1.Let's start with Sunday, September 18th. There is a new tack company that I discovered through some fellow bloggers who are testing product. I was pretty excited about the new line as it's made with Sedgewick leather and the hype is that it will be moderately priced. The brand even asked on their Facebook page about customers' experiences with bridles priced in the $160 range. As you well know, I'm pretty frugal. I also love Sedgewick leather. LOVE IT. It's so soft and takes oil well, and it's just so pretty. I've gone on at length about my love for the Joseph Sterling Bridle, priced at around $140 (give or take depending on the model) WITH reins. Based on this question, I was expecting the bridles to be priced around $160 and hoped they would come with reins. (Note, one should never make assumptions.) I was really interested in getting one to see how they compared to my beloved JS. It's nice to try new things! The brand posted some for sale on ebay (priced a little higher than the JS), but did not state whether or not reins were included. I posted on the FB page to find out and had the following exchange (note: I've crossed out the name involved to avoid any type of slander. I'm not trying to ruin this brand, I'm sure their product is lovely. I'm just whining about being treated poorly here. I hope they find someone else to take over their PR.)
Ok, so it's not a big deal. But for some reason it really got under my skin. Probably just because of what was coming on Monday.
2.Monday my dad had surgery. Thankfully all went well, and we are just awaiting some test results to feel 100% about the whole thing. This is probably the only negative this week that actually matters at all. The rest are just annoyances. Since things went well for my dad though, I'm letting the other annoyances get their due attention.
3.Tuesday carried on more or less as normal. Phew. So we can jump ahead to Wednesday. When I got home from work Wednesday, I went to the hay and shavings stall to get hay for the boys. I found a delivery in there that I hadn't ordered. Shavings and some pelleted bedding which I don't use. Odd I thought. So I went ahead and hayed the boys, then opened the feed room to find more stuff delivered that I don't use. So I call the feed store to let them know I got a delivery meant for someone with the last name Foote. The poor woman on the other end of the phone could NOT get the name right.
"Alfonse?"
"No Foote. F like Frank- O-O-T like Tom-E like elephant."
"Oh Silt?"
"No. Foote. Like the body part, but with an E at the end."
"Root?"
"No. Foote. Like the thing you put in a shoe."
"Rice?"
"No...."
You guys. It went on for like 20 minutes. 20 minutes of valuable riding time! Thankfully, she eventually got it, and they came and picked up the order the next day.
4.Thursday now right? Thursday was a gorgeous day. About 85 and sunny. My kind of weather. I get home at lunch time to hay and water the horses and let the dogs out. I throw hay. I start watering with Romey because he's the closest to the hay stall. And I hear Jamp banging an empty bucket around. This is especially weird because he eats from a rubber pan on the ground. So he shouldn't have an empty bucket to throw around. So what does that mean you ask? HE HAD NO WATER! Not a drop in either of his two water buckets. My helper had dumped his buckets in the morning and never refilled them. On an 85 degree day! My horse had no water for several hours. And this my friends is why I have to drive 25 minutes home (and back) every day for lunch. Because I can't trust that my horses will have water. Ugh. And while yes, this is pretty unacceptable, I have to state that my helper is generally a good guy. And he shows up every single day on time to work. He can be a little lazy. He requires a lot of reminders about what he's supposed to be doing and for how long. But he comes to work every day. Which is a lot more than I can say for a few other people I've hired. So it's a tough situation. He got a little speaking to on Friday and hopefully it won't happen again. At least for awhile.
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| unrelated photo of Jampy because too much text. |
5. Ah Friday. Finally. I need to preface Friday's annoyances by saying these were 99% my own fault. My car has had a weird light on saying something about battery discharge for a few days. I called my dealership three times to try and get an appointment with zero luck. On Friday I drove home at lunch to feed the tall kids and let out the short ones. When I got in the car to go back to work, it wouldn't start. No juice. Not the biggest problem since I have my truck. I was like alright, I'll just take the truck back to work. I recently moved it so the dumpster guy could get in the driveway, so I knew it was running. About halfway back to work a warning light comes on saying I need to empty the water separator. I've had this happen before and one of the guys at work helped me with it last time. I wasn't worried. I made it back and asked for help from my co-worker. He said no problem and took care of it. Except it didn't work. Which I didn't know until I tried to get on the highway to go home and couldn't get the truck to go faster than 40. I got off the next exit and drove back to work. Got a ride home from my brother luckily! Since I now have zero functioning vehicles, I called triple A to replace my car battery. They sent a guy with just a jump starter. No worries, he'll call the other guy. Ok, great. The other guy was out pretty quickly and my car was back to her old self in no time. Sadly though, it meant I didn't get on the first horse until 7:30. Late night. But the ponies were great, so there's that at least!
6. The last of my silly woes. BOTH my rides on Badger this weekend were an exercise in how badly can we make Stacie feel about herself as a rider. He wasn't bad at all. But I'm not grasping any of the concepts my trainer wants me to be working on. We've been doing courses of poles on the ground at the canter, and working on getting the correct number of strides no matter how you come in. Sounds simple enough. Well... It's not. When I really ride him, I can do it just fine. But then I get yelled at for micro managing and not letting him figure it out. But then if I do less, then I get yelled at for not telling him anything. I have no idea where that happy middle is (obviously) and it's super frustrating. I really wish I could ride him more than twice a week. Probably some time on our own to just figure each other out would be really helpful. Unfortunately, the clock isn't adding any hours to the day, so we're going to just have to keep soldiering on with our weekend rides.
Well that's the end of my tale of hashtag first world problems. Thanks for sticking it out! I'll be back tomorrow with a less whiney post for What's Up Wednesday!
