I've meant to blog a couple times in the past few months, started a few posts, but never finished them. I'm in a faaaaaaar better mood than when the last post was made, and figure I should write something else more...cheerful, maybe. I dunno, I'll probably spend enough time bitching about the things that suck about being home, I think I'll at least make this post about something good.

While things have been pretty iffy with my parents since coming home for the summer, I've spent the past two days spending some time outside helping my dad play in the dirt. He's adding on to the barn, and has huge posts stuck into the ground, dug out a rectangular depression, and is filling it with sand, and later, we'll pour a slab of concrete on top. Yesterday I'll helped him with fixing some of the posts that got knocked a little out of place, and finished digging, and then today I helped with sand. Some dude in a dump truck came and dumped piles of sand in front of the barn, and dad's been picking them up with the bucket on the tractor and dumping them in the hole. I then tried to smooth it out and make it somewhat level, and then ran a compactor over it, which packed it down somewhat. Not terribly hard work, really, but more exertion than anything I did in college, except for the few times I went to the gym. I've helped my dad plenty of times outside in the past, especially since we never hire anyone to do anything if my dad thinks he can do it. Usually I've been more or less a reluctant worker, sometimes more, other times I didn't mind it too much.

But yesterday and today I honestly enjoyed being outside helping my dad shovel dirt around. Maybe this is only temporary, and I'm only enjoying it because I've hardly had to help all year, being away at college and all. It helps that the weather was really nice for doing that sort of stuff too. But I enjoyed being outside, busy at a task that required some exertion. I wonder if my dad enjoys that work like that. He's been outside almost all day working on it, it's getting fairly dark and just recently I stopped hearing the tractor running. I want to enjoy work like that all the time. Unfortunately that's unrealistic and I'll never get that :(. But - at least - most of the time. Whatever I have for a career, I want to be able to enjoy it like that. Which is kind of why I decided on computer science for my major. I enjoy doing things with computers, and I find coding kind of fun. Ironically, it's also why I'm unsure that it's really something I want to do, though. The enjoyment I get from doing things with a computer is very different than the enjoyment I get out of riding my pony, or helping my dad with work outside. If I sit at a computer for hours doing something, while I may enjoy it (and many times it is purely for entertainment, like gaming or chatting) I tend to get a sort of... "stuffy" feeling when I'm done. Whereas, doing something outside almost has a... how shall I put it... "cleaner" feeling to it. Maybe it's just the fresh air. But I sort of like that feeling better.

Similarly, on Sunday took my pony for a safety night ride for 4-H. Basically I just have to show I have enough of an idea of what I'm doing to be safe, and that my pony isn't going to rampage and eat everyone for dinner. And after have been in the horse and pony project for years, I sure hope I can accomplish that. I did the little safety quiz, and then, while waiting for everyone else to do theirs, put my pony Specks on a lead rope and let him graze for awhile. And as I sat there thinking about things, I thought "You know what? This is really nice." There's been plenty of times over the years where I viewed the horse thing as more of a chore than something I really enjoyed. I went "horse crazy" sometime in elementary school, and while I never exactly quit liking horses, I always had more enthusiasm about it when I was in my room planning neat things I could do, than I had when it was time to go outside and tack up my pony to ride. I was too attached to my pony to let my parents ever sell him, yet many times my mom had to almost force me to do things with him. And rarely did I really ever dislike actually riding him, but often I viewed all the other stuff as a chore and had a hard time motivating myself. But on Sunday while I was thinking about things, I thought that there was so much more satisfaction involved in doing things with my pony than, say, playing a video game or reading a book. I'm more willing to do the latter two because there's less effort involved, but maybe it's those parts of owning and riding a pony that I distinctly dislike and take work that make me feel like it's so much more worth it to do. Maybe if I found it really easy all the time to take care of my pony and do things with him, I wouldn't feel as great a sense of accomplishment as I do sometimes.

There is a sense in which I'm glad to be home. I'm not the sort of person to get homesick or want to come home, but I kinda like this place. and, omgilovemychickensbecausethey'reawesomeandcoollooking. But there's also plenty of reasons why I don't want to be home, for one, Serp, you is too far aways and I's missing you. And more, which I'll probably rant about later.