and car.   Well I didn't set out thinking I wanted to worry about the cleaning aspect but without the layer of paper, boxes etc scattered over the surfaces the dirt is more visible so then I feel like I have to wipe it off.   All well and good, except that in the process of staging some things before sending them to recycle or giving to Salvation Army, etc.  I am re-cluttering some areas temporarily.   Between that and life with dad and dog and cats generating a fair amount of new dirt and clutter every week, I've been getting stressed at least a few minutes every morning.  I have at least been fairly good about letting go of that stress within an hour or less rather than carrying it the whole day.

This week I've been clearing out some handouts that mom had filed in the upstairs office.  I'm pretty close to being able to make one of the 4 filing cabinet drawers a place for filing papers I think I should keep for a few years.   Yesterday I searched online and found that I can take boxes of magazines and old microwaves (and probably toasters) to special recycle drop-off place in Boulder for $3 per carload.   I can handle that.   They have changed the fee for computer stuff, cables etc. to a price per pound.  I'll have see how outrageous I think that is.   I'm inclined to probably take the monitors and stuff there but keep searching to see if there is a place that salvages copper that would take the power cables without charging or at least not charge nearly as much per pound.

Small group at work is having a mini-retreat tomorrow.   I had thought it would be quite useful to agree on a road map to start getting to where the boss and most of the group wants to go.  But looking at the agenda email today it feels like its heading way more towards everybody do a bit of self-promotion and not likely to iron out what are the main objectives and what is the route we should start taking to get there.  Blech.

Dropped stuff at the learning center this morning

Hoo boy,  it felt like a marathon of effort grabbing the stuff to take this morning, then trying to find a parking spot before giving up and just using a lot 1/2 a block away across a street and making 2 trips.  Plus dad looked like he was afraid I'd haul him out next and was pestering me about Xmas cards.  I will go ahead and order an extra 20 I think, even though I bet we have 20 old cards from 2 years ago because I do like how the composite picture and background came out for this years cards.  

 But the stuff is in its new home,  I rewarded myself with stopping at ChikFilA on way to work and was just in time for the meeting.   My test of taking out a second psuedo-range clock solution for LEO POD orbit solutions worked.   I have now got to look at the orbit overlaps and see if the orbits make sense or if there are good CHI-square and RMS values but the solutions are junk.

I was laying in bed this morning excited with thinking about all the stuff I can take to convention to see if it will sell.  I have got to decide whether to stay Friday night at hotel, I am thinking I might do this since I want to sell stuff and I always have such a hard time getting there in the morning (but that tends to be me dragging my feet because of 'ugh, go and interact with a bunch of people ALL day' more than that it is not possible to feed horses and get going in time to get there before it starts.)

I am getting into full nerd mode on the de-cluttering, but its good.   There is a lot of stuff that needs dealt with and if I can plug into the nerd/ almost OCD mode but not burn out it increases the odds in favor of me actually dealing with most of it. 

I must force myself to take pictures and put stuff up for sale

I don't like the hassle factor of having to reply and ship stuff but I want this stuff gone, sooner than MRER convention and without the strong possibility of having to take a lot of stuff back home after doing a 'vender table'

Or do I?    I could pay for a table and just put the stuff there w/o doing much monitoring and then I'd only have to take pics of whatever doesn't sale.   If I set up some boxes or bags of what I would take I would still be sorting through things and getting them ready and I could take pics afterwards only of whatever didn't sell there.    Hmm, I think I will do this.  I am not getting a good vibe out of the endurance tack and horses FB group.   I may just go with EBAY for stuff I have to sell online.   Well, writing things out has clarified the issue in my mind.  This should help me focus on finding homes for mom's toys and books.

I need to post some books in lots on EBAY.  I'm ready to re-home the Dell Shannon books unless sis wants to take them.

I wonder what is best time to call the learning center?  I suppose I should just call and if they are too busy to talk they can give me a good time to call or give me an email addy.  I'm not sure if getting the recycle items/trash out of the storage shed early is great for the mental rewards of de-cluttering since I don't go in there often, but I do feel like I need to make some space in there for stuff I want out of the garage but still want to keep at least for now and I am really ready to remove at least my crap from the garage, plus try to impose some order on tools and things of Dads and remove recycle jars and stuff that mom was storing in there before the overflow had to go to the storage shed.   Heh, when I get everything cleared out my work is going to notice a drop in the amount of stuff they are sending to the recycling center.   But they want to be green, they should be happy that the stuff is going into their recycling stream rather than a landfill and we only have dumpster service to a landfill available 'out in the country' where I live.

Well got outdoor decorations up yesterday

And I did a lot of cleaning in my walk-in closet.   Pretty soon I'll have that wrapped up and can start on the closet shelves and my waterbed drawers.  I don't think I have much junk in the drawers but I need to sort them out as I'm always struggling to find a place to put away the clean clothes.  I have way too  many clothes even after the initial purging that I have done.   But at least I have done some purging.   Hopefully as the habit gets ingrained and as an easier option than taking pictures to list the horse stuff that needs to go and searching for homes for mom's kids books and things I can easily remove more of the things I never wear.    I am also learning to become comfortable with tossing out the ratty old clothes rather than thinking "I should save them for patches , or cleaning rags (which I have super abundance of) or making rag rugs (which I do not do) etc.

I should see if there is or will be temporarily a bin at work for magazines.   But I'm getting more comfortable with the idea of just tossing them out too.   Having them just sit in the house rather than going into a landfill is NOT saving the planet, it is just harming my mental health.

Dad did help me quite a bit with getting decorations down from the attic, finding the solar timers and putting up the outdoor lights so that is re-assuring that he'll probably keep chugging along.  I have to call sis about the hog hunt.  It is a long drive but even with having to get a hotel room on the way to the hunt and possibly on the way back I think its the best option I found.  If she can take that much vacation time it will be good.  I could cover some lost pay for her too if needed and if she will take it.

I am thinking I might buy the Dave Ramsey "Total Money Makeover" or whatever for Ed's stepson Steven and his girlfriend and possibly also give a copy to sis and Brian.  I don't know how much of the program sis could follow but if it just planted the seed in Brian's mind to stop giving the banks so much money that would help them quite a bit, especially when (thinking positive) they get SSDI or whatever for Brian and some settlement from his  (fomer?) friends insurance company for the wrist injury.   I should buy myself   "Retire Inspired"

I had hit a wall though.  This morning I should have put the last of the poster board pics into the photo album.  Should be easy as they are just pics of her flower beds but I just could not make myself do it.  I did find the shoes that Toby chewed one up and tossed them in the trash so I did "at least one piece of clutter" and with all the extra efforts over the weekend that is good enough.

Aaack, drowning in clutter

I knew that dragging Christmas stuff out of the attic had the risk of highlighting how much clutter is still left.  Oh well,  when I put the stuff away after Christmas it should be like the old story about the overcrowded small house.   crowded small house parable  especially if I keep at the normal decluttering efforts.    I remember a longer version of the story with adding animals gradually and living with that chaos longer but too lazy to continue the web search today.

Plus mom had a bag of kids dress up stuff by the Christmas decorations and with the coloring it looked like some kind of Christmas figure so I took it down.  More incentive for me to call daycares/preschools, as now I have the dress up items plus songbooks that need to go where they can be appreciated.  

p.s.  I need to take a morning sudafed and some NSAIDs.   I am feeling congested sinuses.  Not quite a headache but at the ADR level.  Hopefully some pro-active measures will prevent getting a sinus infection.   Side effect of the over due dusting and maybe a bit of feeding loose hay to the minis.  But I need to get rid of the dust in the house and to stretch the mini's hay supply by feeding up some of the loose stuff on the ground from the big horse's stacks (plus this way I should be able to avoid the AACK, hay coming today and having to haul several big cartfuls to just dump on the ground some morning next summer.  

I should collect all the Christmas coffee cups and take them to Salvation Army but I will punt until next year.  Its too late in the season for folks to be looking to buy stuff like that; but mainly I just don't want to mess with it right now.   I need to focus on clearing out closets.  I may ride Tanza just in the pen today or possible skip riding at all.  It is already a bit breezy and he has been such a bundle of energy riding the local field roads that it is tiring to keep him down to a trot.   But less than 2 weeks and the days will start getting longer and that will help my energy level.

Well the SA store hasn't chased me out yet

I don't know if its proper procedure to just walk through the retail section and set my donations down on a bench they have in hallway that has restrooms on one end and door to processing section at the other end.   But they haven't hollered at me not to do that in three trips to drop off stuff in 3 weeks so its probably fine.

I could not find the button collection today to sew a button on pair of pants I was going to donate.  Grrr, substituted some pretty dresses that mom had in the sewing room closet.  Kind of hesitated to part with them because pretty and looked like I might fit them now after my weight loss; but reminded myself that I hardly ever wear a dress so its better to donate them so someone will have a chance to appreciate them vs them just sitting in a closet in the house.  So one bag of clothes and I will have to find the buttons later.  Still lots of clothes left in my closet so no biggie.  Also 3 or 4 mid size stuffed animals and a pair of shoes.  Toby had dragged one of the pair to sewing room and I have got enough junk off the floor in that room that I found it this week.  I *AM* progressing even though there is still a huge amount of stuff I need to go through and I also need to get busy and take some pictures and list some of the riding clothing and misc. horse tack on FB or EBAY.  

Dad did buy shields or disposable underpants yesterday,  I also bought him some of the underpants kind when I was in Safeway yesterday in case he did not feel up to shopping today.  I did not ask him if he made an appointment with dr.  I also showed him the place I found that sounds like fun hog hunting experience this morning to give him incentive to take care of health.   It is a longer drive that I thought so I may do more web searching to see if there is something closer, but probably one has to drive about that far to get to wooded country where feral hogs are abundant.    My unaddressed envelope did end up at our house and the USPS didn't even cancel the stamps so I was able to just add the address and drop it in a box today.

So in my effort to get rid of clutter I have my bathtub full of wicker baskets

I felt like I had to clean them a bit before taking them to Sal. Army to donate.    Was feeling like I will never get to having the house and personal paperwork in order and went "Well DO what you can do in the sewing/project room, which was deciding that some bagged stuffed animals and the wicker baskets can go to Salvation Army tomorrow after the baskets have had a day to dry thoroughly after their showers.

Monday I wrote a thank-you card to B for riding with me to Moab,  buying some of the diesel, doing some driving and keeping me sane.   I used a big envelope from work and printed out some of the MRER newsletter with convention speakers in case B would want to attend and/or join the regional group next year.   Tuesday I wrote a thank-you to the RM whose free ride I won in raffle last year and never used and on the way home I went "I'm pretty sure I forgot to address the envelope to B before dropping it in the mail last night.   I hope my return address label stayed on and it comes to the house so I can remedy things and not have any "you shouldn't use work envelopes for personal letters" blowback.

Rolling rolling rolling, keep those doggies rolling

I feel like I am slowing down on the de-cluttering.  Its only a slow down from the t-day weekend when I tackled quite a lot and forming a habit is way more important than getting this or that surface clear but burning out.  But I have a bag of clothes on the sewing table.  I want to sew a button on one pair of pants before sending to Salv. Army.   And there is a skirt that the elastic probably should be replaced but I'll probably just donate as is.   I feel like negative progress, putting stuff on the table that I got almost clear, but it makes the best sense for them to be there until I get a button sewn on and find some more stuff to be donated to make the swing to their store on the way to work worthwhile.  

I have a bag of papers on my desk that I need to shred, not just toss in the paper recycling bin.      I have 3 out of 6 poster boards transferred to photo album, so I am progressing on things, its just not super fast.

The  contractors showed up to start the gutter work this morning.   They are about a month behind when they first told dad they would come.  I was beginning to wonder if he had been hoodwinked by some phony outfit that got a deposit and then disappeared so very good to see them starting on the project.    Toby was excited by the commotion and Bella had to come over to join in on play time.  I expected Toby might spend a lot of time in their yard after the dogs playing together a lot for 2 weeks  while we dog sat; but Bella figuring out she can get into our yard is an unexpected wrinkle.  Oh well,  the neighbors like that the two dogs play together, as long as they just play in either our yard or theirs it will be cool.

I have got to dig in at work.  I'm still a bit flat over finding out the new POD scientist is just writing specialized programs; so the work that I did to get the big package we use to do a couple things properly will only be utilized by me until she finishes her project.   Her and group boss are kind of doing the silo thing, doing their own thing and not sharing with the group.   IF they would kick the problem dude out of the weekly meetings maybe they wouldn't feel like they have to just do their own thing w/o keeping the team in the loop, but whatever.   I like the money and flexible hours at this job, but if they make me redundant in 3 years I feel like I'll be ready to move on.  

I hate when I'm sleepy at work

I don't know how to prevent it though.   Typically I will get a burst of energy, born of guilt at not getting anything done if not from a more wholesome source at least the last few hours but this is one more bit of self-improvement I should tackle some day.

But for now I'm focusing on the de-cluttering and then getting my affairs more in order.  I have some ratty old t-shirts and have been forcing the "use them as rags and then toss" by cutting a couple of them up.   I am doing actual house cleaning as more of the surfaces are exposed with the removal of clutter.   I ran the glasses from the wine glass holder thru the dishwasher and dusted it thoroughly.   I wore a ratty old sweatshirt and jeans last week and through Sunday and after getting them very grubby I just threw them away.  

I have signed up for an endurance tack FB group and will sign up for a more general one too and will take pics of my now too big (YES!)  fleece riding pants and some misc. riding clothes and horse tack and try to sell this stuff.   I will also call some day-cares and the local elementary school/library about mom's kids books (and toys with the daycares)  and I will continue to use the work recycle bins heavily.   I've got most of 3 out of 6 of the poster board pics transferred to the photo album too.

I'm annoyed at the sibs for not calling T-day weekend or last weekend AFAIK.   They called for dad's b-day and that has been it.   The annoyance is mostly due to my angst over dad's health.   I found out with mom, when I thought she was better than she was that I am lousy at assessing medical conditions but I am worried that dad is fading.   I guess I need to phone sis and mention this so she will at least know, and know why I want to get the hog hunt in fairly soon and maybe she can plant the seed in bros mind that waiting until next September when he and M will be at Tae Kwon Do tournament in NM might be waiting too long.  

I also have to keep reminding myself of how good they have been to help me out when my vehicle broke down in Utah (Bro driving overnight with parents p/u to come fetch sis and I and our horses) and overall he has been pretty good at visiting folks and inviting them to visit and sis has been great to come out and hunt elk,  to trail riding with dad and so on.  Last few years they are feeling money pinch and I have to work to remind myself of all the good stuff they've done for me and the folks to avoid feeling like I'm just considered the family piggy bank and that they are not just anticipating inheritance, resenting dad for spending money mom got from her parents.    

And I am trying also to not 'borrow trouble' with thinking dad is going to die before I have even dealt with half of mom's odds and ends.   Wow, no wonder I felt tired/sleepy with all that fear of death in my subconscious.  I need to address it and keep plugging along with the general tasks.

My car is cleaner than it has been in ages

Sadly, there was so much grime on the outside that it is still not clean after being run through the car wash.  That happened last time I used a car wash, I had forgotten about that.  Probably that clear coat last step makes it harder to wash the dirt underneath it off.   I guess I'll have to scrub a bit at home and run through another car wash in a week or 2.   I also vacuumed the interior,  got the seats and passenger floor areas.   I need to pull more small garbage like dropped straws from under the front seats and get the drivers side floor areas vacuumed.   I have a plan to see if some stray items I was saving just because I liked the fabric will work to cover over the stained cloth upholstery but I needed to get the interior vacuumed first.   I would still cringe a bit at having someone ride in the car today but I have got it to a state where it is fairly nice for me to commute in it.

I also plugged in the sewing machine and fixed the velcro on a fly mask this morning and then took it out to the tack room.   Just a few stray items left in on the table in the project room.   Last night I started putting some of mom's pictures from her memorial service into a photo album.   5 years of just having them on or falling off the poster boards we did for the memorial just propped in the corner by the encyclopedias.   That is a bigger project, because I'm taking time to write names and dates for each picture.  But it will be very good to get it done and have a nice album of mom pics instead of that posterboard mess.

Eventually I have got to force myself to sit down and write out my will stuff.  I am using the de-cluttering stuff as a "but this is important" excuse.  Of course I had the will forms for over a year and didn't fill it out when I was just wasting time surfing the web on weekends I was at home, but the baseball season is over now so I am hearing Dave Ramsey saying "You NEED a will"  2-3 times a week on my commute home so I'm feeling the nagging again.  

I'm a posting fool lately

And kind of feel like a fool period.    Work was fubar last night and after hearing nothing for 4 hours from the sys admin who was working to fix it (but I had impression he was not bothering until morning) I sent emails to all the folks who I figured were getting failures as they tried to deliver data to us.  10 minutes after I wrote the last email and headed for home he got the ftp fixed and data came in.     Face palm.

In better news for me I am finding my usual web time wasters less interesting lately so I'm not distracting myself as much at work and I've been making progress on the de-cluttering the house efforts.  I dropped off 3 boxes and 1 bag of clothes and toys at SA today.    It feels so free once I have walked away from the SA store and know that stuff is gone for good.

I need to focus on these good feelings because there is still too much junk in the entry in the house, and in my walk in closet, the guest room, etc. Human nature to not be happy for long I guess, the extra space from clearing out old shoes and stuff I dealt with is no longer so noticeable and the stuff I haven't dealt with yet is mocking me while I try to stifle my irritation when I knock it down getting something I want.

  But I knew a month ago when I started that the only way I would get rid of much clutter is to approach this as a long term slow process, committing to just keep pecking at things over several months.   Perhaps the focus on one spot at a time approach would be helpful in this aspect, but for now I cast my eyes about in various rooms when I am in them and make the 1 or 2 easiest "this should be moved to different area, given away or thrown away. decisions"     No pristine rooms yet, but I'm not hitting a mental fatigue wall deciding what to do with stuff that is not an easy decision.  

Hope the cottonwoods did not need water today

I had intended I would water them but after my project of getting my old leaking air mattress that I had kept in my walk in closet for years into the dog house as a liner before putting Mia's old dog bed with the old sleeping bag and very old lumpy small bed in there as well ahead of predicted overnight rain I forgot.  Oh well at least I got rid of several lbs of plastic and one glass jar today in the recycling bin at work.   Plus threw away my ratty old fleece jacket.   I never even liked it, but I especially hated to just toss it because I had been given 3 like it as a gift.   I had got rid of 2 of the 3 a few years ago when a couple of young women had overturned their car and had no cell phone battery to call friends for help so had come to our house and I gave them those jackets as they were shivering in the early morning chill.   But on my new de-cluttering kick I opened my eyes to how ratty this last one had gotten and into the trash it went.   YAY.  It is so nice getting rid of clutter.     I am working myself up to calling around looking for home(s) for kid stuff mom accumulated, but I need the easy victories right now.

Must continue de-cluttering

I still have easy stuff I can do, throwing away crap, and taking plastic and paper to recycling bins at work plus wearable clothes to Salvation Army store and I may have to just focus on this easy stuff; but I am bumping into "what can I do with Mom's collection of Wildlife cards,  or her Psychology and self-help therapy books",  her sets of figures for the play therapy and some old pre-school stuff etc.  

I want to give or send the good stuff like the Wildlife card series where they will be appreciated.   But I don't want to spend much time calling libraries and day-cares and then have to deliver things very far.   So I will have to balance out doing enough calling and being willing to deliver to be comfortable with the stuff being appreciated vs feeling like I'm spending too much of my time just to get a little bit more space in the house and outbuildings.  

I'm also trying to decide whether to put up the tree and do any outdoor decorations or not.   I'm kind of leaning towards at least putting out the indoor stuff and some of the outdoor stuff.   I don't want to slide into not doing anything at all for Christmas holiday.  

And then there is the old power cords, TVs, keyboards etc.   It pisses me off to have to pay someplace to take those things.   They have valuable metals that I think offset the cost of dealing with them, but the stupid blue state charges decent people to take them, and then ignores the illegal aliens and some white trash folks that just dump that stuff in the rural ditches where it really is destructive to the environment.  

Shocking sad news today

Our MRER president shared on the FB group that a fellow endurance rider passed away.   He was not much older than me, or maybe was same age or a year younger and he seemed to be in good health just 3 weeks ago at Moab, he was not riding but I had heard he was having some back problems and figured he was either on no riding after surgery or waiting for surgical relief to start back to riding all day events.   He was fearless on a horse or dirt bike so I guessed that he had had a tragic accident from the bare announcement of his death.

Tanza's breeder made a comment that says it was a suicide.  I was shocked and sad at the thought of a tragic accident, thinking suicide is a full on gut punch.  I had wondered if he and his girlfriend? were no longer together this summer but I wasn't in the close circle of friends to know or even to be comfortable with who is in the circle to know and would not mind telling me briefly.   I gang-pressed him to hold Tanza for me at Moab so I could make a run for food and was so flip about it; I'm feeling bad now to have been flip and shallow when he was probably hurting emotionally although it was no huge deal to have him hold the horse for me.

Two years ago a well known 100 miler rider in the region committed suicide, I did not know him at all because he had been in the 100 miler circle my whole endurance career and I'm not.  Not knowing him but knowing he was gay and hearing he was separated/divorcing from his decades long partner just a couple years after they were able to get married in California I was not shocked/gut punched as I am now and like the close knit group of 100 mile riders that knew him was then.  Rambling here,  I guess I'm thinking "I know we who dive full on into the endurance sport are all a little bit crazy; but two suicides in 2.x years, WHOA", plus thinking that the old saw that a suicide in the family or close knit group of folks increases the risk of suicide in remaining family or group must be true.

Still on track with the de-cluttering goal

I have to remind myself regularly that the goal is just to keep getting rid of some bit of clutter each day.   Driving to work is helpful because I can look at my cleared front seat and now back seat.   I have to pull just a bit more of crap from the back floor and under seats and will be able to use a gas station vac on it.

And I did deal with the feather mattress topper that Toby tore this summer when we first got him.   Bigger project than I envisioned.   I bought a twin size duvet cover with a zipper.   Then did sew three seams on it to make the dimensions close to the topper.    Lot of sewing but if there are bad patches it wont mean leaking feathers just that the topper wont keep its shape as well so my typical rushing and non-straight seams are not a problem.    Then I vacuumed up most of the spilled feathers.

I also trailed to Lory with Tanza and rode with Phylicia and her new mare Scarlett on Saturday and took a short ride at home on Sadie today and cooked chicken fried cube steak and roasted taters for supper tonight.   And even logged into work yesterday and set a script to work removing some old files and did the usual weekend couple loads of laundry.

So not a bust of a weekend but I am feeling deflated tonight, I got tired and did not get the guest room fully vacuumed, need to move furniture and finish up and need to get the bed made.  But I have the bottom sheet on and that is something.

Hitting a wall with de-cluttering efforts

Not sure if that is the best term but I am feeling less like "YES, I'm getting traction, my front passenger area is clear, back seat getting close" and more like "Sighhhhh,  there is such a mountain of crap scattered throughout the house, garage, feed room etc"

I will just have to push through the feeling of I'll never clear away all this crap and just keep reminding myself the top of the freezer is nearly clear, there is open space on top of the dog food cupboard, etc and it has only been two weeks.   They say it takes 6 weeks to make something a habit and if I can push through to 6 weeks, there will still be a years worth of crap but there will be spots of progress that I can enjoy and I can make one decision on toss, keep, or store elsewhere every day.  

I've been doing more than one thing most days to take advantage of my early momentum but it was such a hassle getting to the Salvation Army today to drop things off, because of a traffic light not being on, and I couldn't drop off egg cartons at the fresh eggs sign because of one lane road construction -- and that with the messy dad and having all mom's crap to deal with has me feeling tired and worn.

  But I'll fight through it.  Just like with riding, the reward when you go ahead and start and the horse and you make through that 3rd day or that first 50 after 4 years of only LDs or fun rides will be worth making the commitment to "at least start and do what we can" 

Moab seems so long ago

In reality today is 2 weeks from the first of the 3 days of the ride.   The ride was a BLAST.  Tanza was strong all weekend, a bit stupid on day 1 when I was leading up the technical spot they recommended leading up.   This distracted the gal leading her nicely behaved mare ahead of us and she missed ribbons and then her horse slipped on steeper section of slick rock that RM didn't intend us to be on.   I felt badly about that.

But other than that "I need to work on Tanza ground manners including staying behind me if I request it for a technical section of trail"  incident the ride was wonderful.  Tanza was pretty sensible for me and he got stronger and stronger --although after day 3 he was sore where the girth is and a bit back sore and didn't want me riding him anymore.

I have to work out my saddle pad(s)  Decided I had the memory foam one too thick so I used the other one and it was wanting to work forward on day 1.  On day 2 I used that insert in my Skito pockets with pad I had sewed the keeper strap to prevent pad being able to go forward.

I have got to get my p/u diagnosed and fixed.   I think my fuel injectors may be partially clogged ($$) I have been forgetting to call neighbor mechanic to ask what shop he would go to.  I think this is something that needs to be diagnosed in a shop vs something he could do for me.

B and Taj rode with us.  B was wonderful company.  Helped keep me from panicking when the p/u had very little power the two times, cooked suppers and and was great company.  Taj is such a cutie, he reminds me of Grey Moun but has better conformation.  

I have been working on de-cluttering since I got back home.   Two things nudged me into getting started.
 1) it was painful clearing out junk I don't use from p/u and trailer to make room for Bs stuff, worth it to have that 2nd driver and company but why was I carting all that around and having to sift through it to find stuff I wanted for over a year anyway.  and
2) in the course of conversation B mentioned that Mike had had to take a defensive driving course after getting speeding tickets and the one thing that stuck in his head from the car wreck pics they made them look at was the kleenex box embedded in someones head.    That got me started on clearing crap out of my car which looked like something out of those hoarder shows on TLC.  

Doing this by "find at least one thing throw away or stow properly in trunk or house/garage rather than car" daily rather than trying to tackle even a small area in one day and then being burned out is working out for me so far.   I have since expanded from the car even though I have a bit to go before I can use the monster vac at a gas station on the car.

Tanza completed the Greenland 50 yesterday

Whew,  it was a tough day for me.   I had some mild metabolic issues.   Endurance term for horses but I was the weak link.   I usually electrolyte myself moderately and Tanzaknight mildly but I didn't get my e-lytes made.   Also forgot to pack the minerals caplets I usually take so I didn't have the slower absorbing minerals either.  

Tanza did pretty well, he was a bit hot and tired the last half of the ride.   I was riding with someone who was doing their horses first 50 (but had been winning LDs).   The horses got along well, we took turns leading as one or the other geldings was feeling more energetic.   But then she raced in to the finish.  I held Tanza behind but chose not to have the fight to ask him not to 'stay with the herd.'   Well I found out Tanza's recoveries are behind his legs.  Or reminded of this fact.   His pulse was hanging for 20 minutes at the finish before it got down to the 60 bpm they had set.  Or maybe that is a new AERC rule that both 50s and 25's have to pulse to 60 not just 64 for completion.  And except right after his trot out when he was 64 Tanza was 68 or higher and I was starting to get a bit worried even though he was eating, had vetted fine other than not down to 60.   After we finally got the magic number I took him back to the trailer, got his mash out and him unsaddled and crashed in my trailer, laying on my bench seat feeling light headed until I could get myself up long enough to make my lemonade with e-lytes added.   Sammi put his halter on correctly when he had rubbed it off or nearly had it off.   So sweet of her to just take care of that for me.

I pulled ribbons on the short loop this morning to work the fill out of Tanza's legs.  He didn't want to go out by himself but he was moving so strong.   He can definitely handle Moab if the weather and life works for me to trailer over the rockies to get there.

Been having some fun rides on both horses

Two weekends ago I had made arrangements to meet someone and ride at Lory.   I felt badly, was running late.  Plus their new horse had scrambled in trailer on way over (at least didn't happen tied to trailer waiting on my tardy self) and scraped its fetlock so they couldn't ride.   But since I was there I went out on Tanza.  I have not had confidence that he is safe to haul out to ride w/o meeting someone but he was quite good for me.   We were on technical trails to start so walking and even me leading him down some tricky spots but I was very pleased with him and had a great ride just enjoying the day and the trail with my gelding.

Sadie was good at home this weekend after having too few rides after the camping trip.   She is not the endurance mount I dreamed of when I bought her in utero but she is good vitamin H at home and I can afford to feed her plus have Tanza so its all right.  

This weekend met some different endurance buddies southwest of here, actually at the trailhead where we camped 5 weeks ago.   It was a blast riding with people and horses that pushed the envelope of speed up and down some stretches where I would have backed off the pace.  Tanza got pretty winded one section but recovered ok.  I don't want to wear out my welcome with either of these groups but riding with them more often will be great to get to a point of riding faster next year.  I've been keeping the pace down to build up Tanza's legs this year, but next year I can bump up the pace at events if I do the faster training/conditioning.  I don't want to try to win rides on him for another year or so but I do want to be finishing in times that feel like we could do a 100 and have a bit of cushion for when we had to slow down after dark.  

I've been feeling overwhelmed a bit at home and work.  It is not really overwhelming.  I just feel like under appreciated for all the weed spraying and starting trees trying to maintain/increase value of the place.  And same deal at work.   Not even really under appreciated there, but feeling the strain that the software engineers have dealt with in dealing with the SE4, who really isn't terribly bright at that job and is pig headed and intractable about changing from what he came up with plus is snootily lazy about fixing things if he creates a bug.   Luckily as a non-software engineer I remain spared from him thinking he could delegate bug fixing to me.  I think I'd clock him if he seriously tried to make that my job.  And very luckily our new group manager understands coding,  created a flat system so that SE4 is not supervisor and in fact we got the bigger group manager to go along and move SE4 laterally so he isn't even fully in the group anymore (but he isn't fully out and some days that drives me crazy.) But new small group manager is good.   Mostly work angst now comes to "do we have time to make the needed course corrections now that we have mostly removed the anchor and have a good leader"

It got scarier because the great software engineer quit.  At least he did transition to part-time first and handed off how to do most of what he had been the sole person taking care of first, and in some ways it may be good not to have him as a crutch.  And the new scientist has gotten pretty comfortable with the software package we use so she is becoming a great asset.  

Sadie was a good horse at Indian Creek trip

Well, good by my standards anyway.   She was almost having a meltdown on Monday morning because we were not going out right away but I did some small circles and interrupted her jumping up and down action and let her lead the way walking as fast as she wanted to.   She was pretty much brave and stayed in the lead instead of going "oh scary, someone else go first here."    I worked on my riding form, being mindful of keeping my feet level and legs underneath me instead of out in front.  I think I do this better in the Wintec saddle but I did notice myself doing the toes up and legs forward a few times and corrected.   If I can stay mindful of this on Tanza in the Synergist saddle hopefully I will improve my alignment on him.   I should try to find a place to take some lessons, to get feedback if my position goes wonky but that may not happen since I hate committing to get the horse somewhere on a regular basis.

The trip went pretty well.  I felt bad for J a few times.  Mom and sis IMO do not relate to male to some extent, and then he does tend to get caught up in doing something perfect instead of fast sometimes and doesn't communicate if he decides to drop back from the group when riding; so they were nattering at him a fair amount.   Oh well,  he does have Scouts and now a job so he gets some interaction away from 'the hens'.    

J's new horse is a great little trail horse and was a dream for loading and unloading.   Beetle Bomb (sp?) is also cute.   A small black and white paint, has the cute little QH/paint head.   Mason was pretty good, he didn't seem horribly itchy like last year.  I think maybe Bee and Lady stay up on top more to avoid the deer flies and Mason stays with the group rather than ignoring that he is getting bitten to eat lusher grass down in the bottoms.

Lady is looking good, being out in the pasture with the geldings is agreeing with her.   She did get a sore back.   DL rides kind of heavy on her pockets and the pad I had left them was not thick or long enough.   The one that R thought was too thick when I took Lady up in June seemed to work fine on Monday, and I cut a hole in it where Lady's spine was irritated so hopefully she is more comfy with the saddle for any future riding this year.   I put Arnica on the spot Monday morning and night and
she will have some time for the irritation to go away and they have and use Arnica too so hopefully that resolves quickly.   It was not hugely worse than what Tanza had after LaVeta, a bit more tender to the touch.   His back got better but I must remember to shim his saddle while I am letting him rest and regain weight.

Tanza took 4th place on Saturday ride

But we took almost 10 hours including the official 1 hour hold and voluntary 15 minute hold I gave him to eat.   That was a fairly tough trail;  but some of the slowness for Tanza was meeting many mountain bikers.   The cyclists were all great and folks who have trained on those trails probably didn't lose much time but Tanza slowed to a walk every time he saw a bike coming.   Which is good safety in general but the one thing I believe the new RMs did not do was really spread the word to the biking community that there was going to be a horse event on these two days, so there were quite a lot of bikes on the trails;  folks who had horses that were blasé about bikes probably just asked their mounts to maintain pace.

I rode only on Saturday, it was only a 2 hour drive home on Sunday and I am still out of it today.   I brushed my teeth after breakfast and only got the top retainer put on.   I was trying to figure out why I could not find the edge to remove the bottom one to eat lunch and finally DOH, it is not even in my mouth.

I also left my purse in my p/u so had to wait for someone to be coming in the building to get in to workplace;  I had made a list and was going to get some groceries; parked at the store and no purse when I went to grab it and the shopping bag.   Oh well, it is no big deal.

I need to shorten the new martingale I made for Tanza.   I need to figure out how to stop riding heavy on my left side.  Mainly that is the side I post when I'm not thinking about posting both diagonals but I think that there is additional unevenness from me.   Tanza gets fill on the left side legs, especially the front.  At least I have figured out that I am the cause.

I tried using silicone caulk on the bites from CJ, which worked well to stop rubs from the saddle/pad. I am going to have to put some wool felt or something in the middle of my saddle, it is bridging on Tanza, so that is probably mostly why he got a bit back sore at La Veta.   I used a different pad set-up for this ride; I think it helped but he still got a bit back sore.   I tried using silicone on his legs instead of splint boots also.   I have to see how long it takes for it to come off and he did have a couple of scrapes anyway but I think it will be preferable to boots while Tanza learns to be more careful and not beat his legs up.

I definitely am NOT riding him 50 at Beaver Meadows in 3 weeks.  He is getting a bit skinny and needs some good rest after doing 5 fairly challenging 50 mile rides in 5 weeks, no way am I trying to do a another quite tough 50 mile ride on him.   I think I don't even want to do the 30 on him.  I was thinking I wanted to support the RM but I am not sure that I do.   She is very nice, she does a great job of organizing, having plenty of vets and volunteers -- BUT,  that location is TOUGH riding and I don't think she is even trying to select trails to maximize easier sections.  

I am so blessed to have Tanzaknight

And if I were smarter that would be about the only thing on my mind.  What a wonderful weekend, riding some incredibly scenic trails with some technical sections where he really had to take care of us or it could have gotten ugly.  And this morning I slept in, the last few people who had stayed overnight had gone home and I led him around to eat and walk and he was very relaxed and not worried a bit about not being able to see other horses.   What a blessing he is, I am loving having my endurance goals re-kindled.

I made the mistake of checking work email.   Meh, I am not going to try to figure things out from home because Mr Prima Donna thinks his time is too precious to remind himself of where info would be and take care of things now that he is the research engineer and not mostly in charge of the operations group.   His complete lack of team spirit infuriates me.   Its of a piece with his habit of stiffing service folks so its really no surprise.  Meh, not my circus, not my monkeys.  

Let it go, let it go, let it go

For pity's sake.  I am stressing over a hallway conversation that I am not a part of just because I'm ASSuming that PITA is trying to insist on someone doing something a hard, slow way in perl.  IT IS NOT MY CIRCUS,  that is not my monkey.   Three other adults in the conversation can nod and smile and then do things in a different sensible way if they decide not to argue with the asperger dude.  

And I failed to ride my mare on this nice cool morning.  Watering took time,  I was fretting about the new dog pouting at being left behind but not being trustworthy to come but mostly I just feel like I am not qualified to fix her feet and am just punting on doing anything.  That is dumb,  she needs regular rasping to move her toe back and I'm not going to mess that up all that badly.  

I need to find the old one or buy a german martingale or make a new one for Tanza.  I need to savor the fun I am having with my red-headed gem this summer.   Everything else will work out one way or another.  

Sigh, I have got to quit wasting M's time

At least I finally realized I am doing it but I feel like a leech after realizing I am initiating so many talks with her to relieve my stress about current events at work.   I dislike people who waste other people's time while avoiding work and I hate that I was doing that.  Not like the one former person who would spend 30 minutes to explain some 45 minute task to get out of just doing it himself but using M as an unpaid therapist is very bad form too.   I resolve to shut up and do my job the rest of the week and be much more mindful of her valuable time going forward.

I have been so tired since getting back from the riding trip.  I'm probably still not caught up from the shorter nights and interrupted sleeping but I should be mostly there and it is making me crazy that I cannot summon the energy to spray weeds, ride my goofy little mare etc at home and am just dragging at work and casting about for very easy tasks and avoiding anything that requires much focus.   I was wasting time reviewing resumes, thinking we will hire 2 people since J is quitting but M doesn't seem to think we will.   I guess I will ask our boss.   Since boss wants to replace the clunky old processing set-up I had been thinking we will need another new hire with J quitting but I did leap to that assumption.

Back from the last Shamrock

I did not pioneer.   Thinking back I probably would not have pioneered on Shade several years ago if I had not started riding with someone who helped me through the first day and I didn't want to bail on her and her horse she was trying to get to 5000 miles when day 3 rolled around and I was tired and figured Shade was too.  Well I did not have that mental crutch this year.  What I did have was a young horse that I have not done a lot of legging up on who was mentally tired and doing some stumbling on day 2.  Plus I was hot and tired and being a crabby beeyotch to my sister who was helping me some after finishing the fun rides with my dad.   So I decided I would drop down and do the fun ride with dad and sis on day 3 rather than enduring.   It WAS a lot of fun and I have a sound horse that is stronger than before the ride for the rest of the ride season.    The RM let us stay overnight on Monday after a bit of "well I don't know, no one does that" talk on Sunday.   So on Monday I pulled some flags (others had mostly pulled that loop so it was easy duty) and dad and sis rode on their own. I had skipped one section I thought the guy on the ATV would get and sis went back with me after their ride and we got that cleaned up and Monday night dad grilled bison steaks for supper and they came out yummy.

Tanza on day two early in the day.

And then on Tuesday after driving back from the lovely 5.5 day break, reality came crashing back.  I looked at work emails and one of our great younger SEs is quitting with short notice.  I had thought he might leave, but I had hoped he was going to stick out the year, give a longish notice and help train the new SE hire that was intended to relieve him of the routine, nuisance duties and let him expand his skills, while helping us for the future.   Oh well,  he has to put his health and family first and if staying here was still stressing his health and the relationship with his wife even after the very late in coming changes that had been made, we will survive.   I am reviewing resumes that came in after we closed the first position and the ones we passed on before to see if there are strong programming candidates.  If we have a good set, hopefully we can have only a short period for the announced new position and get a second someone interviewed and hired more quickly.   None of us that are still on the team want upper management suggesting we make the PITA, so not a team player, guy a real part of the team again.  He has tasks he is doing for us, writing codes for reading in and translating the binary satellite data we will get, but we need him out of the team so the smart folks can modernize the processing architecture.    I have *extra* job security the next couple of years now.  Before, I was filling the role of the debugger for that kludgey old system because J was burned out; now he will be gone so it will be Maggie for the legacy web stuff and mainly me for the other legacy stuff with whinging to the office of the PITA if I get stuck on debugging something.    Not hugely fun, but it will buy hay and fuel to go to rides. 

We had Mia euthanized the Monday before we left for the ride.  Her skin was recovering from the maggots but after the groomer clipped her it was clear that she was getting to be skin and bones.  I cooked up some old pork roast for her, but she was leaking fluid into her tummy area and couldn't eat much or she'd feel crappy and it was clear that her guts were just not working right anymore.   I dug her grave mostly over the weekend before we took her in and just went in very late to work that day.

Dad is probably going to bring home a Sharpei cross dog.  I was not enthused last night because it sounded like a good chance of it being a roamer like Ole was when he was younger but Dad likes it and since he is home all the time it will probably be OK.  I do know some tricks I learned with Ole if the dog will not stick around even with people outside with it.  I also showed dad a bio of a 5 yr old Rottie at a rescue in Evergreen that I like, at least on paper.  I said we could maybe get both dogs since they both like to play with other dogs but whatever will be will be. 

Meeting for a ride date on Saturday. YAY

Hope I am not jinxing by writing about anticipated event but I feel like I sooo need this.  My week has been high stress.  Ended last week with a 6 mile ride on Tanza,  I was hot and didn't want to go more,  he was barely settled down yet but he was pretty well behaved.   I am trying to work more on standing to mount and he did well before the ride started.   Meh when I got off and walked him past the scary grove of trees going out.   He was brave enough to go by the grove with me mounted on way home.

Then Sunday.  I pulled some weeds and sprayed some goat head burrs, was thinking I should ride Tanza again or maybe Sadie but was not moving to get that done,  then noticed flies were buzzing around Mia where she had had some urine and feces in her long hair.   Dad was late scheduling her to get clipped this year.  Well we did have some late snowstorms so semi-understandable.

 I decided I needed to spot wash some dirty patches on her to clip easier with the scissors and had to get dad to hold her so I could rinse better after starting that.  And then total gross-out,  I cut off a bit of matted fur in one spot and found tiny maggots.   So I grabbed my Endure brand horse fly spray and sprayed,  scissored more, sprayed, scissored, repeat cycle until there was a good clear margin around where the maggots had been and I found probably the initial wound where the flies had laid eggs and cleaned it.   Told dad that unless the groomer could take her by Tuesday he needed to run to town and buy some flea shampoo.

Home:

Monday.   Sprayed goat heads before work.
Tuesday.  A nice cool day that would have been great for a morning ride before work but the groomers have no opening until Monday so Mia gets a bath and clipping session before work, after I had watered my mini garden.  Wishing I had resisted the urge to plant a few things.
Wednesday:  Sprayed weeds.
Thursday:  Had to leave early for a seminar my co-worker gave.  I was over 10 minutes late. Blah.  Mia's attacked patch of skin is looking less raw.  I sprayed some more Endure on the problem section because flies were buzzing around a bit but overall it was reassuring return to pink from red, irritated skin.
Friday:  I should spray more goat heads but the three sessions so far this week have made a good dent.

In just two weeks is the wrap up of what has been my favorite ride to go to and I am going to try to do 3 days of 55s on Tanza.  Just like entering the BH 50 last year it will be "Well we are going to try it, if he gets tired we will drop out, rather than trying to force things"

Work:  I am not coping real well with being the one dealing with the lazy SE who is always smarmy at meetings where the boss is present promising he can do this or that and then delivers nothing or something very half assed and always tries to get someone else to finish up the details on building or integrating into packages when he codes up a bit new software.  Drives me crazy that the #@!! *senior* SE, now officially *research* engineer and not part of the core team, thank g-d,  passes off that real software engineering step.  What a lazy cad,  he should  learn the building system (which is pretty nice thanks to the younger great SE) and make it even easier if he finds it still a bit tedious, but lazy cad, he didn't do it before and surely won't now when his role has been changed.    Something I told the bosses they should do last fall because we might lose the great younger S.E.s .  Plus things had to change from lazy cad being on the team to fully free anyone to innovate.   A minor miracle, they acted on that advice.  Slowly and cautiously, seeking confirmation from other folk(s) on the team  first but the change did happen.

We are interviewing for a new SE, mainly because the one jr S.E. was burned out and went to P/T to take some online course(s) and demanded being allowed to innovate vs managing the old system even when he goes back to FT.   It was good that he did this because it forced a brain transfer to other folks of how to do most of the SE maintenance tasks, which had been slow rolling before because jr is a great SE but not very adept at training others.

   The process is a time drain and I feel like I'm not adding that much to the hiring committee but of 3 folks we decided to interview in person, the first we would be fine with hiring,  the 2nd failed (I had to sleep on it before I was as much no way as the others- but I was not going to buck their judgement anyway)  and we have one more interview on Friday.  With luck we will have two choices we would be fine with to present to the boss.  

Before that interview I have my performance review.  I am not dreading that this year like I often have in the past.  Partly because I'm getting so sick of the lazy guy and working with idiot liberals who don't understand that funding is tight because commie Barry choked the U.S. economy for 8 years that I don't think I would mourn deeply if I was laid off (red tape means you don't get fired for cause easily, even if you are being let go because your work sucks,  they eliminate your position for 6-12 months and then open a new position for a new hire).   Plus right now I am an important bridge between the old methods put in place by lazy SE and knowing the specialized outside S/W package we use until the young guns on the team can build the replacement(s) so I'm probably fine for the next year or two since new constellation launches in about 10 months.

Back from Wyoming Ride

Tanza did a nice job on the 50.   I got to ride with Crockett.   He was riding at a modest pace.  We finished in 8 hours of riding time.   I was wanting to be no faster than 7 hours but hopefully not slower than 8 hours so that was perfect.  I want to write it up more but am dragging ass tired tonight.  Tried to do the LD on Sadie on Sunday and she was lame :(   She was off and on lame a good part of the first loop, the vet did not catch it at the hold but when I asked him to watch her at the end of the hold she was definitely off.   She seemed fine trotting in paddock after getting home today so hopefully she remains OK for light pleasure riding.    She rode like a broke horse so that was a relief after she was so snotty at Shamrock and Buffalo Creek last year.  

I may buy another horse.  The family I have hauled some took over board on a horse whose owner passed away, the horse and J have a bond with each other.   If the state or owners family/estate need the horse to be sold to settle the estate I have said I will buy him.  I will only do so if I have a contract for the family to adopt him the next day though; I am not volunteering to take this one home to feed every winter.   That is OK for Lady since I own her and am happy to just get her messed with and fed by someone else during the summer but I don't want to become an un-official rescue.

Hopefully they can contact the estate and either just be given the horse by the estate or work out a sales agreement.   It seems that Colorado law insists that horses be sold at auction if a landowner wants to sell to collect unpaid board, from what someone posted on FB recently or if a horse would be considered abandoned the brand inspector takes it to auction.     Writing a check to buy the horse would be easy, it will suck if I have to haul him home from an auction and especially if I have to go bid on him in person rather than just doing a check or cc over the phone after the family or a proxy of theirs did the actual bidding.  

Not a bad ride conditioning weekend.

I started Tanza on Redmond stress relief formula about 10 days before and he was better about eating his mashes.   I still felt like he wasn't drinking like he should.  It was pretty hot for this early in the year.   But Tanza went out in the lake and splashed and splashed but didn't try to lay down and was pretty well behaved by my standards.    By the NATRC and ranch people standards I am the worst horseman in the world since he did a bit of going sideways at times and I let him walk off when I am mounting.   Coming in from the only 18 rather than 25 expected miles I felt like Tanza and I should go back out but back in camp I was feeling overheated and no one else was going to ride anymore. But overall I think the weekend was useful to help get us stronger for my Shamrock goal and that is what matters to me.

I had no propane.   Apparently last trip when I thought I diligently turned off the propane what I really did was crank it as wide open as possible.   I need to get indicators for those there are ones that are portable and then make a point to always get a new full tank as soon as one is emptied.   Hate when I have those moments of gas-lighting myself.  

Survived first ride of the season

Tanza was less interested in eating alfalfa hay or his mashes then he is at home.   Arghhhh.  But he got through the ride.    Was not drinking the first loop, but drank at the vet check and was interested in hay at the vet check.   He was dragging as we started the second loop, but did let me push him through and then got strong when he felt the pull of going back to the camp.

I was so tired after the ride.  We both needed to be doing only the LD, as we are not in shape to handle more yet.   The ride had a good turnout, delicious food  and the ride picture turned out well.

I found out that wearing loose full seat breeches does NOT work.   The wrinkles were chafing me.  Yay for in camp vet checks so I was able to change to something that stopped inflicting the damage.

I need to be syringing apple sauce into Tanza daily, he is so stupidly angst about getting syringed and if he is not going to eat mashes reliably, where I can know he is getting e-lytes that way he will have to be syringed.  

Still need to pack and hook up to big trailer by Friday morning

But if feels like I got a fair amount of stuff done with weekend.   It was a rough start with adjusting to Invisalign retainers that came in on Thursday.   I am still adjusting to them but it is getting easier as I decide what I can eat and drink with them in.  Supposed to "only drink water" with them in but if I did that I'd get nowhere near to the supposed to wear them 22 hours/day number because I sip a lot of tea and coffee during the course of a day.   And I can let chocolate melt in my mouth with them in.

I had a riding date set up but the gal canceled, messaged me that she was coming down with flu.  So Tanzaknight only went 7 miles at home.   That will have to be enough, should be OK if I ride slow next weekend at the WY ride.

Today I rode Sadie and we got sleeted on.  She held it together so it was a good thing of proving to me she can be sane even under icky conditions.   It only sleeted for maybe 30 minutes, 20-25 that I was out in it though.  Then it got very very windy so I did some spring cleaning laundry, washing up a lot of bedding from the guest room that was Ole's bed rather than a guest bed for the last several months of his life.   I also put the new foam I bought on my air mattress, replacing the top foam that came with it.   I think the new foam will work out well, but keeping the old topper handy for a while.  If I decide the new topper is a permanent change then I will cut a pillow or 2 out of the old topper and then put it in my horse trailer to make that mattress cushier.

Made buffalo rib steaks for supper tonight.   They were less than 1" I think and got to temperature to quickly I get them a bit more done then I intended but thanks to the thermometer I didn't get them way too done and they were tender enough and tasted fine.  I put some garlic and dill on the peas and carrots to go with as a bit of a change up from just salt, pepper and margarine,  thought that worked OK.  

Perhaps I need to break from the blog I follow

Or try to get the app that someone had developed to block certain posters.   But blocking would be of minimal use because the problem is not so much anyones direct posts,  I just have been getting into a mode of passing judgement on people.   I know I should not because I don't know the situations and I got past the one with the drug overdose, suicidal? dude whose wife was posting since I have no idea what sort of PTSD situations he may have seen in active duty.  

I'm having a much harder time with the sad sack who seems to think someone needs to seek him out and give him a nice job.   I should be more sympathetic with someone who worked long hours for a company thinking that would be their lifetime job and has been through an unwanted divorce but he is such a whiner and downer in almost all of his comments that I'm feeling sympathetic with the unknown wife for deciding to cut that anchor and sail away and for all I know she is/was a gold digger emotional life force sucking leech of the highest order.   But even if she was all of that.  DUDE stop with the constant woe is poor little me angling to get the sympathetic folks to give you a pep talk so many times every week.   Get out of your comfy blog posting chair and take a job outside of your JD degree field to develop some people skills or some perspective or something.

Then there is the paranoid dude who not only had to attack random posters after clicking on some link bait years ago and picking up a nasty hacking virus but he sucked other posters into his craziness after he was warned, given time-outs etc.    I'm beginning to wonder if he is some mental case, he posted a long story about going in person to some online funding site that had been holding up someones fund and then accused someone who was only mildly poo pooing the long self medaling series of posts of how great he had been of being his cyber stalker. (as though he had to have been stalked to pick up a virus with a habit of clicking links supposed to be youtube music or whatever from anonymous commenters.)

   It made me wonder if it was like the arsonists that start fires so they can call the fire department and tell people to get out to be the hero.  It would be oh so easy to "flag" a fund and then withdraw the flag after crafting the story of how you went to the actual offices of the online fund managing group and told them they needed to fly right.

I have got to start doing more of the 'chores' during the week

And I have got to kick off my inertia and reluctance to request riding dates and start getting Tanza out with other horses.   But on the good side I rode him both Saturday and Sunday and by finally wising up and not cantering when riding him down the road the skippy "is he lame" trot he does anticipating/wanting to start cantering is going away.   He needed the boundaries of a routine, and still does to learn to just relax and trot when I am riding him out alone at home.  

I got the federal tax forms filled out so now I can do the state ones and I am getting a modest refund.  That is mostly an affirmation that I was better about donating 10% since I'm not a church member doing tithing that way.   I have still not called HMO about labs and thumb.   There is some gradual improvement on the thumb but riding causes a bit of flare-up of the soreness when bending it so I need to solve that so I can do the longer rides on Tanza.   I rode Sadie on Saturday and she was pretty good until the last bit home and then she had to revert back to acting the fool.  If I would ride her 3 times a week she would probably get pretty decent again.

Well, need to get the horse pads in the laundry,  picking up pills for Shade today and wanted to catch a seminar at work and can do that if I will start moving with some purpose.

dragging along

I am dragging after the time change.   It is weird because I am tired and going to bed fairly early but then not sleeping very well.   Oh well, overall I am liking the shift in daylight vs schedule.  I also like falling back in the late fall.   I know most folks like to whinge loudly that changing the clocks is the worst thing ever but even with the adjustment period I feel like it works out well for me.

I feel terribly behind on getting started with conditioning Tanzaknight for the new ride season and should be doing some yard cleanup and stuff.   Plus I need to make appt with the HMO for routine labs and to get my thumb/wrist checked out.   It is really stupid how I just keep hoping things will just return to normal with just a bit of stretching and taking NSAIDS when it hasn't worked and I've given it weeks.  

I'm on hiring committee for a new software engineer.  I don't know why.  Well I think I am decent at detecting BS and whether someone would be a team player but I'm reading the first batch of resumes and all the SE jargon is making me feel like I have no idea whether the applicant can do the job or not.   Sad (as our new president might say)

However I am pecking away at things and eventually all critical stuff will get done.

I'd really rather not have to drama queen

But lately this stupid liberal land workplace seems like no one gets basic IT support request and so on filled unless they go all drama queen and run around the office screaming "I NEED this to do my job people"

And if they are still working something out, it would be nice to at least get a courtesy word either spoken or emailed "Oh, hey sorry,  an issue came up with blah blah, we are working on it but might not be able to meet your request until next week"     BUT NO,  because *I* am always trying to be polite and understanding I get zero, zilch, nada and I'm getting damned sick and tired of that bullshit.

Well at least it is chocolate week

My group is having to hire a new software guru.  Our lead admin has teamed up with some sjw person who suggested a bunch of whiner black female blogs for black history month on a recent all staff email on a DIE committer and is pushing hard to make sure we are properly 'inclusive' in the search.   What a load of bullshit.  I am still peeved at that email pushing the grievance blogs vs linking to an article about an actual bit of black science history.  

 I am not opposed to hiring another gal to the team but we hired a scientist and associate scientist in the last several months where both best qualified candidates happened to be gals and there are many women scientists in the larger group unless asians don't count for the sjw nazis; so we certainly do not need to hire a less qualified candidate to avoid the appearance of being gender prejudiced. As a member of the committee *I* will not let the female admin nor HR sjw bully us into hiring anyone who will need any remedial training or lots of help to do the job if there is a better candidate who happens to be a white or asian male who is presumed to have 'unfair privilege'.   The group is too small and too busy; we cannot afford to hire someone we'd have to carry vs them helping us get things done

   Such a PITA,  having to worry about making extra sure we have dotted absolutely all the i's and crossed every last T to not only satisfy some HR scold, but also convince our own admin who should be our advocate that we have done every last bit of EOE due diligence.  Oh well, perhaps the best candidate will just happen to be a black lesbian or whatever is near the top of the sjw hierarchy these days, and it won't take any extra work to satisfy the DIE scolds.