midnightsjane

Dropping in here to wish everyone a very happy holiday! I hope you all find yourselves in a place of peace and contentment during this Christmas season. I know it brings its own stresses besides the horrible weather we’re enjoying 😱 so be kind to yourselves.

I’m relieved to say it’s raining today and the snow is vanishing. Back to usual west coast weather. I haven’t been out to see my horses all week because the roads have been too bad to travel on. My friend takes very good care of them, so I have been more worried about how she’s coping than about them. Being a horse keeper is a hard job, even in good weather.

I’m having dinner with my friends from the bookstore tomorrow. I’m cooking the turkey (Jill’s vegetarian so won’t cook meat, but Walter is definitely a carnivore, so turkey is okay). Also making my famous bread stuffing. Jill’s doing the rest. Turkey has been thawing in the fridge, and I will do the stuffing tonight.

I worked yesterday in CCU. My patient has a congenital heart problem and was pregnant so was in for close monitoring. She had a healthy baby boy on Tuesday, something of a Christmas miracle. He’s very cute. Nice to have a happy outcome amidst all the challenges of this ongoing pandemic (Covid + flu= sick people and stressed health care workers). It’s still bad out there, so please mask up and get your flu shot and Covid booster!

I wish the best of everything for you all. Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year!

My goodness, things are kind of nuts over on Twitter tonight. It’s like the last day of school when everyone is exchanging addresses and promises to keep in touch. I’m still there, until the final bell. I’m set up on Mastodon as well and I’m going to drop in here from time to time.

Hello, anyone here? I haven’t been on this site for years, but maybe it’s time again. With all the upheaval on Twitter ( where I have mostly been) I’m looking for ways to stay connected if Twitter totally blows up.
I’m janepine1 there btw. I do see a few familiar faces here when I check the feed.

I am very sad today. One of our horses died unexpectedly yesterday, leaving a huge hole in our hearts. Big Girl, as Kandance was affectionately called, was 25. My friend bought her when she was 3, and she was one of the foundation mares of the farm, and Sue's show horse. She had a long and happy life with us, and we will miss her terribly.Run free, Big Girl.

Filled with new updatey zeal, I post for the second time this year.😎
Got out early this morning, got my hair cut, bought some new summer casual shoes, got goodies from Cobb's Breads, came home, made some mushroom barley soup, and now I am chilling with my coffee and my cat on the couch.
It's all good.

LOL. Seriously, it's May already? Wow.

I had a great start to the month. Yesterday my friend Sue and I went to a clinic given by the totally awesome Charlotte Dujardin, winner of the Olympic gold medal in dressage, winner of umpteen other championships with her great horse Valegro, and oh, yeah, World Champion for 2015. We have been waiting for this for almost a year, got our tickets when it was first announced last summer.
She was here for 4 days, but we could only afford one day...but what a day it was. For anyone interested in horses and dressage, just have a look at her freestyle ride at the London Olympic Games here: http://scottphayes.squarespace.com/charlotte-dujardin-clinic/

To say it was inspiring would be the understatement of the year. She was warm and funny, and if I could ride even a fraction of the way she does, I'd be thrilled. We left so charged up to work even harder with our own lovely horses.

I was exhausted by the time I got home. I had a busy couple of weeks, worked a lot, and when I wasn't at work I was out at the farm, so today I stayed home. Cleaned the apartment, did 3 loads of laundry, and when I couldn't avoid it any longer, I did my taxes. I've been procrastinating so long with the tax thing that I was almost late filing..luckily Revenue Canada screwed up some email notification and had to give us an extra 5 days to file! Whew. I finally got it all done. Gave myself a reward; sat out in the sun with tea and a book for half an hour. It was lovely.

Went up the street for groceries, came home, made lasagna, cleaned up the mess and then watched Once Upon A Time. Now I'm officially done for the day.

Spring is sprung, it's time to celebrate the arrival of green grass, green leaves, and the green weed patch that is my garden..it beckons me, urging me to turn the soil, pull the weeds and the left over patch of kale and collard greens, fast approaching the end of their life cycle, and begin anew. I have begun looking at seed packages, planning and plotting for the new vegetables. This year I'm going to be less eclectic and more practical; I'm only going to plant the things we actually eat a lot of, and that do well. I'm not going to try things like eggplant, or cauliflower, or cabbages..because they all have disappointed me in the past, and/or are cheap and readily available from local farmers. Instead I'm going to concentrate on things like peas, and beans, and cucumbers, and salad greens. I plan to throw a few zucchini seeds on the manure pile, and see if they grow as well as the squash did last year. I'm pretty sure I'll have another crop of squash on the pile, because I didn't harvest all the squash last fall. My garden is small, so I have to keep it simple. I have plans to make it bigger, but that entails digging up more ground, and redoing the fence (which I have to do anyway; the one I put up last year was only meant to be temporary, and it looks it). I'd like to start an herb garden, and put in some asparagus plants, and strawberries. The only limiting factor is time and energy! I am really anxious to get going, but it's still a bit cold to do too much; the soil needs some time to warm up. Soon!

I've been keeping busy, working 2 or 3 shifts a week in CCU, lending a hand out at the farm, trying to pay more attention to my two horses in this shedding season. I spent some time grooming Midnight, and by the end he was about five pounds lighter, and the stall looked like there had been a major blizzard in it. Rochelle has a finer coat, and isn't shedding as much, but they both need attention. Everything I own is going to be covered in horse hair for the next while. :P

We have a big horse show coming up this weekend; it's an FEI Dressage show, so there will be lots of horses from all over. We're really excited to be going; Sera is doing so well in her training, and is more than ready for this. It's going to be a very busy week for everyone. We have to organize the farm work so someone is around to help Nicole bring in the horses etc. All hands on deck, for sure. It doesn't help that poor Nicole is injured; she got thrown off her horse last weekend (the horse reared straight up, and she fell off backward; luckily the horse didn't fall on her!) She has a couple of cracked ribs, and is very sore. But she's a trooper, just keeps on going. We horse people are tough.

Happy Easter to everyone who celebrates it!

About time I wrote more than a dozen words here, I think. My excuse for not doing so earlier is simple; I've been busy, and when I'm not busy, I'm lazy.
2014 was a very full year, what with working almost full time between CCU and ICU, helping out at the farm, trying to keep my horses happy, and generally keeping my life from coming apart at the seams when I feel like I'm going in 15 different directions at once. I really hope that this year will be a little less busy, but I suspect it will keep up the general trend.

Last year I managed to fit in a visit with my family back in Ontario at my niece's wedding, which was really quite the event. My sister spent almost a whole year planning the thing, and it went off splendidly. (Even if my niece, who is a bit of a diva, wasn't the most gracious of brides..but that's just my opinion, and I would never say anything to my sister). It was rather shocking to realize that my siblings and I are now the "old folks" in the family. Just my Uncle Jack left of my parents' generation. Wow.

One of the highlights of the summer was a visit with Masq and her friend Deborah when they came through the city. We had a great time seeing the sights, especially "Storybrook" (or Steveston, as the locals call it). It's always fun to have old friends come visit. Hope that happens again this year.

I have had no major issues with my health, for which I am grateful. Even my sprained ankle is getting better.

The biggest focus was the ongoing construction of the new house out at the farm; a two year long event, at times a major ordeal given that we still had to keep the farm running and the horses going. We are just thiiis close to completion now. Last little bits to do in the house, which should take the rest of the month, and then we can start moving. We're not stressing over getting moved immediately; Sue and Jack are slowly getting their stuff in, and my apartment still has to have the kitchen installed, so I'm just waiting..
and actually quite glad not to have to move during the worst part of the winter.

Our young horses are going well, we have 2 of the girls in serious training, and one of them is going to her first horse show the beginning of February. Very exciting.

I have a lot of catching up to do with the various TV shows I'm watching; got behind with The 100, have a couple of episodes of Elementary to see, and I was partway through a rewatch of Farscape when I just got too busy to spend much time watching TV. I am watching the new season of Downton Abbey, and looking forward to the next part of the Once Upon A Time season. But I've been more in the mood to read a book than watch TV, so I've been doing that. I bought The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith (AKA JK Rowling); it came highly recommended by my friends who own the bookstore, so I'm looking forward to getting into that.

I did a major sort through and culling of my books in preparation for the move; I donated somewhere in the range of 1000 books to the book bin, and I still have very full bookshelves! Felt good.

And that's about it for now. There's a whole year to come, so I'm sure there'll be more to say..

So what do I find restful after a 12 hour shift in CCU? Do I come home and collapse on the couch with a cup of tea? Well, sometimes. Tonight, though, I was more ambitious; I cooked. Went to the grocery store on my way home and bought the fixings for lasagna, and a cauliflower for soup. I finally sat down just now, dishes done(2 batches), and a lovely lasagna cooling on the counter, as well as jars filled with mellow cauliflower-cheese soup. Feeling good about it too.

I was inspired to cook because I didn't have anything to bring for my dinner today. I figured I'd just get something in the hospital cafeteria, but when I went there it was as bare as Mother Hubbard's cupboard. Not a thing resembling food; pitiful, really. I made do with crackers and cheese. Not tomorrow! I will have lasagna.

Then I can rush home, collapse on the couch and watch two whole hours of Once Upon a Time. Yay!

The move to the new house is now only weeks away, so time to start sorting through the collection of stuff I've accumulated over the last 19 years in this place. Books are my focus now. So far I've sorted through one big bookcase, and two smaller ones; total number of boxes filled and taken to the book donation bin=10. So many more to go! I'm trying not to be sentimental, and not hang on to books I know I won't read again. I'm trying to decide if I should toss all those Star Trek novels (save for the few I know I will reread, like the Rhihansu novels by Diane Duane); I've let go of most of the Angel and Buffy novels, because really, most of them were pretty bad. My rule of thumb so far has been if I haven't seen the book in more than five years, I know I will never miss it...and when you have books stacked 3 deep on a shelf, there are plenty of those books.

I have found a few hidden treasures. Just now I unearthed a copy of Berke Breathed's Bloom County "Loose Tails" and I found myself laughing very much out loud at the antics of his characters. I'd forgotten about Bloom County; it, along with Calvin and Hobbs were at one time the main reason I bought newspapers..for the comics.

Good thing I'm starting this process now. I have no idea how long it's going to take. OMG. I'm a book hoarder.