My weekend of showing has come and gone. I’m sitting at home with a light sunburn, a mild headache and a lot of feels. Then again, when don’t I have a lot of feelings? When I came back from the San Antonio show in February, I was exploding with happiness and hope. My feelings as I write this blog post tonight are quite a bit more complicated and a lot less positive. I’ve decided to break up this show report into…
Well, I’ve learned my lesson – don’t brag about my horse! The day after I posted about my magical trust unicorn, we had the worst lesson we’ve had in a long time. I’m not upset over this, because we were super overdue for a bad lesson. However, I wish the bad lesson timing did not happen right before a horse show that’s a little bit of a step up for me. Goodbye new found confidence. I will miss you! The short…
It took me over six weeks to unpack the boxes in my new house. I know what you’re going to say next. “I moved six years ago and I’m still not fully settled in!” When I say unpack, I literally mean take necessary life items out of boxes. I’m no where near being fully settled in. My office floor is covered in piles of paper, files, art projects and picture frames like fire ant nests spread out over a field. The…
I’m not usually one to brag, but today I’m going to a little. Things are going remarkably well with my creature. We’ve hit that sweet spot in our relationship – the time period where you’ve had years of learning each other’s quirks all the while your horse has been aging and learning to become a solid citizen. I had this wave of realization when I took Simon to the San Antonio show in February that we have figured out how to…
Tim talks to me in ways that I did not anticipate. I’m not talking about dreams. Those are rare these days, but even when I see him it never surprises me. That was something he seemed to establish in the beginning of all this. Although no words have been exchanged lately when I do see him in my dreams, I wake up thankful and comforted like when you hear news that an old friend you’ve lost touch with is doing…
I know, I know… eventers already made these lyrics cool with ‘ditch’ instead of bitch, but I don’t do ditches and I don’t do eventing so I work with what I have. Or in this case, what I don’t have. For years I’ve had this little goal of jumping Simon around a course without a bridle. I’ve taken off his bridle before and walk/trot/cantered with relatively little fanfare, but that was about two years and I haven’t tried since. Last…
When Simon turned 7 and when he turned 8 I brought some party items to the barn for a photo opportunity. It was always something minor – little cupcakes or a cookie cake, and I never announced before hand. I just brought some sweets to share with anyone who happened to be at the barn, and asked someone to take a picture with me and my favorite nerd horse. Recently I’ve learned that anything can be a cause for celebration. What’s…
Time passes, people get older and the same applies to horses. I hate the cliche “it seems like yesterday” so I won’t quite go there, but it’s hard for me to believe my scraggly young nerd horse has now hit double digits. He’s a solid old man now, but in the best physical shape he’s ever been in. I think longtime readers of this blog know how much this horse has been a friend to me (especially in the last…