Friday, September 27, 2013

Love Em N Leave Em

I'm almost finished with my tiling job. I thought this was going to be easy-peasy...after all, it's a plain old rectangular room and I just needed to make straight tile cuts on 2 walls. I've learned a few lessons;

#1-The bigger the tile, the harder it is to get it to lay 'flat'. These are 18"x18" tile. I knew that, but starting out I still ended up with a few dropped corners. Sheez.

#2-With these large tile, I should have done a staggered pattern instead of trying to square it up and I also should have set them with a very narrow grout line. Not all of my grout corners are perfectly square and I have a few grout lines that are a little wider than others...Which drives someone like myself absolutely crazy. Thankfully my hubby went and looked at it and told me I was too much of a perfectionist. He thinks it looks awesome. A professional tile setter will see the mistakes in a heartbeat.

The only saving grace to me is that at least the majority of my errors will be covered up when the room is finished. And after all, if I had to make mistakes, at least this room is up in the shop and not in the house. People will probably not pay as much attention to the imperfections as they would in a domicile.

The plan is to finish up this tiling job and while it is curing make my little trip back to South Dakota. My original intention was just to return Megan's blue roan and pick up my 2 fillies and Frenchy, the new mare to bring back to Colorado.

Weellll...Thanks to yet another family fight over their stupid horses...I'm also returning the little sorrel horse. For whatever reason, my mother and middle brother, after agreeing to let some friends of mine use Spooks for a couple of years, are trying to renig on the deal and they want me to yank Spooks and take him back to the ranch. It drives my mother absolutely batshit crazy that someone else is using and enjoying Spooks. She continues to cause an argument about it and drags my brother into it at every opportunity. I've finally had enough of those two and am returning Rip AND Bugs, but I will not pull Spooks out from underneath that little girl.

I find it extremely offensive to renig on any deal without good reason, but especially offensive when it involves children. It might be different if someone in SD wanted to use or needed to use the horse, but the only reason my idiot mother wants him home is because she can't stand the thought of someone else getting some good out of the horse. There is no one back in SD that will use the horse, so basically he will just get turned out and spend the rest of his life rotting away in the pasture. I simply cannot wrap my mind around removing a horse from a place where he is being well taken care of and lightly used, by a child mind you...and dumping him out in a pasture to do n.o.t.h.i.n.g. for the rest of his life. It's not like Spooks is old either. He's only 15. A little early for 'retirement' in my mind.

I told the people who have him what is going on and they begged to keep him one more year. I agreed. That will give them time to find a suitable replacement horse for their little girl.

*I* on the other hand have completely washed my hands of my ridiculous mother and 'her' horses. I almost thought about returning the Big Bay as well, but I was actually given that horse in lou of financial compensation for all of the money I have invested into horses that are not mine. I'm pretty sure I got the short end of the stick on the deal. LOL.

I was pretty sad for a couple of days at the thought of losing my tubby little sorrel man. I love that little horse and I felt like we were 'this close' to having him really sound and ready to go on and do something. Now he will return to being unused and grotesquely fat in no time and all the work invested will be for naught.

I know that some people believe that there are worse things that could happen to a horse than living a completely useless life, aging out in a pasture, fat and 'happy'...But it just chaps my hide to think of the absolute waste of time and effort invested into raising horses of this quality and then never, ever seeing that potential realized....or in Spooks' case, enjoyed and appreciated. In my mother's eyes I guess she thinks you can just pull these horses out of a pasture and turn them into whatever you want. She has had absolutely no comprehension of what it has taken to bring any of them back to a state where they are even capable of holding up to 'normal' riding...Feet, teeth, chiropractic work, breaking, training, hauling...time, time, time!!! Not to mention the $$ factor.

(sigh)...Well, she will get her horses back and that will be that. Unfortunately, she probably isn't going to like the consequences of her actions. Actions like these have repercussions. I've pretty much left my mom alone to do her thing in SD, but that will be coming to an end as well. I have some demands of my own in the making. Ultimately the loss of the little sorrel horse won't affect me much...outside of the fact that I am fond of the little horse and will miss him...but treating me like my time and money is of no consequence is going to affect several facets of my mother's life permanently. I would say it's sad that it's come to this, but this has been a long time in the making and I am not the one who messed up.

Rest assured...There is a bright side coming out of all of this. At least there is for me.


7 comments:

Sherry Sikstrom said...

Man! I f I had someone like you in my fam who would do all that work, there is no way in HELL I would be draginbg horses back to get fat, It might motivate me ot do better with what I had in front of me though . That sucks big time. The tiles sound fine, and as long as hubby likes it then ...

C-ingspots said...

I'm sorry it had to come to this, but I don't blame you one bit. Your mom sure doesn't seem to be thinking things through, or being realistic at all. Why wouldn't she want Spooks to be used and loved on by a little girl? What horse doesn't benefit from that? I don't get it. I hope you can work it out.
I'm sure the tiles will look great once everything's in place. Most people aren't going to be looking that close. I've found that with home remodeling projects...they're always harder and take longer than I expected. I think you deserve a big fat thumbs up for a job well done!!

Ms Martyr said...

I've run into your mother's mentality before. There was a darling little pony at the barn where I used to ride that was ideal for the smaller kids. His "real" kids had outgrown him. The mother took him back to turn into a pasture pet when her kids left for college to remind her of them. What a waste.

RuckusButt said...

Well, we don't pick our family, I've learned that one a few times myself. Sometimes you just have to look after your own interests. Glad to hear you're doing that, it's healthy, although hard...and also hard for some people to understand.

cdncowgirl said...

Please, please, please tell me Meg's roan is just wintering there... he's not actually your mom's is he?
Sucks for that little sorrel,and all the time/money/energy you've put in. However I know how frustrated dealing with your mom & the horses has made you in the past, so splitting apart entirely (which is what it sounds like you're doing) will probably be for the best in the end.

PS- the tiling... if it was something I would notice it would drive me crazy too lol However it's probably not as bad as you think!

BrownEyed Cowgirl said...

Cdn-The blue roan is actually one of my mom/brother's horses. Megan wanted to use him at the ranch in AZ this last summer and they wouldn't allow her to take him, so that has Meg rather perturbed with them as well...Not to mention the fact that my brother keeps 'giving' Gunner to Megan, but my mom won't allow her to take him either. Not that Meg is really in a position to have/take care of a horse right now anyway, but even if she was, there is still no way my mom would let her take him. So yet another horse that will probably never have anything done with him...Unless of course my mom pulls the same stunt she did with me and the Big Bay...Wouldn't let me start the colt under saddle at an appropriate age and then fobs a gigantic, mature, mostly unhandled horse off on me and then complains endlessly when things don't go 'normally'.

I told Meg to just let it go. If she gets into a position where she wants/needs a horse to just go buy a project horse to turn and make a little money on. That was the intention when I talked her into buying Buddy, but he was in far worse shape than I realized, so I told her I would just keep him and fix him up for myself. Meg's good enough about putting the miles on a horse, but she's too young to really handle a full-on rehab project like the TB.

Crystal said...

Well that sucks, I feel bad for Bugs, no fair to have him go through all that and have him going good and probly feeling a lot better and then just get put back in the same situation again. And spooks, he and the girl seem so perfect together be nice to be able to leave him with them till he is old and retired.
I know what you mean about the tiling, i feel that way about my woodwork, most people think its awesome but I just see every fault...and not only in my work makes me critical of other stuff too.