Well, it’s the first of the year, and considering that the decade digit has flipped, a lot of folks are doing a retrospective of the last ten years (I’m not going to get into an argument about whether this is the 20s or not). So I went back to old blogs to get a better feel for what was going on, because as I’ve tried to remember things, I’m discovering that I have to think harder about what year it is. Age, or just a lot of stuff going on?
Ten years ago, I was having a gut attack but not so bad that I couldn’t join hubby at a New Year’s Eve concert, Railroad Earth.
I had bought the iMac I’m now using (which has outlived the printer I bought at the same time). I was also determined that I was going to do something with my writing. I was going to buckle down and get things done. Back then, I was convinced I couldn’t write a sf teaching story as well as Zenna Henderson. Still not sure about it, but Klone’s Stronghold was a solid attempt. I also attempted to write some blog content and teaching articles, but that fell by the wayside. Nonfiction is not where my heart lies. But I was writing short stories like crazy, and was on track for my goal to have 20 stories circulating. I was also working on Netwalk and sending it out for submission–not quite ready to take the leap into self-pub, which happened the next year.
Midway through my special education career, I was starting to detach myself from the label. The previous September was also the beginning of the three bad years of teaching, where we went through six principals in that time. But I was having good moments, especially (to my surprise, since I am notnotnot a math person) my Resource Math class. That class was actually at a higher level than previous classes I’d taught, so I was learning new things. It was, however, the year I was reduced to part time work starting in the fall. For some reason I thought I worked five years part time–no, only four. But my Resource English kids did well in their reading AND writing statewide assessments in the spring. Then the fall was the beginning of the really problematic period. At this time I was horribly burned out, taking coursework in interpersonal neurobiology/relational psychology and hoping to parley the combination of training in this field and special education certification into something more (which never really unfolded, in part because I was dealing with the work crap).
Mocha was favoring her right side and while her hock issues had been identified, I still had no idea about the issues with her front foot issues. But it was the beginning of the four years that I kept her barefoot, in hopes that would improve her hoof walls and overall hoof conditioning (which ended with the white line disease). I was working with her shoulders and starting to get a good floaty trot out of her. At that time she would arch her neck and raise her back to stretch when I started to put on her leg boots. I had started to introduce her to road riding (perfect location, with a 20 foot shoulder, the only way I would have done that on a road populated with homicidal cyclists in training, partying drunks racing between river parks, and general idiots). She had demonstrated her unflappableness by being one of the few horses not to freak out when a tree was fallen outside of the barn, and was also showing a lot of energy. I was clearly the high point of her day when she lived in a stall, though we are starting to get back to that now (working on it, probably will have a setback due to being sick and away from her for over a week). She went to her first big horse show and earned blues (and one red) in Dressage Suitability against more experienced horses, earning positive comments for her big gaits, along with mutters about “that reiner mare.” This was the show where she showed her competitive nature and focus, as well as her enjoyment of performance. We were finally figuring out training and she was settling into a groove.
2010 was one of my big skiing years, though I was fighting foot pain and cramping in between euphoric moments. That was the year I got cortisone shots in my left foot because of an inflamed metatarsal joint (I still feel that ache pretty regularly these days, a lovely teaching legacy–NOT). But I ended up buying boots that worked for me in February, which did well by me until I packed out the liners a couple of years later and started having problems again. This was also the year I saw the singing Scandinavian singer–from the blog, “Early on, there was one guy cruising down the Mile, singing at the top of his lungs as he danced with the flow of gravity. A respectable baritone, but the language most definitely was not English. It sounded Scandanavian, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if that were the case. Of course, Swedish and Norwegian ghosts probably stride those slopes; if not haunts, then memories from the early days of Timberline and European exiles wandering on Hood’s slopes. I heard the singing guy twice–once when he went down, the second, while I was skiing down and he was on the chair lift. Not hymns; not contemporary song, either. Not a drinking song. It was strong and rhythmic, matching the flow of gravity, celebratory in a marching way but not a militaristic tune, either. Whatever it was, it matched the setting. It was a skiing song, singing the snow and the sky and the clouds.” Still one of my favorite ski memories. That fall I got to ski on my late October birthday, which started the epic year where I got over 60 ski days in.
Beside the foot problem, this was the year that the zero-to-sixty UTIs in 2 hours started appearing. Several blogs about going into the ER at unpredictable intervals. I had dropped a lot of weight very quickly (probably tied to the UTIs and a long-term antibiotic I was taking).
This was the year that we started a four-year period of camping near the Oregon Country Fair and rediscovering our hippie selves–as well as going to several concerts at venues such as Red Rocks and Bob’s Ranch near Marcola. I was still a practicing Catholic, and confident enough to engage in faith discussions online.
Interesting to look back at those days. I’ll summarize what has happened over the last ten years in the next post.
