The Great Clean-Up

It's almost time. I've been putting it off this morning, but the cleaning is about to commence. I've spent the greater part of this summer heading up north to the Bernier Spa & ranch to ride Ky and Joon in order to prepare for the 2 horseshows in which I participated the last 2 weekends. (Wow, that's one heckuva sentence.) Speaking of, here are a few images of me showing Ky ---

English:

Mom & I with our blues:
Western:

Re: clean-ups...notice the picture of my mother with ONE of her blue ribbons. Out of 3 classes, she took away a 2nd and TWO first-place ribbons. She rode well, had a blast, and cleaned house! I'm VERY proud of her :) Me, on the other hand...well, let's say I placed in all 4 of my classes. I walked away with a 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th. Ironically, the western classes were my best performance-wise yet I WON my english pleasure class - in SPITE of Ky deciding he wanted to buck during the canter the first way. Evidently the judge missed that :)

Anyway, in short, I've been spending a lot of time NOT at my house on weekends while having fun horsing around. Which translates to NOT cleaning my house. For a long time. By "cleaning" I mean DEEP cleaning. I dust every nook & cranny (even on top of the doors/windows), then sweep (even under furniture), then mop, THEN I vacuum*. And, normally I do this every Saturday morning. EVERY SATURDAY.

Why on earth do I subject myself to this, one might ask. Well, it's my house, and I need it to be clean. Plus, before I had to because my roommate's dog was a Golden and shed like it was his job; now with Zada it's the same thing - only spread throughout the entire house is her ever-present German shepherd hair.

Needless to say, my little house is in for an overhaul cleaning day. Unfortunately for Z, who must remain outside while I clean, it's currently raining. Bummer for her. Oh well.

*I bought my first vacuum cleaner yesterday! It's a Bissell bagless - I'm pumped. Yes, my first one, by the way. Up until the last time I cleaned (I'm desperately trying to remember when that was...), I'd been using a borrowed vacuum - which, sadly, has finally "bit the dust" for the last time, so to speak. I'm going to have to tell OB that his little sucker is dead. I owe him a new one - if he even remembers he lent it to me in the fall of '03, when I moved into my first apartment :)

Well, that's about it for now. Hopefully the rain clears up...if it doesn't, I'll just have to walk Z in the rain. Pretty sure I won't melt.

Hasta la proxima vez - - -