I Have Totally Lost My MInd

But! Whilst looking for it, I came across these photos I would like to share.

 Jenny Craig for Horses, anyone??  LMAO  Granted the first picture {which is one of my ALL time favorite shots of the Girls} was taken May 12, 2007.  Granted, at that time Dixie {Blonde Butt} was only 2 years old and not yet full grown but almost as tall as her Mama, Susie.  However, as you can see in this photo shot a month ago, she not only is a bit taller (perhaps half a hand) BUTT she is much rounder!  Dixie has definately become one chunk of horse!!

The second photo was shot during the trail ride we went on while Riley and Timmy were here.  I never did get to blog about it, mostly because I spent an entire week driving from there to here and back to there and here again!  The scoop on that is.....every year there is this John Shaddox Memorial Wagon Train that starts out in Harrison, Arkansas a week before the Rodeo of the Ozarks which takes place in Springdale {just a few miles from us}.  It's a pretty neat adventure and there are about 200 participants.  Some ride horses, like Chuck and Riley did, while others drive wagons and buggies and such.  It's quite a big deal.

Anyway, it's about 83 miles from Harrison to Springdale and each day they would ride 12-16 miles or so.  The day would start at about 6:30 AM, at which time everyone would drive their horse trailers, campers, etc. to the campsite for that evening, and a shuttle would take them back to the camp from the previous night where the horses would be waiting.  They would then ride to the new camp site, wash, rinse, repeat.  There were some really nice campsites.   Farmers and ranchers along the trail would make a field available with plenty of grazing and there would always be a stream nearby.  It would have been a lot nicer if they did it at a cooler time of year, but then it wouldn't coincide with the rodeo, which was the original intent. It is, however, a long HOT ride.  For the riders and for the horses. 

Riley had a great time riding Dixie while Chuck rode Susie {once she got over her case of 'saddle butt'  LOL}  And Chuck was bust fending off all the young cowboys that had a tendency to meander over Riley's way.  Hee hee. 

My day consisted of driving the Tahoe pulling the horse trailer to the next camp site and then heading back home with Timmy and Chuck's sister to gather 'supplies' or do laundry, shower, tend the garden, etc.. Then late in the afternoon we would drive back to horse camp and all spend the night and the next AM, wash, rinse, repeat.  It was an interesting week!

Remember Me???

Well, here I am, all set to post an entry (after ALLLLLLL this time) and find out that there will be changes made to the blog background that I am using. It's all easy to 'fix', I just have to be able to access the website of the blog hosting place to make the necessary changes to keep my template and it has been horrendously busy for the past 2 days! Not sure what you'll see if you do venture over here. Probably just "words on a page". Who knows!

Anyway, it will be 2 weeks tomorrow since Riley and Timmy left and I had fully expected to lapse into a coma of complete and utter grief at their departure. I just knew I was going to be lost in a sea of loneliness, surviving only on Pepsi and very large helping of self pity! Boy, was I ever wrong to think I was gonna have time to indulge myself in THAT particular party!

I don't even know where to begin to tell the tale of what happened these past 2 weeks. I guess with the fact that Chuck had to fly out to upstate New York for his Mother's funeral, just a few days after the kids left. As some of you may or may not know, he has his own construction company. Small but very busy and has 2 full time guys and a couple of part timers going most of the time. His "Main Man" has worked for him for almost 3 years. He has been like family. His FAMILY is like family! His parents live down the road from us and we have been good friends with them for quite some time. He has 2 little boys that his mother is raising because his ex-wife is a no-good druggie, apparently more interested in cooking meth than meals. Whatever. Main Man, himself, is more interested in how many girls he can lure in than he is his kids or work or anything else to do with responsibility!

We have tried and tried to help him in every way possible. By setting a good example, by giving him chance after chance when he has left Chuck in the lurch at work. Doing things with his kids. Financially bailing him out on endless occasions, and yes......that eve includes jail. Cuz he's a good ol' boy and can NOT stay out of trouble. I think Chuck saw him as a "project". Someone that had great potential and that if he could just work with him long enough, he'd make something out of him. He blew that for the last time while Chuck was in New York.

There is SOOOO much background to all of this, but I haven't the ambition to write it all and you'd get bored of reading it, I'm sure. Main Man pulled the boner of a lifetime on the day of MIL's service and the phone calls began! Long story short, Chuck fired him over the phone and here I sat to clean up the mess! Sure kept me busy for a few days!!

I had a constant stream of people at my house and calling me, either defending him or condemning him. I tried to fend them all off and tried to tell them that Chuck would deal with it all upon his return, but everyone figured I could "help" and influence Chuck. Actually, that day......my main objective was to keep his other employee working and for us to find Chuck's van, which Main Man had taken. Once we got that, there were tools missing. Most of which were pertinent to the particular job they were working on. Gads!!!! Then I was busy getting Main Man off all the accounts Chuck has around town before he charged a bunch of stuff. I was too late on a couple of them, but got most of them squared away in time.

I think that gives you the general idea of what's been going on around here and why I didn't have a chance to indulge in my pity party! When the dust settled, which it pretty much has.....it was all a good thing.

1. No pity party. That's good
2. Main Man was a lost cause anyway.
3. Chuck now has 2 full timers that will work out much better anyway.
4. So far, much less stress being taken out on me at the end of a long day of dealing with Main Man and his shit at work.

I might go into more later, but for now this is it. Have a great day and I'll be back!