Day off

The thunder was crashing when I woke shortly before 7am, which put paid to barn plans for today. Given my plan for a short day today and tomorrow, today turned into my day off this week. Due to the weather, though, I haven't done very much at all. I imagine next week will be non-stop. The rain didn't stop until well after 1pm and the drizzle has continued on and off for the rest of the afternoon.

I sent and replied to a few emails, checked the forums and facebook, sent off my CV in response to some job ads (painful but necessary!), watched some recorded TV with Lana and warmed up leftover roast for lunch (so good! followed by berry pie and chocolate ice cream even). I've also done a lot of reading and managed to get my mp3 player working again (it decided it had no data loaded when I pulled it out a few days ago): I finally have some music to listen to. The Kiwi music contingent includes Gin, who we saw Gin in concert at the start of the year.

The amount of food I consumed at lunch means dinner will be a light salad with some leftover cooked chicken.

Tomorrow, the weather better cooperate as I have to put a full day in at the barn! I can work horses in the indoor, but the footing is not great and there are often horses turned out in the arena. Another task is putting together dessert for dinner at Dusty & Phyllis' tomorrow. I don't want to do it today as I am not sure whether the ingredients will separate if left to sit (the recipe is a completely made-up combination adapted from several different recipe sources).

I also managed to find a SUPER cheap Lodge cast iron casserole dish (yeah, I know, it will weigh a ton...) for $52 US incl shipping. The same thing in NZ would be over $200. It is PERFECT for my no-knead bread, among a million other things I'll cook.
I know I'll end up with space in my suitcase (my favourite jeans, that mum patched before I left, have yet another rip; my helmet will stay here; various other things I had in my suitcase will be used up or given away) but it may be a tight squeeze to stay at the required weight. Worst case, I'll have really heavy carry-on bags - they weren't ever weighed on my way over (6 and 6.5kg, respectively).