This is summer..it’s July in Montana . Its beautiful , sunny, warm. Summers in Montana are the best.. filled with fun, lots of time on the horses, easy times of sitting on the back porch with a cold drink, gardening, hiking, biking, BBQ’s with family and friends, days at the lake , and so on.
……and what am I doing? I am sitting in a hotel in downtown Seattle, slogging through yet another week meetings. So far this is my second week, back to back , with travel . I am told there is alot more travelt o come but the client has a limited budget so I am hoping that doesn't come to total frution.
It's an 18 month contract.. that is assuming the contract gets signed sealed and delivered this week as scheduled.. (barring any legal issues that always seem to hold these things up ) Seattle is only a short flight from home which is a nice change. But there is a major down side too right now. The one week vacation I had been looking forward to got pulled out from under me faster than I could blink an eye at.. For 6 months I had been planning to take a trip to Southern Oregon , do the wine tasting thing, check out the area for a possible future go-to-live location, (shhh) and just get away for a few days to see something new.
This job beings relatively new to me makes me low on the totem pole. I kind of have to tow the line and build up seniority, and just deal with what comes at me and work towards building up some vacation time. I used to have all kinds of vacation time (that’s what happens when you spend 10 years at a job) and could pretty much take days off when I wanted to at my old employer. Unfortunately, that was about the only good thing about that old employer.
I have no regrets. just feeling cranky because I feel like a kid that got cheated out of Christmas, or in my case, an adult that lives in a crappy cold climate and got cheated out of the only three months of good weather.
On the upside, I am racking up skymiles and hotel reward points at a pretty good rate. Just 20,000 more points and I can get a hotel room free for couple nights!
I have kinda turned into a points monger. I have reward programs with three hotel chains.. and I won’t stay anywhere but there if I can help it when I travel. I am limiting myself to those 3 and only those 3 programs .. Believe me , it’s easy to go hog wild on rewards programs…there are so many!!!
Travel and earning points is one thing but the best part? You don’t have to travel to earn points.
WHO knew??
There are these rewards site mall portal thingy’s that you can shop through to get points for your purchases..It’s stuff I order anyways and now, I get something additional in return for money spent.. I was totally oblivious to this whole other shopping web world out there! Places like Vitacost, Sephora, Target… the sky is the limit on the amount of vendors out there.. even certain restauratns..
Our household has a new rule..
If you are going to buy something online, check the rewards mall portals FIRST and see if it’s available for points..
So those are the perks and some of the low points of the job, travel and being in the techology consulting world..
On the Home Front
I have done a little riding here and there. We have done a few short trail rides and arena stuff. Mostly,working on the same old stuff but I think Maggie is making some mental break throughs. Atleast it feels like there are glimmers of getting her mind to slow down and thereby the feet slow down too. Then again, I have thought that before..I wish I knew a good cart horse trainer. She would be perfect and so cute in harness.. Anyone got any suggestions or know of anyone looking for a cute cart horse prospect?
I have Maggie advertised for sale. I am looking for a new home for her if the right one comes along.. Feel free to pass the word or contact me via email or message me on facebook if you know of anyone. She isn't a good trail horse for a beginner or timid rider.
Other than that,I have just been living vicariously through all of you, reading blogs and getting my fix that way.
Rebel seems to be doing better with the increased calorie count. He isn't galloping across the pasture like a 5 year old or anything but he does seem to be more energized and the MSM seems to be helping his arthritis. He gets pretty much unlimited access to pasture , whilee we have it atleast but things are drying up quickly.We are still gradually working on increasing the fat content.. As we all know, it takes a while to get the horses system utilizing fats and I am still phasing it in for him. We are almost up to a 1 cup of oil per day. All in all I think we are moving in the right direction with him.
There has been some other non -horse related recreation on the weekends.
We did a family raft float down the Swan River around the 4th .. No whitewater or anything.. just a couple hours of floating down an easy river..This past weekend we hiked Saturday with the dogs on Lion Mountain and on Sunday we took them to the lake because I needed to get a swimming fix.. Xena decided she needed to save T and I everytime we got too far out and would come after us to get us to come back in. I had no idea she would go in and swim. She doesn’t even like it when the yard sprinklers are going but apparently when mom and dad are in danger, her German Shepherd har wried tendencies to protect kick in strong. It was kind of cute but I realized she wasn’t out there swimming to have fun , like a lab would.. she was really scared that something bad was happening to us.. so we didn’t end up swimming a whole lot.. in the process of her “rescuing” me, she clawed the hell out of my leg… nonetheless, she has turned into such a sweet dog.. and it seems that every time we expose her to something new she surprises us just a little more with some other part of her personality we had not seen before. I am glad every day that we have her.
So, for yet another week I will trade the peaceful sounds of horses whinnying and birds chirping for horse, sirens, and traffic…
One of these days maybe it will all be worth it when I get myself an all-expenses paid trip to Portugal using those points and rewards .. just maybe!
……and what am I doing? I am sitting in a hotel in downtown Seattle, slogging through yet another week meetings. So far this is my second week, back to back , with travel . I am told there is alot more travelt o come but the client has a limited budget so I am hoping that doesn't come to total frution.
It's an 18 month contract.. that is assuming the contract gets signed sealed and delivered this week as scheduled.. (barring any legal issues that always seem to hold these things up ) Seattle is only a short flight from home which is a nice change. But there is a major down side too right now. The one week vacation I had been looking forward to got pulled out from under me faster than I could blink an eye at.. For 6 months I had been planning to take a trip to Southern Oregon , do the wine tasting thing, check out the area for a possible future go-to-live location, (shhh) and just get away for a few days to see something new.
This job beings relatively new to me makes me low on the totem pole. I kind of have to tow the line and build up seniority, and just deal with what comes at me and work towards building up some vacation time. I used to have all kinds of vacation time (that’s what happens when you spend 10 years at a job) and could pretty much take days off when I wanted to at my old employer. Unfortunately, that was about the only good thing about that old employer.
I have no regrets. just feeling cranky because I feel like a kid that got cheated out of Christmas, or in my case, an adult that lives in a crappy cold climate and got cheated out of the only three months of good weather.
On the upside, I am racking up skymiles and hotel reward points at a pretty good rate. Just 20,000 more points and I can get a hotel room free for couple nights!
I have kinda turned into a points monger. I have reward programs with three hotel chains.. and I won’t stay anywhere but there if I can help it when I travel. I am limiting myself to those 3 and only those 3 programs .. Believe me , it’s easy to go hog wild on rewards programs…there are so many!!!
Travel and earning points is one thing but the best part? You don’t have to travel to earn points.
WHO knew??
There are these rewards site mall portal thingy’s that you can shop through to get points for your purchases..It’s stuff I order anyways and now, I get something additional in return for money spent.. I was totally oblivious to this whole other shopping web world out there! Places like Vitacost, Sephora, Target… the sky is the limit on the amount of vendors out there.. even certain restauratns..
Our household has a new rule..
If you are going to buy something online, check the rewards mall portals FIRST and see if it’s available for points..
So those are the perks and some of the low points of the job, travel and being in the techology consulting world..
On the Home Front
I have done a little riding here and there. We have done a few short trail rides and arena stuff. Mostly,working on the same old stuff but I think Maggie is making some mental break throughs. Atleast it feels like there are glimmers of getting her mind to slow down and thereby the feet slow down too. Then again, I have thought that before..I wish I knew a good cart horse trainer. She would be perfect and so cute in harness.. Anyone got any suggestions or know of anyone looking for a cute cart horse prospect?
I have Maggie advertised for sale. I am looking for a new home for her if the right one comes along.. Feel free to pass the word or contact me via email or message me on facebook if you know of anyone. She isn't a good trail horse for a beginner or timid rider.
Other than that,I have just been living vicariously through all of you, reading blogs and getting my fix that way.
Rebel seems to be doing better with the increased calorie count. He isn't galloping across the pasture like a 5 year old or anything but he does seem to be more energized and the MSM seems to be helping his arthritis. He gets pretty much unlimited access to pasture , whilee we have it atleast but things are drying up quickly.We are still gradually working on increasing the fat content.. As we all know, it takes a while to get the horses system utilizing fats and I am still phasing it in for him. We are almost up to a 1 cup of oil per day. All in all I think we are moving in the right direction with him.
There has been some other non -horse related recreation on the weekends.
We did a family raft float down the Swan River around the 4th .. No whitewater or anything.. just a couple hours of floating down an easy river..This past weekend we hiked Saturday with the dogs on Lion Mountain and on Sunday we took them to the lake because I needed to get a swimming fix.. Xena decided she needed to save T and I everytime we got too far out and would come after us to get us to come back in. I had no idea she would go in and swim. She doesn’t even like it when the yard sprinklers are going but apparently when mom and dad are in danger, her German Shepherd har wried tendencies to protect kick in strong. It was kind of cute but I realized she wasn’t out there swimming to have fun , like a lab would.. she was really scared that something bad was happening to us.. so we didn’t end up swimming a whole lot.. in the process of her “rescuing” me, she clawed the hell out of my leg… nonetheless, she has turned into such a sweet dog.. and it seems that every time we expose her to something new she surprises us just a little more with some other part of her personality we had not seen before. I am glad every day that we have her.
So, for yet another week I will trade the peaceful sounds of horses whinnying and birds chirping for horse, sirens, and traffic…
One of these days maybe it will all be worth it when I get myself an all-expenses paid trip to Portugal using those points and rewards .. just maybe!
2 comments:
That sucks about losing your vacation! If it makes you feel any better, summer is our busy time at work too, so I've been putting in 10-12 hour days and am too tired to ride most days- and its finally dry here!! No fair, sigh.
Southern Oregon is nice, as is central Oregon- I would love to end up somewhere over there some day!
Hang in there:)
Hi Jonna,
I found your blog while searching for tips on fitting a specialized eurolight saddle. I've been told that I need a 15 inch, but after reading of your experience I'm a bit unsure. May I ask how tall you are? I am only 5' 2" but these days I am tipping the scale at 142 lbs. Yikes - I need to log a few more miles!
BTW, I love your Morgan mare Maggie. I grew up with the old style Morgans and I miss them a lot. No room for another horse here else I would be asking about her. She is beautiful!
Thanks, I've enjoyed reading several of your posts and hope you get back home soon!
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