Month: December 2015

Considering last year was the first year I’ve ever written down goals for myself, I’m probably really tempting fate by doing it two years in a row. But I’m a) ever-optimistic b) dumb, so here we go.

Qualify for a Novice 3-Day – I only need one more completion, so we should be good on this I would hope.

Compete in a N3D  – This is more tricky, but if I save all my pennies and the stars align just right, we’ll be in Flagstaff in July.

Place at N3D – This is taking it perhaps one step too far, but we’re gonna choose to dream big.

Move up to Training – We’ll see how the year goes, but if we’re ready, I want to do it. Granted, the tables at Training still make me want to pee myself a little. And by a little I mean a lot.

Make an actual 15m circle – Not oval. Not trapezoid. Not rectangle. CIRCLE. 15m. Not 18m. 15m. Why is 15m so much harder than 20m?

Go to at least one dressage-only show – And only whine about it a little bit. And try not to scare the DQ’s. Ah, forget that part, I don’t really care if I scare the DQ’s.

Keep Henry happy and healthy – You’re welcome for the $$$ fetlock juice, please do not require any more in the near future.

Get a 4-legged bun in the oven – pleeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaase?

Get the trailer 100% road-worthy – Poor Black Betty has been on hold for a while.

 

Be more fit – Seriously, for real this time. Henry would really appreciate it.

Be better about budgeting – If I want to go to Coconino, I have to start saving now. Arizona is far away and that shit is not cheap.

Buy a truck – Also another reason that better budgeting is required, since a truck has become necessary and my car is about to croak anyway.

Do a little better about balancing horse stuff with real life – I have a serious one track mind.

Get another tattoo – I’ve had that planned for a while.

Live boldly – We only get one go around, so might as well get the most out of it eh? I want to seize every opportunity I can and do things I haven’t done… especially the things I think I can’t. I want my default answer to be “why not?”.

Last year I ended my goals post with a quote that I thought summed up what I wanted for the coming year. I tried to do the same this year but couldn’t really come up with a good one. Instead I wandered over to my mom’s Pinterest account (which is still up, thank goodness) and found that she had made a quotes section of her own. I picked a few of my favorites from her favorites, because it only seems fitting to start the year with a little wisdom courtesy of her.

Some of you might remember how my fancy smurf-blue Optimum Time watch died literally AS I walked into the start box at Greenwood. It did this weird funky number thing before the display completely died so I just figured the battery was dead. While the timing of it’s demise couldn’t have been worse, I thought it was no big deal.

I got a new battery about a month ago and finally last weekend I remembered to ask the SO to change it for me. Because me plus electronics is a really really bad idea, just ask every laptop I’ve ever had. He whisks the watch off to the garage, where all of his fancy tools and gadgets are, and comes back 20 minutes later and says “I dunno what’s wrong, but it’s not the battery.”. Well crap.

A little investigation reveals that I’m 3 months past the end of the warranty period. I tried the oh so fancy re-boot that Optimum Time suggested (hold all the buttons down at the same time, which is really hard BTW, until something happens). Nothing ever happened, so it was suggested I send it in. To THE UK. Shipping both ways plus repair fees? Might as well buy a new watch.

I must confess, I really only used the stopwatch feature of my watch anyway. I didn’t particularly like the beeping at intervals thing or the counting down thing. I’d rather just check my time at a couple spots on course and focus more on learning my pace than on listening for beeps. For interval work I just keep an eye on the time. I’m just not fancy about watches I guess. Or I just don’t want to set all that crap up… that could be it too.

So I did what any other logical human would do – proceeded to whine about it to everyone. My options were:

• pay to ship it back and forth to the UK and have it repaired for who knows how much (minimum $50 at the best case scenario I would guess)
• buy a new watch ($90)
• wait until a used watch comes up for sale
• buy something less fancy (read: CHEAP, because the Great Coconino Penny Pinching has already begun) that will still work for me.

Luckily Hillary came to the rescue (or just wanted to stop the onslaught of whining… whichever) just before I added the cheap one to my cart on Amazon and offered to send me her old OT watch. Bloggers are the best. Bonus points – it’s yellow. Still fitting in with my color scheme.

Stupid Smurf watch… RIP. Your life was short and tragic, despite living in your original box and being used like 10 times. But welcome to the family, Sunny! May you fare better than Smurf.

 

Ok, he’s not fat, but… when your horse was way too thin last winter and is at a pretty perfect weight this winter, it turns out that none of his clothes fit so well anymore.

His quarter sheet

looks more like a cape.

His blue sheet, which I bought new for him last year, went from a little roomy

to a few inches of butt hanging out.

His green blanket (also bought new for him last year)

has suffered the same fate.

I had to let all of his belly straps out at least 8″ when I pulled his blankets out this season.

But considering he looked like this a year ago

and looks like this now

I am not complaining.

But he’s still not getting new clothes. Sorry kid.

 

Buying presents for people is one of my favorite things in the world, because

a) shopping for horse stuff (sorry non-horse people, you usually get gift cards or something easy, because I don’t understand your life) is fun

b) trying to find good deals is one of my favorite things

c) putting thought into finding the right thing makes me happy

d) my Mom always went crazy with the Christmas presents, so now I think the craziness is deeply rooted in me too

I also really love seeing what other people gave as gifts… it gives me ideas for next year (or birthdays), and sometimes I discover new businesses I haven’t seen yet. So on that note, what did you give as gifts this holiday season?

Significant Other – we’ll start with him since his are non horsey and therefore less fun. He got a new stereo, a fancy alarm clock, lots of weird Japanese graphic novels (thank you Amazon wishlists), a DVD collection of 50 classic horror movies, and random geeky and nerdy stocking stuffers (including my personal favorite – Star Wars light saber chopsticks).

My dad got a Yeti cup and some hard cider, and my brother and his family all got gift cards.

Bobby and I went halfsies on all the trainer gifts… we got Eventing Trainer a custom stall guard with her logo from Deco Pony and a Kastel shirt.

Dressage Trainer got a bottle of wine and some peppermint bark (because dressage people are sophisticated or something like that, I think?).

And we gave both trainers this card:

Because let’s be honest.

Barnmates got custom ornaments from Hamer & Clay, which y’all already saw.

And the very lovely sweet woman who helps take care of the horses got a Noble Outfitters wine down hoofpick from Riding Warehouse and a bottle of wine.

The barn owner’s husband (aka our Handyman Deluxe) got Noble Outfitters socks and Noble Outfitters Hay Bucker work gloves from Riding Warehouse.

My friend/Sadie’s lessee Michelle got a custom browband from Dark Jewel Designs (because she rides a pony and it’s so hard to find pretty browbands in pony size!)…

plus a Kastel shirt, and a WEBSITE (FINALLY!) for her farm (mostly thanks to blog reader Marissa at Premier Equine Business Solutions)! Well… I paid for the hosting for 2 years anyway, after that Michelle is on her own.

As for the smaller 4-leggeds… Delia got a no-stuffing toy (which Stewie stole and ripped to shreds), Stewie got a rope ball, Quinn got a slow feed bowl, and all 3 of them got treats.

The big 4-legged got a bran mash, because food is all he cares about anyway.

And it was all SO FUN.

If you’re looking for a way to burn that cash or those Visa gift cards you got for Christmas, a few of my favorites are having good sales!

Riding Warehouse (20% off automatically shows up when you add things to the cart)

Aztec Diamond Equestrian

PS of Sweden

Asmar Equestrian

Yes I’m sharing this because one of them already got me and I don’t want to be the only one. Who can say no to a $26 merino wool sweater? Not I.