Snow??? SNOW??*!#&%$%$@!
They are calling for our first 'significant snowfall' tomorrow night into Friday. Outside as we speak, it is 65 degrees. Weird, man, just weird!
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November 29, 2006
The more things change.....
...the more they stay the same!
I was looking back to November 2005 to read what I had written on my 'be thankful' list, and was so amazed that 2005 was pretty much word-for-word a carbon copy of November 2006. Interesting that I didn't feel in the Christmas spirit last year at this time, either! I probably feel a little more Christmas-y this year - I am actually listening to the radio stations that play Christmas music all day long, so that helps. Every time I hear one of the great old Andy Williams Christmnas songs, I feel happy!
My lesson in reading back a year is this:
This too shall pass
I do believe I have said that before, haven't I?
I am about halfway done with my Christmas shopping. Thank goodness for online shopping to help avoid the crazy stores! But dang, I just saw last night an item I ordered online for sale at Wal-Martr for half the price! Dangit! I had checked and thought I did good in finding a bargain. Oh well...
I had a really great weekend this past weekend. It was great to get away and see all my friends in Kentucky, spend a bunch of quality horse time, and taslk to someone who shares in my goals. It's hard to find anyone around here who understands or even really cares about this side of my life. I don't blame them - to the outsider it seems like this hobby of mine requires an awful lot of work for very little reward. Little do they know how great the reward is for me - it cannot be counted in dollars and cents.
Even though I left home this morning feeling very down and trod-upon, I am feeling better here at work. It's still in the 60's, and I will enjoy this unusually warm weather for another day before reality sets in on Friday. I need to occasionally re-read my 'thankful' list from last year to remind myself that THIS TOO SHALL PASS and I do have a lot to be thankful for.
November 20, 2006
Christmas Music already?
Sheesh, the local radio station has already started their 24 hours a day Christmas msuic...the weekend before thanksgiving! It's getting a little ridiculous...we'll start hearing Jingle Bells in August pretty soon. Kevin put up our Christmas icicle light on the house 2 weeks ago, but we had a good reason - it was warm then!
Why the rush, I wonder? It's not that peope really enjoy the Christmas season. I mean, ask anyone and they will moan and groan about having to shop shop shop, decorate, visit people, have people visit them, attend too many get-togethers that fill up work nights, eat a lot and gain weight, etc. Then Christmas day it's usually a mad rush from one place to another, trying to fit everything in a day. Why do we torture ourselves during the season of giving?
I am agonizing what to buy for Christmas gifts - everything from my husband to a secret santa that I have never met and know very little about. Let's face it, most people are judged on what they give as gifts. that's so harsh, because even if I try my hardest there are always a couple gifts I get totally WRONG for people...usually can tell by their expression when they open the package.
Then to top off the season, there are the required holiday concerts - the high-level stressful one that I have to put on, and then the others I have to go to. Let's add on all the artwork I have to do for Christmas gifts people iordered (but I am not really complaining because I desparately need the money!). Top it all off with COOOOOLD weather, snow and ice, skies that turn dark by 5:30pm, and insane electric and gas heating bills. Merry Christmas!
But really, although tis the season to be stressful, it is nice to cozy up to the someone you love on a Christmas morning and wtch him open gifts that you spent time and agony over choosing! It's also nice to go out and meet up with friends and family that remind you of how precious life and those life connections really are. I guess that's what really matters.
November 19, 2006
Patience, my friend
Patience is the hardest virtue! I really believe this. It's hard to be patient when people around you are freaking out, getting angry, getting frustrated, or just generally scewing things up that you know you coud fix in an instant.
I tend to be a rather impatient person. Big suprise!!! t's a major fault of mine that I constantly work on. My own impatience leads to my own hurt in most cases. Weird how that works! The worst combination is an impatient person coupled with another impatient person. Sparks fly....the bad kind!
The solution? Take a step towards the patient side. Think three times before speaking (twice just doesn't cut it for me and my big mouth!). Mentally go over every possible response before you speak...be prepared for the outcome. Still your body, still your mind, make yourself rock solid and quiet and just allow things to happen as they will and go with the flow.
Make any sense? It doe to me!!!
I should be an expert in patience by this time. Corky has certainly tested my patience to the limit, and does so every single day. She's my talented, wonderful, problem child. She is teaching me to acquire new virtues - patience, big work ethics, time management, and humbling myself to ask for help.
Christmas is coming...the time that requires gallons and gallons of patience. Everyone around me gets very cranky during the holidays. I have to remember this year to step back and not get offended when people get snippy or rude, and not respond to potential hurtful statements or actions. Wow, if I can do all that, they'll be petitioning for my sainthood. Saint Rabbit...patron saint of foolish lives!
November 18, 2006
Trust is for fools!
How do you really trust someone who has been untruthful? It's like a big stain that won't come out. I find it coloring, staining, affecting me every time I turn a corner. That nasty little doubt creeps in and poisons me. The more I look, the more I find. It's amazing what you find when you actually open your eyes and start looking. I wish wish wish I had never started looking, I wish I had never been alerted to any of this! I'd rather be a blind, stupid fool that one who knows and lets it eat her alive.
Sometimes I wonder if I even trust myself. I mean, I have certainly let myself down a number of times. I tend to deceive myself on a daily basis. How can I trust my own perceptions? I hate what I have become, and I wish I could turn back time and find that person that I reinvented so many years ago. That was who I had always wanted to be, and I made it! But now I am once again someone else that I am not satisfied with. Geeze, how many people can one person become in a lifetime? I've been the fool, the strong one, the independent one, the mover and shaker, the goal-setter, the achiever, the lazy bum, and the fool again.
November 16, 2006
On edge...
I feel very on edge today. It's like I am waiting, waiting for something BIG to happen. Not sure if the 'big' is a good big or bad big. I feel something impending....anticipation for an event I know nothing about. It's a weird feeling. What is going to happen? A tragedy - a death, an accident, a spot of trouble? Or something really neat - a surprise visit, and windfall of money, a breakthrough in training?
I might just be on edge from lack of sleep. I have averaged about 4 hours a night since this weekend. That's not quite sufficient for me! I look forward to the day when I have an evening to sit and relax and play. Right now, it's paint paint paint as soon as I get home (and eat dinner). If I am not painting, I am furiously writing music. If I am not writing music or painting, I am probably cleaning stalls. Oh yeah, and there's that full-time job thing also LOL!
Maybe I am on edge because Christmas is coming. I have so many things I want to do, so little money to do it with, so little time to get it done. So little time left for the bands to learn their Christmas music. Whine whine!
And if only I could remember how to set up a dang Excel spreadsheet, things would be a lot easier right now!!!
November 15, 2006
Moods
How responsible do you think individuals are for their own moods or mindset? I mean, can a person really control what sort of mood they are in? Can you force yourself out of a bad mood because you know it is destructive to the people around you? I think the answer is sometimes yes, sometimes no. Change that - I think the answer is NO. You can act like you are in a better mood, but are you really in a better mood? We have little control sometimes...our brain chemicals are too strng to be forced into submission. But how we act upon our moods is under our own control. It's so hard, though! The hardest thing on earth (OK, maybe in the top-10) is toact beyond and above your mood. I have yet to master that technique. I tend to be an open book - what I am, I act. Not so good in most circumstances! I need to become a better actress in a lot of ways.
It's hard to be cheerful without sunshine. Heck, even if the sun was shining today (which is isn't and won't be for days) I couldn't see it in my windowless workplace. I am doing an experiment with a small plant...seeing if even with water and nutrients will it grow or die without any natural sunlight? The weird thiing is so far it is actually thriving. This might prove my whole theory wrong about us needing sunlight to survive. I'll have to come up with another theory!
November 13, 2006
Squareville
I think I travelled in a square again...must have missed an alternate turn somewhere along the way.
Today I feel beat down. Squashed. Kind of like a hammer slammed me into the ground like a peg. I am frustrated, I am feeling rather hopeless. Hopeless - less hope, lack of hope. Yep, that's me. I am tired. Exhausted. Tired of being the culprit, the villian, the bad guy. I guess that is my role in life - I am non-good. How's that for a term? I am doing no good here. Accomplishing nothing, contributing nothing, basically all-around worthless.
I hate this damn blog. What a waste of time. I am not solving any great world problems, not even understanding my own.
I guess I am just tired. An entire night without sleep will do that to ya. I am tired, sick to my stomach, and feeling a decided lack of hope, lack of faith, and lack of belief. I don't even believe in myself anymore.
I wonder where the end is????
November 12, 2006
Turning the corner
You know, any time you feel life is becoming tragic, stressful, and alltogether falling apart, look for a corner. With every bad moment, there comes a corner to turn and suddenly you can see sunshine. I am starting to be on the lookout for my own corners to turn. Corners are tricky because you can't see around them until you actually start making the turn. The way I look at it is that if the straight path you are walking is full of potholes and barricades, turning onto a new path means change...and change can be for the good!
I am forcing my path onto the corners. I think I have walked a complete square today! I guess the trick is to make sure you vary the direction of your turns so you don't end up in the same old rut. Wow...that's deep.
I have found myself some good ruts, I think. I have settled into a routine - work, barn, run, and paint....usually in that order. In my personal and gfamily life I guess we are in sort of a rut also, but it's not a bad rut. Maybe 'rut' is not a good term. How about well-worn path? The road more travelled?
Anyways, Corky is making progress! I have to share our latest videos here. Please comment on them if you will!
www.janhare.com/Corkytrotting_11_12_2006.wmv
Off leash
ON a leash? How insulting? I don't let my dog Pasta off her leash. Why? Because I can't trust her! In the past she has run away. I had to go search for her. I get worried about her safety.
The whole premise of a leash is insulting, don't you think? So are a lot of other things...things you think you have hidden but others have revealed. People just love to share information, don't you know that? It's so 'TRUE' isn't it? Hahaha, get it? True? Just add the dot com and you're all there.
Trust is earned. Trust is broken. I am not a fool anymore. My biggest question is what to do - continue being the doormat fool or not? What a dilemma! Want some trust? Then start by being truthful!!!!!
I think I have been living too boring and predictable and trustworthy a life. Maybe it's time I shake my own life up a bit. Lord knows opportunity knocks every day! Something to think about....
Am I too predictable, too reliable? Taken for granted, maybe?
November 09, 2006
Hay, whazzup?
Hay, literally. Hay is what's up. 149 bales to be exact (UI sent one black moldy one back). I hate hate hate handling hay. It's scratchy, dusty, makes my eyes burn, my back and shoulders hurt, the skin on my arms raw. I handled every one of those 149 bales, some of them twice (thanks to the rocket scientistsd who stacked them parallel so the stacks styarted leaning).
I hurt, I hurt!
I wonder about age, and about my physicial strength. Will there come one day when suddenly I am not strong enough to do these physical tasks like toss hay bales, handle a 1200 pound horse that disagrees with me, lug full water buckets around? Will the day suddenlt appear, or will it gradually come on? I mean, one day will I be able to lift the bales and then the next, not?
Age is starting to scare me. I am a very physical person. I have been SO lucky and have been somewhat injury free in my lifetime. I thank God for that every single night. I am afraid sometimes of what the future will hold for me. How could I survive being old in a rocking chair? I want to be like my dad - playing walleyball in his 70's. I want to be out there breaking my 2yos in my 70's. I just hope by then I will have enough money to pay to have all my hay stacked for me!
Money...sigh* another big stress. I just can't get ahead. Something just keeps cropping up. I work my a$$ off every day at my job, and come home and paint until my hands cramp up completely. I have a huge dental bill looming in the future. A vacation to pay for in April. Christmas..argh! Christmas! I also need new contacts..my disposable ones are out. I've been wearing the same pair for about 3 months now, and they are supposed to be changed every 2-3 weeks.
OK no more ranting about money. the horses and I are healthy and fed. Both trucks are running fine. I have enough food to get me through the weekend. What more could I want?
November 08, 2006
echo echo echo
Hellooooooo...anyone out there?
It's like a ghost town here. 8:00pm on a Wednesday night, and the school echoes. Tonight we have parent-teacher conferences. In 14 years of teaching I have never had a conference scheduled, yet I must stay here the required hours. I got a lot of copying done in the office, and I fully intend to clean my office...maybe! I guess parents aren't too worried about their kids' band grades. I need to flunk a few students, I guess!
Kevin is at home recovering from carbon monoxide poisoning from putting out a humongous house fire last night. I often forget how crazy and dangerous his job really is. It's easy to take things for granted...then these little reminders pop up.
You know, sometimes I am the most irresponsible person when it come sto myself. When it comes to everyone else (family, horses, students) I am organized and take care of what needs to be done. But with myself....strange. For instance, I know I am extremely lactose intolerant. Yet for dinner tonight I go to KFC and get a large order of macaroni and cheese. CHEESE! Ugh, now my stomach is upset and cramping and I feel miserable. Serves me right, duh!
Hay is coming tomorrow night. Yippee. That's yippee without the exclamation point. My back hurts already just thinking about it. I sure hope it is GOOD hay. It will be nice to have enough hay to get through the winter and not have to worry about it. Next on the worry list is finding someplace to deliver shavings for bedding. I am sure I will also need grain in a month or so. Oh well...not worrying right now!
I am babbling. Maybe because I am so bored and have sat here alone for so many hours. Sure wish I could take a nap.