We Have Become A Statistic

It's a rainy Thursday evening here in Indiana, cold and blustery, just plain out nasty.  I am sitting around waiting for laundry to finish, so what better time to do a little bloggin'.

We have officially become a statistic.  I hate this, I have dealt with my husband going from job to job for years, but after 6 years with his last employer, I felt like he had found a permanent home.  Unfortunately, they didn't feel the same way.  Today is day 6 of unemployment.  He's lucky to have lived through the past 4.  I am a creature of habit, and I HATE having my schedule changed.  Oh yes, I hate it very much.  So, this is the first time in 10 years that we have spent a solid week together.  Some of it has been very pleasant, most of it has been irritating, aggravating, annoying and just plain out bad.  It's not helping that it has rained for 3 straight days and I have been trapped inside with him.  I would much rather be doing my normal things at the farm and outside.  I am praying that it gets better.  FAST.  I work at night and therefore sleep in the daytime.  He's up and moving around.  The birds and cat are up moving around.  This leads to a very edgy me.  A very edgy me who is trying desperately to not blow a gasket about his former employer, and I know everyone says it, but they did him dirty.  He had 3 years seniority over 2 other employees, yet they "chose" to lay him off.  I am frustrated, worried and irritated.  I know it will get better, I just hope it comes before it's too late.

So, in my quest to save money, I have been price checking things against other stores in town.  OMG, I am so angry about this!  I cannot believe how much money I have been wasting on groceries!  I checked prices from Main Street Market to Walmart and the difference in just unbelievable!  I thought it would be a few cents here and a few cents there.  Nope, we're talking DOLLARS!  Yes, I said dollars!!!  Some things are more than a dollar and a half cheaper at Walmart.  Seriously.  How can they do this and get by?  Shouldn't that be considered price gouging?  So, needless to say, as much as I dislike Walfart, I'll be spending my grocery money there.  Plus they have the new policy to accept other store coupons, and they price match.  I think I'll fair pretty well if I can just keep on top of things.  (And stick to my list, not venturing out into the rest of the store!)  That may not be so easy coming into the holidays as this is a crazy, crazy time for me, but I'm going to do my best!  I'm going to try and set aside a couple hours on Sunday to check ads and coupons.  My printer is out, so Internet coupons won't be available for me, for now.  That will make it a little tougher, but I am determined to slash my grocery bill and save a few bucks while he's unemployed.  Especially since we are losing $400 a month.  I have to do something!  Looks like I may be in for a second job, which is not going to make for a happy me. Looks like those hand made gifts are going to be a must for me.

Well, here's to things getting better,  I certainly hope it happens soon.

Good morning.  It's finally FRIDAY!  This has been the longest week.  Anyone else out there feel the same way?  Yep, I thought so.
I have been back to riding Dakota, and for the most part she is doing a fantastic job!  She is fighting the bit when I ask her to turn right, but we seem to be working through it okay, just a little fussy about it.  And I'm ecstatic to report that we had our first trot together!  YES!  She did amazing, me-not so much.  Yeah, I have discovered that it's like riding a bike, it does all come back, but after 8 years of not being on a horse and at least 14 years of not riding seriously, I am rusty, clumsy, unbalanced, out of rhythm, and a little nervous.  The nervousness is going away very quickly, however the rest of it is coming back in a slow manner.  She is an amazing little horse, I am such a proud Momma!  She has come through this injury, even without those tendons a sound pleasure to ride!

This is a picture of her playing about a week ago, I was standing in her field and snapped this with my cell.  She is just so beautiful!  I can't help but be so proud of her!

I hope everyone has a wonderful day and weekend!

Be Careful What You Say....

Good morning!  It's sunny and beautiful here in Indiana today, a perfect day if I may say myself.  Too bad I have shopping to do, I'd much rather be outside working with the horses or in the yard.  Ah well....the to do list must come first, especially when the critters need some chow.
I have been seeing a lot of people posting things on Facebook about true friends.  Some times I let things bother me that really shouldn't, but some of this stuff is really getting to me.  Being a person who is always busy, and I mean ALWAYS busy, I feel like it is selfish for people to make these remarks.  Things like, "if you can't make time for me then I don't need you", and "Don't make room in your heart for someone who can't make time for you".  Well you know what, I love many of my friends dearly and I don't always keep in touch very well, but that doesn't mean that I'm not a good friend.  Or maybe it does.  Does the fact that I have so much to do that I barely sleep 4 hours a day, hardly eat and when I see the inside of my home I almost feel like a guest mean anything to anyone?  Really, you want to condemn people for taking care of their lives?  For me means taking care of 3 properties, my ill parents, my animals, my home, conditioning the horses and working.  Yes, so I take care of my life first, but that doesn't mean that I'm not a friend, it means that I don't have much time to play and when I do, I make the best of it with the best people.  I guess it just hurts because I have seen those kinds of posts from people that I consider good friends.  I don't know, maybe I'm just being oversensitive.....

To anyone who feels this way about me, please feel free to give me a hand with my work sometime so that I can play too.  I guess the fact that I don't really complain about my life leads people to believe that I am relatively happy, but I would love to be able to have time to sit down and chat on the phone, catch up on Facebook and hang out whenever I please.  However, until I get some help, that is NOT going to happen.  Either work with me, accept me for who I am, or get the hell over it!  Either way you choose to do it, remember, be careful what you say, you never know who is reading it and who may be hurt by it!

Hope you all have a fabulous day. 

Dance Moms

Good morning all! 

We don't have much time to watch television, so it amazes me the caliber or shows that are on that thing.  I have a few shows that I follow religiously--Fringe, Law and Order: SVU, Dancing With The Stars, and Parenthood are pretty much it.  And those aren't "I'm gonna die if I don't know what happened" shows, just ones I enjoy when I'm home.  So last night I was doing laundry and cruising the channels for something to watch, when I came across "Dance Moms".  Oh my, this show is dramatic to say the least!  What is with those people?  WOW!  I think that Abby knows what she is doing as far as teaching the kids to dance, but those mothers on there....they are a whole different bunch of people.  I cannot honestly say that I would associate with any of them, and they are a bunch of whiny, cry-baby, drama queens!  Give me a break!  I watched a couple of episodes and was floored by the petty things that these women had to say.  They all have a problem with Abby, the dance instructor, for one reason or another.  One doesn't want her daughter doing "ethnic" dances, because it's stereotyping her.  Um, NO, it's teaching her to be able to do ethnic dances for auditions!  Good grief!  Another was griping because her daughters never have costumes.  Well, seems to me if you were concerned about it you would approach the instructor more than 15 minutes before you kid goes on stage.  DUH!  Another mom was complaining because one of the girls gets special attention all of the time and her daughter is mistreated.  Well, okay, I don't know what she means by special treatment, but from what I can tell she treated them all the same.  These women are so jealous of their kids and think the world revolves around them to the point that they seriously need to grow up.  If they are soooooo unhappy with Abby Lee's then why the hell don't they find someone else to teach their kids dance?  Or better yet, let Abby do her job, encourage their kids to listen to her and correct problems that they have and quit being so jealous of your kids!

That's just my honest opinion, but the show did it's job, it kept me watching to see what ridiculousness those petty moms could come up with next!

Happy Hump Day!

Happy hump day!  The middle of the week always seems like it takes forever to get here, but when it does the rest of the week just flies by.  Today it's rainy and chilly out, giving me the fall fever.  I love this time of the year, the leaves changing, the cooler air, and the fall holidays!  Love, LOVE, LOOOOVE Halloween, and I'm excited for it to come this year. 

I got back on Dakota to ride on Monday, and it went well.  She's was seemingly unsure of herself, but after watching the videos back, I believe it was because the ground is so muddy.  She did much better yesterday.  I hope she comes out of this insecurity completely, I would like to go more than 10 steps without stopping.  LOL!  But, with teaching her comes much patience, and I know that just like 2 years ago, when she was a wild child that I thought I would never be able to ride, she'll come into her own.  She has grown into the most gentle, respectful, attentive horse I could have asked for.  She listens very well and is always eager to work.  I am hoping that once she realizes that when I'm riding her she's going to get to go out and see everything, she'll be excited for that too.

Cheyenne has grown so much in the past few months, I have a lot of ground work to do with her, and she's trying my patience at every turn of the hand.  Today she came running at me with her ears pinned back when I came to her field with her grain.  My exact words were, "OH NO YOU DON'T!"  LOL, she thought she was gonna get away with it and got a rude awakening.  I'm not an abusive person, but when she did this, she got a firm smack on the neck.  I then got a grasp on her halter and walked her around until the ears came up and she was more pleasant.  I know they have bad days just like we do, but that is absolutely unacceptable behavior!  She is also pushing into my "personal space" often now, so I have a lot of work to do there.  I am a firm believer in groundwork and manners on horses, I mean who wants to be pushed around by a 1000 lb animal?  NOT ME!  I earned every ounce of respect that Dakota gives me, and I have a funny feeling that I'm going to have to work twice as hard to get the same level of respect out of Cheyenne.  I call her my red-headed step child, LOL, she's so ornery and has the temper of a redhead.  I'm definately working on it, and will continue to do so for eternity.  Dakota will occasionally try me too, so it's an ongoing lesson for them both.  I am currently reading a book by Clinton Anderson, someone who I have just recently learned about.  His Downunder Horsemanship seems to have very good training techniques, so I'm going to work on his program with Cheyenne and see how she reacts.  I sure wish I could afford those DVDs of his, but that is waaaaay out of my price range! 

I have a few ideas for holiday gifts this year, I just wish I could find the time and inspiration to get started.  I actually have had the ideas for a few years and just never accomplished them.  I'm going to really try and sit down tonight and work out a few plans on how to do them and maybe get started.  I need to hold myself accountable to this.  DO IT, dang it!    I will keep you all posted on my progress.  Heck if one of the ideas work out well, I may even try to sell them!  :)  We'll see!

Okay, so I need to get to bed, I have a mountain of laundry to move today and horses who need work too.  Hope you all have a wonderful Wednesday.

Happy Birthday Hubby and Horse Pictures

Good afternoon! I'm up and at 'em early today, lots going on. First off, our cable and internet have been acting stupid for the past few months, and we finally broke down and called Comcast out to fix it. After the guy spent 1 1/2 hours trying to "pin" it on us because we replaced our wiring under the house, it boiled down to the main line isn't set up for digital. Well, now why wasn't that changed BEFORE we were forced to go to all digital? Yeah, I'm not a very happy camper. Especially since I went to bed at 11:30am and was back up at 1:45pm, for this.

The other thing going on--HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY HUBBY, ROBERT! He's officially 30! Time to grow up now, Honey.... :) To celebrate, I thought I'd post a picture of the first time he rode Dakota. I'm so proud of my baby girl, you have no idea! Here it is:

If you look closely, you can see her wound on her right hind leg. Picture was purposely taken from this direction so it's not so gory. We have grown accustomed to it, but it still grosses the majority of people out.

This is a pic of my second ride on her, as I'm not happy with the pics of the first ride. I know, it's silly....

And next are pictures of our new baby, Cheyenne. The first is the day we bought her, she was still wooly with her winter hair and so small. I can't believe how much she has changed in a few months. The second two were taken about a month ago, right before her first bath. Yeah...that was an experience! :)

I have thought to myself several times, "Why in the world did I get two young horses that need so much conditioning??!!!" But after spending the evening with them and having such a great time, I remember why, because I wanted to learn. Oh boy, they are sure teaching me! I love them both very much, I wouldn't trade this experience for the world! I have many, many years to come with both of them and that thrills me to my very core!

Well, I must go corral the dust bunnies now, company is coming at 6!

Hugs & Love,

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!