Frequency

I have a love of books and movies that deal with time travel.

Tonight, I finished watching the movie "Frequency". (For the 83rd time...maybe more!) And although it is not a true "time travel" movie, it touches my heart and stirs my mind the same way.

My heart always breaks and I ALWAYS cry, (regardless of how many times I watch it), when Dennis Quaid, as Frank Sullivan, tells his son, Jim Caveziel, who plays John Sullivan, over the ham radio...."I love you son". Johnny's reply and Jim Caveziel's acting should have won him an academy award for that scene alone.

I wonder how many of us would go back into our lives and change things that have happened. What would those consequences be? How much does someone's life REALLY impact the world? Important things? Not so important things?

Maybe that is why I love this movie so. Lucky for John, he got his father back, and his mother also. The bad guy ends up dead. People the bad guy was supposed to kill did not die and all was well.

Life is not made of stories that always end happily. I think we are all walking examples of that. Each of us hold memories that hurt and have shaped the way we see the world, how much we are able to trust. How much we are able to love and give and receive. It is called growing up.

Psychology this day and age has screwed with the world more than many people know. Where once we took responsibility for our actions and words, now we cover things with 'disorders' and 'syndromes' and allow people to shift the blame to someone else for their bad behaviors.

I am not saying that chemical imbalances and mental disorders are not real. What I AM saying is that sometimes, a LOT of the time, people hide behind those as a way to act badly and not take responsibility. I have witnessed this. More times than I care to remember.

How precious the love between a father and his son, or mother and their child is! But so many times I see this destroyed because the child blames all his misfortunes and all his bad behavior on parents who only did the best they could with what they had to do it with. Such an entitled society we have created. Where any and all can be laid at the feet of our parents because WE are too entitled to take responsibility.

My mom was a mess. You would not have known it had you met her, but that poor woman was a MESS. She came from a difficult past. Lost her Dad when she was really young. Grew up in the depression. Fought for all she had and kept fighting until the end. But never once did I hear her blame her mom for her problems. Along the way she gained some pretty nasty habits. Habits that I strove to keep out of my version of mothering. We never did get along very well. But not once, not one single time, did I ever hear her lay the responsibility of her behavior at the feet of her mother. She was a hard woman and not always fair and was a lot of the time selfish, but she was what she was.

If I am ever compared to my mom, I hope that is what is said of me. She took responsibility for her actions and did not blame someone else when things did not go her way.

I was so angry at my mom when she passed away. I had long ago pulled away from her due to her bitterness and anger, but I always held hope that someday.........someday we might be able to sit and talk and come to some sort of mutual respect, if not understanding. One where she did not attempt to guilt trip me or ridicule me for my beliefs. And I held the hope that I could get her to understand Who Jesus is and what He did for her and every other person on the face of the planet. Regardless of our differences, as much as I disliked her behaviors, I always respected her. Simply because God placed her in my life as my mother.

When she passed away that hope was killed. And I was angry. Sometimes I still am but I am sure I hurt her in many ways, just as she hurt me and there is this little thing called FORGIVENESS.

Totally gets in the way of carrying that anger and hurt. But so, SO worth doing. Sometimes I have to forgive on a daily basis or minute to minute basis, depending on thoughts that bounce into my head much like that big red rubber dodge ball did when I was in grammar school recess.

The one thing that saves me from going crazy is knowing that at the time I did all I knew how to do to make things right. It did not work, but I did what I knew to do. I could do no more.

Hind sight is 20/20 always. I know that the Bible teaches us "If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all people" (Romans 12:18) But some people will not allow you to live in peace with them. That is when you forgive and in my instance, back away because all you are going to do is continue to argue and cause hurt. So in the ending of this musing let me borrow Frank Sullivan's words in paraphrase.

"I love you, Mom"

Wishful Wednesday

This internet connection is going to be the death of me. Not that it really matters in the larger scheme of things, but it certainly matters to me.

It has been raining since Sunday early afternoon. And while this is nothing compared to the mid-west states, it is still bothersome in the fact that it is holding me up at the new property. Truth to tell, I figured if all went well, I might be able to move over in February. Until it began raining. I know we need the moisture here in this arid desert, but really?

So today will find me packing what I can and cleaning as I go. Real. Exciting. Stuff. And right now I am in a sewing mood. I have had a gazillion ideas floating around for some new show jackets and I just got in a new batch of ultrasuede that is calling my name. These jackets and rail shirts will be going into the "Houdini" collection and are simply, for lack of a better word, magical. I love working with ultrasuede, it sews so incredibly easy and the results are always wonderful.

I think I should start in the sewing room and move that over first. Maybe that way I will be motivated to get over there in lickity split time!

Happy Wednesday!

Priorities

The days cannot go by fast enough and yet they are going by too fast.

I stopped by the property on my way home today. I needed to drop off some paint and check to see if the roof was leaking where it was repaired. (And because I am having a difficult time staying away.) Seems I won't miss this old place very much at all. My head is spinning with ideas and I cannot wait to get started! Now that Prince Charming is well and able, I can start hauling and cleaning and moving things over!

The first real construction project is, of course the barn. I have had it with having to have my horses in less than ideal situations and so I have promised myself, and them, that the first thing to go up will be the barn. My plans are simple, much like the port-a-stall barn I had at the Inn, but with a few changes. I want it enclosed like before, to keep the wind from sailing through and protection from the rain. I want to finish off the inside a little differently, but the basics of 10 stalls, a tack room and a feed room will stay the same. I am still uncertain about having a wash stall. It would come in handy for shows, but I am not certain, as of yet, what I will do about this.

 

I have so many ideas for Houdini and the gangs barn. Beginning with THIS.

 

I have always wanted to try acid staining concrete and this is the perfect opportunity. I think since the roof will be copper tin, I am going to stain the concrete aisleway in turquoise and copper. It is a good thing I observed my Daddy mixing concrete when he was building the shop and our home. I am pretty confident that I can do this. I am sure I will make mistakes, but hey. Welcome to my world, eh?

There are other things I am excited about as well. Such as getting out from under the awful internet service I have here at the rental house. Not to be crude, but it SUCKS. Like this mornings post? Well that was SUPPOSED to be last nights, but I lost internet connection and so I posted it this morning. I cannot stream Netflix or anything else because you have only a certain amount of bandwidth, unless you want to work between the hours of midnight and 5 am and even then you can't stream movies. I have not had television/cable or whatever for years, but I love that you can stream movies from Netflix or Pureflix or the Clinton Anderson television and I used to do that often. Not here.

The awful internet is also a problem if you have any type of online business, (which I used to have, but haven't been able since moving here)mlk. It is mightily difficult to provide good customer service if you cannot process orders because of a poor internet connection! Odd that as I picked up my favorite magazine today, Victoria, one of the articles was “Starting your Dream Business”. Timely to say the least! And now, because of this move, I can begin again. I am way excited!

I contacted an internet provider that is awesome AND inexpensive and YES! I can use them for my service! My name is on the list and soon, before I even MOVE in, I will have internet! YAYNESS! Moving for that reason alone is worth the trouble!

The surveyors marked off the boundaries and it is easy to see the entire property lines now. I will not be able to fence off the entire 10 acres at first, but I can work on this a little at a time. Like I said, the barn, and of course, paddocks will come first. Then I will worry about the house. It is liveable as it is, certainly not as bad as the rat house in Colorado, and it will be enough for the time being.

Where the barn will eventually be built...

PRIORITIES.

My horses are mine! And they deserve a good barn and huge paddocks.

 

 And so the adventure begins...

Home again, home again, Jiggity Jig!

Well my Prince Charming arrived home this evening.

YAYNESS!

Of course he cost me bookoo bucks, but hey. He is fixed and with a lot less cost to me than if I had taken him to the dealer or a shop. I love Dr. Ray. Might take a while longer, but the price is better and the man is HONEST. Do not find that very often in this here world.....

I also got the majority of the fence posts down. I have about 8 more to go and that T-post puller is just about the best invention since sliced bread! Made taking those things out a snap!

It wasn't the pulling of the posts that took so much time it was taking down all the fence wire. Holy guacamole! What. A. Chore! But not as much of a chore as moving Mr Jahzzy Pants You Are Not The Boss Of Me! That boy is a royal pain in the butt! Quite honestly, I am lucky I did not get hurt and I came close several times!

I know it is not his fault, but he is a dangerous boy just now. Absolutely no training. This is why I believe that if someone is going to be breeding animals, be it a hamster all the way up to elephants, I think they should be required to go through a genetic course and be licensed to breed. I am not one to want the government to step in ANY part of our lives, but breeding animals is out of control, especially horses. I can hardly wait to get my round pen set up and start to work with this little one!

On the other hand, the one horse you would have expected to BE a pain in the butt, was a total sweetheart. As usual..

 

This is Bo, the Studly DoRight Stallion and he is EXCEPTIONALLY well behaved. Besides being scrumpdillyumtiously good looking, he has been trained and trained and then some. Every time I have to move him I get the scaredy cats and prepare myself for having to work extra hard and every time he acts like a gentleman. If you don't count his talking....I am sure he is saying, "Hey baby...what's your sign?", when we pass my mares. I have a lot of respect for the young lady who trained him because a horse will inevitably reflect the manners of the trainer. Be that as it may, he still has to be FAR AWAY from my mares. Not that HE is the problem, it is the mares. They also think he is mondo good looking and the last thing I need is 6 pregnant mares. Even ONE pregnant mare would be one too many! He is gorgeous though!

 

Houdini followed me around and chased off anyone who came near, as is usual for him. If anyone is going to get loves and treats he totally intends it to be him and him alone. I love this horse more than I could ever say. He is incredible and goofy and I love the way he knocks on the sliding glass door to ask for cookies. My heart belongs to Houdini. There will never be another horse like him in this lifetime.

It was scary when I left Colorado to come back to Arizona, for I had to leave my horses for a couple of weeks and then have them transported here. THAT is something I will never do again. If we cannot leave together as a family then we will just stay put. Houdini got sick. When I left him, he stopped eating and I spent my time here in Arizona worrying and my money in Colorado at the Vet who got him through that difficult time. When he arrived here in Arizona he was skin and bones and looked like one of my rescue horses. NEVER AGAIN will we be separated. He is the love that makes my heart beat. Wonderful, WONDERFUL guy!

And little Mojo, Houdini's best bud....such a shy little guy until he gets around the mares. You would think HE is the stud, but alas. He lost those when I rescued him back in Colorado. I am proud of the way his training is showing through. I cannot wait to get to the new place, get my round pen and arena set up and start to work again! Counting the days!

                                                               Houdini and Mojo

 

 

 



Truckless weekend. AGAIN.

Oh dear.

Another weekend without my Prince Charming. Dr. Ray had to pull the engine to get that stinkin', rotten crank sensor out, as it is in a very inconvenient place. But he should be done tomorrow. I hope, I hope!

In the meantime, I will deal with THIS.....

 

using THIS.....

 

Yeah, see that line of fence posts on the right? I put those in back awhile ago and now that I am moving? They all need to come with me to the new place. And all 10 horses will need to be changed around in the pens to accommodate the new fencing here at the rental house. Yayness. Thank goodness for Ace Hardware!

 

Hope you enjoy YOUR weekend!



New Years Resolutions Spalutions

A year ago a friend and I decided to make a New Years Resolution. We would write in our blogs every day. If she would do it, I would do it. If I would do it, she would do it.

She did it. I did not.

Blew that one! But this year, with the move to the new place looming on the horizon, I have decided to write, so that I have a map of where I have been. A scrapbook for myself of all the...ahem..."FUN" of moving a farm.

The beginning of the move was to start this past weekend, HOWEVER. As things often do, things went wrong. I had planned very carefully to have 4, count them, FOUR days off in a row. Just so I could get over there to the new property and start clearing out the old and beginning to bring in the new, although the real move won't happen until the end of February.

But as fate would have it, my Prince Charming, as all Prince Charming's do, let me down.

My Prince Charming!

He had started having hiccups the early part of the week, so I called my mechanic and made an appointment for Sunday. What we thought was a fuel pump turned out to be a faulty crank sensor. I did not even know there was such a thing, but yeah, made total sense as he certainly WAS acting cranky.

So Christmas eve found me in the turn lane to Smith's Grocery right in front of Auto Zone. Help from a wonderfully kind Police officer, a call to AAA and a friend to pick me up, AND Prince Charming is now with Dr. Ray having surgery. But that left me without transportation for the entire four days!

Switch to Plan B.

So to start the week end out right, I worked on that driveway at the current rental house. It would be lovely to have it filled in and leveled and not drag over the trailer hitch when you leave. I had already gathered the necessary materials, so now it was just moving them into place.

I rarely think about him anymore. 'He Who Shall Not Be Named' hardly ever crosses my mind these days. Until I have to use that little red' wheel barrow. It is a lovely wheel barrow, but back when we were together, I was mucking out stalls and it had a flat tire. So he volunteered to go out and get one of those no flat tires for it. I was thrilled, because that meant I would not have to deal with it. What a nice guy! Until....

'He Who Shall Not Be Named' did come back with a no flat tire. One size too small. Why? Because the right sized one was $5 buckos more expensive, and he wanted to save money. (Rolling my eyes!)Totally makes sense if YOU are not the one pushing that dang wheel barrow around.

Know what happens when you have too small of a wheel? It does not go over all the things you need to push it over and gets caught and often causes it to tip over and empty itself in places you were not intending to dump stuff. Which is exactly what happened. I said some pretty ripe words. If my kids had used that language, I would have washed their mouths out with soap. They sounded pretty sailorish and I sincerely hope my neighbors had the television up too loud to hear me. Shame. On. Me!

I did get the drive done. But I am buying a new RIGHT SIZED tire for that silly wheel barrow. It will be getting lots of use and I do not want to be remembering bad things. That is part of my past and I do not want to live in the past.

So THAT is my resolution. From one of my favorite motivational speakers, Les Brown......

"Focus on positive choices that move you closer to your dream. Make a conscious and deliberate effort to do at least one thing everyday that represents the highest and the best in you. Keep in mind, this is going to be your greatest year ever!"

It will be. I just KNOW it.

Happy New Year, my friend.

Christmas 2015

I worked yesterday.

There were many years, when I was a single mom that others worked so I could be home with my kiddos. So I worked yesterday. It was a crazy mess with some residents going out to be with family for a few hours and others having family in. I was glad to get home.

I haven't been writing a lot this year. Things are so busy and by the time I get home, I am just pooped. So here are I am today, taking down the Christmas tree and I realize that I had not even posted photos. This will be an annual thing from now on...posting my Christmas home.

Last year it was a last minute decision to have a tree and I pretty much settled for ornaments that were left overs at K-Mart. It was okay, but really not what I wanted or envisioned. I wanted something I could build on through the years. Colors that matched my heart and were totally me. Pinks and silvers and the palest of golds. Crystal and glitter, fanciful and magical..but WHERE would I find those?

 I decided to get started in January, collecting ornaments from thrift shops. Here are the results of those forays....

 

I loved these. I bought them for the pink and silver. I put away the raspberry colored ornaments and I haven't yet decided what to do with them. Hopefully I can find a new home for them.

 

 

I fell in love with the baby pink ornaments. Pink makes me feel serene and secure...do not know why, but it just does!

 

Rose colors.....looks just like something out of my rose garden!

 

 

I also started picking up whites and champagne colors. Those Martha Stewart ornaments look like they are white, but actually, they are the palest pink you can imagine. I was not sure they would fit  with what I had envisioned, but for 2 bucks, I brought them home just in case.

 

When all was said and done, and November arrived, I had quite a collection going!

 

 

But deciding what to put them on was another matter all together. Last year I ran out and got a REAL tree from our local Tractor Supply, but I did not want to deal with all of that mess, not to mention the settling of the tree that created huge gaps and holes as the season progressed! So off to K-Mart I go and found the perfect tree.

 

 

Thank you Jaclyn Smith! I have ALWAYS wanted a flocked tree, but for some reason had never gotten around to getting one. She also had these lovely little creamy pearl garland, so I picked up those also. Then of course, I had to pick up some little things because they were so stinking cute. Carriages, ballerinas and the cutest little sparkly clip on birds with really long tails in burnished pinks, silvers and golds. I had the tree top star from last year and a few other ornaments that made the cut for my color scheme. 

 

When I got the tree set up, I looked and wondered...."Will I have enough ornaments to cover such a large tree?" But when I got all the ornaments out I changed my tune..."Will I have enough tree for all these ornaments?"

 

THIS was the result of my frugal shopping at the local thrift stores added to my Jaclyn Smith flocked tree!

 

 

At last.....after all this time I have found colors I love and can build on for the years to come! I am a happy camper. Here are some vignettes I shot of the final results...

 

 

I always have white dove on my tree. These are from last year and I got them from the Dollar Tree, 2 for a buck and doctored them up with some iridescent glitter.

 

 

Tiny ballerina, Cinderella's coach and a lovely partridge (in a flocked tree!)

 

I am not even sure where I got this lovely ivory key from...I have had it forever! Doesn't it look great next to that pale pink Martha Stewart ornament? I LOVE all the different shades of pink!

 

I had a resident a while back who was a World War 2 veteran. She was in the Army and stationed in Paris. Her honey, whom she met there in Paris proposed to her at the Eiffel tower. SO romantic! I bought these little towers at WalMart from their $1.49 wall of ornaments. I gave one to Ms. Elaine also.

 

The tree skirt came from Jaclyn Smiths K-Mart collection also. The carriage under the tree was a present from a friend long past, but it looks great there!

 

A filigree silver crown in honor of Jesus the King of Kings...

 

My glass slipper...

 

These snowflakes were some that I had gotten last year, but I LOVED the way they picked up the pinks and shined it upon the walls!

 

 

I love Christmas.

For me, it is a time of reflection.....of the year almost behind me, the grace extended to me by Christ by His supreme sacrifice, of that babe in the manger and of the beauty found in each. It has been some time since I blogged, life has indeed been busy. But the beauty of this season softens my heart and causes me to remember.

Some time ago in the bad years, I lost all my lovely Christmas collection. I used to grieve for that loss as it represented years of memories and for years I did not decorate. That time in my life found not just my collection lost but a great part of myself as well. Odd to say that even if all was returned to me those ornaments would not fit me any longer.

I have to say that in all the years I have had a tree, THIS is the one I love the most. THIS is the one I will build on through the remaining years of my life. I.LOVE.It.

Merry Christmas, my friend.