Sometimes when you’re in the middle of a tough journey with your horse, it’s hard to see the big picture. Even though I don’t feel stuck at all right now with Simon (rather, I feel pretty flippin’ fantastic but that makes for boring content) I still thought it might be a good time to step back and look through the archives. Below I’ve chosen one photo from every show since I got him. They start in October 2012 and go…
This post is part a new paranoia that has entered my life, and part recap of a hill country getaway weekend with the husband. First up, hill country. If you drive about an hour and a half southwest of Austin, the liberal bubble of hipsters and hippies that I call home suddenly transforms into something a lot more Texas. Sure, the foliage and landscape changes pretty dramatically into less soil and more rocks but it’s more than just topography. There are…
I’m really lucky to have some super awesome people in my life. They’ve been there to pick me up in dark times in countless ways, and I’m really fortunate. I wanted to share one of those pick me ups, because it’s probably the best and most appropriate piece of mail I’ve ever gotten. See, my best friend is one of the rare people left that’s a patron of snail mail. She loves post cards and stationary, and sent me this…
Inspired by Hello My Olivia, I decided to post a picture of Simon and I from our last show on Judge My Ride. I won’t lie, I was pretty impressed with my lower leg in some of the pictures from this show… so I was curious what kind of feedback I might get. Below is the picture and comment I posted (typo and all). Pictured is my 9y/o 16.2hh OTTB and I in an Intro Jumper class at our local…
One of the coping mechanisms I have not been doing is any retail therapy. For two reasons: I already met my retail therapy limit for 2015 I’m going to Europe in a month and am in an aggressive ‘no spending’ zone Neither of these bullet points stops me from wanting pretty things though! Instead of blowing my entire vacation budget on tack and clothing, I decided to do some window shopping. For me, it’s mostly about breeches. I’m down to two…
All my life, I’ve been a good long term planner. My college degree was a back up plan for a not-likely-to-pay-for-ponies passion, and my eventual career was a back up plan to the back up plan. I like to plan my vacations out with lots of research months in advance. I like to plan big spending items and I like to plan housing projects by quarter. As we all know, horses are a little bit less hard to plan… but…
For reasons outside the barn, this has been the toughest week of my life. I needed a good show, and my nerd horse gave me his whole heart on Saturday. I am so proud. I felt more confident going into this show than I did last year for my semi-disasterous 2’6″-2’9″ debut. Pace is beginning to be less of a mystery to me, and after 20 years of riding “sit up and go forward” is starting to become more than…
I’ve been experiencing a bit of a shift in my perspective as of late. It started intentionally and coming from myself. When I headed into my lesson on Tuesday afternoon to prep for the show, I decided I would not once say “That looks big” or ask for anything to be taken down. I need to jump bigger, but more importantly I need to believe that I can do this. One of my life coping mechanisms is sarcastic humor. That’s all…