goals – Me, Myself and I

“A Home Run out of a Walk”

People join us and leave us on our journey through life. This past week, I have been dealing with the loss of a special friend. Our journey together began with me answering a help wanted ad for someone to clean stalls in a 16 stall barn.

They had Arabians in the barn. They used to train riders and horses for endurance racing. Newspaper clippings displayed in the barn restroom and their website, they were really good at training horses and riders for this strenuous and demanding equine competition.

When I arrived for the interview, the wife, met me and did the initial interview. But, before I could be hired, I had to pass his interview. She asked me what experience I had with horses. How many I owned, trained, and if I had been around stallions. Basic resume type questions. Then the time came to talk with her husband, Hank.

Hank’s first question was, “Have you ever worked with Arabians?”. I answered yes, I had owned two. Told of the four year old Arabian mare I purchased, that I had to no training or handling. How I trained her to halter and to lead in 15 minutes. Listening to me talk about my Arabian mare, he grinned. Through our discussion he learned the breed of horse I loved was Appaloosas.

In the horse trainer/rider environment there are prejudices. The number one horse prejudiced against is Arabians. The second is Appaloosas. There are many myths and false assumptions concerning these two breed of horses. The consensus is a person either loves or hates these two breeds.

I was hired to clean 16 stalls and the barn on the weekends. I would start the coming week, spend two days helping the person who cleaned the stalls during the week, then be on my own for the weekend. Well, the working with another person did not happen. I started the weekend following my interview.

The Arabian barns I had been in prior, treated the horses as royalty. Spotless stalls, every need and want of the horse taken care of. When I started cleaning stalls, I stripped or removed all the shavings from the first six stalls. I could tell when he came to check on me, I did not meet a standard. I realized with just a look, I had cleaned the stalls too good. Upon discussion with him, I started doing a thorough pick cleaning of the rest of the stalls. They only do a strip cleaning once a week of each stall.

Due to my lack of condition in cleaning stalls, and my back injury, my husband started coming on the weekends, when he was done working to help me finish cleaning the stalls, barn and watering the horses. Soon the four of us would be standing in the aisle telling horse stories of achievement and defeat.

Each weekend, between them meeting and riding with clients and me cleaning stalls, we would have short discussions. They had retired from endurance riding, and most of their horses were clients’ horses who were retired from endurance riding, but still used for trail riding. But, this one young lady talked them into taking her on as a client for endurance riding. She was young, had just obtained a prestigious job placement, and was wanting to meet the challenge of endurance riding so she thought.

During one of our discussions, I had asked how this young lady was doing. Since I was only there on weekends, I did not know how often she came to work at her sport choice. Hank informed me she did not spend the time riding or being at the barn required of the sport endurance riding. The discussion turned to how when working with clients it is hard to motivate a person to ride and work hard to reach their goals, unless they are passionate about their goals.

“They do not believe they can get a homerun from a walk” Hank stated. I instantly was thinking how this could be achieved. He smiled giving the look, ‘you will think about it and figure it out one day’ as he walked away. I continued to finish my job, and figured out the possibility, it was possible, but I had never seen it done.

Yesterday, at Hank’s memorial service his son was doing the eulogy. Sharing some stories of how his father had coached him during the years he played baseball. He was not a very good batter, but was very good at stealing bases. His father had taught him how to take a hit from a pitch. During one game, he took his hit from the pitch and was given the walk to first base, only he always ran past first base, so the catcher threw the ball to second baseman. As he was sliding into second base, the second baseman missed the catch, the ball was in the outfield. He ran to third. The outfielder threw to third, and the third baseman missed the catch as he arrived at third base. His coach told him to run, and he ran to home plate scoring a run. He made a homerun on a walk.

Regardless of what a person wants to achieve in life, this statement holds true. Understand our individual strengths and weakness, use our strengths to the full potential, and work on our weaknesses to reach our goals. Never forget, with the proper work and training, when the situation arrives a homerun can be achieved from a walk.

There were many horse adventures shared, single line words of wisdom, lots of laughs and a friendship formed. Treasures I will always hold dear.

Thank you for hiring me, becoming a treasured friend.

In Honor of :

Henry “Hank” Olin Copeland, III

April 21, 1942 – September 6, 2023

amtolle

Resolutions Progress

November 1 – the arrival of November and the realization that the year of 2022 is almost in the history of my life story. At the end of each year I look at my life, I make New Year Resolutions for somethings I want to change in my life. Looking back this year has been very busy, extremely exciting, and not many of my resolutions were completed.

In years past I would be a little down on myself for not having accomplished ALL of my resolutions by November. Yet, I still have two months left to get things changed.

One of my resolutions for 2022 was to keep the records and bookkeeping for the sheep farm and our personal life up to date, not get behind a couple of months or half the year then have to catch up in time to file taxes. This year, I have not kept them up every month the whole year, but I have improved. I had two months I was not even home. I did not do the records for each month the whole year, there has been improvement compared to past performance.

Another resolution was to raise more of our food. Yet again I did not reach my expectations, but there was a big improvement from past years. For the first time, my husband has agreed this is something we both need to work at doing. When I was gone for two months, he had to water the garden area. He is enjoying the fruits of his labor, as he eats his evening meal.

I have one resolution I made, that I have almost completed to expectations. This builds my self-esteem and I feel good about the accomplishment of this resolution.

We all want to make changes in our lives. Sometimes changes are forced upon us, such as inflation. I am always striving to lower our expenses and increase our savings. Some years I feel like I have not accomplished this goal. Yet, looking through past years, I have greatly improved over the years.

Making changes is hard. Keeping those changes sometimes is even harder. When we decide to change something, we have already done the hardest part – decided to change. We work towards our goals in steps, be grateful and celebrate the steps you have accomplished, and do not be too hard on yourself for the steps yet to be reached. Keep going, do not give up, that is the only way to reach the goal, accomplish the change in your life you have wanted.

I feel good about the accomplishments and improvements I have made this year.

Do not give up. Keep going. The goal is in sight.

amtolle

Dreams and Goals

My opinion is dreams and goals are interconnected. We have dreams of what we would like to do, places to visit, travel to other places, have a certain income or occupation, family, and others. We may have started dreaming about these types of subjects while we were small. We add to our dreams. As we get older we add more dreams and refine the ones we carry with us, and sometimes decide the dream is not what we want.

In order for dreams to be fulfilled, we have to make plans. If our dream is to travel to France we need a plan. First, we need to decide where we want to visit in France and how long our trip will be. Then we need to search what is the cost of this trip. Once we have a monetary figure we can examine our finances to see if we have what is required. Most people have to earn the money and save for the trip. They set a goal for saving. When they reach the required amount they have reached the goal, then can proceed with the plans.

They get a passport and travel papers if necessary, book an airline ticket, reserve housing arrangement, plan their day to day trip. The day before leaving on this fabulous trip, they pack and schedule a ride to the airport. Board the plane, land in France – Goal accomplished, and the Dream is being realized.

Dreams can be big or small. Dream of having a beautiful flower garden in the yard, redecorating a room in a home, remodel a bathroom. These dreams require a similar planning process and goals to bring the dream to realization and experience.

” When you stop dreaming your soul begins to dry up.”

I can not remember the person who said this to me, but I always thought it was important. When I was younger I did not give much thought to the quote as I was busy with dreaming and planning.

Now that I am in the golden years of my life, finances are tight, my body does not respond as when I was twenty, I realize the need to keep the quote in mind.

People who retire and do not keep busy, die earlier than those who are busy and still pursuing dreams and goals.

Keeping the mind busy, learning how to make a beautiful flower garden in the yard, one you dreamed of having, but did not have the time when working. The process of learning to do a new skill, keeps the mind from slowing down and being forgetful. Keeping the body moving helps the muscles to stay active and the bones strong.

Doing an activity, especially new learned activity help fight off depression. When Covid-19 hit, and everyone was put in lockdown, not able to socialize or do activities, depression soared and suicides increases dramatically. Mental health was a much a concern as someone being infected with Covid-19.

Not everyone lives in a home with a yard or a balcony. Some have to share a home with others. What is available for them to learn and do in a confined area. Sewing, I have two friends who are older and not able to get outside to do things in their yards, but they sew lap quilts for a nursing home. Perhaps a new hobby never tried, always wanted to learn to paint. There are plenty of painting tutorials on youtube.

Go back to school. During Covid a friend in her late twenties who worked as a waitress, was forced to go home, the restaurant closed. She was getting unemployment, did not have to pay daycare as the children were home. Used the stimulus money to go to college online, work towards a college degree and a better job. I still have the dream of finishing my college education to a bachelor’s degree. I currently do not have the time or money, I will not do student loans again as I finally got mine paid off last fall. But it is still a dream. Will I teach school with my bachelor’s, probably not, but I will have completed a goal and feel the accomplish, pride and satisfaction from having done so.

Keep dreaming. Keep setting goals.

amtolle