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.