To Do List:

1. Pack for the weekend. For me, and for the dog... I'm gonna have to borrow a tote or something from Mamaw for the pup's stuff, the bag I was going to use got... sidetracked, during the move.

2. Clean out the hazardous waste site that is my car and wash the windows. Considering how much crap I keep in my car, this may take all afternoon.

3. Wash dogs. Both pups need a bath, especially the fuzzy one (the schnauzer) and the Farmdog and I will be company this weekend, so she needs to look (and smell) her best.

4. Drop the fuzzy dog off at the Farm Parents' to save me time in the morning.

5. Try to get to sleep before midnight. This insomnia crap is really annoying me.

Tomorrow, I'll spend the day in the car. I'm gonna be saying thank god for satellite radio before I even make it to Amarillo.

On the bright side, I'll be taking my baby girl Farmdog to the same Petsmart where I got her... think she'll remember? I need to pick up a couple of things, so we're gonna stop on the way through.

Once I get back from my little mini vacation (neener) it'll be back to hauling hay and water, working on remodeling my house, and working with my ponies, along with the paying test rides for the horse rescue and the paying job helping to train horses to harness.

When folks tell me they envy me my leisurely country existance, I laugh, and laugh.

Usually I can stop laughing before they call the nice men in the white coats with the I Love Me jacket....

Too Many Clothes...

Entirely too many clothes.

That's what I've got. Out of two laundry baskets, three suitcases (one being of the "New York Apartment" size, this thing is huge) and four black garbage bags, I went through all of my clothes and got rid of the things that don't fit, or that I never wear.

One bag. Out of allll of those clothes, I was only able to eliminate one single garbage bag.

Sad.

I would say a good fifty percent of it is t-shirts and jeans. Another twenty five percent is pj's. Yes, I have that many pj's.

The rest is my few dressy shirts, a couple pairs of nice slacks, tank tops, cold weather gear, sweaters, and the miscellaneous clothing items that always seem to accumulate.

I haven't been buying clothes, either! I'm not one of those women who is constantly buying clothes. Every once in a while I'll see a shirt with a cute saying on it, and buy it, but generally I only buy clothes when I need them.

The last things I bought (or had bought for me at my request) were nice shirts for necessary occasions.

Before that, it was my Wranglers. Necessary purchases.

It just accumulates... and I'm not real sure where the heck I put it all in either apartment...

Maybe that's why I always put off doing laundry... I didn't have room for all of it if it was all clean and had to be put away....

Farmdog

Last year, before I got the Farmdog moved up with me, I got a call from Farmmom. She was practically in tears, and terrified that I was going to be mad at her.

See, Farmdog had had a seizure. The local vet was out on farm calls that day, and Farmmom wanted to know if I thought she should wait for the vet at home, or bring the Farmdog up to one of the vets where I was.

Of course, I voted for the faster option of bringing her to another vet, and started calling around to see which one could fit her in the fastest.

Farmdog was not a happy camper when they got her up there, the seizure scared her almost as much as it did Farmmom.

The vet said he couldn't be sure what kind of seizure it was, but he'd work with us to find a medication that worked for her.

Luckily, the first med he put her on, Primadone, did the trick. Farmmom got to find the proper dosage ("start her on three pills every day, to get the levels up in her system, and back it off gradually... if she has another seizure, go back up a step on the dosage") of one pill, every other day.

He also told us that if she has a seizure, if we can get her to take a pill during or right after, it will reduce the severity.

Well, in the bustle of the move, I forgot her pill the night before last, and the stress of the move (the dawgs were not happy when they were put out in the yard in the morning and the house was full of stuff, and came back in in the afternoon and it was empty) triggered a seizure last night.

At first I thought that she and the Farmpup were just playing in the hallway, until I called out for them to come in the living room and the Pup came running in totally freaked out.

I looked up and Farmdog was trying to get into the middle bedroom with two legs clenched tight to her body.

I don't remember my feet touching the floor between the chair on the opposite side of the table, and the Farmdog.

I got to her and grabbed ahold of her so she wouldn't try to go anywhere and hurt herself in the process, one arm around her neck with her head against my shoulder and the other reaching in the tub full of the dawgs' things for her pills while Mamaw got me a hotdog to stuff the pill in.

This is another one of those situations where a part of me panics, but that part gets locked in a box and the rest of me has to be calm and comforting... if I'm scared, it scares Farmdog. If she's freaking out, the seizures get worse. So, I have to be calm. It ain't easy, when my baby is having a seizure and I don't know until it's over whether or not it will actually do damage to her brain, or tear a muscle or ligament.

Once the worst of the seizure was over, I offered her the bite of hotdog, pill side first... don't ever tell me that dogs are dumb. If I try to feed her a bite of hotdog during or right after a seizure, without letting her smell that there's a pill in it, she won't take it. She'll take her pill, though, every time. She's tried to get the pill while her jaws were still locked shut in the seizure. She may not know how the pill works... but she knows that it works, and that's good enough for her.

She finally relaxed a little and laid there, but I knew another one was coming because she was drooling all over the place still. The second one was worse than the first... in the first one she was still present and accounted for, the second one she wasn't.

Ever wrestled a fifty pound dog in the middle of a seizure trying to keep her from smacking her head into a doorway or flipping over backwards when her muscles all clench up at once? Its not easy. Farmdog doesn't thrash during her seizures, unless she panicks and tries to use limbs that aren't listening to her in the mild ones, but when her muscles spasm you never know if they're going to go stiff or jerk her to the side.

And, she is a pit mix, and I'm never sure how much of her brain is involved in the seizures, so I try to arrange myself so that she won't have an opportunity to bite me if she starts coming out of it in fight or flight mode, being held down.

She hasn't snapped at anyone after a seizure yet, and if she does, I'm not going to hold it against her, but I would like to avoid a full bite from the Jaws of Tennis Ball Doom, if possible.

Once the pill started getting into her system, she started feeling better. Twenty minutes later she was playing tug with the Farmpup like nothing had happened....

But it sure scares the crap out of mommy when that happens....

Home Sweet... wait! Where's that paper I need???

Well, the move has been accomplished with a minimum of bloodshed... really I think mine was the only blood, and that just from a little divot on my hand that I'm not really sure where it came from.

Got all my stuff back to the Old Homestead... now I just gotta sort out what I need with me and what goes in storage.

What? My stuff filled a thirty foot gooseneck trailer, a pickup, and my car, with barely enough room for me and the Dawgs. Like I said I have too much crap.

I've got to get all of the clothes up to Mamaw's, and start sorting... I'm getting rid of some of them... because I have entirely too many and a lot of it is stuff I don't even wear.

I feel bad throwing away clothes that are still usable, though, even if I don't wear them anymore. I would be more than happy to give them to someone else to use, except for the small problem that I don't know anyone that they would fit, that doesn't have more clothes than I do.

Monday, I have to go back to the old house and get the cable box and modem, and turn them in so that the cable company doesn't charge me like five hundred bucks... turn off the cable and gas and electric, after calling the landlord to make sure that they get it put in their name.... and possibly stop by the college to watch the freshmen, and a couple of unlucky sophomores that had to take classes this semester, ride.

I also need to stop by the vet's office up there and get some more of the Farmdog's meds... I'll do another post explaining that in a bit...

Tuesday, call the folks that I was going to intern with and see about test riding some of the new horses for them, for das moola.

It'd be nice to have a little extra cash come Friday.

Wednesday, and Thursday, I'll work on my house, and cleaning out my car... and probably checking cattle and hauling water and hay at some point.

Friday, I'll be going out of town. Not sure if I'm gonna have a free moment over the weekend to post, but I'll try.

After the weekend, things should slow down as far as the running all over the place goes. I'll be down to hauling hay to horses and cattle, working with an older gentleman to harness-break a couple of horses, and working on my house, instead of that stuff and four other things....

Operation I Have Too Much Crap

Moving day is here, and the house looks like a cardboard factory blew up, punctuated with plastic tubs.

Still have the "random shit I didn't get put anywhere else" boxes to put together. But, I've quit sweating it. I stayed up till midnight last night throwing things at boxes, and if they missed, I threw them at another box.

I like being organized when I move, then I can find things... however, I lost two packing days this week. Thursday, I had a funeral to go to (I'm getting a little tired of that) and Farmmom decided she wanted to move me a day early. Since she's got the truck and trailer, I didn't have a whole lot of say...

Oh, and bonus points for the game of Most Awkward Move Ever (this actually surpasses me packing everything in two days and moving into my first apartment...) Farmmom tried to drive a rebar post through her foot yesterday.

The doc didn't see any obvious fractures, but was going to have the radiologist take a look. It's definitely bone bruised, though.

Oh, and because she doesn't want to lay anything across it (they didn't give her any painkillers... ouch!) I had to tell her last night to break out one of the horse buckets and start out with a little bit of cool water, and keep cooling it down as she adjusts.

You know, like how you boil a frog alive, except in reverse.

I offered to give her an epsom hoof-wrap, and she said she might consider it.... but I think I'd want to have Farmdad twitch her before I started wrapping anything around that foot... don't want to get kicked....

(Yes, she might just hurt me after reading this, but she does act like a sored-up horse sometimes when she hurts herself.... and Farmdad would have to twitch her because it's illegal to give Rompum to people....)

What? Where?

We've got a new President??

Must've missed it.

Seriously though, ya'll know I'm not a political blogger. I tend to avoid things like that because I feel that no matter what I say about politics, someone is going to disagree with me, and they're going to feel very strongly about it.

But, since I've gotten no less than five emails (a record, for anyone who's interested) asking where my "Inauguration post" was... here ya go.

I didn't watch it.

Blah blah blah first black president, voice of change, gun grabber, he promised me a pony. Whatever.

The only thing that happens at the Inauguration is an oath being made (which is valid whether I witness it or not) and a lot of promises that probably won't be kept, no matter what party the new Commander in Cheif is a member of.

As for the black thing, frankly, it doesn't matter if he's white, black, or purple with yellow polka dots. It only matters what he does not what he looks like.

Am I glad that our country has progressed to the point where a black man with a name like Obama got elected? Sure. But, folks, and here's the important part... it was inevitable. Anyone who has ever worried about being politically correct has got to realize that it was bound to happen sooner or later. Same with a woman president, although, god help me, I hope it's not Hillary... that lady scares me.

As for the rhetoric, on both sides of the political spectrum... I don't want to hear it.

He was duly elected. I don't agree with his policies, but that doesn't matter. He's in office, and he's gonna be there for four years, assuming someone doesn't assassinate him.*

The important part of a presidency is not the day the Commander in Cheif is sworn into office, but what he does thereafter.

So the Inauguration, to me, is just a nice little party thrown for the new guy to welcome him to one of the worst jobs in the United States of America. One last nice thing before everyone starts chewing his ass.

As for "Not My President"... unless you've renounced U.S. Citizenship, yeah, he is. So quit whining, man up, and accept that you don't always get your particular flavor of bread and circuses. Some people are beginning to sound like hysterical alzheimers patients.

If you don't agree with him, fine. But throwing a temper tantrum isn't going to change anything, and it makes you look like an idiot.

That's all I've got to say on the matter, and in case you couldn't tell, I'm a little cranky at having to do a political blog at all, but I was asked.



*No, I am not threatening the President. It's simply an observation that as the first black President, and with his stance on certain issues, he's angered a certain nutso segment of the population just by existing. If I were the Secret Service, I'd be highly tempted to give him the code-name "Kenny" just in case.

Packing

There are several things I hate about packing, especially in this situation where I have to decide what goes into storage and what I need to keep with me. The latter category mostly covers clothes and shoes, at this point.

But when doing a really thorough cleaning or packing up everything that you own, you're bound to stumble across some things you thought you lost, or got rid of, that bring up memories. Some of them are good memories. They make you smile and bring you back some small thought that you'd forgotten.

Some of them aren't. Sometimes, you find something that you didn't want to remember.

See, I don't keep an "ex" box. It's always seemed a little dumb to box up the things that you don't want to think about and hide them away somewhere. Either they mean enough to you that you keep them, or they're painful enough that you get rid of them.

Don't get me wrong, I've got things that remind me of my exes. Pictures, trinkets, sometimes just a necklace that I wore that he liked.

I hated packing up my knick knacks, because the knick knacks I had here all had memories attatched. It felt kind of like denying those memories to pack them away and not know when I'd see them again.

Other things, I threw away. Dried flowers. Notes.

Some things I packed away because they're painful now, but I think I'm going to want them later. A couple of pictures, pieces of paper with childish scrawls in marker, paint, and pencil. I'll go back in a year and decide what I'm going to do with them.

I hate packing. Especially alone.