Today I am grateful for:

Not waking up too much when my Sweetie got up earlier than I.

He and the nephew went to help our friends who are STILL emptying out their parent's house. It sounds like after today, they are at least down to the nitty gritty.

It's a good use of the nephew.

Then they came home and I got up, and we went to the city.

We kind of did our normal day; the nephew didn't seem to care one way or the other what we did for the day, so we did our usual.

We went to the art gallery, and at first he was just on his phone (he's pretty much on his phone most of the time, or asleep), but he did start to actually look at the art and even engage with it a bit.

We saw our art gallery friend, who works there in the rent/buy sales area, and he's doing well. He moved in with his partner, and they got a new kitten to go with their existing cat.

Then we went to a "here there be fairies" kind of store, I was interested to see what they had; standard fare. I did find a cat based tarot deck (Grimalkin's).

We stopped at the fancy knife store to get ours sharpened, and I started looking at smaller paring knives. I was interested in one, but my husband declared the handle to be too skinny, and I wanted to look at others that were similar, but the sales person stepped in and took me to knives that looked nothing like the one I had shown interest in...between my husband talking me out of what I wanted and the sales person being dense, I got frustrated and said "fuck it, I guess no one wants me to buy a knife".

I told my husband once we were outside how it made me feel that he more or less made me feel like I had to ask his PERMISSION to buy a knife that I liked, and this is not the first time I have tried to buy one there. He does this every time.

I think next time, I will go into that store by myself, and tell the damn sales people who actually seemed to not listen to anything I was asking for to just let ME pick out a knife on my own, thank you.

I was so angry at both my husband and the clerk for making me feel like I was not allowed to just buy what I WANTED TO BUY, not what they thought I should buy.

The nephew was off on his own at this point, but met up with us for food.

Then we went to the main drag to eat at one of the few vegan places left. One of our other ones recently closed, and there are only a few left in the city now. Today's food was a bit disappointing there, too. I got a vegan donair, and usually it is plump and tightly wrapped, but today it was not that full and almost left as an open sandwich. The Brussels sprouts are usually halved and fried, but today it was almost like someone had completely taken them apart and fried them, so it was like I got maybe two or three sprouts at the most, fried as individual leaves like corn flakes, keeping in mind that I paid extra for these as a side dish.

I imagine they got a new chef, but if this is the fare going forward...sigh.

Then we went to a book store, and I found some DVDs, but once again my husband tried to push me around by assuming that I was done looking around because HE was done, so I looked right at him and said "I AM NOT READY TO LEAVE, I AM STILL LOOKING".

So I went and took my SWEET FUCKING TIME looking at books.

We went home after that, let everyone out, and came inside.

The nephew went straight to bed because he didn't get his 14 hours last night.

I tried to talk to my husband about his cousin who is supposed to be in the area on vacation from August 11 to the 18th. I have no idea what she and her husband and two kids want to do while they are here. They are staying at someone else's place, and yes it makes perfect sense for us to try to spend time with them, but what are they hoping to do?

My husband went immediately into defense mode, saying that I was being crusty about her visit.

I was like "well, since your nephew was only supposed to be here for three days, and that turned into ten days, and I've had to have him in our house the whole time, and none of that was planned because we just LET IT HAPPEN, maybe we do need to actually try to have some boundaries with your cousin and her family, and have some kind of idea what to expect with them."

He has no idea. He doesn't know if we're going to meet in the city for a day, or if they want to come out to our place for a day, he doesn't know if they are going to expect to be fed here, or ANYTHING.

I told him it would have to be on a day where I am not going to the barn, and that if it was, he could visit them on his own. I have literally not seen this person since she was a child about twenty years ago, and I wouldn't recognize her if I saw her on the street.

It's wonderful that she wants to meet up with us, but it's also 100% fair that I have some idea of what the expectations might be.

Anyhow, I hope he talks to her and figures something out, it's not MY JOB, and if they expect to come out here with zero notice and expect supper, that's my husband's problem too.

So, as you can tell, I am reaching the end of my ability to "be nice" right now. I feel like for weeks and weeks, my husband has just dumped one inconvenience after another on me, and he's SORRY, SORRY, SORRY, but sorry's not good enough. I'm done making everything work for him when he just dumps more stuff on me.

He's taken THREE WEEKS of vacation time this spring/summer. One trip to see his parents in April, two trips for MS bike rides, and another trip to this wedding, and each time I've stayed home to keep things running. I know he's hoping to visit his family again later this summer.

He keeps saying how he has NO TIME OFF this year to do anything at home or spend time with me, but he has lots of time for everyone else.

Today I am grateful for:

Getting some sleep, though not enough. My Sweetie and the nephew were up before I was, and in and out. Our bedroom is not isolated enough from the kitchen and front entry to allow me to sleep through people coming and going.

I AM glad they got up to do things, but it's annoying to me that since the nephew is here, all of a sudden my husband is putting a big push on getting things done...why can't he do this on his own?

Anyhow, they went to town and picked up...materials. Right? The big dodge of doing actual work is getting things from town, and then...they went to the rock climbing gym.

They did one useful physical progress thing, which was to finally pour the concrete for the pilings that are needed for the car port.

I got up and started laundry, did animal feeding, and picked some raspberries.

I also talked with Sister S for a while. We didn't talk much about her back.

Then I went to the barn.

River was doing well today, so I did our normal work. I did our homework from the lesson which is the slightly different way of doing a Liberty circle, and to build awareness in my left leg to try to fix my position.

Lots of yields and other circles. Got a very nice canter stationary circle, and played around a bit with direction changes.

Then I stayed to work with Hallie, one of R's horses. She was super sweet today and really wanted lots of scritches.

My Sweetie and his nephew stopped in at the barn when the young woman with health challenges's lesson was almost finished, and that was okay but I wondered if they were a little too casual about waltzing around like they owned the place?

They did help with the barn clean up and taking horses out, since that was the "end of the day" for R.

Then we came home, let everyone out into their pastures, and I enlisted their help to pick more raspberries.

My husband started off strong by making it sound like he would make supper, then he suggested we could make veggie chili, then somehow he started asking me what I wanted out of the fridge to get started on it, and then walked away.

I absolutely called him on it, though I did make it, and he will not get away with that anytime soon again.

Then we watched "Blazing Saddles", and it is incomprehensible to me that this nephew hadn't seen it, because his parents never showed it to him...? I feel like they are failing their role of being good parents with such a lapse.

Today I am grateful for:

Good sleep.

Once again, the nephew slept for over twelve hours. Good grief.

I did talk with Trainwreck. She talked about how Sister S is not getting physiotherapy yet, a concern of mine also. If S doesn't get help, there's a good chance she won't be walking safely. Then Trainwreck mentions how sore her back and hips have been, and I say that physio might be able to help HER, and she replies with "nah, I'm managing just fine".

I know it's kind of a cliche that I'm all for physio after only two visits, but really...it's pretty non-invasive, and if I can strengthen my back so that I'm not in pain all the time, or in and out of pain in various parts of my lower body...why NOT?

I went outside to do the usual chores, and it was fairly cool again today, around 18 C. It was COLD the last couple of nights.

The nephew came outside too, and got started on removing more trees that he and my husband had talked about. I showed him a dead tree in a different part of the yard that needed to come down.

I mowed for about an hour, focusing on the one area of the yard over the septic field that grows twice as fast as everything else.

Then I cut down a lot of branches from the lilacs that hang down and make it impossible to mow there. Then I cut some branches down from a willow that do the same thing.

At that point I had to go to the barn for our lesson. The nephew stayed to keep removing trees.

River was good today, no sign of lameness. He also does better generally on cooler days like today.

We had a good lesson, focusing on a slightly different way to do Liberty circles that is more subtle, and on how my left leg sits on the horse and how I use it when riding, since I have a tendency to pull it too far back when I'm asking for a turn or anything. It's mechanics thing, and likely comes from me twisting my pelvis, so we're working on that.

I came home, and while I was at the lesson, my Sweetie and the nephew took two loads of branches to the dump.

I did dishes, then went outside to make sure that they were leaving things as tidy as possible out there.

My husband would have left bits of branches and logs all over the place, but I am aware of this tendency.

He WAS going to take the tree trunks to the dump, and I said "why would you do that when we now have a wood stove". I got him to pile them neatly out of my way, and they can be cut properly, and used not this winter, but next winter when it's dry.

Then I made sure that all the debris, the smaller broken bits of branches and chunks of tree got raked up and put on the trailer with the remaining branches that will go the dump in the next trip.

Then I got them to round up all the tools and such that I know they left all over the yard. The water bottles that they had a few days ago when they were burning old hay that somehow never got back to the house. The ear protection that was left sitting out. PUT EVERYTHING BACK WHERE IT BELONGS!!!!

All of this made me feel like I was their Mom or something. This is two grown, adult men, and I felt like I was making sure they had their mittens.

Sad.

Then we went inside to make supper, which my Sweetie did tonight (I had washed the dishes when I got home from the barn).

We ate, and talked for a bit, and then the nephew went back downstairs, I guess so he can get started on sleeping for another 12 to 14 hours. Gotta start early if you're going to fit that in.

Today I am grateful for:

Some sleep, if not much. I was just fitful last night.

I eased into the day, and then did some laundry, put away some done earlier, put away clean dishes, fed indoor and outdoor animals.

Then I picked raspberries and very quickly filled my container, I would say about half a gallon of very ripe berries.

I brought them in and laid them on cookie sheets to freeze, as this means the berries can be easily used later as individuals, otherwise it would solidify into a solid mass that you would need to thaw the entire bag to use.

I made some communications with hay guys, about how much hay was available and when it would get here (I have two hay guys, they are related, and I have two so that if one doesn't have enough hay, I have options, but I try to buy about half of what I need from each of them).

Then it was time to go see River, about 4:30 pm, when my husband's nephew was up. Wow. I know I'm not a person to judge for a late sleeper, but I know he went to bed around midnight, meaning he slept for over 14 hours, and he slept about twelve last night. Either he's very sleep deprived and making up for lost time, or...?

Well, at least he will have fond memories of how nice it is to sleep at our place.

He worked on cutting down the trees as discussed, while I went to the barn.

River seemed okay today, so I did more or less normal work with him in the indoor arena (too wet to use the outdoor). That all went well. My Sweetie stuck his head in just long enough to say hello on his way home.

Then I took him outside to do a pasture mosey in one of the pastures that was empty, and he was all worried about his buddies, all of a sudden. He didn't do anything bad, but was very distracted and kept calling for them. That's a bit unusual for River, as we have ridden out there before, it's not so far that he can't see other horses, but there you go.

So I took him back to the outdoor arena, just to walk since it was muddy, and he calmed down in a more familiar area. Even though his friends were not close there either. Then I took him to a pasture only a little farther away, and he was fine there too.

Hm.

Then I came home, and my Sweetie and his nephew had cleared some of the trees and had the branches stacked on the trailer, and the trunks set aside to be cut for firewood.

The trees in question are not majestic trees of great age. They are poplar trees, and when you cut some of them down, it's more like pruning a larger tree, because they all come up from a common root system, and if we allow it, many more will spring up quickly. We did not cut the whole group down, just the ones that will interfere with a shed project.

Poplars make a very renewable source of firewood because of their fast growth, and the fact that cutting some doesn't kill much of anything.

I let everyone out for a while, and enlisted my Sweetie to pick more raspberries.

We came in, took out the ones I put in the freezer earlier and bagged those, and I will freeze the next ones on trays.

Then we all ate, and talked a bit.

I did stick to my guns on needing to know the nephew's plan for going home, since I figure that while this has been a pleasant visit, it's also unexpected, and already longer than I was told.

My husband at first was talking to the nephew's dad and working out a flight schedule and so on without including the nephew, and I was like...how about you get that adult nephew over here so he can be part of this discussion and in the process take some responsibility for his own trip back home?

Isn't that weird? My husband and the nephew's Dad doing everything for him without even trying to engage him in the process? The nephew was downstairs on his phone or something, and I was like "get him up here and involve him in the process, or something else won't work out between everyone".

Anyhow, I've also tried to be pleasant and chatty with the nephew. I don't want him to feel like I am overly burdened by his being here. I think he's actually been a very easy guest, and I am happy he's here.

I just did NOT like the way he ended up here, mostly by his own lack of planning. I also wanted to know how he was getting home, I was very uncomfortable with this really vague and unformed plan for leaving. If you don't firm that kind of thing up, it could easily turn into something very awkward, and maybe for a lot longer than we bargained.

Well, even though he only got up at 4:30 pm, he went back downstairs at about 10 pm, because he's going to try to even out his sleep schedule and get up earlier tomorrow. Man, I don't think I could go back to sleep for the night after fourteen hours, and only being awake for six.

Anyhow, the good news is that we now have a firm plan for him to go back to his parent's place on Tuesday evening, with a flight ticket purchased. I feel better knowing that.

I did go out and work with Wonder and Dandy again, and I am very pleased with Dandy's progress especially. He's a smart little guy.

Today I am grateful for:

Not a lot of actual sleep last night, but feeling okay once I got going. I LAID THERE for eight hours, but I didn't sleep much.

I think I was too worked up from doing all that cleaning in the middle of the night for our unexpected guest.

We didn't put off any of our normal activities for my husband's nephew, since having him here was so unexpected.

Today we all worked on cleaning out more old hay from the floor of the barn and burning it (since we had rain yesterday, low chance of it getting out of hand).

They continued to work on that while I went to see River.

He was sleepy today, but he seemed sound today. I did work with him a fair bit at a trot and he didn't seem off, but I didn't want to push it with a canter.

We worked indoors since the outdoor arena got soaked yesterday.

We did our usual lots of yields and some circles, but not too many small circles for now.

I stood on him today, and will try to keep up with this, as it will likely be used again in a freestyle.

We also worked for a while on some obstacles that R has set up in a grassy pen.

The temperature today was this lovely 18 C that was very refreshing without feeling cold at all.

Then I came home and my Sweetie had let everyone out into their pastures for me, and started supper.

I pulled out the dining room table and we ate there, since my husband and I's normal routine of sitting together and chatting on comfy chairs didn't feel inclusive of his nephew.

I wondered if he would want to stay up later than my husband, and if that would feel a bit strange, but he went to the guest room after we ate, and my husband went to bed.

I went back outside for a while to bring everyone back in, and worked with Wonder and Dandy briefly. I'm working on the hip yield towards me on the ground with both of them.

I guess the nephew's plan for getting back to Manitoba is to catch a bus to a city to the South of us, where apparently a friend of his is working short term, and that friend is going back to Manitoba on Tuesday afternoon, so if the nephew gets the bus in the morning it should work.

I'm pretty confused about his plan though, because he didn't ask us first or anything, and I don't even know if he knew about his friend driving back, and it still mystifies me what he thought he would be doing for a return trip. Did he just think "oh well, someone will make sure I get back". This is a young man in his early 20's, not a teenager.

I truly hope his plan works out, and that we don't end up having to do something ourselves to get him back to Manitoba.

Today I am grateful for:

Getting good sleep.

For being able to carry out a busy day like I had today.

The first part of the day was all preparation for our fun barn event this evening. A celebration of R's daughter L graduating from high school, and another barn person's upcoming wedding.

Last night was a fair bit of prep too. Last night I made a kind of granola bar thing and cut up a watermelon and put it into a container.

I did personal grooming stuff like I dyed my hair, shaved, and applied a self tanning cream to my pasty white legs.

Today I made a quinoa salad, cut the granola thing into squares, put some of my singing bowls into a bag to take along because sometimes things get woo..

I also had normal things to do, like feeding all the animals.

I did talk with Sister S for a while, who is having so much trouble walking, and I know she's disappointed. I think she felt like her back surgery was going to do more for her than it did. I think she's in a lot less pain, but her muscles are very weak, and that's going to take time.

She still says "I'm going to a physiotherapist", but she also said that last week and as far as I know doesn't have an appointment yet.

Then I talked to my Sweetie, who asked me if I was willing to have his adult nephew stay with us for a few days, like...right now. This adult nephew (who was attending the same wedding) apparently bought a ticket to fly there, but...didn't buy a return ticket.

Lord only knows what he thought his plan would be. I don't know if he thought he could catch a ride with someone who was driving back, or what. It's just plain ridiculous.

So, his new plan is to stay with us until there is a bus going back to Winnipeg. On Tuesday.

I said okay, if he recognizes that we were in no way prepared for his visit, and we aren't clearing our schedule to entertain him. I have another physiotherapy appointment on Monday, and I ride at the barn tomorrow, etc.

Then my husband handed his phone to our friend's wife (he was visiting with our friend and our wife when he called to ask about his nephew), because I guess she wanted to talk with me, since it might be a while before we could meet in person.

We proceeded to have a pretty intense conversation about loss, since she recently lost her father, and I lost my Mom. I wasn't expecting that.

So, anyhow, I didn't have much time to contemplate that, I had to get going.

It was raining, a lovely steady rain. We need it so badly. It rained all day today.

I got to the barn right on time, and I changed into my fancy dress in the tack room, which I thought was hilarious (it wasn't going to be comfortable to drive in).

The party was wonderful. We played a bunch of silly games like we made pool noodle hobby horses and ran a little obstacle course, we tried hula hooping, and ring toss. Yes, it was mostly adults. Very funny too because we were all dressed in fancy clothes.

The theme was "wear your grad dress again, or your wedding dress", and a few people did, and others just dressed very nicely.

I wore the very fitted (with zero forgiveness or give) black Asian style dress, and I am SO GLAD I got to wear it.

We brought potluck, and it was great.

We also did some karaoke, there were some prizes for the games, and so on.

We did a draw for the donated items that were a fundraiser for the horse rescue, and I won some skin care products.

It was so nice to see everyone again, and for such a nice celebration. What a wonderful group of people.

Then I came home, and it was still raining, such a lovely steady rain.

My Sweetie and his nephew were running into a lot of construction, and the rain was slowing them down, so they would get home in the wee hours.

I went straight from coming home from the party to cleaning the guest room downstairs, and the guest bathroom, and trying to find clean bedding and towels and pillows.

WELL, was I in for a surprise. Those two rooms downstairs were FILTHY. We don't use them much, but everything was coated with this dusty grit, likely because it is the basement, and, I guess this is grit that falls through from the above floor? Even though there is a tile ceiling in those rooms?

Also, my husband had put a bunch of stuff in the spare bedroom. So I had to start by moving that all out.

So I swept the bedroom, wiped all the surfaces, I had to vacuum the mattress too.

In the bathroom I had to clean the tub, which had a ton of dead bugs in it, and all the surfaces in there had the grit stuff. I swept then washed the floor.

I had to do some laundry as the spare sheets and towels were clean, but smelled kind of musty from storage.

I found the spare pillows and blankets which had been put away, and just on and on and on.

I ended up spending almost four hours just cleaning those rooms and getting all the linens washed.

I had night time chores to do too.

So, by the time they rolled in at nearly 4 am, I was just wiped, but still kind of wired from everything. It's hard sometimes to go from full tilt to ready for sleep.

Today I am grateful for:

Lots of sleep, though I am aware that I am somewhat not wanting to get out of bed.

I do feel like the work that needs to be done here is endless, and I don't feel like I'm really ever getting caught up on it.

Today's task is to get some kind of start on getting at least the main area of the house ready for guests, since apparently my husband's cousin (I was thinking she was a niece, but I think she really is a cousin) wants to come visit us in August, I believe on the First.

Our house is just...full. It's full.

As a mass, I am exhausted and worn out by feeling like I'm always pushing back against the stuff.

Yet, taken individually, I WANT to keep this thing. It's not junk, it's very nice stuff. It's not an old sock with a hole in it, or a broken plastic toy from a dumpster that I want to use in a collage someday.

No, it's nice, interesting books. It's art stuff. It's beautiful old tins and lovely framed prints.

By taking it out of the living area, all I am really doing is packing it into a less used part of the house. Not a solution.

I know I've said this before, and I'll say it again, I would need to get rid of about half of what we own to feel like I've gotten rid of enough to have space.

But I won't. Not likely.

I do get rid of things. I've sold stuff on marketplace, I donate regularly to the thrift store, I take a box of books to the second hand store for just enough credit to buy one new to us book. I took a big bag of clothes for my similarly sized niece when I last went home.

But, if you consider that I bring in a few things every week steadily, it doesn't keep pace with what I get rid of.

AND, it's so much harder to get rid of things than it is to acquire them.

I buy lovely, appealing things. Wonderful books, nice clothes, art stuff. I don't NEED much anymore, but I WANT it.

So, whenever I am confronted by the need to make our place welcoming to others, I am forced to really see what we are dealing with, and it is a lot.

Some of it is meant to be used in the basement when it is finished. The books are meant to come out of their boxes and go into shelves where I can see them and appreciate them.

Some of the knick knacks are meant to be displayed again when we are no longer constantly working in every room.

It does make me tired.

I talked with Trainwreck, and it was a fairly normal, decent conversation.

I also talked with Sister E for a while, who wanted me to share her excitement for the Calgary Stampede, but I am not very excited by what I feel is mostly animal abuse.

My Sweetie has been entrapped by an elaborate wedding ALL DAY LONG. I guess he was able to walk around a bit before the wedding, which started at 3 pm, and it was a long, elaborate wedding with lots of speeches, and then they are having the full wedding dance and supper with more speeches, the first dance, and on and on. As far as I know, he's still at the dance part, and it's 10 pm where he is.

I don't even know how many people were able to come, since almost no one from the bride's side besides immediate family were able to go.

Anyhow.

I was able to spend some time outside today too, working with Dandy and Wonder. Much needed time away from my mess.