Month: June 2014

Yesterday my brain was just done. Too much stress, too much to do, too little time to do it. I went home after work and just blobbed out. Pants and bra came off (liberty!), PJ’s went on, and I plopped myself in front of the TV with a Ace Pineapple Cider. I watched the last episode of 24 then got up to make dinner – cajun corn on the cob, garlic smashed red potatoes, and Parmesan roasted broccoli – and started to feel a bit better. Three episodes of Orange is the New Black and a bowl of Orange Swirl ice cream later… I could breathe again. Sorry Henry, I just didn’t have the mental capacity for the barn last night.

I also got a pretty fantastic 8 hours of sleep. Of course, walking into work this morning instantly deflated me a bit, but only two more days. Just two more. I can survive that. Plus I’m going to the barn tonight and I have TWO ponies to ride. Life could be a lot worse.

Total random sidenote, but when I was in Walmart the other day I grabbed a couple of Danskin tanks in a sporty feeling fabric. I wore one to ride the other day and can’t believe how awesomely light it was and how well it breathed. Of course I went online to buy more since the store didn’t have other colors in my size, and they’re sold out online. It’s the “Danskin Now Striped Performance Racerback Tank”. If you stumble across any in your local Walmart I highly recommend grabbing a few. For $5 they’re awesome summer barn shirts. And if they have any smalls in yellow and blue, grab one for me. 😉

I’m pressed for time (I may or may not be hiding in a corner at work right now) and just way too tired to make coherent sentences today, so here’s a quick and dirty mid-week list of observations.

1) Being a grown-up sucks. I hate work. Too stressful. Yesterday I was ready to jump off the roof by 8:30am. Right now it’s 9:38am and I’d give a few appendages for a nap and/or vodka lemonade.

2) I tried Henry in a boucher yesterday, thinking he might like the stability more and be less chompy. It’s cute when I get ideas. If anything he was MORE chompy. Womp womp fail. But he was still pretty good. I’m most impressed with how much his walk has improved… it’s much bigger and he’s definitely feeling way looser in his back. Coincidence that this started right when I got the Ogilvy, or just completely a side effect of flatwork boot camp? Hmmm…

Too sleepy to ride today, come back never

3) Sadie was bred yesterday and Jez was bred last weekend, so everyone cross all your crossables for beautiful black dots on the ultrasound when they go back in a couple weeks for their pregnancy check.

4) I ordered six more monograms from Personally Preppy. I see a 12 step program in my future.

5) I have to admit, I’ve gotten a little excited about the prospect of having access to some eventer folks at the new barn. The idea of galavanting off to the dark side once or twice a year definitely has it’s appeal. I loved eventing, but I’m not an eventer, if that makes any sense. But having it as an “on the side” thing that I do for fun every once in a while to break up the monotony of jumper shows could be perfect. So I’ve been browsing through the rule book, reading up on what all has changed in the past 10 years since I last stepped foot in a dressage ring or start box. I’ve also been browsing gear a little bit… I mean, even if I never actually did an event, owning an XC vest isn’t really such a bad thing right? 😉

Hello, baby horse friend!

Happy frickin humpday.

I knew when I saw the Pimp my Helmet DIY on Shadbelly that this was a project I simply couldn’t pass up. The timing was absolutely perfect. I had just dragged out my “summer helmet” from the depths of my spare trunk – a lightweight, easy to clean Ovation Schooler. Our summers are so hot and gross, subjecting a really nice GPA Speed Air to that kind of mess just isn’t desirable. Poor Ovation was looking kind of sad though. Between all the errant tree branches on trail rides, being crammed into random tight places in my trunk/car, dragged along who-knows-what, and everything else that may have happened to it over it’s past two summers, it was looking pretty darn sad. Lots of little scratches all over it. I swear I haven’t fallen in it yet but it sure looked like it.

So when I saw the DIY instructions I absolutely had to try it. As in, right now. I brought my helmet home from the barn, stopped at Home Depot on the way, then got to work. I have to admit – I am NOT as patient as Shadbelly was. My whole project took less than 2 hours start to finish including all the wait time for drying in between coats. Let’s face it, I’ve never been good at leaving things alone. Good news is – it worked great anyway. Also good to note: there are FOUR metallic brown Rust-Oleum Universal colors. We won’t talk about how long it took me to pick one. I walked in thinking “I’ll get brown!” and stood in the aisle gobsmacked for way too long. Just sayin, be prepared for too many options.

First I took the Ovation decals off the helmet and gave the whole thing a very light sanding, just a few swipes with fine grit sandpaper. The scratches sanded out amazingly easily, I guess they just looked a lot deeper than they really were. Then I cleaned it, wiped it down with a rag, and set it outside to dry while I prepared the rest of my supplies. In my daze of trying to find just the right brown at Home Depot I had forgotten to grab painters tape. The only other two options in the house were a little bit of leftover scotch tape from Christmas present wrapping and a small roll of duct tape I got in my race packet at the 3M half marathon. Thanks 3M – your weirdly patterned duct tape finally went to good use.

Sanded and cleaned

All taped up and ready to go

I taped over all the edge fabric and nylon harness strap that I didn’t want painted, set out some newspaper in the backyard, grabbed a wine bottle (to set the helmet on, not to drink) and got to work. I was a little timid for the first coat, barely misting anything on. Then I stood back, looked at it and went “OMG this is totally gonna work!” and did the first coat. A few minutes later I came at it again for the second coat, although now I was a little cocky and heavy handed. I sprayed a little too much on one of the vents and clogged a couple of the teeny holes in the mesh, so I ran inside for a toothpick to poke them clear. Crisis averted. Then I waited a few more minutes (remember how I said I was impatient?) and did the third coat, then finally inspected it closely and did touch-ups to make sure it was all even.

First coat, hanging out on the wine bottle

Sitting out to dry after the third coat

Dried and tape removed!

I let it dry for about half an hour, then slapped my new Personally Preppy helmet monogram on it, and voila – done. It looks brand new! And it goes with my brown boots! You really would never know this was spray paint, it just looks like any other regular plastic helmet finish. I still can’t believe how easy this was and how well it worked… it gets two solid thumbs up from me. Thanks Shadbelly!

Final product

On Friday evening Henry got his feet done by the new farrier. He’s a really good boy about his feet, so he kept getting lots of cookies and “sweethearts” from the farrier for his good behavior. In return he kept trying to lick/nibble on the farrier’s back and neck to dispense more cookies. They got along great and his feet look much better already.

On Saturday morning I was feeling particularly masochistic so I decided to go on the weekly 35-mile bike ride that my fiance leads. I hate the route (hills are stupid, and there’s always a ridiculous headwind) so I’ve vehemently resisted going, plus since I’ve been riding the horse a lot more I’ve had very little time to ride the bike. Hence I’m pretty darn out of shape at the moment. I thought for sure I’d get left behind pretty quickly but I managed to hang in there and stay towards the front of the group of men, all of whom ride regularly and are in great shape. Walking was tough afterward and I almost puked a few times, but pffft minor details.

This was one of the rare days that SO and I have off together, so after our bike ride we went to brunch and then over to the soon-to-be-new barn since they were having a show out there. We didn’t stay long because it was just so hot and we were already pretty beat, but it was nice to have the opportunity to show him around the new place. Then we went home and collapsed in front of Netflix to watch some of the new season of Orange Is The New Black before heading to his sister’s place for dinner. All in all a very nice albeit mostly non-horsey day.

Sunday I headed out to the barn around 9 to try to avoid the worst of the heat. Nice plan, but it was still hot and SUPER humid. We’re used to hot around here but the humidity is strange for us and really awful. When I got there Henry was standing in his stall covered in sweat despite his fan. I also noticed that all the sudden he’s shedding like crazy, which is kinda weird considering he was body clipped in the winter and does not look like he has any coat to spare. Guess his body is throwing all the non-essentials overboard in this heat.

This was just from 1/4 of him!

He was not surprisingly a little dull in the crossties but once I got on he perked up and worked well. I picked up some little nubby spurs on Friday just to try them out, since carrying a whip seems to just make him really tense and over-reactive. Spurs went over much better and he actually got the hell off my left leg… novel concept. Side note: WHY ARE THERE NO SPUR STRAPS THAT MATCH MY BOOTS? Two tack shops, 4 different brands of brown, and they’re all either super red or super chocolate. Boo. My OCD can’t take this, it’s making me so twitchy.

Poor Henry was super hot when we were done so we walked all over the property then I hosed him for a while before dousing him in a liniment brace. I had a little more time to kill and there was no one around, so I took him out behind the barn and let him loose to graze. It’s always so funny to see his expression when I do this… he thinks he’s escaping and being so delightfully naughty, not realizing that I let him go on purpose.

Henry and my dog, Stewie

Then I did a little Sunday Funday afternoon project. I’ll post more details about it sometime this week, but here’s a picture hint!

All in all it was a good weekend with a nice balance of pony time and personal time. Boo, Monday.