Itty Bitty Hooves

A Good Start

I think Mickey may have done his job already and gotten all the girlies in his pen done right for the spring. All the commotion that had been going on for the past few weeks seems to have died down a lot. Hoping that means all the girlie goats have gotten their groove on and Mickey has given them what he has, and they’re all settled in for a nice winter’s pregnancy. I can’t wait to see all the bouncing babies come spring time. Hum, actually it would be late winter wouldn’t it? Well, late February to early March anyway. That’s a good time of the year to have babies. No flies, and the goats don’t mind the colder weather all that much. I’ve found even the horsie babies do better when born earlier in the year. Since I don’t have a heated barn, I prefer not to have them come in January or February, but March and April are really good times and the babies get a good head start before the heat and flies come in the hot summer weather.

Why Bother?

I have comments on moderation here so that readers aren’t subjected to the mass amounts of spamming that happen in blogdom, but it never ceases to amaze me just how much there really is. What I’m supposed to do is go in and delete unwanted comments from the ‘holding pen’. I get so back-logged in doing that though because it’s a pain in the butt, and tedious. So right now as I logged in I saw that there was a build up of just under three THOUSAND spam messages. And they really are all spam. Just junk. Why do these people even bother? Does it really work? Are there any people out there that still click on those links? They’re so obvious, and so intrusive, and usually nothing to do with the posts that you can’t help but laugh at them so who still falls for the trap? Anyone? Obviously someone must or they wouldn’t bother doing it.

Packing It In

I’m a pack rat. Always have been. Not as bad as some, like my husband’s mother. Her house is so crowded you can barely walk through it. Maybe in a few decades I’ll be the same though. By that time I’ll have accumulated enough stuff to keep the aisles full even here. Right now I have my stuffed animals that I’ve had since I was a child crowding my spare bedroom, and the ones I’ve bought my grandkids that stayed here rather than went home like many of them did. They had to have something to sleep with when they came over–right? I prefer the gund brand ones. They’re so plush and real looking. My grandson even has his order in for Christmas already. He likes ‘Sketchy’ the monkey. He’s a monkey fanatic. So cool, more stuff to add to the collection.

Country Class

This is cool, I think my husband needs to get this for his truck. How stylin’ would that be to have billet grilles on the front of your trucks? There’s such a touch of class in that. Even living in the country and doing real truck work with the trucks doesn’t mean you can’t have a classy ride while you’re doing it. Hubby likes to deck out his ride so he’ll love that idea.

Real Life Levity

There is a news article on ABC.com about an 87 year old woman who got fed up with Comcast for not hooking her up right (repeatedly) and she went into their offices and bashed their consoles, and equipment. She was charged.

Okay, I know it’s against the law, but how many of you are doing what I was when I read that–smiling and nodding and sayin ‘I know how she feels’. I think we can all identify with the frustration, and the feeling of being cheated. Comcast also took some heat not long ago for dropping a bunch of customers that they felt were staying online too long, and using up too much bandwidth downloading… what the f…? That’s what an internet connection is for.

Working and Hair Loss Connection

This computer drives me insane sometimes. I can’t live without it, but on some days I’d sure like to try. Most of the time it does things quite well, but other times, for seemingly no reason whatsoever it slows down to a crawl. In my work being slow isn’t a good thing. It means missed opprotunities, and every missed opprotunity is money lost. It’s not my server, I check the connection speed and there’s no appreciable difference between the days it is running well and the days it has turned into a big black technological turtle. I really don’t know what causes it, but I know I lose hair over it. Maybe women’s roles in the workplace will begin a need for hair transplant therapy that is so prevelant amongst men now. LOL I may end up being first in line.

New Tech

I need a new television set. The one in our living room is ancient. The new LCD TV sets scare me a little. I really don’t know that much about them. There are a lot of tags in stores now too that some TVs won’t work after a certain time, but I don’t think that applies to me since I have satallite feed television. I do know that the new sets mezmerise me. The flat screens that can be hung on a wall like a picture, and they’re so big. All the new buzz words like high-def, and such confuse me though. I really don’t know what the difference is. It’s the same with all technology. My husband almost bought a ‘blue ray’ disc the other day instead of a regular DVD. I’m not sure what the difference is between regular DVD’s and ‘blue ray’. I’m sure it’s something really good, but what does that really mean? It means we have to buy a new machine and replace our hundreds of movies with new discs that will play on the new machine. It’s like 8-tracks, and then cassettes all over again. Technology is wonderful, but it gets really expensive. Luckily you can get really great deals on the machines and TVs.

How Strong Am I?

I have to do hooves here shortly. Both the goats and the horses need their feet trimmed. Luckily for me financially I can do all of them. The minis in fact most farriers don’t want anything to do with so that’s why I learned, and of course, most goat owners learn to do feet in a hurry because that’s the only thing a self-respecting goat owner would do. You don’t call a vet out to do something as mundane as feet–especially if you want to survive financially. So I save a bundle on hooves of both the equine and caprine variety. However, it’s a real back-breaker so I tend to put it off as long as possible. I’ve been doing a lot of exercising in order to get stronger, and I know my back has improved a lot over the past several months–we’ll see if it’s improved enough real soon. I think I’ll tackle the feet this weekend. I may be crippled for a few days afterwards… or I may find out I’m strong as a proverbial horse.

Read The Labels

Be careful in your selection of ‘healthy’ foods. Some can be tricky. While most are not misleading many times we assume that low-fat, or even no-fat means no calories and that’s not true. It’s important to remember that just because you choose, say a salad over a calorie laden cheeseburger, what is IN the salad can mean a world of difference between healthy, and just as bad as that sloppy burger. For the most part, you can count most green vegies, such as lettuce, cucumber, etc, as nothing at all, and even higher calorie vegies such as tomatoes make for a very nutrucious selection. Adding high-fat cheeses, and nuts, while still in the ‘good’ area can make for a disaster if you’re not careful on how much you allow in your diet. Dressings are considered vital for most salad eaters whether they’re dieting or not, but make sure you read the labels on on even fat-free dressings. While most are in the 20-30 calorie range (and make sure you really are using only 2 tablespoons as the serving suggests, it’s pretty easy to pile on calories by just letting that dressing flow out), some are deceivingly higher. As much as 50 to 70 calories per serving. That’s okay if you know it’s that high and choose to make adjustments to your daily intake to account for it, but make sure you really do know and aren’t just assuming it’s 20 calories you’re pouring on your healthy salad.

Don’t Quit, Take Many Short Routes Instead Of A Long Journey

I did my mid-week weigh-in this morning and I’m one pound away from my first goal! (No, not going to tell you what it is, lol, but it’s a major marker.) Anyway, I have a long-term goal. I want to be the size I was on my wedding day 25 years ago. Well, close anyway, I was 118 I want to be 120. But that’s quite a ways away. It’s important to set short-term goals for a couple of reasons. Probably the most important one is that a large amount can seem so insurmountable. Take so long. We all want it to be done NOW. That’s not the way it works though. Even if you did put weight on fast (usually it takes a long time) it still isn’t going to come off fast unless you’re doing something unhealthy–we know that, but at the same time, those pound by pound loses can seem like an eternity. Having a several short-term goals along the way make it possible to celebrate and feel good about those accomplishments.

Whether you make your short-term goals every 10 pounds, 20 pounds, 30, or 50 pounds really doesn’t matter. Make sure they are reasonable, and not too far spaced so that you can feel good and celebrate often. (not with food!!! LOL) This will give you a feeling of satisfaction, and accomplishment and make that long journey seem a lot shorter. It will also help you keep going when you might otherwise throw your hands up in frustration and quit.