When life gives you lemons...

...go make yourself a fruit tart. And then go plant some daisies.

Okay, so yesterday was one of "those days". I haven't had one of "those days" for quite sometime and I have been very much enjoying the lack of drama or major strife in my life these days...things certainly haven't always been this way. My 28 years on this planet have definitely been full of ups and downs, and I'm well aware of the fact that sometimes things are just out of our control.

Having this awareness, I really strive for a drama-free existence and for the most part enjoy a pretty darn simple life. Which suits me just fine. However, with this being the case, I think having one of "those days" affects me more now than it used to...even when it's not really all that bad. I'm a pretty upbeat person, though, and will generally try to see the positive side in most situations. It just might take me a day or so to get there. Having said that, I do feel much better today. ;)

You know how the saying goes...when it rains....yep, you got it. When it rains, it pours. Well, I guess I don't need to be quite so dramatic. It didn't really pour on me yesterday. It was more like a drizzle. A heavy drizzle though.

The crappiest part of yesterday was finding out that our trusty truck has sprung a major oil leak and will need the rear main seal replaced. Which just happens to be the most expensive type of oil leak repair there is. The whole transmission needs to be pulled in order to get to it. The part itself is cheap, cheap, cheap, but the job is super labor intensive. If you were lucky, you might just be dealing with cracked valve covers. Oh, but wait! We have those too! Cha-ching! Not to mention a whole laundry list of other maintenance issues that need to be addressed. Cha-ching, cha-ching!

The other crappy parts really weren't that big of a deal at all, but they didn't help my sour mood. First, I had an appointment to go get hay. The sky looked a little threatening, but so far it hadn't started raining. Until I got the trailer hooked up and was heading down to the barn. Of course. Thankfully, it was just a light drizzle passing through. Then, after unloading the hay, I leveled one of my temporary T-Posts with the trailer. Comical. Then, the trailer got stuck on my towing ball. Had to try all sorts of trick maneuvers to get it to lift off. Took the dogs for a walk after all this, thought it would be good to clear my head. Dogs not so cooperative. Caleb gave me a "flat tire" in his excitement to get his leash on. I might have cursed when this happened. Neither felt like walking politely, but instead wanted to pull me in two separate directions the whole time.

After the walk, I decided to to work with Caspian a bit. I took some deep breaths first...no point in working him up too. I felt like I was in a pretty good state of mind and everything started out well. We were working on "round penning" without the lunge line and he was doing great until he decided it was time to be done and that he didn't want to trot clockwise. Which he demonstrated to me by kicking out at me when I was getting after him. Buger. He got in some trouble for this one. Don't be surprised if you don't hear about it on his blog. I think he's a little abashed about the whole thing. Thankfully, he wasn't really packing any oomph behind it and he just barely grazed my hand...didn't even leave a sore spot. But still, way to kick your Kuntry Girl when she's down!

I finally just had to get a good chuckle out of it all...most of it was comical. Then, I started singing that Wynonna song, "I Feel Lucky"....ya know how it goes at the beginning "the stars are stacked against you girl, get back in bed"? I kept telling myself, "you should just call it a night and get in bed before something else happens!"

So anyway, back to the truck. After finding out the good news we went through the usual debate...fix the truck or break down and get a new one? My hubby has actually been dreaming of a new truck for at least a year now, but it just isn't all that practical at this point in time. We can't see forking over a big ol' down payment as well as taking on a car payment (and increased insurance) for a truck that would sit for 6 months out of the year. However, if we traded in our truck, maybe it wouldn't be so bad. But, it really is a good truck and we always said that even when we do get another one someday, we will always keep this one around. It's a perfect little workhorse...which has also happened to be a great every day truck for us.

For the most part, we've been lucky with it...we've taken care of the regular maintenance...timing belt, brakes, etc. This is the first surprise it's pulled on us.

Anyway, after mulling it over, we decided that the best option would be to fix it. Hopefully, this will get us a few more good years of life from it. Neither one of us is all that comfortable with taking on a new truck payment in this economy. Not for the kind of truck we would want anyway!

I feel thankful because at least we have the means to get the repair done. However, I'm irritated because that means I'm probably going to need to re-evaluate the current state of my projects. Again, I always try to find the positive side of things so here goes:

• I will now be seeding our lawn, instead of laying sod. This is going to save quite a bit of $$ and won't be so labor intensive. I was initially overwhelmed by the thought of doing it this way, but I think I'm gonna do it in sections so getting it established will be more manageable. Another benefit is that I will be able to follow the contours of our flowerbeds easier, rather than having to cut a ton of sod to the correct shape.
• Rather than buy new plants for the landscape, I can divide ones I already have. Also, I've been meaning to dig up some of our native daisies for our flower gardens. So tonight I did. I really love them and they were free! :)
• Instead of getting overly ambitious (which I tend to do) and starting all sorts of new projects, I'm going to hunker down and focus on finishing ones that I've started. I will work on collecting rocks around the property (for free!) to finish placing around the pond to cover the liner. Instead of stressing about getting all of our fencing up, I will focus on a couple of areas. I will work on digging into our dirt mound (free native dirt left over from excavating) to build up our flowerbeds around the house. This list could go on and on. The point is, I have plenty to finish and most of it won't cost a dime. I think every once in awhile it's good to get a little reality check.

And now, for those of you who have been patient enough to read through this lengthy diatribe...thank you. I shall now share with you the recipe for the tart I referred to at the beginning of this post. For those of you who got to this post by clicking on my "cooking" label...very sorry about the novel that preceeded this recipe. ;)

CREAM CHEESE FRUIT TART

• 1 pie shell...regular or graham cracker. Your choice. I used graham cracker. And I really liked it. Not that you have to like it the way I like it. (Does anyone know what movie that's from? If you do, I will be super impressed.) Moving on...
• 2 8 oz. packages of cream cheese (let it soften a little)
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 teaspoons of lemon, orange, or lime rind (whatever kind you're feelin' like)
• 2 tablespoons of juice from whatever fruit you chose
• Whatever fruit you feel like arranging on top (see my selections below)

1. In a medium bowl, combine the cream cheese, sugar, fruit rind and fruit juice.
2. Beat at medium speed with an electric mixer until light and fluffy, scraping sides of bowl often, about 1 to 2 minutes.
3. Transfer into your chosen crust.
4. Chill at least one hour before placing fruit on top.

Super, super easy (and way yummy) recipe.

For this tart, I used orange juice and rind. The fruits I used were kiwi, banana, mandarin oranges, raspberries, and a pineapple bulls-eye in the middle. I felt compelled to elaborate on my selections due to the foggy plastic cover obscuring the view. What kind of food photographer am I anyway?!

This was my first attempt and for it I used lemon. I liked this one, but not as much as the orange one.

Alright, so there you have it...even when things aren't so great, I think to myself...there's gotta be somethin' good about it. If nothing else, it could probably always be worse, right? Not that I'm hoping for that. Now I'm crossing my fingers. Hopefully I didn't jinx myself. ;) Thanks blogger buddies for letting me ramble on!

Keep on keepin' on!