A Friend In Need Is…

Grateful!

As it turned out to be me this time.

Dreams

Dreams

– My HUGE thanks to Julie and her brownies and coffee and  her patience for listening to my overstuffed life induced anxiety suddenly pouring out on a visit to see how SHE was getting on. Blush.

Don’t bottle it up

Dreams or no dreams  sometimes the best thing to do is admit there is something you can’t deal with – before the horse has to deal with it and you.

Then look around – what is the next thing you CAN do to get to where you want or need to be?

In my case stepping away from my horses and my muddy handling area just to see Julie’s three  – and you know what? Just standing next to hers in the field hand feeding them really helped as the pressure went – they weren’t mine or my responsibility – I was just saying ‘Hello’ – Aroma Therapy or Scratch and Sniff? Not sure. BUT –

Serendipity struck me –

I was in the right place at the right time – we always are, we just don’t recognise it – now IS the time to take that action.

‘Student is ready teacher appears’ as they say.

So

Farrier due tomorrow and he is removing Bud’s remaining three shoes – which means I won’t worry that while they are in the silage grounds they will leave UXB’s for the tractor tyres – and also it will be a pressure off me – the weather is too rotten to do anything other than general day care and handling and this way I won’t be putting pressure on my self to rush out and ride before I feel he and I have some kind of connection.

By reaching out I found some peace and reassurance that stepping back was the right thing to do in order to move forward – and I enjoyed some great brownies too.

 

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Snakes And Ladders Game Of Life…

Not sure that I go much on the 2016 version –

Dreams

Dreams

All snakes and no ladders me thinks. Looks like husband will be home for a week or three – or four – DIY, dentists and knee ops – if it goes to 5 or 6  I am sure we will have got used to each other again.

 

So The Writing Week?

Has consisted – so far  – of Panic Stations and Much Grumbling about not being able to ‘get on with my revision’ SOON – while wasting a perfectly good week NOW to do so.

Hum…

I read a lot of self help, motivational and ‘productivity’ stuff  – mind you I will read a cornflake packet – and I try to be ‘mindful’ ‘disciplined’ and ‘productively self motivated’  – well it all comes down to diddly squat when my few days ‘as alone as it gets now’ are threatened…

Action Stations

Thanks to the house being in ‘recovery’ from ‘surgery’ bits of it are warm, dry and writer friendly – ie the door shuts and it has power. So today I spent the day cleaning old white picnic tables and lugging them up the stairs and reassembling them so that the MS and course work can be left spread out and husband can then enjoy peace and quiet doing the decorating etc and I can pick up where I left off without paint splatters – it may not proceed as smoothly as it was (! OK it wasn’t ever) but proceed it will.

 

My Take Outs this week?

I am writing this Wed and have have already had a plateful!

BUT – it isn’t HOW you proceed it is how you show up to deal with it – I never leave home without a tin hat, tissues and chocolate and a large note book and several pens and some baling string.

Be prepared!

Sitting around being mindful is one thing but DO something as well or you won’t feel good and you won’t help yourself or anyone else…

In My Peripheral Vision…

I have also had fun and games this week with automated email for an account with a big site and their lack of support over weekends etc   AGAIN!

Take out for BIG SITES –

It doesn’t matter how big you get if your customer service is shut and your customer is in a different time zone ie has been up 6 hours already – but your auto emails keep giving your customer headaches – they will leave.

Belated patronizing smiles and saying you have ‘world class’ support when the facts say otherwise also lower opinion – better to wince and grin and admit you got it wrong than make the hapless customer – I mean follower – feel small and bad. Automation is like everything else in life ‘crap input then crap output.’

‘I may be out side you core demographic BUT…’

I am getting fond of the expression ‘I am outside your core demographic’  – it seems to worry folk. Personally I am not proud  – if I am lost I will follow anyone UNTIL they take me the wrong way then they find out PDQ I like sheep but I am not one.

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I Had A Dream…

That…

Dreams

Dreams

Buddy and I went hunting – we jumped some recognisable and awkward handmade gates  apparently on our local estate – even a couple on top of big long grass slopes which bore some resemblance to the real place.

The hunt was all around us – I let Buddy go and trusted him to stay upright – and we did – I wasn’t bothered and I was laughing – and then the hunt were in a deep river and that is when I knew I was in a dream and I woke up – laughing.

Why?

I ‘had a go’ at drowning once as a teen – many years ago – and was saved by a teenage friend – never liked water after that and if there was ever going to be a night mare – there was water in it!

So back to Buddy…

Our relationship took a hammering when he ran off back in the Autumn – but I was more annoyed with myself than fearful- and then due to him having trouble staying upright he has had various minor leg injuries which have meant lots of vet visits and other handling that has been uncomfortable for him and tricky for me and I have become aware of that nervous sensation around my edges making me jumpy when I would be relaxed…

So I get this dream

– Buddy upright and jumping tricky things, out in company and me laughing and loving it – well ‘That’s nice!’

BUT

If ever there IS a river involved I am SO out of there! Nasty, wet, cold – no place for a horse – OR ME – even in a perfectly inspiring dream! 🙂

Of COURSE I am NOT superstitious. Am I?

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Work V Ride – Truce, Defeat or Victory?

Well Who Cares What You Call It?

Dreams

Dreams

Work Life Balance is the trendy phrase.

OK – Well at least I was on the same see saw as my life even if I was neither on my horses nor on my game at work.

In consequence the horses and I did rather more relationship building than I figured I would be able to make time for – or as they probably look at it – they came in for their feed and hoof picking out  rather than having it in the field.

Buddy lost an off fore shoe but I walked mindfully around the 10 acre field following Whoooopeee skid marks till I found it. It came off clean  and the nails were still in it – Bud no more lame than before and no tractors will be limping off during silage making next year either..

The store lambs in my exit field are gone so end of next week I may venture out for some lead rope walks to see if the village is still there with which ever horse or pony volunteers – it also means there is no more excuse to be made – I must start running again – 6- 8 weeks to light evenings and I am a poorly muscled up writer and a low stamina walker so if I want to ride I had better get up and get out there and get on with it. 🙁 While I still can.:)

All in all my plan of keeping them out but bringing in in the day time worked very well – I got hands on the horses and minimal mucking out – they got due care and attention and a chance to roll in the bedding.

All mine!

All mine!

And I got my work done around them…

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The One Where I Get Bitten On The Bum Twice And Don’t Want To Sit Down. OR My Writing Week…

Dreams

Progression – To Conscious Incompetent…

Nothing like being a Newby to make  mistakes ‘no one has EVER done before’ which is how come I ended up with three separate accounts at three times the cost for my three websites when one account would have let me have 5 on it. Or looking at it another way I could now have 15 websites….

I discovered this only when contacting Blue Host through the ‘amazing’ chat- bubble -helpline- with -inbuilt -delay to query a price rise from about £90 to £150 each site – this was when the assistant pointed out my mistake – I can pay a fee of aprox $149 and have them amalgamate and even get a refund BUT so far I haven’t done this as the instructions to ‘back up everything’, ‘fill in cancellation forms’ and trust to thought bubbles with time lags as a means of communication – frankly terrified me as did the confusion that arose as to whether the sites would be down between times…

Emotional sort of day(!!)

But there you go ‘you can’t make omelettes without breaking eggs’ would be my take out this week – it WILL feel personal – £300 is always personal if you have spent it pointlessly.

So…

I will use the telephone to speak to Blue Host one day soon and clarify the procedure in a way that the chat bubbles with inbuilt delay couldn’t and I will find out what ‘back up everything means’ ie content and or settings. I will ascertain the cost and then – if I feel OK to set it all in motion I will proceed – after all I would rather find mistakes now in the site than when I have books to sell here…

 

This brings me to the second bite in the bum

Actually it happened first technically – but there you go – there I was having a coffee break catching up with FB and 31 Day Blogger Darren Rowse and he had posted something I took a hefty  double look at- European VAT rule changes that apparently came in LAST year and something called MOSS – now I am VAT reg in my other incarnation but this had escaped me – ANY digital product sold incurs VAT at rate of the buyers EU country of residence and that requires one or two bits of proof to be kept for 10 years AND registration for VAT in Each EU country OR with MOSS AND the absolute kicker is there is no threshold of income level this applies – you sell an ebook or course or any digital thing and it applies from the first sale – go figure- as my US chums would say.

The UK Gov has said a threshold applies to sales in UK but you still have to know what you are doing and register – you can’t just sell to resident Brits that IS probably against free trade rules! AND if you are in the rest of the world selling into the EU all this still applies.

 

Are your eyes rolling in your head or are you rolling on the floor laughing?

What have YOU done this week that lets YOU see the hill  YOU still have to climb to live YOUR dreams? A hill is not flat – and a mountain is not a hill – when I start yodelling hit the deck because I am still going up the side of this rock face…

 

Have I done any revision?

A little. On both In Plain Sight and Hacked Off.

Have I done any typing of Q3?

No.

 

Do I feel alive?

Oh yes – it hurts so I must be. 🙂

Is that The Sound Of Music tune I hear? 🙂

 

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Horses? What Horses?

Dreams

Dreams

New Field Of Dreams…

Moved them to in day time and out at night – well that was the idea – disappeared into the view and haven’t bothered coming back much!

Happy horses – happy MC! Great dog walks wandering around farm looking for the mustangs – usually asleep in the sunshine and out of the wind. Left their beds up and ready in case they  get a wet or freezing blast but otherwise I guess it is see you in the spring then?

Meanwhile I rejoined Shipton Riding Club and renewed my British Driving Society membership, caught up with  my Parelli blogging – which I do most days – and Intelligent Horsemanship (Still excited about Monty Demo at Kingston Maurwood soon!)

Plenty To Dream About then this week…

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Great Fun…

‘It isn’t what you do it is how you show up…’ (Brendon Brushard)

Couldn’t agree more!

This writing week…

Dreams

Dreams

Busy. Having re organised my horses again so they are very happy in a new field I set about re starting the revision of’Hacked Off’ which I am using as my course material to take through Holly’s Writing School HTRN course – I have now added the first in my Quest series to that ‘In Plain Sight.’ – it is a course that is stretching me and having been through the mill of Holly’s excellent other courses before – I trust her to get me where I want to go with these two MS.

However I still have to do the work, feel the angst that what I wanted to write might not be what I wrote and then find a way to bridge the gap. Not that I am a Drama Queen – MUCH 🙂

My Take Out This Week?

Even when working alone – get on the right team.

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My Riding Week

2016-01-06 12

Flax and Buddy

‘I didn’t’ is the easy comment here.

 

I was rediscovering the joys of stable duties and evening checks, real hay nets and shavings and rubber mats and wheel barrows and their relative stability – and mine – in various qualities and quantities of mud.

 

The horses have been slightly bemused to find themselves ‘in’ out of the weather – I would like to say they are pleased – but they are horses – and as far as they are concerned being trapped in a confined space in storms probably doesn’t constitute safety or tranquillity.

 

They were getting swamped with mud  and the driving rain so they have all been able to dry out at least between drenchings. I have set them up in another field ‘off the top’ of the farm and today I took these photo’s of them – it was so hot they were rugless – last week’s driving rain seems a memory yet an hour later it was back!

 

Bud’s legs seem OK again despite some galloping in the heavy ground – the other field is better draining so hopefully that will stabilize him – it is either that or wheels…

 

Not sure that the hours spent have helped my writing week – but on the other hand no horses no writing…:)

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Back At IT Then…

Dreams

Dreams

My commitments for the next 3 months are…

1. Continue to take Hacked Off through Holly Lisle’s revision course HTRN – 22 weeks roughly. With the view to then formatting that and working out covers etc and getting up here as an example of my writing and as an exercise in working out ‘how to’ and to prove to myself ‘I can do.’

2. Continue to type up the long hand manuscript for Q3 and Q4 at the rate of 4 sides /day / 5 days/week.

 

I finished the first read though and first two exercises just now – I had started before the break.

 

I started on the type up Sunday – so I felt I was ahead by Monday! Which was just as well as with the horses now in I was rediscovering the joys of stable duties and realised I had not ever factored in 6 hours of that in my day – even if Rescue Time logged it under ‘Fresh Air’ – Hum – not been in many stables then.

 

I suppose it could be described as a work out and yoga with aromatherapy thrown in, the dog’s walk now consists of checking the electric fence and scaling the muck heap.

 

Hard…

 

Given how keen I was to get back to this I am finding it hard – especially the typing up – I have been leaving it to the end of the day as it is fairly mechanical – but of course I am tired – however it leaves my fresher time in the day for the reading and revision of HO which requires thought and creativity.

 

Help…

 

I have found Brendon Bruchard helpful for keeping myself focussed as he is cross denominational and up beat – he also has pertinent personal development ideas that I can learn from so he makes easy listening and good company in a phase of the year when most folk are trying to push you into goal setting/ consequences of failing to goal set or have you failed yet? Content.

My usual online mentors are still unrolling after Christmas and I have yet to catch up with Michael Hyatt or Darren Rowse, Jeff Goins course Intentional Blog Course has a busy online group so there is always something to see and do at coffee time and I did sign up for extra groups in my online writing group – Write Words.

(Not affiliated to any of these)

 

 MY TAKEOUT

– When working at home it is very important to have support  outside the place of folk travelling in the same direction as you as it is easy to get fed up and put off or dismiss all the effort as ‘pointless’ especially in areas it is hard to directly correlate time and money…

 

MY ADVICE

– Jump in and say Hi. Google your interest spectrum and see what you can join in with  – the only way this will fail to connect you is if you don’t do it.

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