Allowing myself some ‘rant time’

A kind stranger sent me an email today and told me he thought my blog was “refreshing”… 

I thought it was quite a nice compliment. 🙂

Well, I apologize, but I’m putting “refreshing” on the shelf for the evening and giving myself a little ‘rant time’.  I deserve it.  See, I’ve had a lousy week. 

First, our bosses were in Florida Friday thru Tuesday.  Then, I had a flat tire on my way to work on Friday,  had to call AAA, the whole thing.  I got to work about 10am.  Blah. 

Saturday I had to drive to the far side of Columbus (an hour and a half drive) for a trade show.  No problem, I like working trade shows–the whole meeting people and talking about what our company does agrees with me.  The whole getting up at 5am to be there at 7:30am to set up on a Saturday morning doesn’t so much agree with me. 

Monday was the kicker.  I woke up with one of the worst migraines I’ve ever had, but I had to go to work because my bosses were out of town.  I prefer not to take Imitrex (my abortive of choice) when I drive, and we had one of the busiest mornings so far this year, so I didn’t get a chance to take my “miracle pill” until lunch.  By that time the pain was throbbing/shooting through my temple and down my left nostril.  It felt like someone was sticking a fire poker up my nose, and my left cheek was numb.  Since I’d waited so long to take my Imitrex, it took THREE STINKING HOURS to take effect.  What can I say–they tell you to take it asap.  User error…but I’m me and I have to take care of the company before I take care of myself.  I can’t help it, that’s the way I am.

But the migraine wasn’t even the best part of Monday.  Oh no.  For those who don’t know, I live in Dayton and commute to work in Columbus.  Normally it’s an hour and fifteen minute drive.  In winter weather it has taken me as long as five hours to get home from work.  Monday we got winter weather.  Long story short, my husband’s car (yes–my husband’s!) and I ended up in a ditch.  I got us out of the ditch (yay for four wheel drive and off roading it!!).  However, my husband’s poor Trailblazer was, sadly, somewhat worse for the wear than I was (despite the returning migraine).  Guess what?  I called AAA for the second time in four days.  Fabulous.

The Trailblazer went into the shop, the bosses were still out of town, and I had no choice but find a way to get to work the next day.  I really would rather have taken a personal day.  But I talked to our operations manager (who’s in the field, so he couldn’t cover for me) around 6:15am and we agreed that the best thing to do was for me to drive a company vehicle from Dayton to Columbus.  Which I did.  And all that ice that put me in the ditch the night before?  Yep, it was still on the road.  Nothing like driving a company truck 80 miles through an ice skating rink full of cars with drivers who also want to get to work on time.  I got stuck behind a 10 car pile-up.  Fortunately, I wasn’t part of it. 

Almost $600 later and the Trailblazer has a new tail pipe/muffler/exhaust system.  But, she still needs new tires–which they said probably caused the whole mess in the first place–and will be another $600 or so.  Also, when they took off the old, mangled exhaust system they found another part that was bent that will need replaced, too.  There’s another $250.  How did I manage to turn Blondie’s exhaust system into an accordion, you ask?  Well, did I mention we went down a hill, through a marsh, and up a ditch–all backwards?  Yup, that’ll do it.  I did manage to miss the guard rail and two light posts, so I guess that’s a plus.

And then, just to round out my week, we had winter weather again tonight.  I got bored (it took me two hours to drive home–not too bad, but still), so I took some photos with my phone.  They’re not terrific, but they give the general idea.  At least tonight wasn’t as bad as Monday.

 

  Lots of snow, roads still OK.

Starting to get slick…

All the semi’s buzzing by me.  Yay.

Going about 25mph and the road is covered in snow.

Lots of snow on the road.

My welcome home lamp post 🙂

On the up side, I have my laptop for work with me and (unless global warming kicks in overnight) I’ll be working from home tomorrow.

Ok, end rant, resume my former self!

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Poetry in Motion

I think there’s been a flood watch banner at the bottom of our TV screen any time we’ve had our TV on for the past two weeks.  Straight.  I kid you not, and welcome to Ohio for those of you not familiar with her weather. 

It turns our yard into a pond.  I think I saw a fish out there today, actually.  Our Border Collie cross turns into “Swamp Dog” (yes, she’s nuts!).  When I got home from work + the feed store the other night I had to wade through the little river running across my driveway to get to my back door. 

If it were just all that, I wouldn’t mind.  And I wouldn’t complain, promise.  But, last night, my barn flooded.  NOT COOL!  It’s not flooded because of a rising creek, it’s flooded because the ground can’t take any more water and whoever built this place didn’t know about a little thing called a drainage system.  I’m not happy.  On top of that, the barn’s roof needs some work.  Our supply of hay that’s supposed to last us until June (and has been dwindling WAY too quickly) is now missing some members due to all this rain and said roof issues.  Needless to say, I’m worrying away…

Rain rain go away. 

So instead of worrying about my hay, I looked at upper level Dressage horses.  Riding Dressage is a love/hate relationship for me, but I love to watch the best.   It’s poetry in motion:   

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