Ugh work.

 It feels like I have to do ALL the ops group jobs for things to work and I'm getting very burned out.  Part of the burnout is not having gotten away from all the grind of yard, house and dad care for almost a year; but there is also the work aggravation, with some folks who've been doing things for long enough they should be able to troubleshoot but they will NOT do anything that is not spelled out for them.  Then the software engineer, has vision issues (getting a bit better lately he says)  but having the computer read things out for him is not workable for finding an error message buried in 10K lines of log message from a build so I have to poke at some things and get them to work. 

Oh well,  for today that is enough whinging,  time to do the ops form.

Now I need to break away from the computer chair and take a shower.  That is ugh, rural life is sometimes too much grubby hard work.  I suppose if I were more of a networker it would be less so.  I'm not super wealthy but I could afford to hire more stuff done then I do.  I don't know why but sometimes I am so tired but I feel like I can't summon the energy to get ready and go to bed and sometimes I will feel so grubby but resist jumping in the shower.  I guess that is carryover thinking of I should wait until the end of the day so I won't get dirty again but that does not always work out and I really need the boost that comes from taking a needed shower right now early in this evening.   Arghhh,  dad woke up after less than 4 hours so I had to postpone my shower, decided to feed horses first and get him happy.  I think he believes it is Sunday morning,  he wanted tea and pop tarts.  Or maybe he is a bit sick, but he did have the aide make him some bacon and eggs around 1 pm.  

Careless me and saucy Tanza equals a sore foot

 Yesterday after Tanza got his new shoes when I was putting him away he stepped on my right foot.  Ouch.  

I just 'sent' him through the gate like I normally do; but he swung wide enough with a hind foot to land on my foot as I was standing beside the gate holding it open.    It was hurting so bad by the end of the day yesterday that I was in fear that LaVeta couldn't possibly happen but it got much better overnight with the elevation and rest.  So now it is a question mark still but at least I don't feel like there is for sure damage that is going to take a couple months rather than a couple weeks to heal up.

And another clue bat from life that I simply must hire some live in help.  

Rode two saturday's in a row.

 Last week B texted me Friday evening after earlier saying she needed to skip riding,  and we met at Spruce Mountain Saturday mid-morning.   It was hot, but a pretty ride with all the wildflowers.   If I had been thinking I would have chosen Indian Creek to avoid the home stretch of the Ren. Fair traffic.    This week was the Buffalo Creek endurance ride.   I had thought I might go and do the intro ride, but Friday I really worked hard on house and farm yard chores and was too tired to get up early and do the long drive to Buffalo Creek the next morning.  

So I went to Sharp Tail trailhead, not even getting there until noon on Saturday and rode solo.   B was doing the BC LD on Friday and volunteering on Saturday.    I need to text her and ask how it went.  My solo ride went pretty well, I was not wiped out like I had been after the Spruce Mountain ride.  Probably mostly because it was cooler yesterday than last week but I'll take it as a good sign for being able to do 25s at LaVeta if I ride smart and take care of myself and Tanza. 

I may send the BC RM a donation,   I guess a lot of people didn't show up on Friday that had pre-registered.   I would like to see the ride continue, but there was a bit of a grudge on my part for not going on Saturday as well as me being legitimately very tired.   My thought process did include "why go enter a ride managed by the person who I think told B (but not me directly) that my horse with me riding him was 'downright dangerous' two years ago?"   I had not pre-registered because had been a bit on the fence all along about should I go?, I will be late even for the intro, unless I just leave dad alone until the aide comes at 9 because  I didn't ask Amada if the aide could come early on the 5th, yada yada, but I didn't even put Tanza in a pen Friday night or set my alarm to get up early;  I was feeling so spent Friday evening that I knew I wanted to just do a shorter drive to ride somewhere on Saturday.

I will have to suck it up and haul out to ride Solo to get out tomorrow.

 I told B no worries if she already had plans but I feel rejected anyway that she does not want to meet somewhere.   But I have to get out,  I've been so close to just throwing food to dad and walking away all week because I am just so tired of feeling like I am stuck at home.  And he was pretty darned agile today.  I got up at 4 to pee and he had moved from his bed to his chair and had TV on.  He even got his hearing aides on his own which are not super easy to reach.  I was like "NO, I am not getting him breakfast at 4 am, and went back to bed" 

And struggling again with the "woe is me, nobody wants to be around me or even talk or text"  I need to realize that *I* am pretty poor about staying in touch so other folks probably feel like I'm just a hermit who wants no company of any kind.   But I can't stand being only a hanger on , butting into conversations at neighborhood gatherings or going to the neighbors when I hear them talking outside too often, makes me feel like a pest.  I just don't know why I am so uninteresting or off-putting or whatever.   I suppose to some extent I come off as aloof and uninterested.  I used to cringe with dad barging in on the neighbors all the time but they all know him and ask how he is doing.   Very rare for anyone to ask how I am doing.  

Survived the work week from Hades and did get some errands/shopping done this weekend

 No riding out.  I took a short paddock ride last night.   I can't bring myself to ask B to meet at a trailhead because I keep getting scared that dad will have a decline and I'll feel like I can't leave the aide to deal with him alone if he isn't getting around with just moderate assistance from the the gait belt.  

It was very hot today but it clouded up and sprinkled a bit about 5:30,  I should see if that bit of cooling has remained or it got sunny and hot again.  Plus dad has not stirred since he got up at about noon.  Well I can ride at home anyway;  teach him not to expect he can expect instant service any time of day when he finally stirs.  He has been sleeping a lot the last week it seems like.  Dozes in his chair all day for sure,  I can't say how well he sleeps at night.   I don't know if it means anything.   Yesterday he was fairly alert a good bit of the day and ate 3 times, plus had a protein drink so he is probably just making up the sleep today.

Hades work week.   New mission starting up and I felt like I had to fix the clocks that were not processing Monday before the Tuesday delivery.  Had to set up data flow for those clocks which involves 15 cpus on my side plus getting IT to set up transfers from the clock processing CPUs.    Then I also had to iron out all the bugs for the actual mission processing starting Tuesday morning.   Plus we are hiring a sys admin to "help me"  So 5 hours of interviews, one each week, plus I have to score them (at least I am only one of 4 scorers)  Well hopefully we get a great hire and after half of year of training period they will be a good help to me and with luck they will love our group and will be a replacement for me when I retire in like 5 to 7years.  If a global depression hasn't killed off our 'not for profit' research 'corporation by then. 

Halfway through the year already? What's that saying, the days are long but the years are short?

 Days are long in the sense of being tired.  I'm fairly often thinking 'what, I didn't get much done yet.'  But the months surely are flying by without me getting my riding mojo geared up.  But I did take a short ride on Tanza yesterday in the small paddock.   He is being sooo good for me doing the paddock work this year.    Probably helps immensely that I am just having fun when I ride him in the paddock this year instead of thinking 'I'd rather be riding out but need to work on X.'   

I got the pasture mowed last week and have sprayed pretty thoroughly for goats heads.  I know I've missed some, they are good at hiding under the sunflower cousins and other flowering weeds I like to just leave be.  The flies are starting to get thick.  I think I'll need to start using sticky paper already as the bait stations are not making enough of a dent in the fly numbers.  I also need to buy more fly spray and I need to buy some fly legging for CJ, he is getting some cracks in his RF hoof.  

Lady is getting fat and sassy.   She isn't moving very fast but every time she sees me outside she wanders over to see if I'm going to give her some pellets.   She is getting over 4 pounds a days now,  6+ scoops from the little scoop that I think is between 12 and 16 ounces.   Plus I've been giving Lady soaked alfalfa pellets or cubes and she gets to eat hay or grass free choice 24 hours a day.   She isn't being destructive of the stacked hay, or too terribly messy with the loose hay I have ready to feed, so I can indulge her.  

I am getting rid of some house clutter.  If I tidied everything up nicely I don't think there would be much overflow on floors and various flat surfaces.   I haven't managed to gin up the ambition to do that yet; but I feel like I'm getting close.  I still need to cull some things and don't want to have them out of sight out of mind instead of actually deciding 'toss, keep, or rehome.' 

Yesterday dad took a shower AND had me drive him to the neighbors to get his hair cut.   He was so excited about it the aide couldn't convince him to wait for me to get in from riding before heading for the shower and she was a bit freaked out since I had told her to have him wait until I was done and back inside.  (I had said that because I thought he might need more help getting to the shower, he had not walked farther than 1/2 the living room yet.)    The aide was very helpful, dad requested ham and eggs for dinner and she cooked them for him, made me some ham and cleaned up the kitchen after I made myself a skillet ham and eggs plate.   Plus did a bunch of laundry and made up the guest bed with the quilt from the basement I had her wash.   I made the decision to throw away the bedspread that had been on that bed.  It was ripping out where the top was quilted to the batting in a plate sized spot and there is no sentimental value to it to be worth messing around trying to patch it.  I always have to convince myself to make the toss decision but I'm getting better.

Today I want to mow the ditch outside the pasture and clean the one mini pen.  I got the fence panel moved on Friday so I can get some if it with the tractor bucket.   Also I put in some fence posts and strung some poly rope where some bush morning glories popped up in the small paddock where I've been riding.  I thought the horses had killed them all by always eating them off but these had been dormant and all the moisture this spring woke em up.  

Ugh, waiting for it to cool off a bit.   And I chewed dad out.  FIVE! minutes after the aide left he takes a crap.   I am sure he was politely waiting till she left so she would not have to deal with it.  I told him they get paid to deal with it and I don't.   I let go of my grudge and cooked him one of his gourmet burgers from Omaha Steaks and microwaved their scalloped taters and a dessert for him.  And had one of the steaks myself.   It was just okay steak, not super tender and delicious just pan frying it,  Dad's dentures are so dull he cannot enjoy steak anymore even when it is awesome, fork tender steak like Sarah had sent over a few weeks ago.    He did get up this morning while I was outside so at least he is ok with having the aides handle washing and new depends in the mornings.  But I'm still a bit mad, feels like Dad and the rest of the family have more consideration for paid help and even random strangers than for me. 

I should have made a 3rd pass on the ditch, but the tractor was getting hot or something, the PTO started stalling as I was making the return pass down the long side so I called it good.  The mini's pen is not completely clean, I suppose I can stand to do a bit more on it now it has cooled off a wee bit. 

I am tired tonight

 Wow, haven't posted a blog entry in 3 weeks either.   

Two stack loads of hay are in the shed.   We had almost two loads left.  So glad the regular grower had hay this year and I was able to get things done just emailing him and calling the hay hauler.    I could have bought another load but I want to get some alfalfa or alfalfa mix hay in big bales and I don't want over a year of excess hay in small bales anymore, I'm still thinking I might move to a saner state in a year or so.  

I did two rounds of weed spraying and my back was whinging so I ran the mower a bit instead of spraying more.   Hopefully I can get the rest of the goats heads sprayed tomorrow.    I need to get lined up for some weed mowing with the tractor soon.   I put new line on the weed whacker and ran it some.  It did seem to do better so I guess the old line maybe was getting too short or something.

Burned a bunch of magazines and papers from the downstairs office.  I am creating shelf space little by little.   I need to go feed the horses their late night ration and get to bed.