A selling spree

Several silver spoons a watch a bracelet and a horse brass ( upside down again )

So while we are waiting for the plumbers to finish filling in deep pits, and for the road to be dug up next week. I am revisiting all the stuff that we brought home from my MIL house after she died at least two years ago now. I have already sorted a lot of the silver and jewelry and sold them on where else but the amazing Ebay !! So to help make a dent in the 36K bill for the new septic lines, I am once again going through the tedium of sorting, photographing and listing some more stuff that we will never use and our kids will probably give away or throw in the trash. I have to discipline myself to go over one item at a time and research it. Below are two rings that I will never wear. that I have currently listed.

Huge expense

 We had been having problems with toilets backing up and sewer water coming up in one of our showers for years on and off. But the sewer water in the shower was the final call. In came the plumbers and a camera that can look inside the lines. Well the very worst case scenario that could be is true, and we have to replace all our sewer lines. We have four bath rooms. When you buy a house I always thought that the most expensive thing was the roof. Not true. This will cost more than twice what our new roof cost. Apparently sewer lines have a shelf life so to speak and ours and probably our neighbors is up for our tract built in 1964. Today work started digging up my garden in the front of the house. In the agreement signed the plumbing company will not pay to replace plants !!

Having to explain

A friend of the family who lives in Spain and was an exchange student with my second husband Doug's family just contacted me.  She asked on private message Face Book, could I please ask Doug's daughter to contact her just to chat, and keep in touch, here in Southern California. It looks as if the news of the wild fires has got peoples interest.  So I had to tell her that we are now not having anything to do with the daughter Jessica and her boy  friend Scott and three daughters Lilly, Andalyn and Quinn. Two are of college age and one in high school. I then had to explain in detail and copy and paste the original insults so that she could see for herself.  She would not take my word with out proof and now she has seen and felt the evil energy that these people have put out. This apparently had been a long standing issue that I never knew about and not just a political disagreement. Very similar to that between my twin sister and me.

I  have also just had to spend hundreds of dollars registering my heart horse Coco who is 26 years old with the AMHA so that I have proof that she is ours. The papers were never transferred when Jessica bought her. We have taken care of her for over ten years.  I saved this horses life when she had a nine pound enterolith ( calcium stone from inproper care) and J and the mother Nancy ignored the symptoms. I got her to the vet hospital just in time. Jessica suddenly decided that she could not afford to keep her anymore. Here is what the daughter Jessica put on face book recently Cleverly on News feed that lasts only a few hours and then disappears but I saved it.( It will not rotate someone tell me how ?)

The gates where we have our horses boarded are not locked in the day. I can not tell you the anxiety that I have, not knowing if J and her boyfriend have come with a trailer and got Coco. Unfortunately in this case she loads in a trailer no problem ( unlike three other horses that I have had in the past RIP Sierra, Mastrexx and Trespass)

I am sure that one family member who reads this blog will say serves you right because she is evil also and has the same theme of disrespect towards me. 

I want to move on and completely erase these people from my life. But I may have to go back and put here exactly what was said to me in black and white. I can feel that I need to cleanse my energy from this somehow. At least my one step son and wife understand and their son has been told never ever to disrespect your elders and family in this way. The other step son is all peace and love so he had to be given the actual print outs to read for him self.

Wild Fires

We live in a high wild fire risk area and the horses do also where they are boarded.  We have fires burning about 30 miles away from us and can see the smoke over the mountains. We are surrounded by open land that has burned before and we were OK because we are far enough away from those areas. Never the less there is still the fear that a fire will start in the night and escalate. I have a bag with essential papers such as my birth certificate, packed and ready. I am so glad that we have no pets now to have to worry about. Just the horses. When the wind comes up I check every few hours all through the night, with the remote camera the I have at the horses. Flying debris is a concern. A piece of roofing metal got loose last night, and fortunately did not land on a horse. All the horses had debris such as pieces of plastic and feed bags that blew into their pens with them. I have done quite a bit of desensitizing over the years to get them unafraid of such things. Otherwise worst case is a horse trying to jump out of its pen and getting hung up. So until we have some rain and the high winds continue, anything could happen.

A Great Christmas and Opening Day at Santa Anita

Santa Anita paddock. Aggie gives her jockey a leg up on Barbera.

My step daughter in law Dasha has the privilege of having her Mom and Mom's girl friend to stay with her and her husband for a month. They have come from Russia, Dasha is from Russia. They had quite the journey, traveling by train from their home town and then by plane from Turkey to LAX.  Dasha's Mom smokes so extra hard for her and the rules about smoking are different here. They arrived the day before Christmas and Dasha drove to the airport to get them. The airport is about an hours drive from us. Christmas in Russia is on January 7th ! We ate Christmas dinner together on the 25th and included some traditional Russian food such as meat stuffed dumplings. 

My husband Doug, Dasha, Svetlana and Dash's Mom Elena Chrismas dinner at Dasha's house.

Then my step son Jonathan decided that we would go to opening day at Santa Anita. Svetlana and Elena succumbed to jet lag LOL and stayed at home.  This is now a family tradition. Sadly we are no longer associating with Doug's daughter and family who also attend. They were there but we had nothing to do with them. We had a blast anyway and the highlight for me was to meet Aggie Ordonez for the first time, she is the former trainer of our horse Additur ( Pesky) She also won with filly Barbera. What an honor for her ! We won some and lost some money betting and the weather did not disappoint. I also met an aspiring  (and very young) jockey from York, England as I was cheering Aggie in the winners circle.  His name is William Pyle.We had a  chat about the differences between racing in the US versus in the UK.

Dasha, me and Doug Santa Anita race track.

Me and horse trainer Aggie she was waiting to saddle her horse.

My Spiritual Life

 

I wanted to put here some quotes by two of my favorite spiritual teachers, Eckhart Tolle and Louise Hay.

From Eckhart

“At the present time, the dysfunction of the old consciousness and the arising of the new are both accelerating. Paradoxically, things are getting worse and better at the same time, although the worse is more apparent because it makes so much noise.”

"

Life is the dancer, and you are the dance. You then realize that you don't live your life, but life lives you”.  

 

“Lucid living is when you become aware of what many philosophers and poets and spiritual teachers have described as the dream-like nature of ordinary existence. Dreamlike in the sense that nothing lasts for very long. Every experience arises and subsides and is gone. The past – everything dissolves. It’s a memory of the present moment in the now.” 

 

From Louise

I choose thoughts that nourish and support my physical and emotional well-being. 

I attract loving and supportive people into my life. 

I am capable of handling any challenges that come my way

I trust the wisdom within me to guide me in the right direction.

We had rain

Not much rain fell but it  was enough to lay the dust in the arena and round pen.  The end of the coughs for horses and humans. Just lately I have been changing the routine on the non riding days and take one of the horses in to the round pen. Today I discovered that Knight will not canter he just trots faster and faster. Well I suddenly realized why... He was trained to be a carriage horse and they must not canter in the show ring. He is certainly capable of a canter and full gallop when ridden as Doug knows, out on the trail. So this is my new aim for Knight to help him feel comfortable cantering in a circle and to develop his cantering muscles and head carriage. He also has a locking stifle so I will be interested to see if this really helps him. The videos are of my riding horse Morgan mare Coco in the round pen. As you can see she knows how to anticipate the whoa. Coco( VJC Mystical Enchantress) is 25 years old. And our three other horses enjoying one of their frequent play sessions.