Month: December 2013

SERIOUSLY HORSING AROUND: My Favorite Things (Equine Style) at I Sell Tack.com

Seriously, you guys. Think about what you are asking me to do. You really want me to join Farmer’s Only????  What, am I your personal guinea pig?

So what do I get out of the deal? (Will work for Jack, will work extra for Limited Edition 2013 Holiday Jack.) And let’s make sure we’ve thought this through. Because I live on a farm, and because there’s no way of meeting any really decent people up here (see post from earlier this week about my not so Ok Cupid experiences…) we’ve decided that somehow downgrading to an even worse dating site makes sense? 

Apparently as of 2012, they had over 200,000 members. I don’t know if I’m impressed or creeped out. I mean, what are the chances that there’s even anyone remotely normal on there if I’m batting a thousand on Ok Cupid which has a bazillion members? Maybe we go with the logic that smaller pond means less sharks. Hmmm, that could work.

Of course you guys do realize that there’s always a chance that 90% of the people on there are from Nebraska eating fried mayonnaise balls, and if you want to know how I feel about that, well just watch this: 

Okay, now that we have that out of the way, what exactly do you guys propose? 

I give up. After a bit of a dry spell (I’m really picky, honest), I decided I’d give it a shot and reactivate my Ok Cupid profile and see what’s out there. I mean hey, I live in a rural area that’s somewhat remote and it’s not like there’s tons of successful eligible bachelors near me. Sure there’s bachelors, some have kids by multiple baby mama’s, others are missing teeth, and others have no job and still live at home with mom – well into their 30s!  I am sure you can understand why I’ve chosen to pass on much of the local crowd. 

With all you hear about how many people find their “true love” (gag) online, how bad could it really be? There certainly wasn’t a plethora of eligible, single, unencumbered yet gainfully employed men in my area. So I reactivated my account.

Within minutes I was chatted up by someone who seemed relatively normal, had a dog, loved the outdoors, and even split wood and had a wood stove, like me. Wait, what? Someone normal? We exchange numbers and day 1 is fine. Day 2 is going okay. Not too many texts, but decent convo. Then evening rolls around and it’s like once sundown comes, the freaks come out to play. Here come the fun questions!  I shit you not – these are all real things asked by people I met via Ok Cupid this past week. Enjoy, laugh, choke on your milk (why the fuck are you drinking milk? Go get some Jack Daniels like a real adult, will you?), go ahead. It’s okay. I totally understand.

Random guy: Is that a pink log splitter you have there? 
Me: It’s red.

Random guy: What kind of chainsaw do you have?
Me (what I wanted to say): That’s your idea of a pickup line? Really?
Me (what I actually said): The kind that cuts wood…
Random guy: Wise ass.
Me: Ask a stupid question…

True Story

Random guy: What’s your favorite body part on a guy?
Me (what I wanted to say): Oh, penises of course, because clearly I’m just out to meet guys because I love giving BJs more than anything else in the world…
Me (what else I wanted to say): Is this a “how much of a whore can I meet on an online dating site” test?
Me (what I finally actually said): Are you fucking serious?!
Random guy: Eyes, smile, you know…
Me (what I very nearly almost said): Brain. Because you clearly don’t have one.
Me (what I actually said): Brain, because it’s where the personality comes from.

Random guy: What’s your favorite color?
Me (what I wanted to say): Are we in the 3rd grade? Can I share your crayons after recess? Pretty please?

Random guy: Hi love ur eyes care to chat
Me (in my head): Oh hey spelling and sentences are totally optional. As long as you have the IQ of mayonnaise, we can totally date screw. It’s okay, I have no standards, and your line about my eyes really struck me as honest and caring and sincere.

Random guy: how are you aren’t you the prettiest lil girl
Me (in my head): oh thanks, do you wanna be my daddy-o?

And the list goes on. I may just stay on there for fodder for my blog because come on, really! I can’t believe people say this shit and actually end up getting dates! Maybe that’s my problem, I’m going about this all wrong. What with being relatively normal and all. Hey, I did say relatively. Let’s keep that in perspective.

My friend (you know who you are!) wants me to join FarmersOnly.com because I live on and own a farm. Have you seen those commercials? Really? But hey we may do it because we’re bored and I bet that would give me enough bad online pickup lines to write about for years! 

My take on FarmersOnly.com. Thanks, but I’ll pass!

Well I did finally get my tree up, lit, and fully decorated, but it wasn’t easy…it’s a long story littered with fuck ups, disasters, a perpetually broken down truck, and a whole lot of other shit. But hey, if you think you had a rough week, have a seat and laugh at mine!

This is how my week went.  Monday was heads down working all day and catching up after the long weekend, typical for a Monday.  Then Tuesday I check my nearly empty bank account and find that the credit card company I’ve been using too $99 out of  my account with no warning and no explanation.  I call them, flipping out, and get the runaround.  Took 2 calls and 3 tries to actually get a rep on the phone, and then all I am told is that it’s some IRS reporting fee.  Bullshit.  Basically it’s an excuse for Commerce Payment Systems to charge you out the wazoo.  They claim to be so much cheaper than Intuit, but let me tell you, it’s all crap. They have hidden fees, their rates change whenever they feel like without warning, and you never know what’s going to be taken out of your account.

So I fired them. Only I found out you need to fill out some form before they allow you to fire them. And in the meantime they tell me it could take up to 30 – 60 days for my “refund request” for the random $99 to be processed, if approved.  IF APPROVED? Eff that! Hang up on them, and call my bank and put a stop payment on the charge.  Then I call Intuit and while rewiring the ABS line on my truck, that was causing the ABS light to come on, the ABS system to be off, and 4WD not to work.  You know, little necessities when oh, towing a horse trailer, and living in the mountains heading into winter.  As I’m fixing that, the Intuit rep gets me all set up and approved for an account and BAM! Done. Recurring billing included, all for less than the BS with Commerce Payment Systems.  Thank goodness!

Yes, it’s still Tuesday at this point and knowing the weather this week is going to be touch and go, I decide hey, well it’s only 8PM why not put up the tree? I at least managed to get the tree inside, and opened without Jack peeing on it (success!).  Some of my lights still work, but the tree looked kinda half-lit so I figured I’d get more lights on Wednesday when I went to see my family before my sister heads home to New Zealand.  I manage to eat dinner at 11PM (leftover turkey again) and get to bed by 2AM.  Reasonable-ish.

So much better than Wal-Mart

Well the truck wires are fixed and I head to see my brother so we can tape up the wires for good. Simple enough, right? Oh wait, except now my radiator is leaking antifreeze all over.  Crap.  After dinner, I get sealant, and then stop at Target on the way home from my Dad’s.  Get the lights I need and few Christmas gifts and I’m back on my way home in under an hour. Awesome! Until I get almost home and stop for gas. And I don’t have my wallet. CRAP.  I call Target, and amazingly, the manager is able to find it IN A SHOPPING CART in the cart return outside in the lot. Wow I’m brilliant, I actually managed to pack the car with what I bought and take my wallet off my wrist and off the front seat of the car and put it in the cart – where it hasn’t been at all while shopping – and return the cart with my wallet in it. WTF is wrong with me? No, I wasn’t drinking. I did this entirely sober, all on my own.  Brilliance at its finest, I tell you.  So I turn around and drive the 30 min back to get it, then back home.  Of course I had my dogs with me so as soon as we got home, now about 10PM, I feed them and they proceed to puke from driving in circles on the highway. Awesome.

Hey, but I have lights on the tree.  Yup, 11PM on Wed, and I decide that I’m going to put the damn lights on the tree if it kills me.  It almost does.  Fortunately I have some wine here that helps.  Tree lit, garland with lights around the doorway hung. And I’m in bed nice and early like I planned exhausted and stressed by 3AM. Yay hump day…

Sooooooo Thursday will be better, right? Sure. Get up and do some stuff in the barn and get ready to trailer a horse that was adopted. Well the fucker WILL NOT GET ON THE TRAILER. Refuses.  We try every trick in the book, feed, treats, even a blindfold. And nope, he’s not scared, just standing all droopy lip and half asleep looking at us like, “hey assholes, just so you know, I’m not getting on this trailer.” Awesome. 1h later, the adopters say they’re going to jog home. With the horse. They live about 6 miles away, he runs marathons, and his wife will follow him in the car. Welcome to my world. Who needs a horse trailer, when you can just jog the horse there?

Back inside to work, and oh wow, early night for me! I’m done and eating dinner by 9pm.  That’s gotta be some sort of personal record. Even having turkey and stuffing for the umpteenth day in a row tastes like a gourmet meal.  And the wine – shit I don’t even know what kind it was. It was wine. Because that was my week, and it’s not over yet. But it’s Friday. TGIF. Do I get some sort of award for making it through the week? Pretty please? See, and you thought your week was crazy. Could you imagine if I had kids? Hahahaha just that thought makes me need some Jack Daniels. Oh dear.

Hey at least the tree is up and the stockings hung…

No, really, thanks a lot – to all of you my lovely readers that follow this train wreck of a blog (aka my life) and to all of you that are so organized and ahead of the game, that you already are done with Thanksgiving, cleaned up from having a houseful of crazy relatives, managed to do your Black Friday and last bit of Christmas shopping without interfering with family dinner or getting trampled by the masses, and came home to finish out the weekend with an already perfect Christmas tree up, house decorated and the holidays in full swing.  Thanks.

Because I’m not nearly that motivated organized ready for Christmas. And because after a week of getting ready to host family and also splitting wood so I can keep the house warm, I’m just flat out exhausted. And possibly a little bit sick.  Maybe. I’m not quite admitting that yet, but I slept for 10 hours last night, and did the same on Saturday night as well.  And that is totally not like me. Besides, I hate it, because it makes me feel like a lazy piece of shit when I get out of bed at 10AM and the rest of the world has been functioning since 6 or 7. Hey, at least there was wine. Lots and lots of wine for the holidays. 

Could also be that in all the commotion of the weekend, I’ve forgotten to take my thyroid meds so much as once, so I did that this morning. Hopefully that helps. Because on top of sleeping like a hibernating bear in the dead of winter, I’ve also been getting the hot/cold/hot/cold flashes and sweats which is so much fun, and I’m way too young for menopause (EEEEK! No, really, I’m 37). But I know when my thyroid is out of whack I get like that so definitely could be part of the issue. On top of it, after I eat something – anything – I want to go straight to bed. Ugh, yeah thanks a lot, thyroid. For making me feel like crap and running down my immune system and now I’m stuffy too. Don’t even try to blame Jack. Whiskey kills germs, you know.  Seriously.  That stuff is like medicine in a bottle, just ask anyone from the 1800s or 1900s. Doctors prescribed that stuff for everything from a cold to a headache to the flu. I drink enough Jack that I betcha I could have been a doctor in my past life. What’s wrong? Headache? Here, have some Jack! Toothache? Jack’s the cure.  What about the flu? No problem, Jack will make it all better!


Anyway, my Christmas tree is standing outside waiting to be opened up and brought in the house.  I’m feeling almost like I should do that today, but at the same time not so much. All of my friends’ Facebook feeds are of their perfect families and their pretty trees and lovely houses and meanwhile my single, tired, self hasn’t put mine up yet.  I think that will be the goal for tomorrow: decorate for the holidays and get out of bed before 10. Damn you, thyroid, we’re doing this.

On a more serious note, I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend with family and friends, no one got overly caught up in the Black Friday sales craze, and that today is a lovely relaxing Monday for all. I know I’ll be here working and shopping Cyber Monday sales for the holidays and procrastinating my tree going up. Honestly though I already cleaned some this morning and if I bring in the tree, I’ll just have to vacuum and clean all over again and go into the attic and get the decorations out and that’s too much effort for today.  Today is day #1 back on thyroid meds. Let’s see how we can kick that thyroid into gear by tomorrow.  Happy Cyber Monday, all! And if you come across any great deals to share, feel free to post them here.  I’ll put up a link to a list of some of my favorite CM sales shortly. 

In the theme of saying “thanks a lot,” I’m thankful for my sister home from New Zealand and spending time with her (if I get sick, I’m totally blaming you, Steph!), my brother turning 30 and getting engaged (congrats, bro!), and my family all being able to get together several times this past month to celebrate and spend time together. I’m thankful for my family of amazing animals, from cats to dogs to horses, and thankful for some amazing friends near and far, that I love and trust and am so grateful to have in my life.  And for my one friend lending me his log splitter.  That thing is my favorite new toy! Have you ever seen how a 29 ton splitter can crack a giant log like it’s a toothpick? Fun, and much better than trying to split wood by hand.


Oh and I leave you with a funny. My little dog Jack (Daniels of course, like you had to ask) is a rescue and as far as I know, never seen a tree inside before. So at my Dad’s house yesterday for dinner, he was so excited, he ran right over to the tree…and peed on it (and the gifts underneath)!  Poor dog was all excited that there was a bathroom inside the house for him and next thing he knew he was getting yelled at and tossed outside.  Hopefully he doesn’t do that when my tree goes up. Tomorrow. LOL