Florida saga -

Yesterday ma woke up early and needed to go to the bathroom so daddy got her up. Of course she fell, of course she cut the back of her head. He is supposed to get the aide. So the aide finally got her back in bed and put a towel on the back of her head. Aide went to get dressed and came out to find that daddy had gotten ma up and sat her at the dining room table, ready for breakfast!! He loses all contact with reality when something happens.

So nurse comes up, calls ambulance, tells aide NOT to clean up the blood (potential evidence in case of death) and off she goes. Daddy and aide follow later in taxi and somehow (didn't get the details) she gets home and is okay.

The stream of phone calls thruout the day - the less said the better.

J tried to teach ma to say, "Get the hell away from me!" when he tries to help her.

Yummy trail ride

Went for a trail ride this morning and W was a star!! omg, what a sweetie he is!

What a brave boy and so happy. He went second in the line of three on the way out and first on the way back. He kept to a nice walk without any trouble at all. He wanted to trot but I did not have to struggle to hold him to a walk. He did trot a couple of times but was easily brought back with no pulling on the reins (well hardly any) - just holding the reins and saying "walk" and a couple of times I did the rein combing, esp when we went by the scary huge rusted out truck someone dumped in the woods. He even walked up the embankment after crossing the creek on the way back. Seen, but not by me - a big deer and an owl. I would have dearly loved to canter by the sand pit/retention pond, but we were good and just walked. W was thinking wtf is the matter with her, this is perfect!!??? All things in good time I guess.

Meanwhile, plumber is here fixing the incompetent work of out contractor's plumber - the master bathroom toilet is leaking thru a light fixture in the ceiling of the family room downstairs. crap.

On a positive note: making macaroni and meatballs for dinner and it smells good. Will get some rolls tomorrow for meatball sandwiches. So i imagine that i will pig out on pasta tonight and fall asleep on the couch watching some asinine tv show.

oh, the time spent!!

How much time do J and I spend on the telephone organizing things in Florida?? It's ridiculous! Since last Friday, it's been a constant stream of phone calls. Daddy has an ingrown toenail which he just happens to mention on Friday so there is no way to get him seen by a doctor. So poor JW frantically tries to get him an appointment with his regular podiatrist but can't get an appt til next Wed. So he gets taken downstairs to the nurse and she gets him an appt with an unknown dr for Monday morning. The aide can't take him then, so the SC bus is supposed to take him.

I get all this from J in a very jumbled way via two long phone calls on Friday late afternoon. Well, that plus the fact that he has something in his eye!! (that no one else can see) I send JW an email and she immediately calls me back and talks for almost an hour. I get the straight story from her plus and update on her social life including the new guy she has met online that she is calling "the turtle whisperer". (JW is so nice - I wish she could find a really nice guy!)

So I call Florida and talk to daddy and tell him that he needs to soak his foot in epsom salts in the meantime and put eye drops in his eye since the last time he thought he had something in his eye and was taken to the eye dr, the dr told him he had nothing in his eye but it was just dry. He gets pissed off at this but wtf??

Saturday, call Alliance and arrange for an aid to go with him to the dr since it will be a place he has never been and he won't know what to do. Of course J doesn't think of this. I don't know why it takes an army of people to manage them. Call daddy and ask how he is and tell him someone will be going with him. Ditto on Sunday along with speaking to ma which is quite painful now and also to the aide who is almost impossible to understand once she picks up speed in English.

Monday morning, call and make sure things are in place. Daddy doesn't remember an aide is going with him, so also speak to aide and remind her. Monday afternoon, call and make sure everything went according to plan which it did. Do not find out anything about the toenail, but get a long impossible-to-understand story about my mother's Monday morning dr appt where it seems that she has very dry skin and needs moisturizer. Well duh-

Okay, you get the picture. Every week there is this kind of heinous back and forth phone calling over something.

On the good side, woke up ridiculously happy from having such a good riding lesson yesterday.

Bathroom wallpaper is up (hidious 3 days of work for just one wall) and the drawers are ready to install. Pics later today. I want to go riding this morning but can't seem to get moving.

Did not go riding but got a lot of small houseworky stuff done and read all afternoon while it poured rain! Made brownies during the afternoon and OH and I ate half of the results! :P I have not made brownies in about 10 years or so!!

Stirrups

My RI put my stirrups up 2 holes today. We couldn't figure out what was going on. After I left the barn, I realized that I had never checked them when I got on so who knows not what hole they should have been in!! I think I may have been riding in too long stirrups anyway so next time I will try shortening them from my usual hole 11 and see how it feels. I did a lot of work the other day with no stirrups.

Today, all of a sudden, a major jump to the side and wild canter off. I stayed on but pretty well wrenched my back in the process. I think he may have been stung by something or bitten by a horsefly because afterwards he was trying to scratch his back leg. He is doing so much better with contact now and I can get him back right away when he evades the bit.

I'm doing much better lately with my riding. I have to keep in mind my constant collapse of my lright side which I'm thinking is due to one, being right handed, and two, carrying a purse on my right shoulder all these years. I have to make myself think about weighting my inside stirrup and outside seatbone and keeping my inside shoulder back. The big improvement tho, is that I am developing a better feel for what is going on. The secret is to picture what you want to happen. I can watch someone do something and then do it whereas all the technical analysis gets me nowhere.

Lovely kitchenware!

I bought all these at Anthropologie! After badgering OH for two or three years to agree to buying (useless) china, I came across these and the difference in price was so great that he instantly agreed to purchasing them.

These are rice bowls but we use them for salad. Salad bowls are usually too small. I got 4 of them!

Dinner plates

Dessert plates.

Bowls - soup size and small size.

Coffee cups.

my cats

Bonnie, the black and white
Claude, the yellow and white.

so much to do

Why is it that when I was working, I never had a list of errands and now that I am home, I have a never-ending list??? I could never understand how J always had so much to do. I guess part of it is this whole house remodel/organization/cataloging stuff I'm doing but I also think that some of it is just pure laziness. I could knock off plenty of small things if I would just stop wasting tons of time doing Sudokus (thanks Tim :P). Okay, 4 half days a week are spent on horseback riding but what about all the other time?

Also, with all this time on my hands, I wish I would plan better meals. Today I am going grocery shopping (only one can of cat food left!) and I need to get coupons out, decide which ones to use, plan some menus, etc. I get slightly sidetracked in the store when I see something nice tho or if something I want for a meal looks gross. For instance, why are all the green beans so horrid looking? I think I will get some watermelon and see if Wiz likes it!!! The other day I gave him a pear and he was in a state of bliss. I will buy some chicken today and grill it with this marinade:

1T lemon juice
t tsp deli mustard
3 T olive oil
1/4 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
2 T water
lots of minced garlic and parsley

This is from Cooks Illustrated and it makes the chicken taste like steak according to OH. I usually grill 6 chicken breasts with the tenders separated and we can eat for practically a week on that! I will buy some portobello mushrooms and make the chicken jambalaya recipie from The New American Plate.

Yesterday the drawers for our bathroom were finished and installed. Today I think OH is going to sand a couple of sticky places and prime them. Then they will have to be given 2 coats of paint. I need to sand the wall over the vanity and apply some of that stuff you put on before wallpaper (can't remember what it is called). I may wait til next week to actually put up the paper.

My next-door neighbor washed my king-sized mattress pad for me in her giant washing machine! So now I can make my bed up and get the bedroom looking slightly more put together. I would like to have an upholstered headboard made and get some decent lamps - oh, they must have big big fringy shades. There is not a decent lamp store in Houston. I need to find a good lamp shade web site (must look).

Ziggy cartoon in the paper today:
"I've got so much to get done today!
I don't know what to put off first!"

Wallpaper!!

I take it back! All wallpaper is not ugly - how cute is this????

So interesting

Things to do today:

Call my mother

Air conditioning man and also carpenter coming early this morning

Get some groceries



I need to go pick out some wallpaper for my bathroom. This is the hole that must be covered up

I can't drywall over it because it is the connection for the lights on either side:

Here is the hole covered by the previous wallpaper.

So now I have the dreaded task of choosing wallpaper that

1. I can stand

2. will match the rest of the colors, mood, etc. that are in the room. The bathroom doesn't look like that anymore - the space under the vanity is filled in and the countertop is a neat coffee-colored Silestone.

Why is so much wallpaper so ugly???? Maybe I should put more of this up:

I must see if it matches okay and if I have enough left over from doing OH's closet! Okay, and I have to remember where I put it when I packed everything up for the new carpeting.

happy

I'm totally happy with my blog now that Liz has put that soothing green color on it and linked it up to stuff. Even if no one ever reads it, I love it. I have been writing a few sentences about my day in an engagement calendar every day since 1985. I think a couple of years are either skipped or somehow missing, but I can go back (probably never will) and get a brief on what I was doing at any given time. There are blank spaces in most of the vacation slots and also during times of depression, but for the most part my life is there, boring as it ususally is. Typical entry:

busy at work
boring day
cleaned and grocery shopped

hehe, stupid.

I am going to go ride this morning while Dean sits on the couch, turns on the financial/obama news and either plays scrabulous or Civilizaton or looks up his ancestors. This should be his gym morning but he will not go.

Later!!

Near the end of the remodel!

Scanning that list, it seems that most of it is done. I painted my bedroom a fairly dark green but the room is big so it looks nice. Actually, I love it! I stole the little table from the living room and now it looks just exactly like a picture from a magazine that I have been saving for years and years. I then took the almost matching end table from the family room and put it on the other side of the bed. I still need to get some nice lamps with big fringy shades. The book cases I took from another room since now I will have no drawer in my nightstand. Must see how aggravating that becomes. Since that is the view you see when you come up the stairs, I want to keep it looking nice. Ha, we'll see.

Still to do- contact the carpenter who started to fix the mess the contractor left in the bathroom and ask him to actually make the two drawers. Pick out wall paper for the vanity area (to cover up the hole with the electrical connection) and then re-hang the mirrors.

We worked hard and almost everything is put away. I put all the books back upstairs in a sort-of organized way but not really. For the family room books (5 bookcases), I am putting them all on librarything as I unpack them. I seem to have a lot of books with no LC or ISBN numbers. Okay, Very Broad Categories only!! I just had to pay to add more than 200 books but that's okay.

Today I had lunch with my old supervisor and it was kind of nice to see her. We talked about our ailing mothers, people from work, being retired, my grandchildren and her great-grand children. The food was very good - Italian.

I got my moo cards today - all horsey and very cute. My blog address is on it so maybe someone will read my blog and be interested in it. Any HORSE people out there???

I'm planning to ride out in CA when I come for the BlogHer conference at a place called Blue Sky - it is a half hour south of Half Moon Bay. They have Tennessee walkers which I have never ridden but they are supposed to have smooth gaits.

Mother: not doing well. Has trouble walking. She holds the walker with a death grip and can only walk if you hold her hips from the back and move them forward one at a time. I am going there at the beginning of July and not looking forward to it at all. J just got back from 4 days there.

I have a new huge list of Things To Do but I don't even want to think about it.



Here is the sofa from the living room - now back-to-back with one of the family room sofas!

To Do List

As of today, here is my list:
Today:- get hair cut and colored
- paint all trim in bathroom and bath closet
- email SIRE volunteer hours from last January
- clean living room (cat barf on and behind sofa ewww)
- figure out what to do with hole in bathroom wall where electrical stuff is, should I wallpaper over it? cover with small round cover? put a picture over it (hole too high up on wall)?
- ask gardeners to keep hedge on side of garage trimmed
- check on ma, and check to see the bed RX has been faxed over
- contact Jules to see about dr. appt for ma
- badger L to put up move vids of baby
- take dermatologist prescriptions in to drugstore

Other:- mail boxes to kids and Denise
- buy paint for bathroom walls and actually paint them
- decide on color of kitchen wall, buy paint, paint!
- call another place to get a quote for shower doors
- make a dentist appointment (long overdue)
- paint a couple of walls in the hallway
- unbolt bookcases from library wall
- clip cat toenails
- make appointment with laser dermatologist
- buy new drawer pulls for downstairs bath as the ones I bought at Anthropologie don't fit!
- call Pat B next week to have lunch (it's only been a whole year but am fairly committed to next week)
- CALL AND MAKE CARPET INSTALLATION APPOINTMENT!!!!!!!


Okay, enough for the lists.
We finally got fed up with our contractor and amicably agreed to withhold 10% of the project cost and have someone else come in to dismantle his lame attempt at putting in two drawers under the bathroom vanity. Our cabinet guy then could not do the job as he is in bed with a hurt back. I found another guy by looking online. He is close to us and I emailed him 2 pics and he came over, took apart whatever he could of the crap that was done, made a super box for the drawers to eventually go into and put in a beautiful new toeplate. It is all now primed and ready for the new drawers. So everything that absolutely has to be done before the carpet goes in is done (for that part anyway). YAY!!!

Ma is getting worse. I arranged with the nurse at SC to have a hospital bed ordered (called her Dr. to fax an RX over) and she will order it and have it delivered and set up. Arranged with Janet to meanwhile move the night table (which she fell and cut her head on and got stitches for 2 days ago) and put a pillow on the floor where her head would hit the floor if she fell out of bed. PT and speach therapy is arranged to start up again. DR. apt will be made with neurologist at the request of Alliance. She is not responding to instruction, can't walk to the table to eat even.


Cutely, he loves his clicker training! Did I post a vid of him learning to bow? About 3 weeks ago, we gave him about a 10 minute training session on it. Tap him under the chest and lure his head down between his from legs, move the treat back until he has to stretch back and move one front foot, and then treat. (gradually of course) Okay, so on Sunday, we were having a little first aid session with some of the students. RI put her hand under his chest to listed for his heartbeat (or for some reason, can't remember), and what does he do but BOW!!!!

Ordered moo cards hehe. Convinced OH to come to SF in July! Tickets bought! I will go a couple of days before the conference and he will come the day after the conference. We will have a lot of time to be with M. Must think of some fun activities.

Clicker training!

This is what I have been doing with my horsie! W caught on right away. I had bought him the ball and had gotten him to touch it with his nose but was stuck there. How to give him the idea of pushing it? I asked RI about clicker training and the book by A. Kurland and she said that she had the book and had done some ct!! She lent me the book, which I ate whole, and helped me with a couple of sessions.

Once the horse gets the targeting the ball part, withhold the click a bit. So that's what we did and W the proceeded to poke, prod and try to bite the ball. The ball moved - Click!!! Now we have progressed to not clicking until he walks up to it and pushes it twice. I wanted to go work with him and ride yesterday but that slimy contractor was supposed to come and never did.

Speaking of whom, he is supposed to finish the bathroom THIS WEEK. Only 8 weeks later than projected. Eleven weeks instead of three. There has been one fuck up after another and I can't even write about it because it is too long and aggrevating. Now at the end, they are being sloppy and only painting the new woodwork instead of the whole bathroom the way the other contractor was going to do as a matter of course. I'm so incredibly pissed off. OH is adamant that he will never have another remodel of ANYTHING!!!! I kind of agree but there goes my wood floor in the front hallway.

New carpeting for the whole house has been ordered yesterday!! All the books have been packed (almost) and I've been working steadily at packing the rest of the stuff. Now I have run out of newspaper - oh, why why why did I not save all the professional packing paper from cleaning out the attic last month????? And you would think we were a couple of boozers if you saw the amount of liquor boxes stacked up in the family room!!!!

Sunday was a dressage show at the Spring barn. I volunteered to scribe in the morning and it was very educational. Dressage people: enter on the C line, make your circles round and not square, have your horse show some energy and show a difference in the working and extended trot and the regular and free walk! OH volunteered to add up scores in the morning but was given a 15 minute tutorial and then left there ALL DAY!!! He actually enjoyed himself immensely, sitting in an air conditioned office with a calculator, doing what he does best. I think he has found his horsey niche. hehe

J says that my mother has been asking when I am coming back! She barely even looked at me when I was there as opposed to all the other times when she has seemed really glad to have me. Now I feel like I should go back but first I must get the bathroom finished, paint the bedroom and get the carpet installed. Then all the unpacking!!! J is going at the beginning of June so I guess I could go later in June. I was going to go the week of July 21st but now I am going to the BlogHer conference (hehe) and dont' want to take two back-to-back trips.

And oh, I wish wish wish I could go to RI this summer. Why can't I ever have a fucking Day At The Beach????

very busy!!

I have had a busy few weeks!

W is back at his old barn and all the work we've done with him seems to have paid off. I'm working now on keeping an even contact and doing fairly well. Last lesson I trotted over some poles and cavaletti in posting trot and in 2 point. Stay down you dumb heels!! Did pretty well. Then cantered - not so great. How is it that I have lost my ability to canter?? Will ask to work on this.

omg, the whole yard is being landscaped! Had a pretty high quote from a guy in Huntwick but then went across the street to talk to a guy that was working on the house across the street and he is doing the work for way way less. He cleared out all the plantings in the back yard, worked some new soil into the beds and the planting will happen today. OH and I went around to nurseries for 2 whole days and finally bought all the plants. Some Indian hawthorne from Cornelius and some azeleas, ferns and some larger shade-loving tree for the corner (forgot the name). And the BEST PART, we had 2 tons of stone delivered yesterday for a cool stone wall around the whole back beds!!!! I think they will plant this morning and then start the wall.

Then they will start the front!! Oh heaven! The only bad part is that I cannot help. I would so love to plant and make the stone wall. At least I will plant myself a border of flowers in teh back and also plant some juniper that will drape over the stone! Can't wait.

Contract for the bathroom has been signed and work will start next week. It will be a bit disruptive but totally worth it.

I have been spending too much money on myself. Make up, hair color and cut and then bought 2 pairs of new jeans that I SNEAKED into the house. Oh shame!! Now I desperately want to lease W for the month of March. I think it will be about $250 for the month. But Marl is going to lease and so it would be fun to ride together and practice different stuff. I need to get off the couch and out from in front of the TV every night.

I'm getting one of my babies in April! Have bed organized but need maybe stroller, car seat and high chair. Must send email out asking. Hope to get my other baby some time this summer. Would be so fine. We could pool, ride, play, get ice cream, etc. I think I never truely grew up. haha

Florida front looks as dreary as ever. J is going there at the end of March. I don't know when I will be able to go again. So far, it's possible first week of April before L comes, but the thought is depressing. Who the fuck asked them to live in Florida????

I took the plunge and got my hair done at HR Salon right up here on the corner in Champions Village. Nice woman named Susan (about to become a grandmother for the first time) did the color and cut. She cut my hair EXACTLY like the photo I showed her. I love it!!! Color is a bit dark tho, next time I will get it a tiny bit lighter. My red streak hardly shows - must get that fixed also. But the cut is perfect.

Went last night to the Top Hands practice at SIRE and OH and I will go again tonight. Then tomorrow, we will go down to the livestock show and help all day getting the horses ready. I'm really looking forward to that. Then Friday morning is my lesson and then we go down again to help the rest of the day with the actual show. That will be pretty hectic. I hope Marl goes too.

That's all folks!

again

Agreed to have Pat E. do the work on our bathroom but have not signed a contract yet. Went to Robert's carpets and picked out some beautiful marble but then decided against marble. Have now been to Master Tile twice and found something we will probably buy but Pat sent us to Floor Decor as it is cheaper. Went there today but they did not have any selection of polished porcelin tile so will probably go with the Master Tile ones. I saw some granite I liked but it was pretty expensive. $20 sf instead of the $10 he gave us an allowance for. The tile is also way more but Dean says that's okay because it's a small space. I would also like to do the front hall.

Having 5 training sessions with a personal trainer, Joe, and they are kind of dumb but wtf. Got Dean's membership price down anyway even if they would not upgrade him to every day for a slight increase in price. Have missed the Monday morning yoga two weeks in a row now. Maybe I will go tomorrow - there is a 24 SRT class and then yoga!! Would be really cool.

Rain and rather cold all week.

Denise and Don are in Florida getting tons done!!! Thank God. It's amazing how things just go on as usual but as soon as one of us is there, there is so much to arrange and do. The whole situation is absolutely outrageous- they should be in RI where someone can oversee their care on a regular basis. Even if Jeanne went once a week, it would be better than it is now.

We went to a Parelli clinic and learned a lot. It was freezing cold but we stuck it out. I bought W a green exercise ball and he put his nose on it and followed it around when I pushed it with my foot. I don't think K was too impressed. I also made him some yummy cookies.

Had eye apt and have a new prescription - must pick up tomorrow. I used some old frames which are slightly larger in the lenses so we'll see. Also had some new reading glasses made.

Have not talked to Linda since her trip to see Anne, need to have lunch with Pat Breivogel. We are supposed to be having dinner with Robert and Nancy this Saturday.

Jack still not crawling but is on hands and knees and trying to stand! omg, how totally cute. And Milo looks so grown up in his pictures, can't wait to have that great big strong hug he gives me! Never stop doing that Milo!!

2008 whatever!

My last post was ages ago. I just read it and it's the same boring story now as it was then.

I love not going to work, but what am I doing instead? Yes, I've made a little headway on decorating/de-junking house but to what purpose? OH totally resists any change/spending of money. To his credit, he does appreciate things after they are done but the struggle to convince him to agree to it, pick things out, get someone to get it done (or get it done myself or with his help) etc. is almost not worth it. So things get done little by little but after 9 years in this house, it still looks like crap. My house in Michigan looked better. All my apartments looked better.

Special advice: if you are going to fix up your house, just do it all at once. Otherwise, you just get inured to a house full of swill.

Riding- My RI has moved my lesson horse to a new barn and consequently I have started having my lessons there.Just planned a trip to SF. I'm very sad and lonely when I think of all of their lives I am missing.

I have plenty to do here and keep very busy (while still having tons of down time) and am basically happy and I know they are super busy with their own lives and probably now and then think of us, but still, wtf am I doing here in Texas? The fucking middle of nowhere. Go up into space and look down at me here and tell me why I am here.

Still more stuff

Condo closing did not happen while Dean and I were in Florida but all the papers were signed in the lawyer's office and the closing happens sans everyone's presence the next week. $$ received and put in the bank. WE had a good visit there, nothing startling happened and had some good dinners out. Daddy using wheel chair as much as possible.

I arranged for him to get some physical therapy for his foot and also for an additional aide to come in from 4-8 p.m. This is to help them down to dinner, back up, and to get ma ready for bed - help her undress really.

Called them yesterday and told them I want to buy them a new mattress for ma so she could get into bed easier. She said no, she doesn't want to spend the money but I think I will do it next week when i go there anyway. She has given her bed to daddy since it is closer to the bathroom and he can hardly walk. So now she is in the even higher bed (the one with the castors still on).

Accidentally got up a 4? am this morning. Thought it was 6 am. Barn show today. I'm glad I decided not to be in it because something is causing me to have a runny nose. allergic to something going on in the air.

Breakfast room curtains came and I love them. For all the money I paid though, I think they could have been sewed a little better. I will not have this lady make me anything else. When the chairs come back from being re-covered and I get the pics framed, I will really like it. The can lights over the table are nice too.

Deciding not to take tile out of master bath as the headache of the actual picking out and work being done seems too too much to cope with. Will do the counter top, sinks, and sink and shower fixtures. (may change my mind heh)

Waiting for landscaper's bid. Will probably just do the front yard and maybe the side and do the back ourselves. We already worked in the back yard 2 afternoons and it already looks a little better.

I want to move to RI in a way but I don't want to leave my riding teacher. I will never find anyone else like her. She is so patient, so good at teaching! I can ask her anything and she will consider it and discuss it!!!! She has removed W's flash noseband at my request. We are working on my posting trot a lot and also the left shoulder problem. Another good thing is that she can demonstrate horse or rider's actions with her own body so that the problems make perfect sense. And never in a critical humiliating way. I wish I could be like that.

Back to moving, my greatest wish is to move near the kids. I miss them a lot. I would love to talk to them every day but haha, they have their own lives and so I leave them be for the most part. It's silly anyway, long distance sucks. But my parents are not long for this world and even though their physical needs are being taken care of (not sure what's going on with daddy's foot), they are all alone. The day after Dean and I came back from seeing them, Jeanne asked me what I had done because they seemed much more normal!! It was only the stimulation of family activity and being around people in a group. Plus they are spending a lot of money on things that J or I could do for them if we were all in RI.

Would I like the cold weather again?? It is so beautiful here in the fall. Perfect temp, not too many bugs, and now that I'm not working (YAY!), I have time to be outside and enjoy it. I have the feeling that I am on an inevitable path to move there now that it has been mentioned as a possibility. It does seem to make perfect sense. Lilacs, rhododendrons (sp?), beach, restaurants, Italian food stores, relatives I would like to get to know, helping J out with her life, pussy willows!!!!! I would have no hesitation if it were not for my riding and my ultimate goal of moving to CA. It would be so wonderful to be able to see all of them whenever!

OH is in MD visiting his mother and hopefully helping her sort out her financial situation. She stonewalls him tho and he is too meek to insist. :P:P:P:P

L's doctor thinks she has a spinal injury. I think she is glad to have someone finally figure things out so we will see what happens. Naturally, I wish I were there to give some support and help, but I'm in fucking Houston.

Middle of October now

What have I been doing? Riding lessons were going well til the last two. My left shoulder keeps going forward when it is supposed to be back! Being right handed, my right side is more contracted and also carrying a purse on left shoulder all these years probably contributes. Then last lesson, turning to the left in the saddle, my right side was collapsing, causing the horse to fall in. I tried it in walking by myself and it totally happens. Anyway, I rode A and had the best lesson ever. Part of it was A (most of it probably) but I was sitting up, looking up, keeping my hands still and my elbows back. Could do a great circle, good posting and sitting trot and had some good canters. yay!! Spoke to K about a half lease on W for November but I'm not sure I want to. I want to go to Bandera for a day and maybe I will just ride him a few extra times.

Tomorrow, Terri will pick up the kitchen chairs and Dean's father's chair to go get recovered. Some progress. I didn't even ask about the BR curtains.

We cleaned out and painted the garage room and bought some shelves and put them up and stuff on them. We really should paint the woodwork and door and use up some of the old paint we have sitting around that we can't get rid of.

Had a landscaper come to give an estimate but he is being very slow at getting back to us. Anderson R came to give an estimate on the MBR but have not heard back from him either. Jeff C came and said our project was too small for him - his original estimate was $26-28K and when I reduced the size of the project, he said no thanks. He did give me a couple of good ideas for the cabinets but Dean doesn't want to do them. He gave me a weatherstrippers name which I plan to call soon.

Electrician came and installed bathroom fan, fixed under counter light (wrong bulb) and installed 4 can lights over the kitchen table. Seems good.

Going to Florida on Tuesday for the condo closing. Daddy took the car so I need to hide it. Ma somehow got the stool that Jeanne put in the storage room (not their storage room either) and stood on it to get the meds that the aide hid in the front closet shelf. She had it all spread out so now I need to buy a strong box to lock it up in. Very sad. Jules is a godsend - she is totally taking care of their doctor appts, nails, hair, cleaners and all groceries. omg, I don't know what we would do without her. thank you thank you.

Then the week after we are going to SF and I'm really looking forward to it. Milo is so darn cute. We tell each other jokes over the phone and when he really gets them, he laughs his head off. He is doing much harder work now in 3rd grade so I hope he likes it. He keeps saying that he has good memories of his old school. I sent him some jokes and some 39 cent super hero stamps (stamps now 41 cents) and told him he could use them as stickers!! heh

Jack seems at a great stage also. 5 months is very cute. Can't wait to get to know him again - I wish he would remember me!! It took Milo forever to actually have any idea who I was. I hope they will try giving him a baby biscuit! Maybe I will bring some.

Liz is in China!!!! Blogher conference partly and I think part her other job. Her pics on flickr are super interesting and she looks happy in them.

Laura is now working part time Mon - Wed morning and Jack is at a nanny's. I need to talk to her soon and find out how he is doing. He is now eating rice cereal and making a giant mess of it - oh very very cute.

Read an interesting book sent by Liz about a guy whose goal was to wash dishes in all 50 states. Must find someone to give it to for Christmas.

The world series is on - it would be good if the Red Sox won.

projects!

Yesterday we washed the whole back of the house! Special trip to Home Depot to buy bleach and a pump spray can (which when we got it out and put together said, "do not use with bleach" but we did anyway). Took screens off, washed them, washed windows and doors, sprayed and then washed the house. Messed around with plants and also started cleaning out the area covered with rocks behind the pool where the pool equipment is. Nice sunny day, not too hot. Afterwards was very tired and lolled around in the spa and pool for a bit then blew off cooking the chicken (must do today). omg, also cleaned the outside fan which was a pain because even tho I was on a ladder, it was over my head. Dean planted some parsley because all but one pathetic plant has died. Too much going on vacation and OH not keeping up with things while it was super hot.

Today, a riding lesson. Last time we really worked on posting trot and I started doing much better. I need to go practice by myself a few times ($25 each time) but hesitate since W is such a pain when RI is not there. Maybe Monday. We discussed the carriage driving and I told her I still want to do it but had been concentrating on riding because of not wanting to be the worst one in the quadrille. We are only going to do the Q once a month. Right now one of her horses is lame and so she doesn't want to exclude anyone from riding - who would it be??

After all, I am succeeding in getting OH to help me with projects and have pretty much convinced him that we should make a push to get all the inside work done now and not stretch it out. I mean why not get it done?? This will be mainly a master bathroom remodel. Once that is done and the shoe racks are taken out of the closet floors, we can get the new carpeting (already picked out). Oh, and I want to have a headboard made and get new night tables and lamps for my room and then paint the whole room green instead of just one wall.

On the bathroom, we are undecided about leaving the existing tub and just getting new tiling and fixtures or taking the tub out and having a nice big shower. That is what we would like to do but for resale of the house, that would leave 4 bedrooms with only one bathtub. The sink area will be demolished and a silestone countertop with undermounted sinks will be used and then all the cabinetry will be redone to my special design. This will have deep drawers to keep all my stuff in and clear off the countertop. whew, I must come up with a design (have 2 magazine pics that are perfect except for they leave no room for a waste basket and that is where ours has to go).

Made plane reservations to go to Florida for the condo closing. OH coming too - that will be nice except that I will have to sleep on the couch and he can have the double bed. Last time we slept in it together but it was not very comfortable with 2 people!

For my parents, the aides and Jules seem to be working out nicely. We have pretty much decided to leave them in Fl. They are actually comfortable there and it will set them back to move them to a new place (where they may be separated).

That's all folks!!