Eight days and counting......

Well the Big Move has begun.

The backhoe guy was out on Saturday and the temporary place for the horses has been leveled, the place for the barn marked and ready to begin.

I have taken down the upper cabinets, painted the lower, inside AND out and ripped up all that nasty carpet.

I have cleaned the icky concrete floors, (thanks Prince Charming for taking all my flooring money to fix your crank sensor) and the bathroom is sparkly clean!

The living room furniture is in place and the horse trailer spic and span waiting to be loaded with boxes I have been packing for a month.

This is going to be a BUSY week! And I am excited. On the other hand, I am sad. Sad to be leaving this rental home that has been so wonderful.

When I arrived here I was coming out of a horrible relationship. This home, although I do not own it, has been a place of healing. I have always looked at it as a gift from God. A place that was safe, where he could not reach or find me.

I hope that whomever rents this house next will find the peace that I have found.

I would not have missed this for anything.

All in good time......

Hate to admit this, but it was good to be back at work today.

I started off at about 4:30 this morning thinking I would never make it through the day, but then, I never was a morning person. My best work is usually done somewhere between 10:30 pm and 3 am. I am indeed a night owl.

I really DO have difficulty getting OUT of bed in the mornings. It is not that I am not awake, I am. I just hate getting out. Most days anyways. There are some mornings, (like on the days I am heading to Disneyland!), I pop right out of bed like a piece of toast in an over sprung toaster. And then there are days such as today, (most days), where I feel like just staying in bed and sleeping until the Rapture.

Which is rather awkward when you are in Occupational Therapy and work with patients in a nursing home that gets them up at the butt crack of dawn. If you are going to re-train them in the art of caring for oneself after having a stroke or pacemaker, or heart attack you have to be there at the butt crack of dawn also.

What. Was. I. THINKING???

(Most likely money.) Still the bright side is you get out early and still have lots of daylight to do whatever it is you want to do with your life. Which is what happened today.

YAYNESS!!!

And so today I moved most of the garden fencing over to the new place, moved that icky, funky, outdated carpeting out to the porch to be carted away when I get the flatbed over there, swept up the majority of the carpet crap and dust bunnies and got the first storeroom ready for all the boxes I have yet to pack. Well okay, I have SOME boxes packed, but a great many to complete also. In the meantime, the cats are having a great time popping in and out of the boxes I have stacked everywhere.

I will have to replace the turbine on the roof before I start bringing boxes in though. I looked up today and noticed, (YIKES!) the vent hole with no turbine on it. Ran outside the shed and lo and behold, there it was, sitting on it's head on the ground. I think some gorilla glue may be in order.

If you have not yet guessed, I am NOT Bob Villa or even Martha Stewart. I have little experience in construction, let alone electrical know-how, plumbing or working with drywall. But I am about to learn.

The undertaking of this HUGE project may be the undertaking of my life. Literally.

I know just enough about what I am doing to make it REALLY scary, but I am plunging in anyways and really! Does anyone ever TRULY know what the heck they are getting into and doing? But hope and optimism spring eternal in my heart and I dream of being a little more self reliant. Eating a little more ORGANIC food grown by myself. Creating a home where I do not have to consider the fact that pink is a feminine color that my husband won't like in the living room, AND having enough acreage to save 20 horses instead of just the SIX I have now. (I have 6 rescued or abandoned horses).....(I have 10 altogether, IF I count my Studley DoRight visitor Bo.)

And besides. What the heck else am I going to do? All in good time, Ms Cate....ALL in good time!

And speaking of the weather.....

It was absolutely perfect this weekend.

This is the kind of weekend I moved back to Arizona for. ABSOLUTELY beautiful. Not too hot, not too cold and no wind to boot! And where was I this weekend?

Nursing a head cold and wishing they had a cure for the common cold. I should buy stock in Alka Seltzer. I feel like I have been run over by a Mack truck!

I swear. Every single time I say I am giving up DrPepper and going to start eating healthy, I get sick. What. The. Hay???

I am going to start drinking DrPepper again tomorrow. I had a girlfriend send me this as she found it on Facebook. I think it fits me right down to my boots!

Being sick SUCKS.

Pretty Please Saturday

Just dreaming....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Saturday, my friend.

 

 

 

 

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...