Archives for April 2019

After setting Karl on a list of things to do, Hubby and I went into McMinnville to see two more doctors, one mine, one his, did a little shopping then came home to see a bit of progress on the journey to clearing out the house. Not much, but it can only be one step at a time at this point!

Runaround day, going to two doctor’s appointments in Murfreesboro, then picking up brother Karl, who volunteered to help me clear out the house and get ready for my upcoming yard sale this weekend.

Didn’t do much else this week except work, work, work, work, work around the house, sorting, cleaning, organizing, trying to get ready for the yard sale I have planned for May 4-5, as we try to clear out thirty-plus years of accumulated stuff. It may be an arduous task, but the parameters are quite simple: if it doesn’t fit in the Trailrider trailer it doesn’t go. If we don’t need it, it doesn’t go. If it adds too much weight to our already “nearly at the limit of our truck’s tow capacity” weight, it doesn’t go, etc. We survived quite comfortably all winter, and my list of “things to get from home” was actually quite short, and consisted of a couple of very lightweight things, like a yoga mat and a program disk. We’ve added a couple of tools that might be useful (we’ll see soon enough), but otherwise have been pretty brutal in our selections. I remember seeing a Facebook post a while back that said, “Just think. All this clutter used to be money,” and when I see how much money we spent over the years on stuff we literally used just one, it seems ridiculous. What else is ridiculous is the number of the same thing I’ve found. A bunch of tools and hardware, some still in the package that never got used, it makes me crazy. Can’t wait to get this job done and get out of here!

Didn’t get much sleep thinking about all the things we needed to start doing today. Woke up in the middle of the night and starting adding to my “to do” list on my phone, and every time I was about to go back to sleep another thing would pop into my head and I had to write that down. This went on for what seemed like hours. Think I finally went to sleep around dawn for an hour, but still woke up pretty tired. Immediately started on the list, though, so it turned out to be a productive day. Took Hubby down to renew his driver’s license, picked up a couple of bales of hay, spoke to my mechanic about doing the bearings on the trailer (don’t think they’ve every been done, and I don’t want to end up on the side of the road-been there, done that!), filled up the hot tub, did some laundry, got all my drains set up, dialyzed Hubby, then finally settled down, once again, with my glass of wine and TV remote for the evening.

Got up bright and early on a much warmer and sunny morning, and got to work getting ready to travel back to the house. I hesitate calling it “home” anymore, as we’ve gotten so accustomed to the idea that we’re really on the road full-time, and clearing out and selling the house is just a job to be done before we can get back to it. I finish packing up everything, got the truck hooked up, had a little problem getting the slide in (we discovered a few days ago there was a kitchen timer which I’ve been missing for months jammed in the mechanism when we were opening it, and I managed to clear that out, but the slides been a little ornery since then), but when I give it a little lift from the outside it seems to come in okay. We’ll probably have to get it adjusted at some point, but I suspect it might just be how much weight we have on the slide. After all, we’re carrying two dialysis machines, one of which will be gone before we leave again, so that should help. Anyway, we managed to get on the road before 9:00, stopped at a fast food restaurant called Jacks for an early lunch, Walmart in S. Pittsburg, TN to pick up a few things, and still managed to make it to the house just after 2:00. Everything looks the same, no problems, no trees blocking the driveway, no trouble getting set up, though we did sink in the dirt where we usually park, a sign they’ve been having a lot of rain up here. I hustled around getting the horses’ electric fence up, got them fed, worked nonstop for a couple of hours before I collapsed in my recliner with a glass of wine in one hand and a TV remote in the other. Whew!

It rained again overnight a little, but the real test was the cold wind and temps this morning. Slept like a log, though, best night sleep in a LONG, LONG time. I had put my earplugs in because someone yesterday mentioned something about mules in the campground (best alarm clock ever if you want to get up before the crack of dawn), and there were a lot of kids I thought might get noisy early. It paid off, as I slept more than ten hours! That’s unheard of for me, but I was glad of it! I finally got up after 9:00 and fed the horses their grain, then I moved their high-line to a different tree as they were now standing is six inches of mud from all the raid. I got them re-settled with hay, watched the neighbor’s kids play with Lola for a while (and some adults, too.) I joked with one guy, who had picked up Lola’s proffered chucker and thrown a ball for her, “That’s my Lola, she trains humans very well,” and he smiled and couldn’t help but agree. Horses were in various stages of being saddled throughout the camp, with people bundled up pretty well, understandably. I told Hubby, “If I was riding today, I’d be in long underwear and a parka,” but, of course, I’m not riding today, too cold and the trails will be too crowded for me. Besides, the forecast for tomorrow is sunny and in the low 70’s, which is much more to my liking! I admit, I’m a fair weather rider, which is why we always endeavor to follow 70 degrees. So far, so good! We had a nice quiet day, with dialysis, of course, and lots of reading and writing as I attempt to update my diary!

Well, the rain came in overnight in the form of thunderstorms, lots of lightning, lots of rain, lots of Lola whining and scratching trying to get into the bedroom. I had to get up half a dozen times to try to quiet her down, wishing I had put her in the truck overnight. That may sound mean but honestly, she loves her bed in the truck so much, and for some reason feels so much safer out there, it would have been a kindness. In any event, we didn’t get as much sleep through the storm as I would have liked, but it is what it is, right? It stayed raining off and on all day, but by mid-afternoon, other horse campers started arriving and setting up. Looks like we’ll have lots of company for this Easter weekend! Just sorry they didn’t have better weather coming in! The temperature has dropped significantly, and it’s supposed to get down into the 40’s tonight, and a lot of these folks are setting up tents. Lots of kids and dogs and horses, so it’s going to be busy. I had no intention of riding today, nor probably tomorrow as it’s going to stay cool, but it is supposed to clear up. Sunday will be another gorgeous day, so I guess I’ll wait until then. What can I say, I’m a fair weather rider! Otherwise, we had a quiet day, reading, dialyzing, catching up on my diary, and watching TV in the evening.