Month: February 2017

I sometimes find myself wistfully thinking of how nice it would be to have one of those glorious Netflix-filled weekends spent in one’s pajamas that I hear so many good things about. Yeah, well, be careful what you wish for.

As I mentioned yesterday, I was not feeling so good for my lesson. I woke up that morning feeling a bit off, and by the time the lesson was over I had a terrible cough and was starting to feel really depleted. After my lesson I was going to hang around for a bit, but just got to feeling like maybe I should go home… something didn’t feel right. About an hour from home, everything kept getting weirder. Almost like my brain was going fuzzy. I stopped at the convenience store to see if anything looked edible (I hadn’t eaten all day – no appetite) and grabbed a Gatorade and some crackers.

That got me through, but by the time I pulled into the barn I knew I needed to get home ASAP. I tossed Henry’s blanket on, turned him out, unhitched my trailer, and was out of there in 5 minutes. I intended to stop on the way home for some drugs but things were getting fuzzier by the minute, so I skipped it. By the time I pulled into my neighborhood I realized that my skin felt really hot to the touch. As soon as I got in the house I took my temp and bam … 101 degrees. I normally run more like 97-something. I texted the SO and asked him to pick up literally any and every flu med from the store; it’s been going around work for a month or so and it looked like I was finally the lucky recipient.

For the rest of Saturday and all of Sunday I was basically plastered to the couch like a sad sack, taking as many meds as possible and watching Netflix. I am a huge fan of documentaries, so the one perk of this whole thing was that I was able to knock several off of my list:

For the love of Spock – Because I ❤ Leonard Nemoy.

13th – About the mass incarceration problem in the US, the commercialization of our prison system, and how it all ties to race. This is a MUST WATCH for every American.

Religulous – This is mostly Bill Maher beating down almost every major organized religion, and the concept of religion in general. He’s a little grating at times (and a little mean), but religious debate is super fascinating to me. It was mostly interesting to hear what people’s responses were to his questions.

Jesus Camp – This is an older one, but probably the most disturbing thing I’ve seen in a while. It’s about an Evangelical children’s preacher and her summer camp which basically teaches those kids how to entwine their faith with politics, saying things like how they are at war with liberalism. It’s NUTS. Like brainwashing level of nuts. Kiiiiind of gives you some insight into why Trump was so popular in certain places, though.

Blackfish – I’ve been holding out on this one for a long time, not sure if I really wanted to watch it, but I’m glad I did. Nothing really shocked me that much, it was just sad on so many levels.

Amanda Knox – I never really followed her story when it was happening, but who doesn’t love a good whodunit?

Dis(honesty) – All about the study of lying. Why people lie, how, when, and what impact it has. Pretty interesting.

Killswitch – The story of hacktivists Aaron Swartz and Edward Snowden.

The True Cost – If you enjoy cheap clothes and cheap leather, don’t watch this because it’ll ruin it for you. This documentary looks at the true cost of fast fashion and how it affects people and the environment. You’ll never look at clothes the same way again.

Definitely everyone needs to watch 13th. Right now. Then watch The True Cost. Then watch Jesus Camp and come back here so we can talk about it and go WHAT THE SHIT WAS THAT together, because for real I’m deeply disturbed.

I made it to work yesterday long enough to do the few things I really HAD to do, then went back home and was a sad sack again. I finally felt hungry though, so that was a plus. Today I feel much more normal, aside from some general weakness and a cough that won’t quit. Why is it that I only get sick on weekends or vacation? For real… when I was a kid I had chicken pox on spring break, food poisoning on Xmas vacation… it’s been this way my whole life. If I have to get the flu, why can’t it be on a Wednesday or something?

But hey, at least I got my lesson in?

On Saturday morning I loaded Henry up and made the 2 hour journey to Trainer’s place for a stadium lesson.

My stadium round at Pine Hill last month was fine, until I pulled too much coming into the final combination and tried to kill us both. I needed to work more on keeping a steady rhythm all the way throughout the course, and to remember to allow him to come forward out of the turns.

Saturday morning I woke up with a really gross cough, the kind where by the time you’re done coughing, it feels like your lungs have collapsed and you can’t breathe. I won’t even describe what I was coughing up. Let’s just say it was gross. I made it through the lesson, but I kept getting very winded. Trainer kept looking at me like she thought I might die, so she took pity on me and kept things fairly short.

We hopped over a few warmup fences first, and true to form I can’t stop messing with my canter if the fence is under 3′. Little jumps are the death of me. It’s like when they get bigger I know I don’t have any choice but to keep my leg on and keep coming, but my brain becomes overwhelmed by options when the jumps are small. It makes no sense. But I was kind of glad when she walked around and put all the jumps up bigger.

I have to give Henry a ton of credit, he was jumping really super. I think the SI injection was what he needed, because he was coming off the ground so much more powerfully and evenly. He’s got his trademark Henny bascule back. Trainer even said “THIS is the Henry I know!”. And it’s true, he does finally feel like himself again.

I had a little bit of trouble with wanting to chase him too deep to the red and white oxer the first couple times (Me, a life long gap-lover, looking for the deep distance? What?) but once Trainer got me to come out of the corner and just support the canter instead of trying to chase the jump down, it worked out beautifully. We ended on a short course (because see above about me not being able to breathe) and then called it a day.

I took him on a short walk through the XC field afterward and he was still jigging, so… obviously he was not tired after our lesson. I, however, was rapidly deteriorating. It was starting to become obvious that my cough wasn’t just a cough. More on that tomorrow…

This week has been a little bit awkward for me as far as riding time. The vet wanted Henry to have a few days off after his SI injection, so the earliest I could ride him was Tuesday. But I had an appointment on Wednesday and couldn’t come out, therefore I figured there was no harm in giving him a couple extra days. Instead of a “real” ride on Tuesday, I figured we’d go for a nice long bareback walk. (spoiler alert: BAD IDEA)

I should say, this is not unusual for us. I hop on bareback in his hackamore once every couple weeks and we amble around, trot a bit, and I’ll usually stop at the top of the field to let him graze a little. It’s relaxing for both of us. Um… usually, anyway.

I have to assume that someone is feeling mighty fantastic after his vet appointment, because I can’t blame anything else. It was almost 80 degrees on Tuesday, not particularly windy, and Henry isn’t typically the kind of horse to get wild after a few days off. I haven’t lunged him, aside from a few times to evaluate soundness, in years.

Yet, on Tuesday, before we even made it out to the field, I’d already almost eaten dirt three times. He planted all 4 feet and snorted at the round bale, danced past the same arena drag that is always sitting there, and LEAPED sideways because a human moved his arm. The next 30 minutes contained a truly masterful combination of spook, spin, leap, stop, squeal, snort, bolt, and passage. Very athletic. 10’s across the board for artistic marks.

Granted, now he’s missing a pretty giant chunk of mane from one of his unannounced pirouettes where I came millimeters away from becoming a lawn dart. Fairly certain that Depo-Medrol should be relabeled as Crazy Juice, because oh my god. Today I’m climbing back on for a dressage school, and the temperature has dropped 20 degrees since yesterday, so this could potentially be very exciting. If you never hear from me again, it’s because dressage finally killed me.

Am I the only one with a crazy pony right now?

Since Britt oh-so-masterfully provided Willow Tree Warmbloods with a fancy new logo

Michelle and I have been brainstorming about what all we want to put it on. I’m a fan of basically anything and everything you can personalize, and in this day and age that includes everything from hats to vests to tech shirts to jackets to polos to belts to socks to saddle pads to fly bonnets to coolers to banners to stall guards to stickers to decals to sunshirts. Just to name a few things. Not that I’ve thought about it.

So, um, obviously I can quickly spiral wildly out of control. Michelle isn’t much help here, because we both have the same OMG YES LETS PUT A LOGO ON THAT reaction when we find something we like. Someone needs to reign us in.

Michelle decided that we should start a list. Not a list with everything we can possibly think of to slather a logo on (which is what my list looks like), but a list that makes the most sense. I’m guessing I prooooobably don’t need 15 items of WTW logo clothing (or do I?) or a custom batch of Dreamers and Schemers socks (OR DO I???).

So, general public that probably has considerably more self control than we do, we ask: what are your very favorite logo’d swag items? What are your essentials when it comes to repping your barn or favorite business?