"Tick, Tock" goes the clock

I survived the first week of school... Woot! One thing about being an educational interpreter is that it changes from one year to the next; you are "assigned to" the student and not the school. The good news being that if you don't like the particular school you're in, hang in there because you won't be there forever. Of course the bad news is if you love a school or its faculty, you just have to suck it up because you don't get to stay.
I struggle with the transience of my job from year to year and school to school; change is so NOT my thing. This year was another move from elementary to middle school, which meant all new surroundings, faculty, and rules (and the older I get, the harder all this "new" is for me to process ;o) So far though, I love it. Too often, interpreters and deaf students are the red-headed stepchildren at a school (nobody wants an extra grownup in their classroom, for one thing), but so far everyone has been extremely easy to work with (and talk about a load off... whew!). I even have a real chair and a little space to call my very own in the resource room (a rare occurrence). Don't I feel special? You'd better believe it! *grin*

I spent most of Saturday working on the new feed room, but got precious little done (although I was pretty darn productive with the epithets). Meh :o|  DH finally managed to finish out the old patio wall to make the underwriters happy, and the inspector was here last Friday (we're supposed to close Monday afternoon - Halleluiah!) One thing I wasted considerable time on was cleaning up DH's [counter] productive pig piles all over the place. I'm not sure if it's because he worked construction or simply because he's such a manly man, but he seems to feel obligated to alternately drop or toss stuff everywhere and just leave it. Sawdust, screws, wire casings, nails, wood scraps and heaps of old vinyl siding; you name it, he chucked it into a pile on the patio and went on his merry way. I alternately shoveled, swore and swept all manner of crappola to get at least some of it out of the doggone way. Probably a good thing he wasn't around, as I might have been tempted to take a swing at that great big block he calls a head with my trusty broom. Seems I'm still just a titch cranky about it, eh? Heh heh. Ooops.

Look who I found snuggled up underneath the gate latch on my way to the pasture the other day and starting to make his cocoon. Is that cool or what? You can even see where he's attached himself to the circle above the hook (coooool :o) I had quite a time trying to get a picture of him, as my camera kept focusing on the metal parts of the gate hook. He was only there for a couple of days, and in such an awkward place to shoot that this is the only photo I managed to get. Anybody know what he is? He's got Monarch coloring, but I remember them as fuzzy caterpillars (or does that come off before they do the chrysalis thing?) I have no idea, I just know it was awfully annoying trying to open and close the gate without bothering him. Any amateur entomologists out there? Inquiring minds want to know...

Still have an awful lot to do on the feed room, but I did take a few photos of what I've gotten done so far to share. In a stroke of genius (okay, maybe just good thinking but I'm counting it ;o) I got three of these heavy duty moving dollys from Harbor Freight (on sale for $9.99 each). I put the freezer on one, which will allow me to easily pull it out for sweeping and bug spraying. This one I will use for the feed bags; I put an old piece of screen underneath which will - I hope - keep the mice at bay. I made a quick trip to the Habitat for Humanity Restore and splurged (ha) on two rolls of .25c wallpaper in a mottled pattern to cover the foam board insulation. Somehow, I didn't see white as the optimal color in a perpetually dusty room (not to mention that styrofoam tends to come with its own static cling issues). Here's what I've done so far, bearing in mind that I have an awfully long way to go yet. There are double doors going into the feed room which will keep halters and lead ropes nice and handy. This is the [unfinished] one on the right for the Moo Crew:

and here's the one on the left, which I've started on:

The halters fit pretty well, I think:

After bonking my head half a dozen times, I moved the big shelf with the feed buckets up several slots. The ceiling isn't in yet, but hopefully DH will get that taken care of this week (WITHOUT making a phenomenal mess in my nice, clean feed room). It's pretty cramped in there, but hopefully with a little ruthless organization and creative contemplations I'll end up with a nice functional space. That's the plan, anyway ('course we know how the best laid of those go, don't we? ;o)

Have a blessed week everyone, and please say a prayer for those in the path of the hurricane. Thankfully, it shifted away from us but I sure do hate to see anyone hit by a storm. Horsey hugs!

Dog Days 'n Mysterious Ways

Splicing together my past and present, I will begin this week's post by saying: My off is all, y'all. *giggle* For some reason I found the blend of Pennsylvania Dutch and Southernese to be rather funny (well, except for the reality part. Translation: My vacation is over everyone; time has run out. This has been the best all around summer I have had in a very long time. No surgical procedures, hospital visits or major medical maladies. Hooray! I've actually felt human through most of it too, trumping last summer (an almost forgotten experience, that, as I felt meh on most days last year :oP So I'm not ready for it to end yet. Plus I'll really miss that time with the horses every morning. *sniffle* This is my favorite back to school shot of Bella with her backpack - from this post - so I thought I'd recycle it. Snarky Rider generously gave us a big surprise with some exposure on her famous (infamous? ;o) blog by posting some Bella pics (here). This was following a discussion on her post about Arabian heads and brainless breeding practices resulting in waaay too much of a nice trait (check out the horse in the middle here who looks like he ran into a brick wall - and eek).

Snarky has some great posts often with lots of food for thought and, as her name and logo suggest, she dishes them out with a generous side of sarcasm. And boy oh boy does she find some doozies. Like the woman on Craig's List who is offering two horses for trade to any licensed MD; one horse for liposuction and the other for - umm, well..... You know what? I think I'll just let you read that one for yourself; it's here. Who even thinks this way?!? *slaps hand over eyes*. Yeesh. I'll ask you to give Snarky a vote on Bloggers too, if you have a minute (that's here).
And that's probably enough of the click here stuff wouldn't you agree? Just say: "Here, here" Bwahahahaha *cough* Er, sorry.

We are, I hope, finally inching away from drought conditions. Literally. My rain gauge (#4) broke and I haven't bought another as yet, but according to my dad we've had about ten inches so far this week (and wow). It may not be the world's greatest shot, but I liked the big rainy kersplash on the left side of this picture. It kinda looks like a weird plastic leaf. Speaking of rainy weather, I have to say that while I am all about family and togetherness I like my personal space. The stalls for the girls are about 10 x 10, which is not very big but it is plenty of room for them as they are only in there periodically. Although we have five girls and five stalls (and I'm not a mathematician, but I'm mostly sure that equals one apiece), I come upon the same laughable scenario just about every single time we get a heavy rain. Can you say let's play sardines?

Yep, that's three horses all stuffed in the same stall. *rolls eyes* Maybe it's like it is with people; when there's a big scary storm, everybody goes and climbs into bed with mom (which would be Lady :o) Sarabear is in her stall to the right, and Bella (the non-conformist of the group) is standing outside in front of the stalls.
Seems Brains N' Brawn are back at it again; maybe next weekend I'll finally be able to post some "look at my pretty feed room" shots and wouldn't that be nice?!? (A girl's gotta dream, right? *sigh*)

They got the side door up for bringing the feed in - like a loading door, I suppose - and then went to work on the "front" doors to the feed room. I love the wrought iron hinges we used; I'll get a better photo for you next post. The best part? They didn't cost any more than the butt-ugly steel hinges (and let's hear it for beauty on a budget - Woot! :o) Look:

Oh, and like our ginormous puddle? I told you we got some serious rain ;o) Guess I'd better get back out there (clock's still ticking and tomorrow's D-day, don'tcha know). Have a blessed week everyone!

Has this been some crazy weather this summer, or what? The first part of it we had gorgeous (albeit dry) weather, but this part? Hot-Hot-HOT! I've started to wear a sweatband outside in the morning to feed and groom the horses. Whoever coined the phrase, "Southern women don't sweat, we glow" is an idiot (well it's either that, or I'm "glowing" like my own personal version of the Northern Lights in the South). Growing up I didn't sweat at all; if I got too hot, I just keeled over. From that perspective I can say it's probably a good thing I do now (that, along with my shoe size, changed after I had a baby). It would be nice, however, if I could be just a tad more subtle about it; maybe a nice gentle sheen or something (in keeping with aforementioned glow, you see).

Sadly, I sweat like a welder working inside a big metal tank in Arizona in the middle of August (how's that for perspective? ;o) Happily, however, I don't smell like one (because that would be really icky). I found this marvelous stuff a year or two ago called Chlorella - have you heard of it? I can't even remember where I stumbled across it, but it's an herbal supplement made from chlorophyll that has been extracted from algae and acts as internal deodorant. Isn't that wild? This is just an FYI (I don't sell it or anything), but here's a link if you're interested. Of course if you decide to jump right on it, it would be nice if you went through GoodShop and chose Epic Farms as your charity.
Just sayin'...

Most of you know I'm a Christian (if not, see disclaimer located in my bio ;o) Most of you also know that DH has been making me crazed by taking forty forevers to finish the doggone visitor area (you know this because I grumble all about it on here). Anyhoo, enter the power of prayer and God's timing (which is so rarely the same as ours, right?). I said an extra one about a week and a half ago, because summer is rapidly running out and I have no desire to mix back to work insanity with the domino effect (this post). My prayer was basically motivational, as DH is completely UNmotivated to finish said Project (my apologies for using the "P" word/swearing - I'll eat some soap later). It wasn't too long after my prayer, that the strangest thing happened. The day before we were to close on our refinance, the bank called and said that even though the appraiser had checked "as is" it was against the underwriter's policy to close with any unfinished construction on the property (this being an unfinished outside wall on the "old" patio, which will become an indoor room as soon as the new feed room is finished).

At first, I was extremely upset - I'll interject here that the girl from the bank called me with this news and not DH; because she didn't want to be the one to have to tell him - the heifer. Thankfully, he is not a bad-tempered king of old (kill the messenger, don'tcha know). It wasn't until he stopped shouting and stomping around and started snarling about needing to finish the outside feed room so he could get to that outside wall (the feed room stuff is currently blocking it) that a glimmer of light appeared to yours truly. The bank said they could extend the closing date (and keep our rate locked) for up to another month to give us time to finish the indoor room. Is God awesome or what?!? Talk about providing some motivation. I'm telling you; the man's pants are positively on fire to finish this project asap (thank you, Lord! ;o)

I've been crocheting in the evenings (if I have enough energy left over that is), and found the coolest pattern on Ravelry; it's for a ginormous granny square (here). For my fellow hookers (ha, ha), it's perfect for using up scrap yarn. My grandmother left me about 40 skeins of baby fingering, and almost none of them match. I've had them for several years with no idea what to use them for. This pattern is perfect; I can use several different colors in each blanket. I'm making blankets to give to a local organization that our church supports. They help pregnant teens/young unwed mothers (great place) and have recently started up a program to help the fathers as well. I finally delivered my Mom's birthday present; she loved it. My dad cracked me up by ooo-ing and ahh-ing over it too, which was rather unexpected albeit entertaining. Here it is on her dining room table:

Of course the first thing I did when I got back home was to gleefully shred that mistake-riddled nightmare of a pattern (whatta pain - yeesh :oP It's all good though; I'm happy with the way it turned out in the end.
Speaking of ending, I'd better get back to work on the patio (rumor has it we're in a BIG hurry ;o) Have a blessed weekend everyone!