3.  Color options:

(Meanwhile, Archie thinks to himself, What is this shit?  Aren't I retired?*) *He's not.

In which I turn $18 and a million hours of my life that I'll never get back into a saddle pad and half-pad cover.

The smallest sewing machine that could. Sewing on the finishing ribbon, because progressive photos would make too much sense. (The inclusion of my husband's feet and socks are free of charge.  You're welcome.)

Purchased:  ribbon, black fleece, teal-ish chevron fabric, white thread and quilting fluff stuff.

Not made for my dressage saddle, it was just super handy.  And dirty.

Fun things:  

Dover.

So, we've all seen these, right?  Dover sells them for $12.99 a pop.  I didn't want to drop $25+ to get my two rarely-used saddles off the ground in my garage.  Have drill, will screw.

Supplies:

Not including my drill, total cost was $11.08.

Made huge mostly because I wanted you to see the manager's name.

I could have saved $0.40 if I had bought both my rope hooks at Wally's.

Not pictured:  the 32" piece of poplar that I got for $2.

Steps:

1.  Mark the half-way point of the wood.  Start hacking with the tiny saw.

2.  When the blade of the saw starts sliding out of the back of the handle, contemplate suicide tape that bitch.  When it starts sliding out of the front, derpedly tighten the screw holding the blade with all the strength born by the frustration that this little project has already caused.

Ghetto fabulous.

3.  When you've successfully hacked as many of the corners as you can and you don't seem to be progressing towards two separate pieces of wood, contemplate suicide utilize (gratuitous) body weight and a sharp corner, like the edge of the driveway, to crack it.

4.  Insert eye screw into wall.  Deets on this later.

Eye screw.  Wall.

5.  Figure out the point at which the rope hook has to be in order to be flush with the wall and stay upright.  I used tape.

Voila.

6.  When that position is figured out, screw in the rope hook.  I pre-drilled holes to make this easier.

Or, The Chronicles of a Lazy-ass Carpenter.

Can I call myself a carpenter?  I touched wood.  I didn't cut it, though.

I want to toss "easy-peasy" in here somewhere, but I feel like that's an artificial attempt to be nicer in language than I really am.

So here's the inspiration:  I am a million times over-excited that the barn has jumps, considering that the last barn had a jump.  This is progress.  But, unfortunately, it doesn't have shit on our first barn.  And seeing how the group of us have expectations to compete (OR is actually going to a show this weekend for English Equitation and Pleasure), we need to expose the horses to more than our sand-colored jumps and get some variety.

Old barn:

Color.

And more color and fancy wing standards.

And the wall.

And the skinny brush box.

And the coop. (which might be my next project!)

And the wishing well (standards were wells). I hated this jump.

Cheap & Easy Flower Boxes

• I originally thought about making a hole in the center, at 18", and then every six inches out from there.  It would result in a total of five holes per piece.  But then I started thinking about the two pieces being set next to each other, end-to-end, and the resulting empty almost-foot of flower-less space where the ends met. 
  
• Keeping with a six-inch gap, because it was the easiest mathematically, I divided the space between holes so when placed end-to-end, the wood would look continuous and have uninterrupted flower power.
• I measured three inches from the end and made a light, preliminary mark.  I measured six inches from that and made another, until I had six light marks per piece.  I then measured the width of the wood to find center.  Surprise.  The wood wasn't a perfect 4".  To make life easier on myself, I just made a darker mark where center and my old mark sorta converged.  I don't think this much measuring really matters, so long as you're near the center of the wood.

• I drilled the holes with a 1/4" bit, measuring depth with a flower stem to attempt to get some sort of consistency.  

D's g-ma bought us this thing and then almost immediately asked if we'd used it.  Uh, no.

• And then my drill died after about nine holes.

It's a piece of shit, but the first power tool should be, right?

$4.97 at Walmart.

• So I opted to go ahead and start painting while my drilled charged.  I bought the cheap-ass $1.47 Walmart spray paint in white and a navy-ish blue.  I'll never do that again.  The white exploded all over my hands.  It took about three light coats, but I was able to spray one set, start on the second set, and then the first set would be dry.  I didn't paint the bottoms, since the wood was already treated, just the five sides.
• I bought some $1 flowers from Dollar Tree and stuck those bitches in. I'll buy more to fill the boxes eventually.

Second coat or so.

I don't remember the white looking so splotchy.

Okay, so I'm off-centered.

Adds a little something.

Given that I am sort of unsociable, I have surprised myself by making acquaintances in my new neighborhood.  There is one fellow who is often out in his wheelchair because he loves the outdoors and hates being confined to his home.  We talk a lot about his progress with physical therapy/rehabilitation.  I saw him the other day, as I was headed to the barn, and stopped to ask him about his Christmas.  I told him that, while I can't complain about 2013 (points to house), I feel that 2014 is going to be a good year.  He said that he felt the same, had the same optimism, and felt it would be the year that he would walk again.

Let's just put that in perspective.  We bitch and moan about various things, our jobs, our friends, our petty inconveniences, and this dude is just hoping to walk.  It's been seven years since he was paralyzed from a gun shot and he remains ever the optimist.  I told him that when he was up and going, we would do a 5k.  :)

In that token of being grateful for what I've got, Ponykins has been a freaking champ.  We had four days in a row off and then three on.  I gave him yesterday off in preparation for riding tonight and tomorrow.  He'll get Thursday off so I can go to the gym and photograph puppies and kittens.  Then a ride on Friday, a lesson(!) Saturday and hopefully something fun on Sunday.  Rinse and repeat.

Someone split a rail at the barn so I used the two almost-perfectly-equal rails to make a skinny.  We've jumped a skinny before at the barn in Augusta, but this skinny fried the Kid's brain.  I had it as a little 18" vertical, which he promptly knocked down.  When I put it back up, he refused.  Derp.  I made it a microscopic crossrail and he jumped it as though it were going to eat him.  I left it up in the ring and OR told me that her horse cantered it beautifully, without any sort of monster-induced hairy eyeballs.

Maybe it was the giant standards.

Wet pony.

You can see our path on the right.

And, finally, I got this picture from the BM:

And this is what I did:

Laundromat.

My adorbs sewing machine.

I was sorta surprised that the little beast sewed through two layers.

Some reinforcement.

And on the Archer.

Speaking of, check out dat ass.