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.