TBT

A look back in time; me on my old boy, Knee-High. This is probably 1972. He was really the best horse, ever.

On a Lighter Note…….

Grace and Howard love to sing. They know how to make me laugh.

Arbitrary

Pieces of my heart are scattered. 

Ari died an unexpected and violent death on Saturday, May 10. 

Secret needed to be euthanized on Monday, May 12. She had a recurring infection, lymphangitis, which flared up again, with a vengeance. She was considered a poor candidate for further treatment and humanely put down. She and Ari were the same age and both very good horses who left us too soon.

They are buried together in the gelding pasture. 

Sorrow

Rest in Peace, Ari

WF Airs Above Ground

March 1997 - May 2014

There are no words to express my grief over my beloved Ari releasing his spirit to the universe. I am gut-punched.

This, That & Some-of-the-Other Thing

So, I'm attempting the embarkment on the blog journey, again, while I am still a little mole holed up in the wet and dreary state of springtime Minnesota. It is hard to find interest in anything, much less express it in words, when my world consists of several acres of mud.

I suppose I will give a brief update of life. Howard and Grace, my beloved dogs, are with us and doing well. Grace is elderly and her hips aren't the best, but she is still full of vinegar. Howard is as sweet and spoiled as ever and continues to be a bright spot in my life. Grace doesn't agree with me!

I have had a few horses die over the past couple of years. When you have horses for a long time, you end up with old horses and nature will have her way. The horses continue their life of ease, with little concern for their human caregivers efforts. Which is the good and proper way of being a horse, as we know.

I have lost thirty pounds, with another fifty to lose. It's a long and slow process, but this is really the only way for me to have longterm positive results. It is amazing so much weight has resided on such a small person, but it has done so. I put two miles on my treadmill daily and get a total of about five miles per day all together. FitBit is a wonderful tool for someone like me who needs to see it in black and white. I have bought some new barn clothes and have tossed the ratty stuff I have been wearing over the past few years. It occurred to me that one likely will feel as one looks, and I looked and felt like hell. My new self-talk has become something like "You don't look too bad for an old dame!" This is so much better when I hear it in my head, better than some of the other things I would say to myself.

My mother is still alive and well, living in the house I grew up in, in St. Paul. She has two dogs and a naughty orange cat named Murphy. She maintains her house, drives and otherwise manages a normal life.

Mark has really proven to be the right choice when I had to make a decision if I would or would not marry this man almost thirty-three years ago. He has been a rock during my mental and physical disaster, keeping everything operating while I was not operating. It is a lot to do under any circumstance, but he had to do that as well as maintain his business. I did make a proper choice in him.

There is much to do, lots of catchup and cleanup, I am ready.

This is all the news fit to print. Embrace your life, dear ones. Embrace your dear ones, as well.

Through the Mist

I have been on a long and difficult journey the past few years. I withdrew from society, both physical and web, while I struggled to come to terms with who I had become. I had a serious head injury almost three and a half years ago and became someone else, someone I didn't recognize and definitely didn't much care for. My strong, confident, sardonic self was replaced by a tentative, ill and unhappy shell of a former personage.

I gained a massive amount of weight, lost interest in my horses, my gardens, my life. Dearest husband did not know what to do with me, so he compensated for my disappearance with heroic efforts at holding our life together while he struggled with my disassociation. 

I have been through medical treatment and did get somewhat better over the past year, but fatigue and chronic pain persisted in swallowing me whole. In desperation, I sought help from an MD who in recent years went back to school, learning holistic and alternative methods of health treatment. She was twenty-five years an internist with a traditional practice. It was the best decision I have made in recent history. 

After extensive blood testing, what should have been obvious to an MD who cared, I am diagnosed Insulin Resistant and have been for several years. Ta Da! I still have residual effects from the head injury and always will, but getting the inflammation caused by over-production of insulin under control, retraining my cells to accept the sugar which gives us our fuel, has changed my life as I had come to know it.

Myself is coming back, a little battered and worse for wear, but me all the same. I'm not as quick witted and definitely not as full of surety, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. I got myself into trouble more than once with my certainty. 

I laugh. I didn't realize how much I missed laughter. Last evening Mark told me when he first met me I was like a magnet. He said I glowed, I had an aura impossible to avoid. He told me he had never met anyone so happy and full of life (mischief!). 

Life, worries, illness, accident all conspire to take the glow away from us. I let it. This young woman, this me of thirty-five years ago is the glowing person Mark spoke of. I had every reason not to smile; divorced from an addict, the mother of a toddler, struggling to support us while trying to get an education, what did I have to smile about? The future and all I felt it held.

Now, again I smile and look forward to the future and all I hope it has in store for me and mine.

Welcome back, Sandra. I have missed you.

Happy New Year

Should auld acquaint….awww, forgetaboutit

Happy 2014

Lemonade Out of Lemons.....

Simply making the best of a bad situation. The freeze/thaw cycle was too much for this cement pot, so it crumbled into a useless heap. Not to be deterred, voila!; I made it pretty and useful once more.

And What to My Wondering Eyes Should Appear

No tiny old man and eight flying reindeer. Something more fantastical than that; the sun!

Howard is seriously contemplating the work facing me on this porch floor. I bought some floor paint this time, so hopefully it won't peel off.

It's only 43 degrees F, but the sun has made an appearance and this makes all things right again. 

How Does Your Garden Grow

Emerald green and overgrown, that is how my garden grows.

We are stuck in a low pressure system, which means it rains a lot. The green outside the window is so vibrant it looks like a bad editing job.

I will mention the devastation in Moore, Oklahoma. It is difficult to comprehend something like this, my mind doesn't grasp it. So, I feel a heaviness in my soul and I look out at an unreal green as I go to the quiet place in my humanity which allows me to carry on in the face of so much sorrow. May the people of Moore find their way, which is beyond my imagination how.