Challenges

 My ongoing challenge, first & foremost, is SURVIVAL until I can reassemble my shattered financial base: float myself a short-term loan from retirement account (might as well write off any dreams of retirement, honeybun - ha ha!), finish remodeling so we can move into “the front end” (reception/exam rooms/pharmacy & lab) of our building, get Bertha sold, get the Mesquite house sold… Phase 2 will be finishing out surgery, radiology, & kennels - then I’ll be able to sell off the surgery trailer, be back in full production, and rebuild my devastated bank accounts…

But in the meantime I signed myself up for a distraction: the Northwood Farms 12-wk Horsemanship Challenge. I’ve participated in years past - once with Scarlett, another year with Baraq. It’s a Facebook group whose purpose is to keep equestrians active & engaged during the worst part of winter: achieving 30 rides & 40 hours of training (which can include groundwork or driving exercises) over the first 12 weeks of 2024. We’ve got it pretty good down here in Texas, where the weather isn’t too extreme - but it’s interesting to read the posts of folks up north, “dashing through the snow” or coming up with arena exercises…

I notified folks in my trail riders group - the deadline to register is tonight (12/30), but whose post did I see last night but my frenemy KS in the Panhandle. I thought to myself “Once a liar, always a liar” as she had posted a mini-photo montage, saying this was she & her gelding “in Quitaque”. While it’s true, the first 2 photos were from that Pole Canyon ride, the last panoramic portrait is from Ft Stanton. How long does it take to caption a photo correctly? Yes, I am a stickler for accuracy - not to mention this is a nationwide group; I wouldn’t want to mislead anyone who saw this beautiful scenery (not that Quitaque doesn’t have some nice scenery too)

Or you could just say that Val is being bitchy, which would also be true. Doesn’t seem like I can escape Those Whom I’d Rather Avoid wherever I go… I haven’t looked at this weekend’s ride stats to see if She Who Shall Not Be Named is there (I’m certain she is; it’s too close to home!)

Yet here I sit, with my cooling cup of coffee. However, I’m planning a ride mañana since Kerry only scheduled a 2-d event this year. Sam had mentioned camping out tonight, but I can’t take the cold without an electrical hookup. Guess I’m turning into a wimp when it doesn’t count for points or mileage.

Another challenge for today shall be coaxing my mom into another shower: the “Saturday night bath” can enjoy a resurgence! Lord grant me strength.

Another Week Goes By…

 …and my nose is still above water (although that feels tenuous) - on Saturday P & I slopped through the mud to get a round bale put out for the horses, it was a genuine Keystone Kops episode!

Peran will continue to rub it in - he encouraged me to go get my round bale Thursday (before it started raining), but I was trying to stretch things out as long as I possibly could. The problem is, our small tractor  “ItsyBitsi” (it’s a Mitsubishi hence the nickname) cannot move round bales - my usual routine is to drive out into the pasture & “bowl” it off the bed of my truck. It rained all day Friday so that wasn’t happening; my first mistake was getting my truck stuck as I attempted to turn around in the front yard. When P got me pulled out, I suggested that I back the truck through the barn (which has a concrete center aisle, thanks Dad!) so we can bowl the hay bale out the back gate. Of course it rolled all the way to the fence, fortunately not busting through! but then flopped on its side. We then had to get down there with straps on Itsy & painstakingly pull the bale away from the fence & get it set back up (we don’t have a hay ring either, but the ponies don’t seem to waste too much). By the time this was all said & done, we were both coated in mud and at some point I strained my left shoulder. Merry Christmas ponies!

More thunderstorms rolled through Sat night, and rain leaked through the master bathroom vent - when I creaked into the bathroom at 6:30 AM, I slipped & busted my butt on the (wet, cold) bathroom floor. Fortunately only bruised as I contemplated poor Adela, struggling through her miserable recovery from her broken hip - she has been moved to rehab hospital which seems to be managing her nausea & pain control better. Yesterday was another form of endurance event, as I made scalloped potatoes & spicy greens, loaded up Xmas for the kids & trekked over to the Goldsmith’s where the young’uns had organized Christmas dinner. Zach & Victoria baked a ham & made green bean casserole & cornbread dressing (I gave V my recipe which she duplicated very well), we had tamales & posole, and V’s dad brought smoked turkey & elk sausage. I didn’t manage to get my mom out, but set her up with some tamales & PBS travel programs on her TV. I still cannot manage to be in more than one place at a time!

Happy Boxing Day y’all… My last amusing anecdote is how Willow decided to shred some gift bags & make a nest in our new set of bath towels (P & I had a very pared-down Christmas: he bought me a new crockpot & I bought us new towels which were desperately needed). I should’ve taken a picture before shooing her out - they needed to be washed anyway.

As Good As It Gets

 (I need to quit reaching for catchy titles & just step back to ordinary journal-type headings: “Wed the 13th”, “Tues the 19th”, etc…)

But last Wednesday truly was the 13th - I wasn’t starting my workday feeling too hot anyway, but things got dramatically worse when I arrived to find no Dr M!!! Turned out she had neglected to inform us that her husband had his follow-up appts at MD Anderson and we had a double-booked schedule with a full slate of surgeries… Somehow we got it all done, but that was a brutal day. This week is also fully booked, but not quite as hectic.

So this may be “as good as it gets” for Val’s Xmas decor: I unboxed & set up my beloved Lenox Nativity set. I’ve been collecting these pieces for almost 30 years.

You would guess correctly if you presume the Donkey to be my favorite - of course I have concentrated on the animals; now “China Jewels” is discontinued and I have to shop eBay if I contemplate filling out my set. But I haven’t added anything for many years now - they all fit nicely in a small box, and there’s not much more room on the top of this bookcase. I don’t know where I’d display it if I bought the full crèche?

But we should be blessed with Dr M’s presence tomorrow, which will free up my Wed afternoon to scrape together a few paltry things for Xmas. As usual, my husband offers me no clues: “I haven’t really thought about Christmas!” while what Z wants in HIS stocking is a paid receipt for his property taxes. There’s nothing on earth I could purchase that would satisfy my mother unless I could somehow magically reverse the hands of time - resuscitating my dad & putting them back in their house. At least I managed to coax her into the shower last Sunday; it had probably been a good solid month since she’d bathed. (The health care aides have been asking her, but she has been declining their help.)

I had loaned a small sum to my housekeeper (remember, kids - never loan out any amount of money you’re not prepared to write off as a gift!) and while she thought she’d be able to pay me back, she just asked me if she could work this off instead. This may work out as a win-win for me, since I can ask her to devote some extra time to projects like decluttering the garage and the attic.

So I better get on with things for now - one last gulp of coffee to pour down!

Raining & Pouring

 …is what it did all day Friday, as “everything else” rains down upon me like the wrath of God.

On Thursday I had my consultation/tedious testing session with Dr Crouse of the Head Trauma Center. When I began recounting to her “all that’s gone down” these past couple of years, she seemed truly surprised & sympathetic (yeah I know as a mental health professional that’s kinda her job!) - it was almost like a mini-counseling session:

Seriously injured in car wreck, exposed to Covid/lingering long Covid, forced off my property by eminent domain, the stress of relocation, ongoing nonsense of the never-ending remodeling project, parent in declining health while having to take over those reins**, peppered with what seems like “above average” losses of friends, family members, clients & other acquaintances… And those are just the highlights; I didn’t even delve into the distant husband, lopsided friendships or the slow tedious severance of my son’s umbilicus.

Zach finished up his finals in one hideous marathon session last Monday, but Tuesday morning he took Victoria to the ER for what turned out to be “tamale poisoning”. (even her grandma questioned her: “If it didn’t taste right, why did you keep on eating it?!?) Then poor Adela (V’s grandma) fell & broke her hip Thursday, so that was another long day at Medical City, awaiting her surgery Thursday night. I drove over there Thurs afternoon so Z & I could go retrieve her car. Then Z was felled by the mysterious GI bug yesterday - while I preach biosecurity to him all the time, I suspect V passed this contagion along. Urgh!

** I called out a mobile notary to sign off on new Durable POA forms for my mom since this is what her financial advisor claimed to be lacking (I thought we’d signed all that years ago, when she & Dad added me onto all their accounts) - now it should only be another “10-20 days” before everything is approved 

Perhaps there is a dim light at the end of my tunnel that is NOT an oncoming train! I’ll just have to keep the wolves away from my door for a bit longer…

So even though it’s a beautiful, clear, crisp sunny day today, I don’t think I’ll be able to work in a ride - everything’s a sloppy muddy mess & Sam has hauled off for a rider’s biomechanics seminar N of the Metroplex. Silas no longer flinches when I walk up to pet him, so I’ll count that as our “groundwork win”!

“You don’t get the pint, Woodrow. I’ve walked the earth in my pride all these years. If that’s lost, then let the rest be lost with it. There’s certain things my vanity won’t abide.”

I dug out my dog-eared copy of “Lonesome Dove” last night, just to skim some highlights (only a few, or I’d have been up all night ;-)  This one, 2 pages after the death of Augustus, also caught my eye:

“Next time you come, why don’t you just catch a grizzly bear & ride him in?” Gill said. “I’d rather stable a grizzly than this mare.”

“…why would you keep a creature like that?”

“Because I like to be horseback when I’m horseback” Call said.

Watch Val grin foolishly as I recall my parade of fabulous horseflesh: from my beautiful Bucky-boy to Shetan, Sahara-bug, Zacc-the-horse, Wynk, Quig, Champers, Baraq, Scarlotta and now Silas. (& everyone else I’m typing too fast to mention) I’ve been incredibly fortunate.

12 Days till Xmas

 …& here I sit, breathless & fatigued after Another Rough Night, marshaling my resources to get through my workday (TGFC - Thank God For Coffee!)

Somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered this, but the 12 days of Christmas start on Christmas Day and run through January 5:

12 Days of Xmas

I’ve made one short shopping run, getting pajamas for “the kids” (Z & V), but have not gotten out any of my decorations. I think the extent of my festivities will be setting up my Nativity set; I don’t feel like hauling the tree down from the attic. Besides, the only space for the Xmas tree is where my big dog bed sits, and who can disturb these preciouses??

I started to make up my own nonsensical Xmas song: “Only 12 Days till Xmas, my hypothalamus gave to me - a hot flash and general misery!” I came home after work last night freezing to death - baked myself in front of bathroom heater briefly, then bundled up in recliner. After about 2 hrs, a cataclysmic hot flash boiled up (unusual for me these days), and the rest of my night was spent in thermoregulation: throwing blankets off & on, tossing & turning to find that cool side of my pillow. It’s just as well P & I no longer share a bed, bcz I would’ve driven him crazy, even more so now that he’s fighting off some variety of winter cold. I will avert mine eyes from the mirror when I go shower off in a few - no doubt I’m a sight for sore eyes this morning!

Triggers

 I wish I could identify what jolted me out of a sound sleep at 3 AM last night? But wide awake I was, and destined to stay that way for most of the remainder of the night. Of course, I dozed off briefly an hour before my alarm went off, which in some ways made for an even "ruder" awakening as that left me very groggy & out-of-sorts.

My FitBit graded this 7 hr 10 min interlude as "Good", with which I beg to differ. Felt like a pretty crappy night to me!

                                 70 min awake, and yes indeedy, I remember that at 3 AM

                                 About an hour and & half of REM sleep seems to be par for my course

                                     Almost 5 hrs of light sleep - I would've appreciated another hour

Here's the pitifully deficient area, a little under an hour in deep sleep; this seems to be a pattern for me as when I was playing "catchup" (last Sat night when I had the absolute luxury of not having to set an alarm, I clocked 2 hrs 16 min of deep sleep), yet the FitBit only graded that night as an 80, "Good", while it graded last night as an 82??

I demand to see the algorithm!

The Curious Case of Sirius Black

 Much easier to ramble on about my horses than to face the looming catastrophe that’s opening up under my feet like the crevasse caused by an earthquake…

When I had a few free moments yesterday afternoon, I got online to renew my AERC membership. (Don’t ask me why our ride season has always run December 1 to November 30 instead of matching the calendar year?) But I decided to try to trace down any more information on Silas - if he had an AERC registration number, I didn’t want to duplicate it. I knew Crystal is primarily a NATRC rider, but another friend (Cara) had borrowed Silas for her daughter to ride - he did not complete an event with Hanna due to no fault of his own; then she lost interest. (Apparently he bounced back to Crystal briefly before Donna bought him) I then found him under a third identity, "Sirius Black". And I also found a 4th owner along his long and winding road, Lisa Drey of Colorado. I do not know what circumstances led Lisa to giving him up? Just another minor heart-squeeze - Silas is already acting much more relaxed in my barn; he no longer flinches away when I walk up to him. Hopefully he will gain reassurance that he’s found a good place with me - even if he never completes an official endurance mile, I will take care of him. He’s a good boy.

(His AERC history has been transferred to my ownership - I’ve gotten used to calling him Silas and while I like Harry Potter, Sirius Black had a squirrely unsavory reputation and he doesn’t deserve that either)

PEM

 Post-Exercise Malaise, another component of Val’s symptoms… Even if I do something very minor: a new short yoga sequence, mostly seated, consisting primarily of stretches & twists, I felt a dip in Ye Olde Energy Levels the next day, with minor soreness of upper back & shoulders. Of course part of that is also being totally deconditioned, but quite demoralizing nonetheless…

Yesterday I drove into downtown Big D at the crack of dawn, my 5th year (!!! How time flies!) of serving as veterinary steward for our Dallas Holiday Parade. One of my clients serves on the volunteer committee - I guess I work real cheap 😊; give me a parking pass & a seat in the bleachers & I’ll be there! I have invited friends, family, employees but everyone’s got their own holiday groove going on…

I started to title this “Enforced Holiday Cheer” bcz that’s what it felt like - who can believe it’s December already?!? Another variety of PEM from yesterday’s hike, approx 5K going back & forth to the parade “VIP” bleachers. I gave serious consideration to getting myself a hotel room, but couldn’t justify the expense or stimulate DH’s interest - even shopping last-minute deals, nothing could be had for less than $200/night.

                                   Since when did Darth Vader become festive??!!??

                                                                   Who ya gonna call?

The whole reason I was there - standby in case of any incidents with the parade horses. We only had 3 equestrian groups, kinda sad - in our tiny Bristol Fourth of July parade I believe we’ve got more ponies!