House Post: Bathroom Vent Fans Part 2

Continuing in the exciting adventures of getting bathroom vent fans into our house: the upstairs bathroom.

The idea was that this would be much  more straightforward. The vent fan itself was already in the ceiling, put there by my father when we rewired the house. It just needed the venting itself. The theory was we would just pull up the floor and run the vent straight out underneath the attic floorboards.

That theory was wrong. See, our house is built in the Dutch Colonial Style, which means it has these charming features like a gabled roof, and all sorts of extra little flourishes to that roof.

Going straight out the attic floorboard meant we would be in precisely the wrong spot: coming out the corner of the roof. On the entire huge side of that house, we were 4" too far toward the front.

We of course did not discover this until we had cut up allllllll the floorboards along that line. Sigh.

Eventual solution: come up and over the floorboards, angle back toward the center of the house just one bay, and then go out the side of the house.

So, yeah. It looks kind of awful. Really not my favorite. But, the longterm plans are to build a kneeboard when we sheetrock the attic. It will just look like a finished space and you will never know the venting is behind it. And I suppose it's a small price to pay for not having bathroom moisture destroy the house.

Weekly Blog Roundup

Another Saturday, another collection of cool blog posts from the horse world.


Three inexpensive items that improved my life in 2015 from Wallace Eventing
These are all genius.

1,000th post and contest from Cob Jockey
A really cool photo roundup and a fun contest!

My Thoroughbred's ulcers from Saddle Seeks Horse
This is fascinating, actually - I'd never seen photos so clearly before.

Conditioning Log from Journey to 100 miles
SUCH a gorgeous solution to the problem.

Foxhunting Q&A from Hand Gallop
Siiiiiiiiigh.

Barnsitting 101 from The $900 Facebook Pony
I've done my share of barnsitting, and this is a GREAT roundup of advice.

Project Reveal and Contest Announcement from The Maggie Memoirs
Congrats on the new stuff going on - if you have any graphic skills, check this out, there's a sweet prize.

What Makes Me Happy from Bakersfield Dressage
This is a really crucially important thing to think about.

2016 Equestrian Life Theme: Focus

I love reading everyone's goal posts. I've done many of them in the past, but I'm just not feeling it this year.

Many years ago, I did a series of new year's resolutions for my personal life that were qualities I wanted to cultivate through the year, rather than specific achievable goals. I'm a pretty big goals person, but I like them to be broken up into shorter chunks and to be more actionable. Big annual goal-setting has never worked for me.

I thought a lot over the holidays, and during my blogging hiatus, about what I really wanted out of the coming year, and I thought about the year I set those qualities.

still one of my favorites

It hit me that I could sum up my hopes for 2016 in one word: focus.

I want to focus on doing fewer things, but doing them better.

I want to focus only on the things that really make me excited, that really matter to me, rather than frittering my energy and my direction away on too many things at once.

I want to increase my actual capacity for focus, which has sadly degraded over the last few months especially; longer stretches of paying attention to one thing at a time. No stopping to check social media, tidy the living room, chase the dog - one thing at a time.

In horse terms, that means more emphasis on the basics, instead of getting caught up in chasing whatever's next. Am I riding my horse on a regular basis? Am I getting him through and supple and working well in each ride, even if it's just at the walk? Are the things I'm buying true needs, and quality items, or am I just flailing and making purchases out of a loss of direction? How are my finances - solid and growing?

I'll try to touch back on this, maybe quarterly, to see how it's going. But that's where my head is for 2016. Here's to the new year.

Wordless Wednesday: New Turnout Blanket

Ok, mostly wordless. I picked up this SmartPak Turnout Blanket (medium weight) on steep clearance late last winter, and it came out of storage this past week with the plummeting temperatures. I'll do a full review at a later date, but in the meantime: how fucking adorable does he look in it?!

Blogger Gift Exchange 2015: Outtakes

Doing anything in this house without the moral support and crucial help of the dog or the cat is impossible, and wrapping my gifts for the 2015 blogger gift exchange was no exception.

So, I present to you visual evidence of their aid, as a series of outtakes.

Anyone else have overly-helpful pets?