Finally an easy sale

I listed my old Cloud Nine stirrups on 3 enduance tack groups (FB automatically allows the ad to any sales group one is a member of AFAICT.)   One minute later I had a buyer and 3 folks lined up as next in line.   I guess I should have set the price higher.   I changed to status SOLD and I don't see my ad as a posting on the sites anymore.   So now all I should have to do is box the stirrups and mail them tomorrow morning.    I have to get up early because we have an 11 am seminar.   If I'm too slow I will have to run to PO near work after the seminar,  dropping off at little town PO before driving to work would be much easier.  

Now if I can sell the treeless endurance saddle and my customized saddle carrier on one of these tack forums I'll feel like I've made a good dent in the misc. tack that is never used anymore and I can maybe sell the fleece pads at a local tack swap.  I will have to get all the saddles out of my p/u before the benefit ride and donated tack auction or the tack swap my riding buddy emailed me about of March cuz planning on taking my p/u to Texas so I do have to list some of this stuff if I don't want to end up just stuffing all those things back in a closet or the tack room.  Short term before those 2 things would not be bad so I don't know if I will list any pads online.  So bulky to ship those.

Thank god I don't have to sell for a living

I sold 1 pr of fleece breeches,  1 pair of stirrups and twisted an arm to get someone to take the Stuben saddle and try it so I would not have to load it in my p/u to take home.   I hope it will work for her,  the seat is longer than her ideal.  But maybe if she is not showing in it she can use a wool fleece cover to take up extra room.  

Tanza was 4th not 5th in our weight division at the regional convention.   I think the #1 rider doesn't join the regional group, possible one of the top 4 just had too many out of region rides to keep the points lead, but I didn't hear the one gals name announced at all.   I'm shocked at how many folks that ride in this region are not members of the regional sub-group.   I think maybe there is some personality clash but I can't grok passing up on the great speakers our group always gets for convention and the nice yearly awards over not liking someone on the board, they wouldn't cheat on points for the awards.  Oh well, other than a bit of "I wish everyone was a member cuz of strength in numbers" it is not my circus.

Sigh, no taking PTO to prep for convention tomorrow

Things are starting to happen quickly with our c2 launch, and I have to go in for some training tomorrow.   It will be fine, but not quite as relaxed as I would have liked.   I am going to take my little cart to get all the saddles to the vender area at convention on Saturday.  I think it is banged up enough that I don't have to worry about anyone taking it.  

I finally got set up to do internet access for my IRA account.   When I had tried before I was selecting retirement account cuz IRA.  The very sweet and patient customer service gal that walked me through directed me to mutual funds cuz retirement is only their 401K plans.   Okaaay.   I'm just happy to be able to monitor my account directly and very nice I can make catch up contributions online, no having to go sign forms at the bank.  Now I just have to go to bank to get checks deposited and cash out.

Hope hope hope I sell a lot of the stuff I am taking so I don't have to deal with it twice.  My de-cluttering efforts are all out of whack with all the tack in the house and having been focused on this the tack room vs staying focused on keeping the house and car nicer.   Oh well, car and house are still way ahead of last year before I started the project.    

Got my mugs for my vendor raffle item. Pretty.

Had a fascinating conversation with the lady who painted them.   Boy did I ever have a wrong initial impression about her.   Well the impression that she was a nice and capable person was correct.  But I thought of her as having led a sheltered rich wife life but still being nice.  Just because her DH is building homes and now I realize I don't know how that is set up, I think now he may be working with/for a developer and making good money but is not rich/getting rich which I was assuming he had big money and was making even more as a developer/builder when I first heard house builder.

  Turns out she had a drug addict first spouse she had to divorce as a young women with 2 little kids and worked as a cop for a housing authority in Watts at one point some years after the divorce.   She has way way more depth of life experience than I have had, and in some ways I've had a good depth of experience.  I grew up poor in money although it was not obvious to me as a kid since we were the ranch hands kids with a wonderful rancher.  Now I make pretty decent money and the miserly grandparents left enough money to mom that I'm not having to help dad in any way and in fact there will be some estate unless he needs expensive medical treatment or extended nursing home care in his final years.  Which I should not need any inheritance, but I think it will be nice for the sibs who have both ended up with partners who are anti-frugal.   But I have never lived in a big city, either being poor or with having money, and I can scarcely imagine working as a cop, let alone in a poor section of LA, possibly at a time when things were better after Reagan years before declining again, but still, wow.

I have the 4 english saddles I will take to convention washed and one coat of oil applied.  I think they all need another coat.  A couple of them probably need more than 1 more coat.   I have washed several all purpose saddle pads to take and will check the tack room for more tomorrow.  One pad that I washed needs a second wash to get clean.   I am leaning towards taking my endurance saddles that I don't use anymore as well.  That is my Franken-flex and a treeless saddle I have.  If I found I wanted a treeless type saddle in the future I could afford to buy one then, but it would be nice to have less space hog stuff that I never use at this point in my life.    Mostly I need to start packing stuff into my p/u and see how much stuff I have.  Low hanging fruit first; I think this is my current life motto.

Up until Sunday I was starting to think "sheesh I'm going to have hardly anything to offer for sale at the convention."   Sunday when I grabbed my aussie saddle to clean, I decided I should also sell the old Stuben.  Two el cheapo AP english saddles later I spot the Stuben on a high saddle rack.  OhhKaay, so 4 saddles that I washed and need to condition and will take.  And I'm thinking I should take my tressless saddle and maybe go ahead and take the OF too.   Plus  I should take AJ's jumbo size cooler and the large stable sheet I bought off ebay,  that is not waterproof and is too big for most of our horses.  I will have a p/u full of stuff to haul to convention.   I just hope I don't end up taking most of the stuff back home.   I have to figure out what kind of prices to ask.  

Saturday evening the big elm tree tipped into the horse corral.  Resting on a big post by the water tank which did not just bend over and down the fence because the concrete pad that dad poured for the water tank to level it was holding the post up some.   Unexpected benefit from him pouring such a thick pad. 

We sawed the tree up just enough to get it off the fence on Sunday.  I had dad get the tractor so that I could saw some high limbs w/o taking away limbs that the tree was resting on in addition to the fence post holding it and we could chain around the tree to hold it after cutting off the part that was resting on the ground.   That worked well.   But, I emulated dad's lack of paying attention to being on a platform after I had gotten chain saw stuck and we had finally gotten it freed and tumbled out of the tractor bucket backwards.   Gave myself a small goose egg and wee scalp cut and scraped my forearm good with some bruising as well.  OUCH.   But I was able to shake it off after several minutes and helped dad finish up the sawing and then I fetched some hay while he carefully stacked all the limbs into one brush pile.   I had thought we might get someone to take the thick branches and trunk sections and would have left it more scattered to make it easier to saw and remove thick tree sections but it will be fine to just have a bonfire of the whole thing.  

Saturday I made barbecue with a bison roast.   Cooked in crockpot with coke and onion soup mix, plus a bit of Worc. sauce, 1 tablespoon vinegar, 2 tablespoons of whiskey, salt and pepper on roast as I browned it in bacon grease and 2 tsp of chile powder and diced dried garlic for 1 hour in pressure cooker and let it cool down on its own for the 20 or so minutes.  Then drained and reserved liquid.  Shredded the meat and when I was ready to reheat it to serve mixed some of that liquid with some bottled sweet barbecue sauce.  

And made some biscuits from a very old mix we had.  It all turned out pretty tasty.   I had thought I would either sear marinaded steaks and finish in oven or make spaghetti with ground bison meat but after I hit my head while messing with the tree removal on Sunday I just came in house, carbed out and had just a bit of leftover barbecue and dad was on his own to find himself some supper.    I can't be SusyQ homemaker on days when I've had to be lumberjack or whatever.   If I had not had to eat and eat  after late breakfast but no lunch with the tree project I probably would have asked dad to run in and get a pizza or something, I did NOT feel like cooking.  

Yesterday I put my franken-flex on RazzMo

and I decided I'm not going to try to sell it.  It needs new billets, the ones on it are cracked and holes ripped halfway down to next lower hole in many places, and I need to get some measurement lines to make it easier to get the panels even on both sides etc.    It was uneven on Razz and I didn't have the tool to make it easier to undo the velcro disk to shift the panel, needed to get to work already and just went "Forget this, I'll just be stressed about potential liability with these billets even if someone wanted to buy it"

 I'm just going to take the Cloud stirrups off of it and see if they'll sell.  We have extra stirrups around that I could use if I want to ride the saddle, I may even have the original OF stirrups on a shelf somewhere.   So more negative momentum as far as decluttering.  Oh well, the stress reduction from deciding to just keep it for now offsets the space it takes.    I'm taking my old narrow no name Aussie saddle and maybe I'll get rid of it.  

I've been stalled on the de-cluttering.  Perhaps because of the texts from SiL and feeling like if I get space cleared they will just move in and I won't get the benefits.  (just now thought of this as why my subconscious might be  blocking me)  There is also the fact that I've done the very easy bits of de-cluttering so it takes more effort to see new progress and plain old burn-out is likely starting to kick in.  

Dad was talking about P making arrangements for As funeral and I took the opening to mention will and unequal property values.   So I think dad will direct more percent of his insurance and IRA to sis to even things up more.   Hopefully he follows through with that and gets things fairly close, then I won't have to try to fix things to be even as executor.