I’m writing this post on Sunday evening with Pascale passed out on the couch next to me. We are both very tired from a long weekend of horse showing. This weekend was one of those “learning experiences” shows for me, and while I did not take home any satin to hang in the new apartment I did really enjoy myself. I think I posted something on Instagram to this effect, but I’ve never had so much fun losing before. Simon was…
Regardless of what is happening with the rest of the world, one of the things you can count on if you’re an Austinite equestrian is the Central Texas Hunter Jumper Summer Circuit series of horse shows. It’s a three show series that are two weeks apart, and they’re basically a beefed up version of our usual weekend shows. One extra day of showing means for lots of additional divisions and some special classes. Despite showing in Austin for four years now,…
For the first time since I became a horse owner sixteen years ago, I find myself falling into the weekend warrior category. At first I thought I’d be able to maintain my four day a week riding schedule through this transition period, but I’ve decided that just isn’t realistic. I have a lot of visitors/help in town, and I both want to see these people and chip away at my to do list during the week. When I did ride Tuesday…
Everyone keeps asking how I’m doing. My response is pretty much always “I’m okay,” because there aren’t really words to accurately say how I’m doing. I get up. I feed my dogs. I feed myself. I go do stuff. Some days I set aside for productive days. Those are pretty much just for tackling the poop list. They are mentally and physically exhausting… a blog post for another day. In between my productive days, I try to do some fun…
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…