Where or Where Has The Time Gone?...

I just was over at a fellow blogging gal's blog, Pony Girl Rides Again, and was reading her Blogger Hacker post. I am just not that organized. I used to sit here in my free time (oh yea, there was a such thing as that at one time) and fiddle with my blog layout. I used to, on my drive to work think about what can I write for my blog. I used to look for something worthy of a picture and then think about what wonderful witty thing I could say about it. I used to ... my famous words right now.

I give myself excuses, but the truth is, I go through phases. I learn new things and go hog wild toward that thing.

We moved to AZ and got horses! I absolutely love my horses and I went hog wild with them and made myself a cowgirl. (I am really just a wanna-be cowgirl)... But a cowgirl at heart all the time!

I got into this blogging thing and thought about it all the time when I first got started. I went hog wild and would read tons of other's blogs and have almost no other time for anything because I wanted to keep up with so many wonderful blogs. I envied those that could write so often, but I had fun and even got the hubby going with it too. (And he can write some good stuff).

Then we had foster kids and our time was geared toward that wonderful choice in our lives. Of course I went hog wild, how could you not when you were caring for these children that all they needed was love and family.

Then I got into scrapbooking, computer scrapbooking that is. I went... yep .. you know it.. hog wild. I would go to so many scrapbooking blogs and collect as much stuff as I could to work with my photos (I still have all that stuff). But did I actually put all that stuff to layouts with my photos.. NO. Not for lack of wanting to.. just because I got into something else.

I got into making music webpages. I went hog wild again! You can check them out HERE. I love making graphics in my paint program, so I would do graphics to music. I would listen to a song and take a bunch of stock photos of many things and come up with a picture of what I felt goes with the song. Some would take hours before I felt the picture was what I wanted, some I would trash after hours and start again. I am still doing these and work on them when I can.

Then my hubby got us working on the remodel. And because of this, I wanted to be able to let the kids in California see our progress, I have come back to blogging.

I never really left, but it is good to be back. And I hope to keep up with it more. But I won't make any promises... who knows what I will go hog wild about next. LOL

Remodeling Fun... and What a Mess...

So, here we are a into this remodel we are doing. 
We did bits here and there each weekend after the start of this remodel on Dec 5th.

The pictures below are from December 31st, through January 17th...

Dec 31st: This is from the formal living room toward what will be the bedroom, this is an archway that the hubby is getting ready to fill.  This is a mess!!

Here is another view of this archway but looking toward the living room.

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January 1st.  What a good way to start the new year...

This is the current bedroom wall, we are leaving this up because of all the electric to our bedroom is in these wires.

Here is the old bedroom door frame...

We were able to reuse this door frame, but ...the top of the frame (below) was a bit more difficult to get out because of the way it was hooked to the ceiling... we did it though!

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January 10th.... It took us  some installing and reinstalling to get the door into the moved doorframe, but we got it hung and level.. (this was FUN!!!! not!!!)

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January 16th.... We cut the bottom of the sheetrock away to get ready to run the electric.

And we punched through one section of the old wall into the bedroom.

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Today, January 17th.....  This is taken from where our bed sits looking into the family room. Seems so close, but after we get the furniture in the living room rearranged I am sure we will get used to it. If you look at this new bedroom door, the family room is to the left, the living room to the right and straight ahead is the other end of hall into the other 3 bedrooms.

Ok, we moved the wires and now we can punch out the rest of the old bedroom wall... WOOHOO!

I was standing where you see the TV stand in the picture below before my hubby punched out all of the wall in the above photo and apparently it was not far enough away, because a piece of sheetrock came out and killed my leg! Yep, it killed it! Put a big gash in my shin, even made it bleed. Well, look at it this way, I will carry this scar with me remembering what a fun time we had remodeling our home!.

As you can see, the bed has become a catch-all as we do laundry and try and keep up with the work on the house.

Did I mention was a big ass MESS this sheetrock is? Everything in the house has a fine white dust covering it. My poor little puppy coughs from the stuff and I am sneezing more than ever. It tastes like powder every time we breath and get some in our mouths!  pfffffttt!

I can't do too much of the heavy grunt work (it's best I just stay out of his way). So, I take to pulling the nails out of the wall framing we just knocked down.

These boards have 2 nails every 5 to 6 inches that have to be taken out... thank goodness for the little nail remover hubby has me use.

WOW... no more wall! This was a big break through!

I am now a bit sore and relaxing in my large bedroom, that kind of sounds hollow, to be able to get this little snippet written of what it has been like here in the Rock household lately.

Stay tuned.... there will be more to come soon.

A remodel, Snow & a Rainbow...

So, a few weeks ago, my hubby decides we are going to do a remodel. He wants to enlarge our master bedroom. So this was the start point...

December 5th!

Our first goal was to agree on a floor plan. Which we did right away (a miracle).

So we are going to take out the wall between the master bedroom and the dining room, which we were using as an office anyway. We will move the office into bedroom 2. Then we are going to move the washer and dryer out of the mud room and into where the master retreat is (which will then be the laundry room). Then we are going to add a wall between the bedroom and where the laundry will be.

Here we are starting demolition... this is the fun part!

Here goes the one dining wall in the hall area.

Of course... with the knocking down walls comes the great big mess...

Now.... the bedroom wall. .

We only knock out one side so we can keep the bedroom whole until we get the wiring moved and placed where it needs to go.

More clean up. This is the current master bedroom wall and door that will be coming down and

 moved about 10 feet.

Below is from what used to be the office/dining room wall, which is now part of the master bedroom and into the kitchen dining area. As you can

see, there are these open areas above the arch entries between kitchen and hall.

I am thinking I want to make something there to be able to have light between bedroom wall and kitchen wall.

I don't have a clue what to do here to preserve the light filtering in and to be able to keep the noise down from

bedroom to kitchen dining area.

Have any ideas???

This is the finished floor plan.

Along with the floor plan change, we of course are putting in new carpeting in the

bedroom and painting the long wall of the bedroom.

AND... putting tile in the kitchen.

We hope to have a bunch of the kids out from California

to help with this project some time in February.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Monday, December 7th we have a storm come through.

 It was very windy, we could hear the wind all night long.

It brought snow!

The drive into work was treacherous. It was still dark.

The highway was covered in black ice and snow. We did not have the plows out here.

I eased my way onto the highway. The second I felt the truck fishtailing, I would let off

the gas and just keep myself in the middle of the road.

This guy in a small SUV behind me was on my butt, so I pulled over enough to let 'em by.

I noticed a lot of fishtailing going on with him, so I slowed down to keep a good distance. Then

I saw a bunch more fishtailing from him and then noticed he swerved from our lane over to the opposite side of the road and into the little snow bank.

I just slowly drove past and saw he was fine other than being stuck, so I did not stop.

I kinda gave him a wave and silently called him a jerk.

I made it to work just fine. A coworker that came in about 45 minutes later said he and several more cars were there stuck on the side of the road when she went by.

I did not get pictures that day.

BUT

Thursday, December 10th I took a few.

We still had snow on the ground.

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Today is December 13th... it is raining.

and look at the beautiful rainbow we saw from our front window!

It was a complete rainbow, but my camera lens was not wide

enough to get the whole thing.

I hope everyone is enjoying the shopping days before Christmas!

Take care, y'all!

momma/cowgirl

Update to the battle of the bulge!!

So, I had dental work on Monday. I have lost 14 lbs since then. I have stitches in my gums, so I have not eatin, I am sure that helps. I just don't want anything at all to bother the healing. But, you know darn well once I can eat again all the weight will find its way back onto my hips!

I have decided that now that we actually HAVE to clock out for 1/2 hour at work that I am going to take walks. The area is nice and I will go by several places that have horses so I can visit. Ten hour days at the computer can hinder this diet for me, but I am going to try my best.

My son, TRuck, he said a few weeks back, "Hey Mom, Dad, how would you guys like to walk with me when I am home in the evenings?" WOW, I asked him why he said this, I think he was being kind to say that he just wanted to spend time and felt that it would be good for all of us. But I am going to take him up on this.

I am also going to be able to ride with a friend at least once a week, which I absolutely love to do.

I'll check in with you again soon.

Just call me chubby (I mean FAT)!!

So, I am to the point where I totally hate myself! I AM FAT! I am embarrassed at letting myself get this way. I am saying now," I wished I had done something to lose weight when I was a FAT 140 lbs". I certainly do not want to be saying at , lets say 170, that I wished I had done something when I was an even fatter 160 lbs.. So, I have to eat healthier, no sweets and exercise more!!! I write this here to get my motivation going. I am sharing with you some pictures of me over the last 20 years. I hope by me seeing these pics, I will keep myself in line!

So it begins.... Here I was with my mother, I was 34 yrs old and weigh 121 lbs (my six kids are ages 14 yrs down to 3 yrs old). I did pretty good. I weighed 98 lbs when I got pregnant with my 1st son. I got back down to 106 after he was born, then got pregnant when he was 3 months old and lost that baby, but kept the 10 lbs I had gained before getting pregnant again, then after my 2nd son (who is 18 months younger then my first born), I just could not seem to get below 119 to 121 lbs. I did however get down to the 121 lbs mark after each and every child.

I was 39 here, I was about 122 lbs, not too bad, (my kids are now 19 yrs old down to 8). I had been doing a ton of running around to football, baseball, cheerleading and so forth keeping up with the kids,
 I am sure this is why I was able to
keep my weight down.
(as you can tell... I am little,

I am 5 ft 1 1/2" tall)

I was 40 here, my daughter  is 12,
we are in Florida at Disney World
for a cheerleading competition
 (Her sqaud won 3rd from all of the united states)!!  I think I was maybe 125 lbs then.

There was less kids sports practices and events to run around for.

<--------------------I was 43 here and....

                                                 Slowly, but surely ... packing it on!

                                         I was up to 132 lbs here.

  

              

I am 45 here, and a I actually lost a few

                   pounds, I think I was down to about 128.

         Then I discovered a wonderful food called

         ravioli in Alfredo sauce.
A coworker  got me hooked on it
 and it became my lunch 3 times a week
and I gained at least 10 lbs.

                 I moved to Arizona and vowed to lose weight.

                 I didn't! (not YET anyway).

        Here I am at 47 and weighing in at a

whopping 142 lbs.

Swearing that I must lose weight!

            Here I am at 48 1/2 and have gained some.

                          I weigh 148  here.
                          (geez... more than just pudgy that is                                                                                    for sure!!!)

Unfortunately I gained more and stayed at about 155 to 161 for about 10 months.

                Then....

When I was a real estate agent,

I had 2 tremendously stressful

deals that took so much out of me,

I lost 20 lbs in 4 weeks.

Here I am at 49.

I was down to 138 again,
I was unhealthy in that I just didn't eat and I was losing my hair, my nails
got week. Amazing what terrible things stress can do to a body.
I got thru the real estate deals and I was.feeling better about myself.


Luckily

I kept all that weight off for a year!! Yeehaw

But ... I am getting older, my metabolism is not what it used to be.

Here I am sometime in my 50th year.

I went through menopause (oh joy!)
And with menopause came several things, my thyroid was
whacked. I became anemic.

((luckily my menopause symptoms,
(the hot flashes and weight gain)
only lasted about 2 weeks, thank goodness))

BUT, and this is a big but.... I gained 15 lbs in those 2 weeks.

So, now I am back up to almost 155 lbs

and I am hating myself!!!

What to do????

Well, eat of course!

So, 2+ years later and

here I am again hitting over 160 on the scale! I don't want to confess to
exactly how much over 160, but it is less than 165........

In other words

FAT!!!

So, here I sit vowing to lose weight. I tell myself
I have to lose 40 lbs, so that if I gain back half of it, it won't be too bad.

BUT.... I want to lose it all right now!!!!

OK, I know what I need to do, and

because I wrote this for all to see,

I am going to start today  to lose weight!
Hey, I am off to a good start.... I haven't eatin' anything for7 hours,
 but of course it is 11:15 at night.
LOL

I have a dental appointment tomorrow, they will be doing a lot of dental work,
so this may be a good head start... I will be too
sore to eat much, if anything.

Check back with me, I will update as I lose it.

(and I don't mean my mind)

hahaha!

Momma/Cowgirl

keepin track...

I am trying to put together a notebook to keep track of all stuff horse related for my little ranch here. I had at one point some preprinted papers from Country Supply (Horse.com), but found these to be too detail oriented. I am looking for a simple way to keep track of feed, grain, psyllium, farrier time, bath time, etc. I guess I can just type something up and place it in my notebook, but thought I should come to the blog world and ask. So...

1) what do you use to keep track of the above mentioned things?

2) what do you have on your list of scheduled items for your horses?

thank ya all for your input!

It has been forever since I have been able to put some time into writing a blog entry.

There has been loads that has been going on. I will try and mention the most important things, then maybe over the course of the next few days fill in some of the mundane things.

When last I wrote I mentioned about having to fix our truck. We did finally get it up and running after almost 3 weeks. The only thing is it is still not right. Apparently there is a sensor that needs replacing (this is the one that makes it so it starts right up, rather than hesitate a little).

Several months ago I spoke of having our friends horses here with no payment and them basically taking advantage of s. Well, hallelujah, Isis (the chestnut Arabian) has found a new lease on life elsewhere. Literally, she is being leased out (we were not told that if the lease is up where the horse will go to). But we are down to 4 horses here. Since Isis has been gone, it has gotten worse in getting the owner to have feed here. Every week we have covered the feed for 3-4 days, then when they bring a bale, we let them know that they owe us almost the whole bale they drop off… then we go for another week before they show up with more. If not for the owners boyfriend being our dear loyal friend, we would have walked the horse back to the owners property and tied it to one of their fence posts. We are waiting for the mysterious person from Wyoming to show up and whisk Prince away in the night and all will be fine in the Rock Barn…. LOL!

The quad that hubby got in April is already on Craigslist for sale. It is apparently just too fast for what we need it for which is trails. It is more a dunes kinda machine. So, we are hoping for a buyer soon!! Anyone need a FAST AND FURIOUS quad???

In April we went to Calif to go to my daughters baby shower. She was expecting a beautiful baby granddaughter for me! And of course, she has had that sweet little dall since then. Brookelynn was born on June 15^th after about 9 hours labor and weighed in at a whooping 9 lbs 15 oz. She is so beautiful! As you can see for yourself………….

Here are some of the many pictures we have of her.

Brookelynn, 3 wks...

Brookelyn and TRuck,,,

5 wks


Brooke at 8 wks..... she is such a cutie (No, I am not prejudice!!! LOL)

Brookelynn was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis at 6 weeks. This was a devastating blow for our family. I read everything I could on it. My daughter and I cried for days. We have now gotten to a point where we understand that this is a disease that is having more and more research done and are coming up with many new drugs that make the mortality rate older and older. Brookelynn was put on special enzymes and vitamins and medication to help with her digestive tract. She is to take a sweat test soon that will indicate just how bad she has the disease. Her last Cystic Fibrosis check up proved wonderful. They have taken her off all enzymes, and medications because she is having no problems with her digestion. She is now 2 months old and almost 15 and a half lbs already. We are blessed with her!!

A few months back, when Boo, son #4, came to visit, he got me into doing web pages and HTML. Since then I have been engulfed in making web pages … just fun music pages. I have spent so much time doing this, I do almost nothing else. I like working in my paint program to come up with images to use on my web pages. I will post the images here as I complete them just for the heck of it.

This Friday night hubby, a buddy of hubby’s from his work, me and TRuck, are going to the Cardinals Football Game (pre season) they are playing the Green Bay Packers who is my hubby’s favorite team. Whish used to be my son TRuck’s fav team also because of Brett Favre. I am looking forward to see the stadium; I think it is going to be great. Our seats are not too far off the field level near the 20 yard line of the Packers side. I will grab some pics to share for sure.

Then next week we are going to Calif to see my precious grandbaby! We only get to be there for 6 days, but I hope to spend every second I can with that special baby… or and with my own kids.. LOL

OH, oh… I still have pics from when we went on that cruise back in Feb.. Oh my Goodness!! I will post about that in the next few days.

I have so many blogs to get back to reading. I usually try to go back a few months and read what I missed, but this time, I am sorry I am not going to be able to go back that far. I miss all my fav blogs and some new ones that I have book marked to start reading. There is not enough time in my day to do all the things I want to do let alone the things I should do and don’t get done.

Take care all… i’ll be baaaackkkk!

Nice day outside/Saturday May 30th...

This is our beautiful quarter horse Bunny. When we got her, she was about 17 years old (we have had her about 5 years now) and the most gentle horse. She is a big girl at 16.1 hh. She was mostly used at camps for children as a trail horse. There was a time she spent in Tennessee and the prior owners said she got tick bites and that is why she has the white spots on her. 

Here is a closer look at the many spots she has.

We have been asked numerous times if she has Appaloosa in her. 

Hubby loves his big beauty Bunny. 

We both wish we could get out and ride more!!

Here is my palomino Jackie and her baby, Toby

 (who is not really a baby anymore at 3 years old)

Jackie is the alpha mare in my brood of 5 horses. Except when it comes to Toby, she never makes Toby go away when they eat.

Toby's sire was a Tobiano, so he has a beautiful washed out coloring to his spots. He has a mexican hat and the most beautiful blue eyes.

Toby has had no real training, but because of his momma Jackie

and his auntie Bunny, he has picked up the best behaviors.

Toby is a very laid back horse and loves attention.

You can't see real well, but he does have blue eyes behind those white eyelashes.

~~~~~

My hubby got a new 660 quad and already he is taking it apart to fix a few minor things.

~~~~~

We have one of my sons out from California this weekend to help us fix our truck.

He really did not have to do this, but he wanted to make sure we 

had our truck running to go out to see our daughter have her baby daughter.

Today it was suppose to rain. This is the sky to the south and it was very clear. 

I looked straight up and saw the moon amongst the clouds.

What a pretty sight. 

The rain did come, but it was pretty far to the north of us... thank goodness!

This is a shot to the north of our property, if it was clear, we could see the San Fransisco Peaks and the top of the mountain in Flagstaff.

~~~~~

Here is my GMC waiting to get it's fly wheel changed. Wouldn't you know it, 

we get it all apart, pulled out the bad fly wheel

 to find that the auto parts store gave us the wrong one.

Hubby and my sons go out the next day to check with all the auto parts places they can. We are just too small a town (we have 2 auto parts stores) and the next towns over also did not have the part we needed. So we had to wait til Monday to order it. (we picked it up last night).

We definetly need this fixed, my daughter is due June 17th (which is also my 

hubby's birthday...*Smiles*)

My oldest son, Mattress brought back my youngest son's, TRuck's, truck.

This was kind of a long story. But I'll briefly tell ya about it.

TRuck was spending too much fixing the truck up,

getting computers to make it faster, getting a wench, lifting it, getting great big tires 

and more. But... he did not bother to make sure he had enough to pay the payments,

so he ended up missing one, then he was about to miss another one.

So, back in February, TRuck's oldest brother, Mattress said he would take the truck, get the payments caught up and then take over the payments. 

Long story short, circumstances came about that it was not what Mattress

really wanted in a truck and TRuck wanted his truck back if 

Mattress was okay with it. 

So, TRuck has his truck back with a more mature attitude about making sure he makes the payments before he does anything else.

~~~~~

We were suppose to take care of the 100 or so weeds we have out in the 

pasture, these are so pretty... but boy are they sticker infested 

and are not good for the horses.

It is now June 5th and we have not been out to pick these weeds...Damn it!

Wanna Barn...

As I drive around my small town on a leisurely excursion, I am in awe of all the different barns that people have around here. I do have a dream of getting a barn of my own one of these days.

This is my dream barn:

ABILENE FOUR-STALL BARN12'x12' Stalls
Floor Space: 1,440 Sq. Ft.
Loft Area: 576 Sq. Ft.
Ridge Height - 21'

And right now this is the barn I can afford:

YEEHAW !!

Wordless Wednesday.... muuuwwwaaaaaaah... smooch