Days 42 and 43

Yeah, this blogging business is totally not going as planned.  I'm thinking about taking the week off, where I just keep a notebook or something with my progress than blog all at once about it later, to see if it makes me want to start blogging again.

Yesterday yielded a no spend day, walking the dogs and picking the paddocks.  One more no spend day for the month, which is great, because the month is almost over.

My 5 Things for yesterday:

1. I put my Mass Effect ponies away for now.  This is good because it makes my computer desk SO much cleaner, and I'm hoping that taking a short break from them will keep my motivation strong so I don't crash like I did before.
2. My husband posted an album of my ponies on the ME forum - maybe someone will see them and like them :)
3. The horses were super-crazy affectionate, which ALWAYS makes my day!
4. I got help cleaning the kitchen up, and it looks so pretty now :)
5. I discovered that if I throw mini-parties for Kurz when he does something good that he literally gets so excited that he falls over.  Super cute. I need to get a video of it.

Today didn't go as planned at ALL.  I accidentally stayed up til 2, thinking about the crossroads episode of Supernatural and kept envisioning people's faces distorting all creepy demon like, which kept me from getting to sleep.  Remember?  I don't do scary.  Well, I woke up at 8 anyway, to take care of the critters, then tried unsuccessfully to get back to sleep after chores.  Pretty much, I was a zombie through the day, felt like crap and didn't get anything done, besides picking the paddock.  The dog walking every day for a month is going to have to start back up tomorrow, and I'm going to have to do my workouts Tues, Thurs, Sat this week instead of Mon, Wed, Fri.  Worse things have happened.

Today's 5 Things:

1. Despite my exhaustion, I got all of my errands done.
2. We got one of the last few round bales in the area delivered today.  My horses are happy.
3. I started up a DeviantART page, finally, after years of contemplating it, and received a good reception for what's on it so far.
4. I can't say this for sure, but I'm 99% I know how to finish Tali's mask now, which is great, because I've been thinking about it for months now
5. My dogs might possibly be the cutest things ever.

Day 41

Today went pretty well in my mind for three very important reasons.  First, I finally got around to planting the beans I started in pots.  Second, it rained (and there's supposed to be more on the way :) ).  Last, I finished Garrus Pony.  Three down.  Woo hoo! 

Besides that, I got most of my daily mini-list finished, as in more than I have been recently.  I got my floors waxed and windows washed - so this goal's time line officially begins today!  Finally!  I got the paddock picked, though not as thoroughly as I wanted to, since I forgot before it got dark as in dark, dark.  The dogs got walked in the sliver of the day that didn't have rain, and both of the horses got good workouts.  I don't think my working them 6 days a week is going to start right now, but they deffinately need to start getting in shape!  Hopefully, Crystal will get the all clear from the farrier on Wednesday to go back to normal work.

I've got the dishes and laundry tended to.  Haven't snapped my picture yet, but will probably get a "group" shot of the three ponies I have done so far. 

What I didn't get done today that I was hoping to: Haven't painted MShep's face or EDI's - I still have ample time tonight to finish them, based on where they are right now, so that might still get finished.  I didn't read any more from Ritter's book.  I'm honestly not sure if I'm going to get it all the way done, as it is much deeper than I anticipated it being.  I can feel okay with this, since I've been studying it regularly, meaning the goal of "studying" it has been met.  I'm still going to try to finish it, and definately will at some point, but don't think that I should try to rush it.  I haven't written anything yet.  My goal was 8k today, and while I know I'll get something on paper tonight before bed, I don't think I'll reach the 8k goal.  I was going to work on cleaning my office for 30 minutes and finish off four squares on my quilt, but that didn't happen, either.  There is, however, always tomorrow.

Today was a good day.

Today's 5 Things:

1. The horses were enthusiastic (in a good way) about their work
2. I got some delicious sushi for dinner :)
3. Three of my ME ponies are officially done!!!
4. I totally started one of the goals that I was absolutely NOT motivated to do!
5. I remembered two things to get done today before the day was over.  Phew!

Days 39 (yesterday) and 40

Still haven't figured out why I've been getting so tired so fast lately.  Maybe I should just get in the habit of blogging in the morning?  Dunno. 

Yesterday, got all the normal stuff done.  Got a decent amount of pony customization done.  Got my reading done.

Yesterday's 5:

1. Got more shavings to stockpile for winter
2. Paid off one of the husband's preordered games so we don't have to worry about it later
3. Ate some delicious, greasy food for dinner (sometimes, that just needs to happen!)
4. Started browsing Halloween decor :)
5. Got to enjoy a workout-free day after being sore from the previous day.

Today ran about the same as yesterday, only I didn't wake up til almost 11 (GEEZ!) and morning chores were already done for me.  I got a decent workout in, though I screwed myself up six minutes out by chugging a quarter bottle of Powerade.  Yeah.  Can't explain why I did it, but I can tell you that I was extremely nauseous about three seconds later.  Forced myself to power walk the last six minutes to at least finish my time.  Lots of good pony work done today, and started whatever number walking the dogs every day is.  I need to look that up, huh?

Anyway, it's not even 9, and I'm already beat, not sure why on that, either.  I've got some reading and writing to do before bed, so better cut the blog short.

Today's 5 Things:

1. Shared the string garden idea with my brother, and he made one that's super pretty :)
2. Super close to finishing Garrus pony - he'll be done tomorrow!
3. I slept soooooo good last night!
4. Fast food is starting to show signs of disagreeing with me (what makes this something I'm grateful for is that I'm hoping it will encourage me to start eating better)
5. Breakfast was a super delicious Amish made cinnamon roll :)

Days 37 (yesterday) and 38

New (not-so-cute) thing that I've uncovered about myself: I'm getting old.  Old, as in, at night when I get tired, I absolutely crash.  That, or I'm getting sick.  Sick could be a possibility, too, especially after today's workout flop (see below).  I didn't get to my blog yesterday 1. Because I lost track of time being totally awesome and 2. Because of my old-ness, I pretty much got slap-happy exhausted and had to go straight to bed after my shower.  No joke.

Anyway, yesterday wasn't very productive outside of the house, but MAN ALIVE did I get some ME pony progress!  Let's see, Joker's body got finished with its paint job and sealed.  He got his tail rooted, his face finished and sealed and his mane rooted, then his beard flocked.  Garrus's body got finished with its sculpt work and survived his baking.  EDI's head sat there and stared at me for a while as I schemed up what I want to do with her, and both Shepards got their heads completely primed and ready to go.  Overall, I spent probably a full 8 hours working on freaking My Little Ponies yesterday.  The result?  I'm deliriously happy to see them getting done :)

Outside of Pony progress, I got my dishes taken care of (didn't have enough laundry to justify runninga load), picked my paddock and took my picture.  Pretty much that all sums up my day.  Exciting stuff, huh? 

Yesterday's 5 Things:

1. I got sushi for dinner!  I've been craving it for pretty much a week or so and finally got it! 
2. I TOTALLY got my motivation for working on my ponies back (not gonna lie, the prospect of possibly having some of the hubby's nerd friends over this weekend is kind of helping me with my desire to work on them)
3. I have my string garden all planned out and know how to go about assembling it.  Now all I need is my substrate and it'll be done!
4. Revisited Firefly while I worked on rooting Joker's head.  I miss Firefly.
5. I didn't ache as bad as I expected to after the previous day's workout :)

Today, I got quite a bit of pony work done again.  Joker's flocked beard got dyed its appropriate color and he got fully assembled.  I have a visor from a Rainbow Dash that I'm trying to turn into his hat, but I'm not sure if it will go on his head without damage his paint job.  So, if I can convince myself Joker's complete without his hat, he's officially done.  Garrus's head is a good 85% finished with his paint job, and his body is around 50%.  I fully expect to have his painting finished and sealed by the end of the day tomorrow.  EDI's head has its base coat down, and I decided to be gutsy and try styling her hair instead of sculpting it on.  I'm going to need a lot of wish lucked to me for this one, as I'm terrible at styling.  MShep has his head finished with its base coat, I just have to find a better picture of his eyes to know how I want to paint them.  FemShep's face is completely on (including super cute freckles!), and she's going to get rooted tomorrow.  I'm so excited for this 1. Because rerooting is my FAVORITE part of customizing (well... besides gluing the head on and looking at the pony finished for the first time) and 2. Because I'm super excited about her hair color - it's a very pretty red :).  If Garrus makes it to the rerooting stage tomorrow, I'll consider it a big time bonus, but I'll be happy just to have his paint work done.  Haven't decided when I'm going to start sculpting the bodies of the three heads I have in progress yet, but I'm sure that will work itself out in good time :)

It was our 8th no-spend day of the month - we're almost there!, I got my dishes done, my laundry is currently running, and I'm going to grab my camera for a pic of something as soon as this post is over.  I got a really good, really insightful chunk of reading done (about time, right?) that really tied everything so far together.  I'm also pretty hmm... amused?  disgusted?  I don't know what the right word is, to go through my horsey life carrying around a deeper understanding of classical horsemanship now.  It kind of takes some of the authority out of the training articles in the magazines I read, espcially when you see all of the orchestra-conductor hands and uneven contacts and such.  I mean, it didn't really make sense before, but now it just baffles me that there are people who pay these trainers BIG bucks for doing things that just aren't right. 

I was so excited for my workout today, but unfortunately, it was a flop.  I don't know what happened, besides my diaphragm cramped up and made it so I literall couldn't breathe if my upper body was moving.  It worked okay for a little bit as long as I held on to the sides of the treadmill to keep my torso still, but that made it super hard to actually run.  I ended up going for 20 minutes, which is 15 short of what my goal of the day was.  Pretty disappointed about that, but I do have to look at the 20 minutes that I did run, compared to the "OMG I can't run more than 50 meters!" that I was at six weeks ago.  Trying to find the positive.  We had some delicious pad thai (it's becoming a household staple, lol) at the table for dinner today and played a pretty mean game of Candy Land.  When our bonus comes in, we're going to invest in a couple more board games.  Not that I don't love Guess Who? and Candy Land, but there really are only so many times you can play them in a row before you just want a game of Sorry! or something.  I have Horseopoly, but even the "quick play" rules state that it will take about an hour.  Not sure I want to make that kind of commitment to a board game over dinner.

Today's 5 Things:

1. All of my fish tanks are now clean :)
2. I slept SUPER good last night.  Like, so good that when I woke up because of a yowling cat, I realized I was freezing because I hadn't dried my hair before bed and hadn't moved at ALL so was laying on wet pillows.
3. I baked another cookie pie, new and improved with M&Ms :)
4. The neighbors got back.  I'd been taking care of their dog for... uh... two weeks now?  They were supposed to be gone for one week, then postponed, then postponed again, then postponed one more time.  Well, they got back this evening, so I get my mornings back to the normal routine again.
5. I got help with house chores today - that's ALWAYS something to be grateful for!

Day 36

Today was dominated by my workout from Hell and pony customization.

I almost didn't go to the gym again today, because I didn't sleep well last night, and woke up sore.  However, I'd already had two days in a row off, and really needed to workout, so workout I did.  I was really pretty excited with myself - ran for 30 minutes solid and worked on 5.5 machines.  The .5 was during my shoulder presses when my arms litterally started shaking too much for me to move them anymore and I decided to call it quits.  I'm happy with what I got done today, but DANG it hurt!  To reward myself for a job well done, my husband and I treated ourselves to subs from our favorite sandwich shop, so today was not a no-spender.  That's fine.  We only have a few more to go :)

As far as my ponies go, I really found my motivation.  I put the heads of everyone I'm working on on the end of pencils and have them staring at me from a cup on top of the computer tower.  Two of them have the whites of their eyes painted in and just keep staring at me all lifeless-like.  Kinda helped get my rear in gear.  I can now say that Garrus is 90% sculpted (only have his arms and toes left!), but I think he's going to have to get finished tomorrow.  It's late, and I'm tired.  Maybe while he's baking, I'll pull out my paints and work on finishing Joker's body (well... I need to finish painting his head, too.  Still not too sure on what I'm going to do for his ball cap, though).  I'm not sure if I'm going to jump right on board with sculpting the next pony body or not (looks like the Sheps are gonna get their bodies next, that or EDI), or if I'm going to go on another pony hiatus, but I've started talking a bit too much about this project at this point and really think I need to buckle down on at least a few more. 

I already got this week's band taken care of, too.  It's a band called Purity Ring that my brother described as "chill" and I have to agree.  It was very pleasant to listen to, something that is totally not distracting and good for just doing your own thing.  I might keep them in mind to listen to later, which is what this experiment of new bands was all about in the first place :)

So far, neither reading nor writing occurred today, but I think I'm going to get a little bit of one or the other in right before I go to bed.  (I did get another 2k in on my 'fic before bed last night).  My paddocks got picked, my photo got taken, laundry and dishes are up to date.

My 5 Things:

1. Felt super motivated - yay!
2. Cleaned some of the fish tanks - yay!
3. I GOT ICE CREAM!  YAY!
4. Took a nice, hot soak after my workout - yay!
5. I got some magazines in the mail today (and I do love me some magazines!) - yay!

Day 35

BAM!  Blogging today about today!  HA!

Had a pretty good one, overall.  I gave myself an unreasonably long list of things to get done today and got about half of it done, so I'll consider it pretty good as a whole.  I mean, seriously, I'm pretty sure that there are not enough hours in the day to get everything that I wrote down as things I wanted to do finished with all at once.  Add to that the fact that I got a couple of really big things accomplished that *weren't* on this list.  And the fact that I took a two hour nap in the middle of the day.  Not going to appologize for that one.

The things that weren't planned for the day involved demolishing a third of what remains from the "workshop" side of my barn.  I started it when we first moved in, but couldn't finish the rest of it on my own and it took me this long (and the fact that we needed to free up enough space for more hay) to motivate my husband to help.  We proceeded to move about fifty bales of hay before we opted to not do much more for now, since we didn't have to.  After all, we are supposed to have somewhere between 80 and 120 bales to be moving all in one day over the next week or so, so we're trying to save ourselves for that.

My paddocks got picked, my dishes and laundry completed and my picture of the day taken.

I took care of the month's new recipe today, too.  I'm kind of disappointed in myself, though, because the reason that I challenged myself to this is because I'm a terrible cook and want to get better.  I am, however, a phenomenal baker, which means that I subconsciously only try new recipes for delicious morsels.  Today, I made a chocolate chip cookie pie which tastes just like the cookie from Applebee's cookie sundae, which is great, because my husband and I have been known to eat a nice meal at home, then drive to Applebee's just for dessert.  Not very practical, but *delicious*!  I think next time, I'll try a bit less butter, but overall, I'm not disappointed AT ALL.

My Mass Effect Pony project is all a mess right now.  I have Joker's body about 85 - 90% done and his head prepped.  Garrus's head is sculpted and baked, but his new and improved body is waiting for sculpt work (that I'm hoping I'll start tomorrow, since I have a whole lot of motivation going right now).  Both MShep and FemShep have their heads prepped (her a bit further than his), and I've started dissecting a poor, poor Rainbow Dash for her transformation into a Hanar (don't ask).  I'm itching to get to work on EDI and both of the squad's Asari girls, but I need to buckle down and finish who's already in the works before I let myself take on more of the cast.  The last thing that I need is to get myself overwhelmed and give up again.

I painted my nails today, a pretty neon scheme that didn't turn out quite as well as I imagined it would in my head.  Oh well.  Can't win them all, right?  Got more 'fic work done, 2165 words to be exact, which puts me at a total of 17554 for the month.  I'm still terribly short of where I *ought* to be if I'm treating this like an offical Camp NaNo, but I have faith that I can catch up (and hopefully finish this beast).  I'm planning to churn out another couple thousand right before I climb into bed.  Not sure if that'll happen or not.  It was also no-spend day number 7 for the month.  Easy peasy.

Today's 5 Things:

1. I got to start the day off by catching up with a great friend that I haven't talked to in quite a while
2. I got up on time today, without hitting snooze (of course, I *did* take a nap, but still!  Up on time!)
3. I'm making progress again in claiming my barn 100% for equine activities
4. Blogger totally saved 3/4 of this post for me, so when my internet had one of its stupid "I'm rural internet!" crashes, I didn't lose all of my post
5. Even though it was super windy, it was a really nice day outside

Day 33 (yesterday) and Day 34

Here I am, not blogging AGAIN!  Good thing "blog regularly" wasn't an item on my List, huh?

Anyway, yesterday was pretty awesome.  I got to sleep in because my husband did all of the morning critter chores.  It was great.  I got next to nothing accomplished, as far as the List goes, but I did go get a pot for my black beans that are growing out of control.  Also got about 1.5k written on my 'fic.  I still want to aim to finish 50k before August is through, but I have to dig out what all I've done this month and add up my total.  I know it's possible, I just have to decide to do it.  Riiiight.

Yesterday's 5 Things:

1. My husband surprised me with taking care of morning chores
2. I got a special breakfast *and* special dinner! 
3. Finally started working with the horses again (I've been super lazy/super busy with other things lately), and they were amazing!
4. My rescued orchid seems to be doing amazingly well.  Now all I have to do is hope the cats leave it alone!
5. We got one full installment of hay moved to make room for the new hay that should (read, better) be coming next week!

Today, I got a lot more done than yesterday.  At least, it feels like I did. 

I finally started catching up on this month's equine literature, which is pretty good, since I'm running out of month, and this is super deep stuff to wade through.  The paddock got picked and my progress is finally starting to look like I've been doing something out there.  The end of massive picking is almost done, and then I get to bring out Spanky (that's my riding mower's name...) to try and finish leveling out where I've been "composting" most of what's come out of there in my desperate attempt to fix the round pen ruts that were left by the previous homeowner.

No real, official 'fic work was done today, but I did brainstorm a bunch of ideas for it (like I needed more of those...).  I might have to make an actual hour-by-hour schedule for myself before I go to bed tonight so that I can get in all of the things that I feel I "need" to do tomorrow to get myself firmly back on track.  Photo a day is still on track.  I also worked a TON on my Mass Effect Ponies, though it's not evident to most observers that much progress was made.  I scrapped the work I'd done on Mordin's head so far, as I've had him under way for so long that his clay was starting to dry out.  The one thing worse than never finishing sculpt work is to have it crack while it's baking.  I prepped baits for probably 90% of the remaining crew, which involved a lot of cutting off heads and ripping out hair, and succeeded in giving me a blister about half the size of a dime on the inside middle knuckle of my right ring finger.  This might put a damper on my thoughts of more pony work and moving hay over the next couple of days.  Oops.

My new band this week, according to the internet, is supposed to be some big, hot, new group that (go figure) I've never heard of.  They're called Friends.  I'm not sure I really "get" them, but again, I'll listen to reeeeeally close to any kind of music, so I can't say anything worse than "it's not what I usually listen to."  I'm pretty shocked at myself that it took me to the last day of the week to get to this week's band!  Yikes!  Better work on that tomorrow, huh?

The laundry and dishes things are still going great, though I haven't run the dishwasher in a couple of days because we've been hand washing a lot of things lately.  My counter and sink are still clean, though, so I'm not going to get too much more bent out of shape by the fact that dirty dishes are still in the machine.  I guess I should add that I'm one of those people that washes the dishes before they ever go into the machine, anyway, so it's not like they're actually *dirty* dirty. 

Today was our sixth no-spend of the month, and I'm going to do my darndest to have tomorrow be one, too.  It might get kind of hard, because I spent all evening craving ice cream, which we have none of, but I'm hoping that craving will go away while I sleep.  It's not very likely (as I pretty much always crave ice cream), but I'm going to keep my fingers crossed for it.

Today's 5 Things:

1. More rain today!  Not much, but still, rain <3
2. The lessons I worked on with the horses yesterday totally stuck with them!
3. I swept and vacuumed for the first time in two whole days and my floors look nice again :)
4. 3/4 of the indoor furry kids got Furminated today
5. Our ridiculously tall hay towers were not knocked down by the cats over night.  I'm hoping that's a good sign for the future.

Day 32 (yesterday)

Dang!  I'm getting bad about updating this blog!

Anyway, yesterday was a glorious no-spend day, which puts us at five for the month of August.  Not a very good stat, overall, but with only five more of them to go, we should be fine.

I got more "weeding" done in the arena, and realized that once I get this finished (should take me another 12 days at the rate it's going... ugh!), it will be the first time since we first looked at the property that I've seen it without grass in it!  I might have to take a break from the weeding, though, as even with gloves, it's wreaking havoc on my hands.

I also got more paddock picking done, and it's going much better than I thought!  The horses seem pretty happy with their cleaner environment, and I sure know that I am.  At the rate I'm going (which could really get sped up quite a bit if I didn't have other things that I liked to get done during the day), I should be to maintenance level in about three days.  Yay!  Once I'm there, it'll pretty much be a 5-10 minute a day task and not so much of a tedious chore.  I'm super excited for that time!

I got all of my normal daily things finished, and really, really enjoyed my first day of not needing to sweep and vacuum.  Yes, I do plan on continuing doing that on an almost-daily basis now, as it's done a TON for how my house looks, Kiga's allergies and how much easier it is to maintain everything on a cleaner standard, but I boldly declared yesterday that since I didn't *have* to do it, I wasn't going to.  That didn't stop me from sweeping up the laundry room, though.  Habit, established.

Yesterday's 5 Things

1. I know I already mentioned it above, but I'm super stoked about getting my weeding started.  I need this arena fixed asap, and it looks *so good* where it's clear of forage!
2. I baked cookies!  My favorite kind for a change!
3. I make a lot of pad thai, because it's easy and relatively healthy.  For some reason, it turned out exceptionally well yesterday.
4. Kurz is a bit of a ninny when it comes to "scary" things that aren't really scary.  Yesterday, he showed his first sign of attempting to be brave.  There's hope for him!
5. I got to start the day off with some really great video game time, mosty Dynasty Warriors <3

I'm going to do my absolute darndest to update again, on time, this evening before bed, but I'm not going to make any promises, since I've been so terrible at it lately.  Let's all keep our fingers crossed!

Days 30 (yesterday) and 31

Okay, so my workout the other night kept me absolutely wired until 3am, which put me off all day yesterday.  I accomplished everything that had to get done yesterday, but by the end of the day, the last thing that I wanted to do was blog about it.  Consequently, I don't really have too much to say about the goings on (that, and most of the day was kind of fuzzy, what with three and a half hours of sleep and all).  I did manage to write down my 5 Things though :)

1. It rained!
2. We got pallets for the hay that's on its way so I don't have to lose access to my ground poles again!
3. I got to have pretty good nerd time at Game Stop
4. Rescued an almost sad orchid from Lowes - the sole survivor of their selection
5. I churned out 6030 words on my 'fic towards Camp NaNo.

Today went a little bit better than yesterday, as I caught up on sleep.  I continued on with my paddock picking, completed my LAST DAY of required floor maintenance (it has, as I had hoped, become a pretty ingrained habit now, but now if I feel like going to bed before the floors are done, it's no biggie).  Got some good reading done, very very minimal 'fic work (so I missed my 15k in 48 hours challenge, but hopefully I'll get some good stuff done tomorrow).  Got to they gym and ran for 20 minutes straight, which is unheard of for me - I'm going to aim for 25 minutes on Friday's workout, then slowly climb to 35, when I'll start to increase my speed.  Something's gone screwy with my right wrist, which put a damper on weight lifting, but I managed enough.

My most exciting thing?  I got to go to the fair again.  My husband promised me he'd take me this year and we missed the first three times that he told me we could go due to, well... we're not going to talk about me not getting to go to the fair three times.  We were going to aim for tomorrow, but since we're supposed to have thunderstorms all afternoon and evening, we opted to go tonight instead.  It was on the way home that I discovered that I think fair food (mmm.... funnel cake...) might be what triggers my migraines (booo... funnel cake...), as I have one battling its way into my little skull right now.  Motrin's in, shower's done, and I'm a "publish" button away from going to bed.  Hopefully this one will go away on its own now.

Today's 5 Things:

1. I found the coolest bug yesterday that I thought was dead - it was like a shiney golden ladybug.  I brought it in the house to show off and thought enough to put it under a glass and it turns out it was alive!  He's now back outside on the vines I found him on :)
2. I've trained my husband well enough that he was able to recognize skinny and mismanaged horses at the fair - *and* he recognized a woman's piss-poor riding and was even able to tell *why* it was terrible!
3. I get to cross another item off the List!!!
4. Hehehe... I'm not allowed to publicly declare the funny thing my husband googled tonight, but it was funny!
5. I did much better on my workout than I'd thought that I would.  Maybe Warrior Dash isn't such a crazy dream after all!

Day 29

Today was quite the roller coaster; started off GREAT, got pretty crappy in the middle, then ended on a very good note.  Overall, can't complain too much.  AND I got to cross two items off my List!!!! 

55 Plant an herb garden - done, Done, and DONE!  In 5-10 days we should have our first itty bitty basil plants growing.  We also have chives, oregano, rosemary, sage and thyme going.  (I'm also going to try my hand at growing tomatos and black beans inside - might be absolutely insane for doing this and it will probably fail miserably, but it seemed like a good idea at the time)

58 Get a fountain!! (yes, there were exclamation points behind it on the List, too)  I LOVE fountains.  It's a pretty irrational love.  So irrational that I convinced myself that the homeowner's association dues that we paid when we lived in Florida went solely to power the fountain in the lake at the entryway.  I have wanted a fountain for I don't know how long and today, my wonderful husband surprised me with the gift of a small, tabletop fountain.  Granted, it's not the huge, spray-y kind that are so fun to watch, but it's a freaking fountain!  And I love it!  Odds are probably pretty good that I'm going to start collecting these suckers, too, so look out!

Now, on to the rest of what I worked on today.  It was a semi-unplanned spending day because I needed deodorant, Crisco and Listerine (and, apparently, herb seeds and a fountain).  We also got Candy Land, which has (fortunately) gotten much less scary since I've grown up, and the most hilarious cheap-o, knock of version of Guess Who? ever made.  We already played Candy Land twice, but it's been pretty hard to try to talk up this fake Guess Who? (I think it's called Who's Left?, which I think is pretty funny in itself.)

I took the day off reading today to let yesterday's reading soak in a little bit more, but am anxiously looking forward to reading more tomorrow.  My paddock successfully got picked this morning, removing another eight bucket loads out which officially has it almost 1/3 of the way picked clean!  Super stoked about that and anxiously awaiting when it'll be to maintenance level!

No 'fic work was done today, but I did realize that the month is almost halfway over and that I had told myself I was going to Camp NaNo this beastie.  That means I'd darn well better get to work on it.  This is either going to mean that I'm staying up late tonight or hardly accomplishing anything tomorrow while I try (desperately) to catch up.  I hate that the entire damn thing is right there in the front of my mind and all I have to do is literally type it out, but that it seems so hard to commit to doing it.  I don't know if it's just THAT embarassing that I don't want to see it in word form or what, but I'm going to shoot to churn out... hmmm... 15k in the next 48 hours.  Challenge declared, and accepted!  (Look forward to the update tomorrow!)  In other news, I'm still keeping up with my photo-a-day.  Few of them have been "artistic" yet, but I think it's going to be another one of those creating a habit ordeals to slowly make me a better photographer.

I got my workout in, though not at the gym like I'd planned.  I got in my workout clothes after lunch, all ready to go the gym, then proceeded to take a nap.  Oops.  I compensated by doing one of the 35 minute fitness routines on Dance Central and OH MY GOSH!  1. It totally kicked my butt.  2.  It's super hard to dance (and not have the Kinect pause on you) when you have dogs wrestling at your feet.  Lots of fun, though.  I might make this more of a habit :)  So, now that my workout schedule has begun again, I have another four weeks to go.  Bring it on!

I only went in to my office today to find a Sharpie.  No progress was made in decluttering it today, as I had so badly hoped that there would be.  I haven't gotten the sweeping or vacuuming done, but it will be within five minutes of me publishing this post.  The dishes and laundry are all caught up, and I'm finally feeling like a *gasp* grown up!

As far as my nails went, I had full intentions of painting them today, but when I took the polish off from last week, they were left this really sick kind of bluish-grey/zombie/dead color that I don't think I could replicate with polish if I wanted to.  I'm debating whether or not this is going to count as my fun way to wear my nails for the week or not - I didn't really *do* anything to them to make them look like this, but it IS super neat!

Today's 5 Things

1. I'm seeing progress clearly in my productivity, and that's the best encouragement in the world
2. I CROSSED TWO MORE THINGS OFF MY LIIIIIIIIIIST!!!!
3. Today was overcast and only reached 77.  It felt like autumn and I LOVED it.
4. I actually had grass to mow!  And mowed it! (I LOVE my mower - it's pretty ridiculous)
5. My efforts to level out the ruts around where the round pen had been seem to be working!

Day 28

Wee!

I got a really good chunk of reading done and sat down and scheduled out an actual chapter-by-chapter plan of attack to finish this month.  Remember how I was talking about how much I loved the structure of school?  I think this is totally going to pay off (and yes, I was one of the nerds that actually read the assigned reading - even before the class it was supposed to be read for).

I didn't get any more work on the arena done today, BUT I did officially begin my month of picking the pasture.  It's pretty bad, too.  I was super good about keeping them clean when it was just Crystal, but since Star joined her, then winter came and I got my weird immune system shut down, I kind of let up and just never started again because it's been so hard to get a foothold on it.  Well, I took eight whole buckets of crap out of it today, and I plan on doing the same thing until I'm caught up and can get away with one bucket a day.  Shouldn't be too hard, provided I don't run out of room in the dumpster! (Another weird fact about me, I throw my horse poop away.  It's a little trick I learned in Texas, and it helps a TON with smells and flies)

We did get the rain from the forcast today, but most of that time was spent in the pasture (since the horses weren't in it and honestly after a summer without rain, it felt good to be out in it!) and writing on my 'fic on the porch.  Got some good snuggle time in with Margaret, one of the barn cats at that time, too.  I did work on my office a bit, but nothing really noteworthy.  I got sidetracked with tearing good articles out of old magazines, which I guess goes with the "get rid of what I don't need," but I really wanted to get the office more clean that it ended up being today.  Well, there's always tomorrow!

Todays' photo got taken, the floors got done (early, even!), dishes and laundry still caught up, AND we got our dinner at the table/game night taken care of already!  Wowee!  (True story, I guessed my husband's first Guess Who guy on my first question: "Is your guy Peter?"  BAM!  Won.)  Conveniently enough, it was also another no-spend day (day 4 for this month).  It's really easy to not spend money when you don't leave the house, and it makes it super exciting to go out when you barely ever leave.

Oh!  And on my cheese list, this past Tuesday, I totally had feta, and I don't think it's on the list of what I have to eat in the next three years yet.  I'll go back and actually start keeping a list one of these days.  I'm actually tired on time tonight, so it'll have to wait :)

Today's 5 Things:

1. Rain!
2. Star worked super hard for me today <3 (Crys never got the chance, because it got crazy windy right before I was getting her ready)
3. The Kiga clone that I found on petfinder got adopted, so I don't have to worry about feeling guilty for not adopting him now
4. I had TWO meals cooked for me today!  TWO!
5. I really think that I do have the best barn cats in the world. 

Day 27

Long story short, I spent most of the day absolutely livid.  I really don't want to get into it, because it had be absolutely devastated and was all due to a complete misunderstanding.  However, as is usual for me, being angry made me want to just *do* stuff, so I got a lot of things that I didn't really want to do done (until another migraine started sneaking up on me - I've only ever had one other in my life before now, I hope nothing's seriously wrong).  Despite this, I never want to have a day this bad again.  Ever.

8 Fix the arena
It officially started today!  When it was first installed by the previous owners, they for some reason did not grade the base properly, and then proceeded to have about 18 inches worth of sand uniformly dumped in it (didn't know this before we bought it, as it was winter, just after "Snowmageddon" when we looked at it).  Mysteriously between putting an offer on the place and closing, her old show gelding bowed a tendon.  She told us it was "being an idiot in the pasture" but I'll bet reasonable money that it was due to the dangerous and absolutely crappy footing in the arena.  Needless to say, I haven't done a lot of riding in there, and not doing much riding in there has made me do pretty much no upkeep in it (not that I *could* drag it - my riding mower sinks in parts of it and we have to actually *lift* it out).  Right now, it has enough forage growing in it to count as a fourth pasture for me.  My goal is to find someone with a front-loader and box blade to help move the sand and even things out, but first, I need to get rid of all of the plant life.  So, today began the chore of "weeding" the arena.  Being super angry worked well for this, as it's great stress relief to pull things out of the ground. 

Today's photo was me being sneaky - my neighbors are out of town again and I'm taking care of their dog again.  They are one house of a very, very few that still has flowers growing, so I snuck one of my gnomes, William, over there for a photo shoot in the marigolds.  (I'm wanting to decorate my hall bathroom with gnome art)

I also began pretty hard-core work on cleaning out my office and really think I have it about halfway done.  If it rains tomorrow like it's supposed to (please, God, let it rain tomorrow like it's supposed to!) and I'm limited to indoor activities, I'm pretty sure it will get finished, which will allow me to complete organizing my file cabinet and taking inventory of/displaying my ponies.  It also allowed me to locate my photo albums that need to get filled, thanks to 47.  Rain would also let me do more reading and quilting with a clear consceince (I need to get to work on my literature this month!)

Laundry, dishes and floors all got done, and I researched what herbs I would want to plant in my herb garden.  Pinterest gave me the cutest idea for a hanging indoor herb harden that I might have to see if I can work out.  More on that, later, I'm sure.  Today was my third no-spend day of the month, and I'm going to aim for us to continue having no spend days until pay day (the 15th).  Not sure if we'll accomplish that or not, but it would be nice :-)

Today's 5 Things

1. I found the absolute BEST idea for a vegetable garden EVER!  I'm probably going to try to construct it sometime this fall in anxious anticipation for next year :-)
2. Baked some cookies today and even got help cleaning up after them.
3. Our high was only around 85 today <3  Can't wait for autumn!
4. We caught my migraine today before it got to the trying to throw up and thinking I'm dying stage, which is better than the alternative
5. I'm gearing up to start my first scheduled "semester" of "classes" via laying a set schedule out.  Hoping it goes well! 

Days 25 and 26

Didn't blog yesterday because my dad was here, almost missed today, too due to a killer migraine.  Gonna try to catch up super-quick like because I'm pretty nauseous and just want to go to sleep.

Yesterday, all of my normals got finished.  Nothing exciting got done.  Sums it up pretty good.

Yesterday's 5 Things

1. Got some super good writing in
2. Dad got here safely from Illinois
3. It was a no-spend day!
4. I got some free string cheese, thanks to Illinois fair over-load
5. One of my magazines came in the mail (I'm a periodical addict)

I can't remember if I've mentioned that my dad has the absolute most awesome job on earth.  He's a cheese/dairy competition judge.  If I go off on a cheese-tangent, that is why.

Today, the only real thing special that I accomplished was that I have three new cheeses to add to the list (thanks to more judging), aged cheddar, soft goat cheese and pizzicato.  I'd never eaten goat cheese in my life until today.  The washer/dryer/laundry room floor thing never got finished today like I planned on, due to my husband not getting any sleep, my dad having judged two fairs in as many days, and my migraine.  That's okay.  It will get done when it needs to get done, I suppose.  I think I can knock out the floor with the old machine still in there if I get a little creative.

Today's 5 Things:

1. I heard my dad call a carton of cottage cheese "a work of art."
2. I got to play at the fair!  I love fairs!
3. My dad made it safely back home (ever get the feeling that I worry about loved ones when they travel?  I do)
4. I have the cuddliest puppies in the world <3
5. I restrained myself quite well and managed not to blow a bunch of money at the fair, which I was kind of worried I might do.

Day 24

I am SO proud of myself today!  I can't wait to go all the way through the numbers to brag about the fact that I tore up all of the crappy, disgusting vinyl floor in the laundry room and laid down new, beautiful tile all by my big girl self!  I did have some help moving the washer out of the way to tile under it, and I haven't gotten to under the drier yet, but by tomorrow evening, the laundry floor will be done AND my good washer and dryer will be hooked up - FINALLY!  Now all I have to worry about is what to do with the old ones.  I'm fine donating them, but we have no way to transport them.  Guess we'll have to get creative :)

Got a little bit more 'fic work done, an adorable picture of Ninja taken and began sketching out penguins for my penguin painting(s).  I have ultimately decided that I'm going to do a set of 4 or 6 cartoon-ified penguins of different species.  I haven't decided where they are going to hang yet, but seem to be leaning towards the master bathroom.  The only problem is, I have a super cute old Clorox ad with some kid pulling rabbits out of a toilet that I wanted to frame and put in my bathroom, and rabbits in a toilet don't really go with penguins.  Might have to get creative on this one, too ;)

Dishes, laundry and floors are all done, and today was a no-spend day - hooray!  Not sure what tomorrow will hold, but I'd like to get these cheap days knocked out of the way sooner than later, that's for sure!  We also got in our dinner and game at the table today, too :)

Today's 5 Things

1. WE GOT RAIN!!!
2. I'm totally digging how clean my hosue is these days <3  SO glad I decided to do this challenge!
3. I've never actually completed a significant home improvement project on my own before, and I was totally ALL over it today!  My dad trained me well.
4. My awesome husband let me sleep in (granted, it was because I had nightmares last night, but they were nightmares with the Avengers in them, so I couldn't complain *too* much)
5. We got mail today!  Just junk, but we hadn't gotten any all week, and I'm pretty easy to entertain.  Checking the mailbox is sometimes the highlight of my day.

Day 23

A few things for today:

First, I had been under the impression that "Dubstep" was a band/musician/whatever for like the longest time.  I found out last night that it is, in fact a genre.  Now I feel like a moron.  In my defense, this is the exact reason why I'm trying to listen to new stuff all of the time now.  That said, when I had my husband listen to the band from yesterday, he was like "Awesome!  Watch this video!" and it was by Scrillex (which I have listened to before) and had a pedophile that went after this little girl that was actually a witch.  Little known fact about me, I'm a great big wimp when it comes to "scary" things.  I'm not even joking that I covered my eyes on the Harry Potter broomstick ride or whatever it's called when the weird ghost-things were "jumping" out at me.  I got sooooo close to falling asleep last night, then for whatever reason made believe that I heard "Call 911 now!" and saw the freaky witch girl.  I pretty much literally ran out of the room and had to play Heroes of Might and Magic until about 2 when I couldn't stay up any longer.  I'm not allowed to watch "scary" things before bed for a really good reason.

Before all of that happened, I made a list of 10 things to get done today (strangely enough, only one of them was on The List - and it's the one that didn't get done, waxing the floors, go figure.  I think I just don't want to do that.), and I completed 9 of them!  Three hefty outdoor chores, working both horses, bathing both horses, bathing both dogs, washing dog towels and blankets and I can't remember the last thing, but I got them all done!  Go me!  As it is right now, I'm terribly, terribly exhausted and can't wait to get to sleep.  Hopefully, there will be no witch girls tonight.

The only list items that got done today were the floor maintenance, the dishes and laundry and my photo of the day.  So sue me.  (Please don't.)

My 5 Things:

1. Dad came to visit for the night :-)  He heads out early to go judge a cheese competition, but will be back again in a couple of days
2. Both of the horses were super good, considering they haven't had any expectations put on them due to the heat in quite some time
3. I think I figured out what is wrong with Elliot's filter - and am trying to think of how to fix it
4. I uncovered the fact that Clone IS the world's best barn cat.  Not only does he hunt (and take down) possums and rabbits, but he also *digs moles out of the ground.*
5. I watched my first installment of the Olympics today.  It might be the only bit that I watch this year, but I still watched some.

Day 22

Today proved me to still have a couple dizzy spells, a little bit of short-term memory problems and a half-swollen eye, but I'm otherwise no worse for wear.  Didn't get a lot done outdoors, but kept busy inside.  I did get more sleep than normal, but I think I'm starting to get back on schedule again, so I'm going to aim to go to the gym tomorrow, provided my head's behaving by then.  I was super stoked to get on the horses today, too (before puppy-head-bashing time), but I am pretty obedient about sticking to my "if you're not 100% don't get on" rule.

14 More word count done on my 'fic and it's actually starting to turn out much better than I thought that it would.  It's still super embarassing, but at least it sounds good, right?

27 This month's band is called Delta Heavy.  It's got a pretty fun sound to about 90% of it - where it's kinda techno-y, but then there's about 10% that is a little bit of that grungy/electronic sound that I don't really care for.  It just sounds too heavy for the style.  I think my favorite part of this band was watcing the music video for their song "Get By."

38 Progressed a little bit more - we finally bought another storage tub for the next installment of things that need to make it out to the shed, giving me actual room to begin working on sorting through things in my office.  My dad's going to be stopping by tomorrow evening, so I don't know if I'm going to get to finish my office tomorrow, but it's certainly in the very, very near future!

39 I'm not trying a BRAND new recipe tonight, more like fixing one that I tried last month.  They're supposed to be knock-offs of the most delicious rolls EVER and I didn't use enough yeast last time.  Hopefully, I have it right this time.  I'd like to add that I'm not counting this as my "new recipe" for the month, just that I'm hoping I'm going to get to write it on a recipe card for my cook book tonight!  Still brainstorming on what will be my new food :)

40 is still totally going strong, so is 44.  I'm pretty sure (with the exception of the laundry, that one I still have to motivate myself for) that they're all ingraining quite well and shouldn't be a problem to continue after the 16th, when I'm "free" from them.

51 So, yesterday I fixed hot wire in one pasture.  Today, I made my first step towards making my laundry room awesome.  We picked out and purchased the new floor that is going to be laid down, and I'm going to surprise my dad when he gets in tomorrow with asking him to help show me how to remove the old stuff so I can get to work on the new :)  With this officially underway, 52 (fixing my good washer and moving the front loaders out of the barn and into the house!) is going to be able to happen within the week!!  I'm still not sure if I'm going to paint the laundry room - I really want to, but don't know what colors I want - but know I'll have to figure that out in the next day or so if I want to do it without killing myself moving large objects.  We'll see about that one.  Still trying to figure out what color scheme would be best (my kitchen's currently yellow, but I'm not sold on liking it - I think yellow fits a laundry room better, but I don't want *two* yellow rooms if I don't end up redoing the kitchen.

60's progress is failing rapidly for this month.  Today was supposed to be a no-spender, but I've obviously bought quite a lot.  Tomorrow is going to have a price tag, too, as I have to go pay the mortgage on the farm and pick up vitamins for the horses.  Maybe Wednesday will work.  Let's hope for that.

61, my quarterly mini-vacations, is currently being planned - woopie!!

77 I totally paitned my nails today.  It took me about two hours because the polish didn't want to dry enough for me to put my tape down, and it was super cute for about the first five minutes that they were done.  Then, however, I started to, you know, do things, and they started to look like hell.  Ah well.  I think I have a better plan of attack for them next go-around.

My 5 Things

1. Long story short, I thought we lost the moon.  I am relieved to announce that it just rose really, really late tonight.
2. I can actually walk in to my office now without being afraid that I'm going to trip on something and kill myself.
3. I can see having my good washer and dryer set up and running in the very, very near future!!!  I can't WAIT! (I have literally been known to watch my front-load washer like a TV.  Don't ask.)
4. I spent more time being productive today than Pinning crap that is about how to be more productive - go me!
5. My husband finally quit playing Skyrim.  Thank GOD.  I know he'll go back to it, but the music in that game makes me feel like I'm watching my own funeral. 

Day 21 (yesterday)

Yes, another day with another missed blog post, but this time I have a SUPER valid reason!  Kurz gave me a concussion.  Like a full-out, flashes of light, fall on the ground unable to move, short-term memory problems, confusion and coordination issues concussion.  I'm not sure if it was my fault or "terrible twos" (he's just shy of 8 months and a whopping 70-something pounds) energy levels, but our heads met with nearly deadly force, and I'm the one that paid for it.  Hard.  I was told that I wasn't allowed to finish anything that I hadn't already done for the day due to the incident, but my sweet husband made sure the floors and dishes got done.  I avoided looking into the laundry room, so in theory, I never acknowledged that the laundry was clean, so I'm living with a clear conscience right now about not having all the clothes folded.

All things aside, and despite *still* not being over my sick, I actually got a decent amount of stuff done yesterday.

2 Dr. Ritter's book is proving to make MUCH more sense after my crash course with Podhajsky.  I'll add in here, too, that I'm notorious for marking up books.  I don't read much fiction anymore, thanks to creative writing courses permanently lodging an editor in my mind, so I read non-fiction.  I take notes in the margins, underline important, meaningful or thought-inspiring quotes.  I opened Dr. Ritter's book, and it's pretty much a work of art.  There was NO WAY that I could EVER write in this book (if it had been available in paperback, MAYBE), so instead, I've been sitting down with it and my laptop and outlining things as I read.  It's forced me to slow down to better process what I'm learning, as well as having me think through it because college made me ever-frightened of plaigarism, so I try to paraphrase everything I type out.  This is helping tremendously for my learning curve on this material so far, so yippee for that!

14 I got a little bit of 'fic work done - 600 something words maybe?  I was planning to do more, but got side-tracked by one of my DIYs.  After the concussion, I was going to write some when my husband drug me to the PT session he was supposed to be conducting late last night (he was unwilling to leave me unsupervised and had at that point not been relieved from the duty, so he brought me with him to sit on the bleachers while everyone ran), but got a text about halfway to base telling him to go home and take care of me, so no writing ever happened.  Part of me was disappointed, because I really thought I'd get some good word count in, but there was more of me that was excited because it meant I got to go to sleep.  Today's been pretty mild so far, I might hop out on the porch and get some writing in.

44 Husband took care of the floors for me, as he wanted me off my feet and certainly not looking at the ground after my accident.  Kinda sucks that it takes a head injury to make him really, REALLY want to help.  Oh well.  At least he *did* help :-)

51 WOO!  First DIY done!  (This obviously happened before my puppy encounter)  I was supposed to fix a pasture worth of hot wire over last month and failed to do so due to weather.  Then, when Crystal was put in that therapeutic shoe, she was banned from the big pasture by farrier's orders.  We only have one pasture with a round bale in it right now, so that's where the horses have to go.  Well, the neighbors on the other side of one of that pasture's fencelines decided to start turning their horses out on their lawn (I'm keeping further thoughts of that to myself) since they have no grass left in their pasture and haven't bought any hay.  I don't mind that they have their horses there - it's their property, not mine.  I do, however, hate how their mustang has a crush on my mare, my gelding things the mustang needs to mind his own business, and my mare hates their mare.  There are LOTS of squeal/snort/strikes that happen between my little herd and theirs, so I just decided to fix the problem before it got worse (besides me hating them fighting, I would NOT have Crystal getting her shoe hung up in the fene), and completely restrung the entire pasture with non-rusted-out, non-accidentally-grounded hotwire.  It now zaps like a charm and is keeping everyone at respecful distances from each other <3  The sense of accomplishment from finishing that first pasture has TOTALLY encouraged me to finish the other two like ASAP, so maybe when I'm done with my nails, I'll slap on some gloves and get to work.  OR I could do what I was told and take the rest of the day easy to make sure my head's going to be OK.  We'll see.

Took my daily picture, and think that rounds out what I accomplished yesterday.  I'm pretty glad that I decided to start my workout month over already, otherwise I'd be pretty disappointed.  If all goes as planned, I'll be getting to go in to the gym for some light cardio and strength training this evening for the PT session my husband's doing.  Today's aready showing promise, but I'll get to that this evening.

Yesterday's 5 Things

1. My concussion *could* have been worse
2. The horses were super cute trying to "help" me with the fence.  Of course, they were convinced the bag of insulators was a bag of cookies, but they were still pretty cute.
3. I got sushi!!!!
4. I got dryer sheets!!! (we were out and while my husband claims that we don't need them for laundry, I really beg to differ)
5. Being sick means I get to otherwise be "lazy" and not have to feel bad about it

Day 20

I had a bad day today.

For some reason, I didn't get actually ready to go to sleep/tired until 2am - I'm hoping my insomnia isn't coming back.  Anyway, I happened to do a quick peek on my horses, who were outside, to find that there was a HUGE storm rolling in.  So, at 2am, I cleaned stalls and water buckets, stuffed hay bags, corraled all three barn cats, brought both horses in and tarped the round bale while surrounded by cloud-to-ground lightening.  After going back inside, I went to sleep, happy that it was going to rain.... rain that never actually came.  I should rephrase that.  We got *something* but the rain gauge didn't register it.

After getting to sleep some time around 3, I woke up at 8 to do my normal morning things later than I should, which threw off the entire day.  I stumbled in to the gym sometime between noon and 2 (like I said, my day was pretty rough) and had a terrible workout.  Apparently, I'm either not done being sick or my body was revolting having three days off in a row.  I'm going to attempt to try again tomorrow.  Came home to see the house with "fresh" eyes and discover a collection of dirty clothes that my husband was hiding in the living room, as well as a sink full of dirty dishes that he swore to me he'd clean.  Among the list of other crap today, we had (another) financial hickup (that is something that we cannot control, which makes it even more stressful), 2 of my fish tank filters are screwed up, my husband did a stellar job at the whole "I'll help you with x,y,z, just tell me when" and then ignore me for freaking Skyrim, and then he told me to bake him cookies before he went to work - an hour before he had to leave.  On top of that, we had a *90% chance of rain* today that also never came.

Trying to find a good side of today, I really am.

I didn't get any reading done, but I've been trucking along on my fanfic.  Tonight, I think I've earned the right to tell my doctor (not to his face) screw you and write in bed, since that is what I want to do.  I'll keep working on fixing my insomnia later.  All of my routine things got done like they ought to.  Got to the gym, but not sure if I can count today as an actual workout. 

My 5 Things (this is going to be a stretch today)

1. My dogs always find a way to make me smile
2. I got some bright, new nail polish
3. I cashed in my "frequent ice cream eater" card at DQ and got a free blizzard because, dammit, I deserved it today
4. Totally rocked out to some Raffi today
5. I caught myself almost putting nutmeg in the cookies instead of cinnamon before it happened.  On second thought, maybe I *should* have used the nutmeg and see if I get told to be a short-order baker again.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEEEEASE let tomorrow be a better day!!!

Day 19... still rough.

By late this evening, I finally managed to start feeling a little more like myself.  I didn't even get any reading done today, but did log 12 hours of sleep over the past 24.  I'm hoping big time that feeling better right now is actually going to be how things are and that I actually kicked whatever was wrong with me.  Back in the day, I very seldom got sick (but when I did, it always hit me HARD).  I'm hoping my improving lifestyle is going to help me get back to that.

The few things I *did* accomplish today?

I got my floors done.  I have the dishes and laundry put away (although, I have to admit that I haven't loaded the dirty dishes back in to the dishwasher - some things just aren't worth it when you're sick, you know?).  I stillhave a couple of dry goods from grocery shopping on the island, but that's because I don't yet have room for the flour and sugar in my baking cabinet.  Tomorrow, when I'm making bread, muffins and cookies, I should finish up the stuff that's in the cabinet so the new stuff can go "home." 

I painted 9 of my nails today - number 10 was voted to stay bare, due to the dog bit along the cuticle.  I figured that even if the nail polish didn't hurt the wound (it is mostly healed now, just painful with a flap of drying skin), the polish remover would sting like a mother, so now I suppose it just looks like I'm trying to draw attention to my middle finger.  I did them pretty simple today (this week - I can't believe it's already Friday!  Where did the week go?), just a blue and purple "reverse" French manicure.  Don't know what it's actually called.  Picture pending.

I also listened to my new band today, thanks to my brother's suggestion.  It's called Knife Party, and I'm honestly not too sure what I think of them.  It's not weird for me to be like that, as even with bands that I know I love, I still sometimes have to listen to their new albums a few times before I'm convinced I like it.  It's kinda like techno/ravey mixed with reggae.  It's certainly something I've never heard before!

I also had it brought to my attention that August is Camp NaNo round 2, so I might use that as motivation to finish my 'fic.  This story needs to get out of my mind (as of like ten years ago) so I can concentrate on other things.  Seriously.  If I thought my OCs were stalking me while writing my Afflicted saga, good LORD these cannon characters will not leave me alone!  It's like they've got cameras in the shower and EVERYTHING.

My 5 Things:

1. My dad made me laugh pretty hard today
2. I talked to everyone in my family today without even meaning to :)
3. Groceries!!
4. I'm starting to feel better, and am hoping that the trend sticks
5. Crystal is now a very positive 99% sound, so I'm planning on putting her back to "work" tomorrow with slow and straight exercises.  She needs a job.

Day 18 (yesterday)

Well, folks, when it rains it pours (now if only we could get some *actual* rain, I'd be pleased!)

On top of only having access to one hand due to a dog bite, yesterday started out with me waking up half an hour before the alarm went off (which was set an hour earlier than normal so I could tarp our round bale - using only my non-dominant hand! - before the rain we never got came), feeling absolutely terrible.  Pretty much all day yesterday was wasted with me feeling nauseous and playing video games because it hurt to move.  I couldn't even work on my shooter because I didn't have my husband to babysit my Master Chief :-(

I ended up taking a two hour nap, going to bed two hours earlier than normal, waking back up around 11, then finally getting back to sleep around midnight.  Slept in til 8:30 and still feel sick.  I think I can toss out my food poisoning idea, and just assume I'm sick.  Hopefully, I'll find *something* productive to get done today (nails and music aren't hard to do - I need to get on them both, since the week's almost over already!).  As it stands, I have been banned from the gym until further notice, which sucks big time.  I've apparently become addicted to working out, and now I'm worried about getting ready for Warrior Dash, as well as looking at needing to start my month-long training regime over again.  The last part shouldn't be a big deal, because it's become part of my normal schedule, anyway.  I was just really looking forward to crossing more things off the list.

Yesterday's 5 Things:

1. Got Kiga's allergy meds refilled
2. The horses were awesomely mindful of me not feeling well
3. I learned that I really can push myself when I need to
4. We had crackers for me to put in my tomato soup! (there IS a story behind this one...)
5. Despite being sick, I still kept up with my house cleaning/tidiness

Day 17

It's officially a new month!  It's officially August!

Today started off with one of my dogs accidentally biting through one of my fingers and tearing a quarter of the cuticle/nail bed off.  I take full responsibility for the accident, as I was literally quadruple tasking while trying to play tug. That'll teach me.  Long story short, I had a pretty heftly list of animals to bathe and water troughs to scrub today that aren't going to be tended to until this thing heals up enough for me to submerge into potentially disgusting water.

Also, I saw a picture today that a mother proudly posted of her chair-seated, teenaged son riding a lathered-up paint horse fitted with a curb bit and draw reins.  Yeah.

2 I (re)began Dr. Thomas Ritter's "The Biomechanical Basics of Classical Riding" today, and I finally feel like I'm ready to thoroughly digest what he has to say.  Podhajsky did a fantastic job explaining the classical system, where Dr. Ritter gets much more technical.  I tried to read it a few months ago and just had trouble getting things to click.  I'm hoping that Podhajsky's given me a bit more background and that this attempt to read this book will be much more successful :-)

17 Today's picture is super depressing.  There was a girl on the MLP forum that I never really liked - she's a very abraisive and negative person.  She decided (in a post about hay prices, go figure) to go on about how the media is just making up this drought and corresponding corn crisis, so I drove around for a few minutes to snap some shots of all of these fields that are clearly thriving so that the media has something to lie to us about. 

32 I did do some strength training today (thanks for the workouts, Pinterest!), despite being told to have today off.  Shhhh... don't tell my husband!

All of my other routine to-do's got done today, too.  I'm loving my clean kitchen, that's for sure!  My productivity has clearly been slacking, which I feel terrible about, but at least today I have an excuse for taking things easy.  Before my husband went to work last night, he turned on a video game that I'm apparently addicted to.  I played it from 10:30 until 2 in the morning without even realizing it, then had to wake up at 7.  Ouch.

Aiming for tomorrow to go more smoothly and for my dang finger to quit hurting.

Today's 5 Things:

1. The bite could have been a LOT worse - and I have an amazing dog who immediately knew what she did was wrong and punished herself for it.
2. Traded in a couple of duplicate movies so I could get some magazines (little known fact about me: I'm addicted to periodicals)
3. The cookies I baked the other day are gone, so they cannot tempt me any longer :)
4. I get to work out tomorrow! (Funny story about this - every time, the day before I work out, I always get super pumped about it.  The next morning, I'm always dragging my feet about getting out to the gym.  Every.  Time.)
5. I may have found the easiest, cheapest and most practical solution for a hay barn EVER.

Day 16

Oooooh... I've been a bad girl.  Up WAY too late and opted to have more of a fun day than a working day.  Woopsies.  All that was really accomplished:

Dinner and game at the table (I won Guess Who? AGAIN!)
I got a good workout in, but it totally kickedmy butt.
I finished reading my Podhajsky book, and decided that the airs above ground kind of freak me out a little bit.
This current half of a month failed to get a completed DIY/home improvement project completed, mainly due to the weather (for the fencing), my complete and utter confusion and lack of knowledge (for the weather stripping) and lack of funds (for the laundry room floor getting redone).  I solemnly swear that in the month of August, not one, but all three of these DIYs will get done, and odds are good that I'm going to throw some bulbs in the ground around the arena.  I'd like to get the arena weeded, too, so that I can legitimately begin to try to figure out how on earth I'm going to remove two feet deep worth of sand from it so I don't have to worry about tendon injuries when I want to ride in there.  Bold declaration, for one month, but I'm game!
The laundry and floors and dishes and tidiness are all top-notch today, and I took my daily picture (album for all of these still pending).
I also got the requirements to achieve a 100% on the PT test - For a woman of my age, I need a 29" or smaller waist, to do at least 47 push ups in one minute, at least 54 sit ups in one minute and to run a mile and a half in 10:23.  I've got the waist and sit ups down pat already, *might* have the push ups, but have never really tried that hard because, well, I hate doing push ups.  I've got a ways to go on the run, though.  At least now I have a set guideline to aim for!

I had a brilliant idea while I was folding laundry, though.  In high school, we only had four classes a day, but we rotated between "A days" and "B days". This allowed us about an hour and a half or something for each class, meaning we were actually able to get things done during class hours.  I think that I'm going to make a similar schedule for myself, allowing an hour in the morning for me time, a school-length day, broken into "classes" to get things done, and then around 3, when "school" is out, I can have more free time.  I was super, duper productive in school, so hopefully this will kick my rear in gear.  My biggest dilemma is whether or not writing and riding count as fun/extra-curricular activities for me or if they would be actual "classes."  Wondering about this is probably what's going to keep me up (even later) tonight :-/

My 5 Things:

1. I got ice cream today <3  I love ice cream and haven't had any in two whole weeks! <3
2. Both of the horses AND their hay survived the very loud, very impromptu thunderstorm we had last night with no complaints (and I'm extra thankful that we got rain at all!)
3. "Not Our Fish" went home today, effectively freeing up about two square feet of counter space and allowing me to plug my toaster in again (and I even got paid for taking care of a fish!  How cool is that?!)
4. I finally got around to cleaning out the barn after about a week of not doing so and it feels great :)  The horses haven't been spending a lot of time in there lately, and so I'd been pretty lazy about blowing out the aisle and sweeping up loose hay.
5. I got SmartPak's new catalog/magazine today with "26 Easy Ways to take your horse's health from good to great," and discovered that I'm either actively doing all of them or had in the past and am waiting to start up again.  Yippee!

Day 15

So, all in one day, I've officially made it past two weeks and just shy of finishing my first calendar month.  I think I've been doing well so far - not quite as well as I dreamed I'd do, but better than what I think a lot of people would have done.  I can already tell that sweeping and vaccuuming daily, as well as taking care of the dishes and laundry as soon as they're done are becoming habits.  Now that I have the laundry room decluttered, I even have a little work station to fold and hang the clothes as they come out of the dryer, which has helped a TON with my motivation to stick to that.  Kiga's allergies are continuing to show improvement with the increased attention to cleanliness, and it just feels *good* to not have hair and bits of hay sticking to my bare feet when I walk across the house at night :)

2 I've officially reached the boring part of the book - the very end, and where Podhajsky is explaining the Spanish Riding School.  Now, don't get me wrong; I would absolutely love to visit there (and ride there, in my dreams!), but I can only take so much of "We do this exercise here, and this is the part of the arena we do it in."  I guess I should have expected this part to be less exciting than the actual training sections, but it's been dragging out at a terrible degree.  Add to that, my computer ate the last two pages worth of notes that I took over the second phase of training, and I've decided that I'm about ready to be done with Podhajsky for now.  I love what I've learned, but I need to take a break from this particular work to keep from getting frustrated.  I think I'll slog my way through the last few pages and leave finishing my outlining for later.

14 I haven't actually put any words on paper yet for my fic today, but I've been brainstorming up how part is going to be written and am going to try to hammer it out before bed.  I guess that means I'm staying up late tonight... oops.

21 Finish my towel quilt
My towel quilt is something that my mom and I started the summer before I went to college.  It is quite literally a few towels, cut into squares, and patched together, backed by a flat sheet.  We got it about half of the way done and then just quit. After I got married, my mom told me to take it, because she didn't want to hang on to it anymore.  Well, my husband figured out why I had the idea to make it in the first place - it is *super* snuggly.  The only problem is that one of the ends isn't quite finished shut, so washing it makes it turn inside out and around itself, and sometimes it will nab you in your sleep because of it.  I'm currently using contrasting colors of yarn to outline each of the squares to keep the flat sheet behaving in a proper manner.  I finished most of the edges like that a year or two ago, but once I discovered that it's pretty hard to stitch along the middle of a big quilt, I decided to quit.  Well, now I'm back to finish it.  I got about 2/3 of the way through Zoolander and finished stitching through three squares of it.  This is gonna suck until it's done...

38 I began decluttering my office, which is going to be an absolute trip because I had been using it as my storage area for the stuff that was labeled "get rid of" from the other rooms so far.  It's also been holding a bunch of Christmas and Halloween decorations that missed getting put in their boxes and moving out to the shed.  I think I got a good 1/3 of the way through everything in there today, but the problem with "A place for everything" was that my piles of "get rid of", "trash", and "goes out to storage" that leaked into the hall had to get put back in a way that would make getting it back out easy again.  This room is going to take some time, that's for sure!  However, once it's done, I'll be good to start 43 (organizing my file cabinet) and 85 (inventorying my MLP collection).

51 My DIY project of fixing the electric fencing has been getting derailed by our horrendous heat indexes, and it's been super hard motivating myself to get out there and do it, since we're not currently using the pasture that is being fixed.  I might push this project off for a future month and concentrate tomorrow instead on putting up the weather stripping around the doors.  That's probably more important in the long run, anyway. 

87 I can't tell you the name of the antique shop that I found in Lee's Summit this month, but it was mostly full of stuff that was way too fancy for me.  You know, like the stuff that breaks when you look at it.  I was kind of disappointed with how fancy it was, as I kind of like finding junky booths (and the things I collect very seldom are in the nicer shops).  However, finding that place led me to a super neat home decor place that had some amazing art and very neat things to decorate with.  Not sure if I would ever need any of the stuff there, but it was a lot of fun to look at!

Today's 5 things

1. It was overcast today and we even got a tiny bit of rain.  We really needed a day with minimal sun.
2. I made a batch of super awesome oatmeal chocolate chip cookies <3
3. I get to work out tomorrow!
4. The critters in my life give me untold amount of joy :)
5. All five of my aquariums got cleaned today - yay!

Day 14 (and catching up with yesterday)

Yesterday, I apparently worked myself too hard and just about passed out in the evening.  I had a really good workout, and got a lot of little things done at home.  I even tried out two new recipes (Lambert's rolls and flour tortillas), but they both had me on my feet for much longer than I apparently wanted to be.  When I crashed, I crashed hard.  I did manage to almost finish reading Podhajsky (and the horse training portion is now about 2/3 of the way outlined.  I'm not sure if I'm going to finish the outline before July is over, but I figure I can do that if I have time after I finish next month's piece), and I decluttered the laundry room.  Now, to finish the laundry room, all I have to do is number  52 and have a home improvment project of putting down new flooring in there - super excited about that!  If I get real industrious, I might even paint the walls and reface the cabinets but, like I said, I'd have to get real industrious.  I finally captured a picture of Blues yesterday, so yay for that :)

Today, I did darn near nothing.  Got some more reading and outlining done and had the farrier come out to do a check-up on Crystal's wonky foot.  Go figure, we have one shoe on her and I'm not riding her for the next three weeks until she's actually due for her feet.  Horses are such work!  Other than that, I took my picture and took care of the floors.  That's pretty much it.  Yesterday was a no spend day, so I think that officially puts me at our required 5 for this half of a month.  I did also eat a new cheese today, but I have no idea what it was, so I don't think I can count that on my list.  I'm hoping that I feel a little more like myself tomorrow and actually get things noteworthy done.

Today's 5 Things

1. We got fresh dog food today, so all of the inside critters should be good to go for the next month or so.
2. The nail that Crystal sent flying out into the yard was found, so no horses are going to step on it.
3. I gave myself a mini-spa night, complete with a face mask, just for the heck of it :)
4. I should be getting 60 bales of hay delivered within a week!
5. My mom's getting ready to send me the recipe for my favorite chocolate chip cookies :)  We've discovered just how much money we can save by eating at home (we used to eat out almost all the time, no kidding), and I've decided to make a conscious effort to start making my own sweets (and am, obviously, even trying my hand at breads) so I don't have to keep buying them.  I'm also playing around with whether or not I want to make my own cheeses, but that's something I'll have to talk to my dad about.

Day 13

More thorough post about today coming tomorrow.

My 5 things:

1. Have 60 bales of hay pending for me - will make me be able to get through winter, though not as free-choice as I wanted
2. I tried out two new recipes today, and they both seemed to work (with a few tweakings, they'll be perfect)
3. It was a beautiful day, as far as the weather goes
4. I got a good night sleep last night, and am totally ready for another one tonight
5. I only have two interior rooms to finish decluttering before I'm done with the house!  I'm debating taking the decluttering of the barn off the total rooms to go list, as I think the barn is going to declutter when I start to demo the rest of the workshop.

Day 12

Jumping right in to things tonight, since it's super late and I need to get to bed.

2 I didn't get quite as much actual reading done today as I'd hoped to, but I did almost get to the end of the section on teaching riders how to ride.  I'm still entertained by the fact that half the book is spent on training the horse, while the other half is split up into five other chapters :)  I did go back and begin outlining my highlighted points for future reference, though, so I did still have some soak in Podhajsky time today. 

14 I got another 400-something words written - woo.  Most of it was in script form, though, so if it was actually fleshed out, it might have been impressive.

17 My photo today was of Kiga.  It was supposed to be of Kiga sleeping, but she woke up when I laid down on the floor next to her for the shot.

40 and 44 Got done, and I know for sure that 45 will get done tomorrow, because my kitchen floor is GROSS.

51 has officially begun for this month, and it is to successfully re-electrify my big pasture.  I think I figured out what was wrong with it to start, and it goes back to the fact that I don't think the previous homeowners knew 100% what they were doing with the horse-side of the property.  We'll see what tomorrow brings.

My 5 Things for today

1. I was able to give a great deal of encouragement to a complete stranger that may have literally changed their entire life.
2. I got a compliment on my cute nails of the week!  I even shared how I did it!
3. I took a huge leap of faith today that, while I'm still afraid it's going to bite me in the butt, I'm going to stick with.
4. My kitchen is clean (except for the floor...)
5. I discovered that I can do at least 10 "boy" push-ups in a row.  I say at least because I quit before it started to get hard because at least for today, that was how I rolled.

Day 11

Obviously, I'm a list maker.  If I wasn't, I wouldn't be doing this in the first place.  Usually, my lists have a bunch of tasks on them that aren't that appealing and then two or three things I can't wait to do, and usually only the things I want to do get checked off and the other ones get pushed to that "later, sometime" list that never gets tended to.

Well, I had a list for today and, while I couldn't cross *all* of the items *completely* off, I'm proud to say that I crossed all of them at least partially off.  Out of 8 things that I wanted to get to today, five of them got completely crossed off.  One that didn't was something I honestly didn't really want to do, one was something that frustrated me too much to finish in one sitting, and the other was one that I didn't have all of the resources necessary available at the time.  So, while I can't say anything about not getting the laundry room finished with its declutter, I can say that I was really pretty productive today.

2 I finished the section on training the horse today, and got some super good quotes.  Funny story here, though.  I literally just got so light headed that I almost passed out, so I'm not going to type out the quotes today.  I'll get to that in the morning.

14 I got 1225 words written on my 'fic today, which is almost a full NaNo's day worth.  Not to bad for half an hour before the husband woke up!  (and yes, it's *that* embarassing that I'm not even crazy about the idea of him reading it)

17 Today's photo is of Ninja curled up in her bedbox.  Pretty cute stuff.

18 Finishing Mordin's head was on the list that didn't get done, but let me tell you, Salarians are a BITCH to sculpt.  I ended up getting to frustrated with him for now and put him aside before I quit liking what I was doing.

32 and 33 went relatively well today, though with a few hickups.  I had a really hard time getting up the urge to go to the gym today (it was raining - yay!), and once I got there, I kept trying to think up excuses to not workout.  Well, I pushed myself through, even though there was a group of about 30 people getting a tour of the gym that seemed to follow where I went.  I feel good about finishing instead of giving up today.

44 got done with some help from the hubs <3

60 Today was another no-spend day.  I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to settle for 5 this month, which is fine by me, since I only had half the month to play with (and about four unexpected bills show up in that time).

93 During dinner (at the table), we had a very close game of Guess Who?  In the end, I won, because I am the Guess Who? master.

My 5 Things:

1. We got RAIN!
2. I made very steady progress on today's list - something I haven't done in forever.  I really should get a planner again.
3. Sucking it up and getting through my workout made me feel awesome and empowered.
4. My husband is the best support ever!
5. Our air conditioner wasn't actually borken - we had just accidentally bumped it to "on" instead of "auto."  Thank goodness!

Day 10

Today was absolutely insane.  I saved a neighbor's horse from breaking its leg today when it got hung up in the fence - he trotted off lame, but considering that he just about rolled over backwards on a front leg caught four feet high, I can't blame him.  I'd go more in-depth about the matter, except it's really not my place to talk about that kind of thing.  Not here, and not now.

Anyway.

2 Today, I think I've officially reached the stuff that is over my head because I've never experienced it first hand.  I'm very, very close to the "end" of the horse training section, and ready to move on to training the rider (which I get a kick out of, because it's literally about a tenth of the length of training the horse).  Hopefully, I'll have the book done before the weekend is over, so I can go back and take proper notes from all of my outlines.  If not, I'll get back to it when I can.

9 My first four dressage letters are done!  Yippee!!  Now, all I have to do is wait to find the time to go back to "the big city" to pick up the last four plaques to finish the full set.  I'm halfway there to getting to cross another item off my list!

17 I got several pretty awesome photos today, mostly because the dogs decided to pile up on the loveseat with one of those great big lounge pillows on it.  Pretty cute stuff.

27 My band of the week is Crystal Castles, another one recommended to me by my brother.  They've got a pretty different sound, but I didn't mind listening to them at all.  Worth looking into, if you're open minded about music.

40, 44 and 46 are all still going well, and I'm hoping to start up 45 next week.  We'll see how that goes, since it went so well *last* week ;-)

88 Design my dream house
This unofficially began today, as I started gathering "dream house" ideas on Pinterest.  See?  I knew it would be good for more than just wasting time!

Today's 5 Things

1. I got to help a horse in need.
2. I got my round bale delivered, and got a lead on some more square bales.
3. Tomorrow is absolutely free for me to go work out (I can't wait until I'm given the all clear to work out daily.  And would you look at that!  I never thought I'd *want* to go work out!)
4. I had enough will power to eat at home today, instead of going out (I was *thiiiiiiis* close!)
5. I have a lot of motivation to write, so hopefully I'll get a hefty chunk of my embarassing 'fic worked on tomorrow.  I can only hope :-)

Day 9

Lost track of time today, so gotta go quick!

2 Barely got any reading done today - my bad.  Have to wait for a hay delivery (thank God!) tomorrow, so I'll probably be out on the porch reading and writing for most of the morning.

9 Dressage letter stencils have now been printed for A, C, B and E.  I used Kristen ITC at 440, and I'm only posting that here because I know I'll forget otherwise.  I know it's a very non-traditional font (here's another scary thing for all of you dressage divas out there, they're going to be BLUE, too!), but my aim is for them to be fun, since I want prospective students to think dressage is fun.  It's worth a shot, at least.

17 My photo today is kind of a cheat, because it's of my nails that I just painted (see below)

32 and 33 went SO WELL today!  I feel great, and I finally see a change in my body.  I'm in week 3 of a modified "Couch to 5K", and today I did 3 sets of 2 min run/2 min walk, 3 min run/3 min walk and felt great the entire time.  Okay, that's a bit of a lie.  I did want to fall down when I stopped my last run and had to force myself to finish my cool-down.  BUT it's the first time, pretty much ever that I can think of, that I ran 15 minutes in one session!

38 I FINISHED THE MASTER FINALLY!  BOO-YA! (are we still allowed to say that these days?)

Today was another no-spend day, but I have to go back and see how many I'm at for the week.  I know I'll have to spend tomorrow for the hay, but I'm willing to ruin this goal to feed my horses.

77 I painted my nails a pretty vibrant purple with a blue glittery overcoat that I dabbed with crumbled up plastic wrap.  It gives kind of a marbley effect that I think I'd like to try out with blue and green some time to make it look globe-ish.

Getting ready to do my floors, run the first load of dishes that I've done in two days, and switch out (and put away) a load of laundry, then bed time.  Yay!

My 5 Things

1. Mom and Dad's well DIDN'T dry up.  The pump broke.  Much better alternative!
2. We have at least 4, possibly 5 round bales with our name on them.  My horses will have hay for winter!
3. For the first time, I didn't feel like my workout absolutely killed me
4. I took a long detox soak tonight and it felt great!
5. My husband cooked dinner tonight :)

Day 8

I've officially made it longer than a week!  Go me!

In other news, I'm pretty sure that I found the end of Pinterest already, which also means that I've spent waaaaay too much time on the internet today.  However, I did actually get a couple of ideas that I think will help me through my 101 things, which is a bonus.  I woke up sick this morning, anyway, and the husband wouldn't let me go work out, so I didn't really have many other options.

2 Today brought up a really, really good point about riding that I never fully applied before, and that really makes me understand why so many speed event horses (not ALL, but a LOT) are absolutely bonkers.  Those of you who are not familiar with how horses move, their faster gaits are akin to when you "galloped" as a kid - one leg lead where they go.  I'm sure that you remember that it was easier to move in certain ways only when a specific leg was leading, and the same thing goes for a horse.  That's where lead changes come in.  To do them while the horse is in rapid motion (without changing gait) is called a flying lead change.  This is more like the action of skipping to a human, where the leading leg changes easily (except horses don't always do it each stride).  With few exceptions, speed events involve lots of changes of direction at very high speeds, meaning that the horse, in order to move efficiently, has to perform flying lead changes.  Events like pole bending require it at every pole.  What Podhajsky talked about today was that these flying changes can only happen harmoniously once a horse is strong through the back and the hindquarters, able to accept contact that connects the reins through the body, and completely supple.  If those three factors are not all there, the horse will revert to faults that can escalate in pretty much any negative direction, due to the horse's inability to perform what is being asked of it.  Add crazy speed to people who only care about the clock, and the problem's obvious.
I know that dressage has the reputation for being "stuffy," and people are probably put off by it even more when the word "classical" is slapped in front of it, but this is some very important stuff for *every* horse in *every* discipline.  So far, everything that I've read in here is directly applicable to every single saddle horse I've ever known.  People need to wake up and start doing things right.

9 My dressage letters are almost completely prepped, but I ran out of white paint halfway through finishing the backs.  I can still get the letters themselves painted on in the morning, but will only be able to seal two of them until I get more paint.

17 is a picture of more gnomes (Theodore, Max, Boris, Godfrey, Claude and Sam)

38 I officially finished both the guest bathroom and the living room!  All that's really left of the living room is to wash the blankets I cover the couches with, but that's not a declutter thing, so much as a cleanliness thing.  I plan, sometime over my DIY journey, to competely pretty up each room in the house, and the furniture will get proper slip covers at that time.  Anyway, two more rooms down!  Strangely enough, I still have to finish the master, which was started before either of these two.  Oh well.

95 I get to add cream cheese (is that an actual cheese?  I don't even know...) and provolone to the list today!

Floor maintenance is still going strong, and it's exciting to me that I don't have to make the dogs move any more to get dust bunnies out from under them because the bunnies aren't there!  It is getting more difficult to sweep, though, since there's hardly anything for the broom to pick up.  Pinterest did, however, show me how to make my own reusable swiffer covers, so I might give that a go to get the floors ever closer to clean!

My 5 things for the day

1. Mom's surgery went well
2. I am *so* glad that I don't have a well on our property.  Mom and Dad's dried up last night.
3. If I truly found the end of Pinterest today, I don't have to be a slave to it tomorrow
4. I ate out for the first time in I don't know how long and, you know, it *does* taste better when you don't have it that often
5. We got groceries - and half of it was stuff that I actually am going to *make*, not just instant stuff.  I'm trying to get better!