Gone, But Not Forgotten

Well, Hello! I haven't blogged in over a year, and I doubt very seriously if I have anyone to even read it, but here goes!

I'm going to start with an update on the horses. (Since they have become my life!) We lost Cherokee, the old pony, back in March. He had a twisted gut and there was nothing that could be done for him. I was totally heartbroken, in shock and mad at myself for letting it happen. I couldn't have been more devastated, and spent the better part of a week sitting in his barn balling my eyes out. I miss him so much, he was my big brother and such a huge part of my life. Dakota is doing really well! She still has her injury, though I am happy to report it is only about 1/3 of the size and FINALLY, (Yes, FINALLY!!! After 18 months), starting to heal well. She has complete use of her leg, even without the tendons, and has adapted well. Most people don't even notice that she's got a problem! I got down to business with her in early April, started back into her conditioning after we got the A-OK from the vet to do so. And I'm happy to report that she is doing fantastic with it and WE ARE RIDING HER! Yep, you read that right. The vet seems to think that she will be just fine, I mean she's not going to win the Triple Crown or anything, but just around the farm, she is doing AH-MA-ZING! I'm so proud of her! We also have a new addition to the farm family, Cheyenne, a 13 month old paint horse. She's become the baby and knows how to use it. (On everybody but Mommy, that is!) She had never been handled until we got her 4 months ago. She's doing fantastic too, lots of groundwork put in on her and she's coming around nicely. I'm one proud Mom to 2 amazing paint horses! (And 13 barn cats and all of the critters at the house.)

Speaking of all of the critters at the house, everyone is doing great here, no passages in the past year, which is a blessing! Everyone is fat and happy as usual.

As I type this, my hubby is getting ready to turn the big 3-0! Yep, he's gonna be 30 on Monday, and doesn't seem to give a hoot about it. I think it'll hit him eventually, but so far no reaction whatsoever. I guess that's okay, but I can remember how I felt when I turned 30, in fact I believe there's a blog about it on here..... I'm excited because there's cake. :) HA!

Not a whole lot new going on with Mom and Dad, Dad is the same, and getting a little worse. Mom is having a lot of problems now too, she just recently had 3 teeth pulled and found out that she has pyrhia (sp?) and will have to have the rest of her teeth pulled soon. I can't imagine how she is feeling, but I'm doing my best to support her and help with everything I can.

I haven't sewn anything in quite some time which depresses me deeply. I just can't find the time to do it with taking care of Mom and Dad, the horses and the farm work and the housework. I miss it SO much, you have no idea. It was my creative outlet and now it's getting all backed up itching to get out. But since money is SO tight this year, I am going to attempt to make some handmade gifts. I'll be sure to keep you posted on how that goes. It may blow up in my face and be a total disaster. Especially since I haven't picked up a needle in almost a year!

So, long story short, I'm trying to get some sort of normalcy back into my life and attempting to get back in touch with some long lost friends that I miss so dearly. I hope that they don't all hate me for good, and will understand that my life has been so busy that something had to give and unfortunately, a lot of my friendships suffered. So if you are reading this and care to get back in touch with me, please do! I try to keep up with Facebook...not very well most of the time, but I do my best to check in at least once a day. I'm Christy Heaston-Thornburg on Facebook, look me up! I'm also going to be blogging as much as I can. I look forward to hearing from you all!

Love and Hugs~

Long Time, No Blog.

Hello my Friends! I doubt if I have any readers now, but for anyone who happens by, I thought I'd give an update on things. Life has been a constant rollercoaster since I blogged last, and believe me, when I say rollercoaster, it has been mostly down hill.


The main issues have been with the horses, so I'll talk about them for now. Early in the spring, Cherokee, (the old pony), stopped eating, lost a bunch of weight, and we had to find a mobile vet to come see him. The weight we attributed to his age, as he is 42 this year, and I figured that this was the begining of his demise. So, the vet came and checked him over, and said that he's overall healthy, except for an over-grown tooth, and being too thin. Horse teeth never stop growing, and he lost one of his bottom teeth, so the top one in the same place grew out too long. Thus keeping him from chewing properly, so he was literally starving and we had no idea! He was eating, but because he wasn't chewing it up, he wasn't digesting it and therefore disposing of all of it, instead of utilizing it. So, we now have him on a healthy diet of Dumor Senior Complete feed, soaked in water to make a mash, along with Alfalfa pellets and beet pulp soaked. He's picking up some weight now, which thrills me! Although, we're worried about this winter, because he's just not packing it on as quickly as we'd like, so I think we're gonna get a nice warm winter blanket for him. He's also loaded with energy now, which is good, but bad, as he's burning a lot of calories, while we're trying to put them on him.

Cherokee right after his bath, about 5 weeks ago.

We just got him back to eating and feeling better, and Dakota got her leg caught in her stall door. It was a bad, bad injury. She skinned her back leg, between her hock and fetlock, about 6 inches, clear to the bone. She severed the Common Digital Extensor tendon, and just made hamburger out of everything. She had horizontal cuts in her Cannon bone as well. The tendon that she cut is the one which holds up the toe of her hoof, and there was no way to reattach it. She has learned to walk okay without it, but has been trying to play and romp around, and she has a little trouble with that. Hubs and I spent hours on end for 8 weeks, cleaning and wrapping her leg from the bottom of her hoof all the way past her hock to keep it nice and clean and dry, until the bone was covered. Plus pain medicine and antibiotics every 12 hours. The vet originally gave her Banamine for her pain, and she was having a bad reaction to it, so now she's on Bute. She was also grounded to the barn for the first 8 weeks, so we were picking her a ton of grass twice a day to keep her happy. After that 8 weeks, we were still wrapping, but not as far. She's doing well, although we have a lot of proud flesh growing that we are battling with now. I had no idea what I was doing, but you cannot expose bone to air, so we would have to take quick swipes at cleaning it up, and keep saline against it to be sure it didn't dry out. Normal Saline is the same pH as a horses body and it will not harm the bones. We are 13 weeks out now, and are able to leave it uncovered for several hours a day, and she's allowed out on her own again now, but we have to keep her wrapped up when she's in the stall. So, we're still putting countless hours in, but at least it's a various times instead of all lumped into one visit. We're using a product called Granulex V to deal with the proud flesh, and for now, it appears to be working. I hope we can get it under control and not have to have it removed. I hear it's a really messy procedure, and honestly, I don't know if I can handle it. But I'll do what I have to do. I love my horsey, and she just keeps changing my course of action. I had planned to be on her back by the end of this month...and now we aren't sure if we'll even be able to ride her. I have been working her a little at a walk, and she's doing well, but it's going to be a long haul to get her healed.

Dakota with her leg all bandaged up.

In the meantime, I lost another one of my guinea pigs, little Cocoa. She did the same thing Holly did, starting drinking tons of water, eating like a horse and still losing weight. Eventually she had a stroke and passed on. I miss her and so does her lonely sister, Noel. But Noel and I are becoming best buds, which is something I could never get with her. She's always been pretty wild, but she's coming around to Mommy....and getting very spoiled!

I also adopted another baby Robin. I found him sitting in the middle of the road on my route one night, and no sign of where he came from. He wasn't old enough to make it on his own, so I brought the little hitchhiker home, fed him out and now he's spoiled rotten too! We named him Hitch, since he hitchhiked clear home from Randolph County. :)

Hitch

Past that, all the other kids are doing well, and hubs and I are surviving all of this drama, but we are so far behind in our work for taking care of Dakota that I think we'll never get caught up. We're working on it, we have spent the past 2 weeks trimming trees at Mom's, mowing at the farm and we're getting ready to bale hay. Not looking forward to the latter! My yard has gone to hell, and honestly I have given up on it for this year. I pull a few weeds when I get a chance, but that's not too often. My house is a complete disaster area, and I honestly don't even care. Stop by at your own risk!

I hope this finds everyone doing well, and I miss keeping up with my online friends! Hugs to all!

Happy Thursday!

Good morning!

I haven't been blogging like I planned to this year, but of course, when I have time, I never have anything to talk about. When I'm crazy busy, I have a million things I want to blog, and never do. Ah well...

So, I'm working on the January FLRR block, which is themed "Bridge To Terabithia", and this thing had me puzzled. I have been searching online for ideas, when lo and behold, I was looking through our DVD's to find something to watch, and discovered that we actually have the movie! And I have no idea why I had not watched this movie before now, as this is "my" kind of movie! It was fantastic, I loved it! I have a ton of ideas now, thankfully as I will not kid you, I was stumped! So, when I get it all finished up, I'll post pics of what I have done. I'm also back to working on Ing's heart...and I'm almost there, I promise Ing! I'll be winging it home to you real soon!

So, we had fantastic weather over the past weekend, temperatures up in the 40's and 50's, which is amazing for us in January! We got to put the horses out and leave them for the first time this winter. This sounds silly to horse-folk, but Cherokee is so old that we don't like to leave him out in the extreme cold, so Dakota doesn't get out either. It's a jealousy thing...and he DOES get jealous. I put the new pet-eye camera on her, and dingaling me forgot to turn it on. I was all excited about having some pics from it, and when I hooked it up to upload pics, there was nothing there. Yep, I forgot to turn it on. So...the next time it warms up a little, I'll put it BACK on her and try again. We also managed to get our outside Christmas decor taken down, which has to be a world record for us! We normally just wait until it warms up a little to do it, usually around the middle of February or even March. It feels good to have it already down! Things are back to normal in the weather department, cold and snowy. It's currently 13*. Brrrrr!

Well, I hope everyone is having a fantastic year, so far 2010 hasn't brought any major catastophies for us, so that is always a plus!

Happy Thursday!

Looking For A Good Blacksmith

Hello all!

So, our blacksmith has dissappeared off the face of the earth. Really, really strange since he has been soooo faithful in taking care of Cherokee for the past 3 years. I'm a little worried, as not only has his number been disconnected, so has his son's.

Anyone know a good blacksmith in the Muncie, Indiana area that wuold be willing to work on an old pony and a young paint horse?

I'm fairly sure I can take care of Cherokee myself, however, Dakota needs a blacksmith to keep her in working order.

Thanks for any info!

3 Very Good Reasons...

...to NEVER let a salesman in your house!

Last week, we were visited by a Kirby vacuum sales team. Had I answered the door, I would never had let them in the house. However, I was busy, hubs answered the door, and the next thing I knew, I had a Kirby sales person in my house. She fumbled, wasn't very knowledgable, and quite honestly was just kind of a twit. So, I understand how this stuff works...she does the presentation, she makes money. Fine...I'll deal with it. I know how hard money is to come by.

Reason #1: They actually said, "We'd like to ask a few questions of an honest homeowner." A few questions turned into 2 hours taken from my life that I will never get back. Just think of the things I could have done in those 2 hours!!! And the questions were merely attacks on how dirty my house was and how horrible a job our vacuum does. Ah well...I'll get to that in a minute...

Reason #2: The jack-ass sale closer that appeared after 2 hours of listening to this twit drone on about how great the Kirby is, and all of it's spectacular features. BTW, She never got to the carpet cleaner part...so hard telling how much MORE of my time she would have taken up. So this guy comes in, cocky as all get out...and starts pitching me the sales shtick. After 5 or so minutes of talking about the vacuum, he lays it on me. $2,500.00. Are you serious? I knew it was going to be high, but I'll tell ya, I just about fell off of the couch! This guy has no idea what we're dealing with, and I know that...however, all he really had to do was take a look around and he would have KNOWN there was no way in HELL I'd ever pay $2,500 for a vacuum. I mean really...I only paid $200 for my CAR! I told him no...politely. He asked if I had a credit card, and then INFORMED me to slap in on the card. When I said no more forcefully, he started dropping the price! It went from $2,500, to $1,999, to $1,500, and finally to a (as he put it) desperate $999. Again, are you serious????? I basically grabbed him by the ear and tossed him to the curb.

Reason #3: Fleas. Yes, you read that right, FLEAS. DOG fleas....and I don't have a dog! We are now infested with dog fleas, and the only reasonable explaination I have, is that they dragged them in here in that $2,500 vacuum that they were pushing down our throats. I'm mad...madder than a bulldog with a toothache!

Now the part that I said I'd get back to....

We have a Eureka Capture vacuum. It's lime green...and MEAN! This girl quickly ran my vaccum over the area that she planned to demonstrate how great the Kirby was, and then proceeded to put filter disk after filter disk into the Kirby and get dirt out of my carpet. Not that much dirt either...and she really had to work at it. She then proceeded to do the same routine on one of my chairs. Now, I haven't really cleaned my furniture in a couple of months, so I wasn't surprised at all when she started pulling dirt from the depths of hell out of my chair. Anyone who has ever had a bird and a cat will know what I mean. They shed...constantly! The part that I was amused by...was when the Kirby failed to get anymore dirt...I got out my Eureka Capture a couple of days later and sucked a TON of dirt out of that thing! And I didn't work half as hard at it as she did. So, now....why did I want a $2,500 vacuum? When my $160 vacuum done twice the job, with half the work? Of course, with any vacuum, you have to keep them up...clean filters and a tight belt. So, I honestly wouldn't have traded my Eureka for that Kirby even if he had offered an even trade!!!

So in closing...beware of the Kirby sales team...they are on the prowl, and the only thing they'll leave behind is a wasted night and a lot of fleas.

Have a fabulous weekend!

That Is One Cool Gift!

Happy Monday!

I had the greatest idea this morning! And I really thought long and hard about it, then I realized it won't work. Are you ready?

We went to the farm last night despite the really cold temperatures, (17* was the HIGH yesterday!), to let the horses out. With all of the hub-bub over the holidays they got a little neglected in the getting-out-to-play department. After watching Dakota run herself silly for about 10 minutes, and getting Cherokee to play for a little while, we got into a little snowball fight. We are such big kids when it comes to the snow! We don't get much free time to do "nothing", so we really had a good time, and the farm provides great cover and tons of space to get away from each other. So...this led to the idea this morning...

What if someone really DID sell snowballs!??? I mean, really, sell snowballs? What a great idea! Especially for the snowball-making challenged! And YES, there are plenty of snowball-making challenged people out there. You could set up a stand in the park, we have one in particular that has a big hill that we all sled on. Wouldn't that be great??? Sell snowballs and have a huge snowball fight going on all the time! How cool would it be to make a little money off this white stuff, and have fun at the same time! Of course, they wouldn't be expensive...like 10 cents each. And then it hit me, that wouldn't be such a good idea at all.... Especially when we've had snow on top of snow lately, and we have yet to see one single kid out playing in it. Can it be that the art of snowman building and snowball fights have gone to the days of old, like letter writing? Yet, I logged into my facebook account, and had a snowball fight request. So, I guess now instead of going out and playing in the snow, people have virtual snowball fights too. Another good idea that's past it's prime....

Anyway, my real reason for this post is to brag about the gift the my bestie got me for Christmas! We just had our Christmas with them on Saturday night, and they got me the coolest gift! They got me (and Dakota!), a "Pet's Eye View" camera. It's this little camera that you clip on your dog and cat to see what they do when you aren't with them. They thought it would be fun to put it on Dakota and see what she's up to when I'm busy with other things! It takes pictures at set intervals, 1, 5, or 15 minutes apart. How cool is that???? I'm so excited to try it out on her...so be ready for some really strange pictures coming from her point of view. Hubs was teasing me about it, he said all we'd ever see is grass, water, grass, water.... We'll see!

So thanks so much to Lisa and EJ, I'm sure we're gonna have a ball with it as soon as I get it all charged up and ready to go!

Have a super day,

Hello 2010, Will You Be My Friend?

Hello Friends! And a hearty welcome to 2010!

We had a very quiet evening as the New Year came in, partaking in a couple of movies and some finger foods with Mom and Dad. At Midnight, we were able to see the fireworks that were set off downtown from Mom and Dad's driveway, so that was a nice end to the evening. We don't normally get all jazzed up about the new year, but this year, I think we were even more quiet than usual. Things have been so messed up for the past few years, especially the last few months of 2009, that I spent most of the night trying to decide whether to be happy to see '09 go or sad because of everything that had happened. Eventually, by the time 2010 arrived, I realized that there is no point in being sad, only to look forward to better times. And better times will not come easy for us, so we're going to have to make our own happy memories as the new year rolls on. So, 2010, whaddaya say, wanna be friends?

I was asked a few minutes ago if I had made any resolutions, and sadly, I hadn't even thought about it yet. So, no, for now, no resolutions for me. I plan to work on myself consistently throughout the whole year, so I guess that's one. I guess I could go with the old standby, lose weight...but I have all but given up on that all the way around. Ah well, if I happen to think of any, I'll let you know.

To all of my friends, may the new year find you happy in the smallest of ways, as I realize that happiness means more than anything else in life. The rest is just...shall I say, "fluff". :)

Take care and Happy New Year!

glitter-graphics.com

Still alive and kicking...but just barely...

Hello all. I hope everyone had a safe and Merry Christmas! Ours was nice, it was less about gifts and more about family this year. Things are tight for our whole family, so everyone did the best they could and that was just good enough. The food was spectacular as always, Mom can just about outcook anyone, and we managed to keep our sanity, so that's always a plus!

I've had some serious trials for the past few months and have basically alienated myself from everyone. I talked with Ingrid the other day, and it felt so nice to feel like I still have a friend. I also chatted with Lori for a few minutes, and it was just like we'd never stopped talking. I spend most of my days feeling alone, so these calls were a welcome interruption to my usual stress-filled day. Thank you ladies!

I am having a very hard time dealing with some of the stress that I'm going through and I don't quite no how to get my act together. I won't devulge the details here, as I know prying eyes are reading, and quite frankly...it's none of their business. But I wish that I had more time for my friends, as I'm sure that they could help me through this time. However, some have written me off, and that hurts..more than words can say. I do know that everyone has bad times, and I do know that sometimes you have to get rid of the bad in your life in order to feel good, but how can people that I have known for years just turn their back on me, especially when I am already falling apart? I have been there for them, listened to their every bitch, piss and moan, but when it comes time for me to rely on them, they are no where to be seen. I guess that says it all...they didn't want to be my friend, they only wanted me to be theirs. They wanted me to be there for them to bitch at, but turn their head when I have something to say. I'm hurt...very, very hurt. I shouldn't rely on people, and this is a hard lesson learned for me. I come from a background of helping anyone you possibly can at all costs, and if they never return the favor so be it. But to completely shut me out when I need a shoulder to cry on is cold. Very cold. I guess it's a sign of the times...

Anyway, to all of the friends that feel like I have done this to them, I am very sorry. I did not intend to hurt anyone and I now know how it feels. Very alone.

On a brighter note, we're through Christmas...on to New Year's. I hope next year is kinder to all of us, we've just about had all we can take.

If I don't get to write again...Happy New Year friends!

Lesa's FLRR Block

Really? It has been 2 months since I have blogged? REALLY? Okay. I have got to get out of this little time warp thing I'm in and keep better time. I just don't know where my time goes anymore...

Anyway, I finished working on Lesa's block eons ago and forgot to post it. Of course, we had a month void of mailing and I forgot totally about it, mailed late. The usual. ARG. One of these days I'll see a surgeon about removing my head from my ass. Until then, I guess I'll just have to deal with the discomfort.

Here's the pics...

I appliqued 2 toadstools on, and embroidered a little fairy peeking over the big one. I thought she turned out really well, until I looked at the pic and realized that it looks like she's wearing bunny ears. Well, crap... Also, you can see the toadstool seam treatment I did beside her using cast-on stitch and bullions for stems, I used DMC perl 5 for those. Those did turn out cute! The viney leaves underneath are done using fly stitch in varigated Edmar Iris threads.

An overall view of my work...the curved seam is me too. I also added a shooting star in the sky, and somehow forgot to take a picture of it.

Hope you like my work Lesa!

Have a wonderful day all,