Category: Uncategorized

Yeah, I’m a little late with this one. Mostly because we weren’t home for Christmas and therefore did not tote presents across the country with us, and then when we got back home we both forgot about the presents for… a week. Oops. We kind of suck at this.

Usually I get myself something nice for Christmas, but I did that for my birthday when I bought myself the Devoucoux. There’s not much nice stuff left that I need at this point, which is a good place to be. Especially because December and January are absurdly expensive for me (more on that tomorrow). The fact that my collection of stuff is pretty solid right now is a good thing.

I got a little bit of cash for Christmas, which is always nice, because see above about Dec and Jan being expensive. I asked the SO for a Yeti cooler so that I can grab ice on the way to the horse show and still have enough actual ice left by the end to put in Henry’s ice boots. No more worrying about where to get ice from on the morning of XC! Oh and I guess I could put like… food in there too, if I ever actually remembered to bring food for myself to shows (this is always 50/50). The SO was even smart enough to get the pretty blue one.

And he got me a new ice cream scoop and a nice can opener because I’ve been bitching about those things for a long time. I don’t think kitchen stuff really counts though, does it? He also bought me socks with the corgi’s face on it, which was pretty funny considering I bought him socks with the cat’s face on it (which I ordered 7 weeks ago and they still aren’t here, don’t use Print Your Pet). Great minds think alike.

Hillary got me some fancy smelling soaps, which goes right along with the fancy soap kick that I’m on right now. I’ve hidden those, because I’m selfish and don’t want to share.

My brother and his wife got me a unicorn shirt and puzzle. Apparently I have created a reputation for being both the crazy unicorn lady AND a nerd. They’re not wrong.

Michelle of course painted me a Presto glass and a Henry glass… I showed y’all the Henry one already but here’s the Presto one. I LOVE THEM.

Along that same line, a blog reader started a business making crochet ponies and made one of Presto for me! I loved it so much that I promptly turned around and ordered one for Hillary’s upcoming kiddo. These things are so stinkin cute, y’all should follow her on Instagram @ponyforapony and order one. You won’t regret it.

 

Then I got a $100 Riding Warehouse gift card and spent several days trying to figure out how to use it. I had just stocked up on essentials in the Black Friday sale, so I figured it was a good opportunity to buy something I wanted but couldn’t talk myself into spending my own money on. Free splurge! The best kind! My first round through the site resulted in a $500 cart, so I went through and got rid of all the stuff I couldn’t really justify, which left me with a $40 cart. Polos, a horse sized rope halter for Presto (bc yes he already outgrew his Yearling size rainbow one), and another jar of poultice. What a sad splurge. I went back and forth forever before I decided to just bite the bullet and try the full seat Aqua X breeches. I’ve been saying for months that I want to try them, and they were $93 in the 20% off sale, which you can’t beat. I’m taking them for their test run in my dressage lesson this afternoon!

Normally I buy stuff for Henry and the dogs for Christmas, but having a kitten in the house this year meant that I decided to forego a tree and stockings. If she knocked down my tree and broke my Hamer & Clay ornaments I would have been forced to love her less, and no one wants that. Hopefully next year she’s calmed down enough to handle that kind of responsibility. But no stockings plus us being gone meant that I didn’t really get anything for the dogs, and Henry didn’t get anything either. Except treats. He literally has 6 different kinds of treats in my tack trunk right now. That’s kinda normal though, honestly, every day is Christmas when you’re Henny.

Oh, and not really related, but I had several people expressing interest in Presto calendars. While I can’t even wrap my head around the idea of printing a bunch or trying to coordinate that, I DID have a few small ones printed up and will have one leftover. Watch for a giveaway sometime in the next week or so – I’ve got a calendar, a pretty ombre lead rope, and a RW gift card up for grabs! I think we’ll also do another “Guess the foaling date/time and foal color/markings” type of contest this year with Willow Tree Warmbloods, too. It was fun last time. That probably won’t be until next month though… I gotta have some time to get prizes together!

While I feel like I could have done a better job with thinking through the actual POINT behind some of my 2017 goals, overall I thought it was a pretty successful year in a lot of ways. Mostly in that I really managed to find the FUN part of riding and showing again, by learning to relax a lot more. Granted, it took a lot of conscious effort to do that. I am an overly competitive person, so I realized that when I give myself grandious, very specific goals I tend to get so focused on them that I lose sight of everything else. I didn’t set any last year and I’m not setting any this year either.

Instead I’m going to focus more on doing things that a) make us better, b) enrich our relationship, c) are FUN. I’m not even gonna sit down and try to plot out a show season… we’ll go to whatever shows work out best, whichever and whenever those may be. It’s kinda liberating. But just because I’m taking that kind of stuff out doesn’t mean that I don’t still have some big goals for myself and/or Henry and/or Presto.

Improve the stadium – I don’t want to say “x number of clear rounds” because my clear rounds in 2017 were probably my worst-ridden. Luck shouldn’t count towards checking off a goal, and success can’t really be measured by what’s on paper. So really, I just want to smooth out the stadium, do more thinking instead of reacting, and help my horse out a bit more.

Do a couple Prelim CT’s – for funsies, right? Honestly though I just really like the new 2018 Prelim A dressage test and I wanna ride it. Who am I? I dunno.

More foxhunting – LOVED IT. MUST DO IT AGAIN. For real though, aside from just being fun, I think it’s really good conditioning for both me and Henry.

Attend another big horse event – Crossing off Bundeschampionate was awesome last year, so I’d like to cross off another one this year. My #1 choice is Lion d’Angers in France for the 6 and 7yo eventing world championships. If I can’t wrangle that, my second choice would be Fair Hill (YEH champs again?), then Kentucky or WEG.

Get my volunteer hat – our “home” (if you consider home to be a place that’s 2 hours away) venue has a really cool volunteer program that gives you perks as you accumulate work hours – key chain, hat, belt, cup, etc. It’s not really about the hat, it’s about the idea of giving back to the sport, but if I can put in enough hours to make it to the hat level, I’ll be satisfied with my time invested as a volunteer. Last year was the first year I’ve really made much effort to volunteer, and it really highlighted it’s importance to me. Our sport simply cannot exist without our volunteers, so I need to do my part.

Jump the stupid giant Texas Flag table at MCP – the wagon at Pine Hill was my “big scary” nemesis jump before, but now that we jumped that and lived to tell the tale, I’m shifting my focus to the even bigger, even scarier Texas flag table at MeadowCreek. It’s just Prelim, but it looks like a friggin house. It’s not really about the act of jumping the stupid thing, it’s about the confidence and ability that it takes to do it. I know there isn’t anything Prelim-sized that Henry can’t jump, so it’s about time to strap on the big girl panties and make that thing my bitch.

Move Presto closer to me – once he’s gelded, and assuming I can find somewhere budget-friendly yet still safe to put him. That’s been the real challenge. Board is stupid expensive around here. I really want to get him ponying off of Henry so he can start going on adventures, but first I have to actually GET HIM HERE, so we’ll make that one the real goal and worry about the rest later.

End 2018 as a better rider than I started 2018 – I thought about some of the things I want to improve, like keeping my shoulders back, or looking up, or keeping my wrists straight, or any of the endless list of things I’m constantly working on. But really the point of all of those things is to ride better, and every day I make an effort to do them, chipping away at the bad habits. I have no expectations of fixing all my flaws, that’s hilarious and delusional, but if I can end the year doing those things better on a consistent basis, I’ll be happy with that.

Keep running – I’ve been back into the running thing for a year and half now, but I feel like if I don’t put it here then I won’t keep doing it. I don’t actually like it, but it’s important, so I need to do it.

Enjoy the journey – No matter what we end up doing with horse shows or lessons or clinics or whatever, I really just want to have fun with my horses and enjoy them. Because of that, I’m not making any goals about attending X number of shows, or winning any ribbons, or qualifying for anything. Those things aren’t why I ride, so they shouldn’t be my focus. If they happen – bonus! If they don’t, I still get to enjoy the bestest horse in the world, and that’s a win in and of itself. I need to remember to always keep my perspective.

Happy New Year! I celebrated last night by staying up until almost 11 watching Black Mirror, reading until I fell asleep, and getting woken up again at midnight by all these idiots with their fireworks freaking my dogs out. So, a typical New Years celebration for me. I hate all holidays that involve fireworks.

But now that 2017 is officially HISTORY, it’s time to look back on all those goals I set for the year and see how we did. My big huge main goal for the year was to dial WAY back on my competitiveness and stop putting so much pressure on myself when it came to showing. I had finally realized that my mindset was infringing on my fun, so I threw a lot of my more rigid goals out the window and stuck to things that I thought would be worthwhile achievements without pushing on my tendency to go a bit… overboard and morph into my own worst enemy.

This is what it looked like:

So with that revelation in mind, I scrapped almost all of my original goals and started again. 2017 is to be the year of “chill the hell out and have fun with it”. I’m not aiming for anything super ambitious, I’m not setting out an intricate show plan or worrying about qualifications or scores or points or any of that stuff. This year I’m fixing my brain and working on having confidence in myself.

Complete at least 4 Training horse trials – Done! Barely. My show budget took a pretty huge hit, but luckily we were still able to manage.

Score under 35 in dressage at Training – Did this 3 times I think, if I’m remembering all the tests. Granted, I don’t think I’ll ever do a goal like this again, because a couple of those under-35 tests didn’t deserve it, and a couple of those over-35 tests did. Therefore I think that this goal really doesn’t hold much weight as far as measuring progress, which makes it a bit useless. The numbers are nice and all but do they really mean anything when they’re so wildly subjective?

Take at least one lesson a month – Pretty sure this averaged out. There were a couple months where I didn’t have any, but other months where I had several. And since October we’ve been doing dressage lessons 2x a month. Need to get back in the jumping lesson swing.

Attend another course/seminar related to the Young Event Horse program – Did the FEH clinic in late Feb, which was awesome, and I’m saying FEH counts toward the general sentiment of this “furthering education” goal. I think Bundeschampionate counts too, since watching the German young horses compete is an education in and of itself.

Get Baby Horse registered, inspected, and microchipped with RPSI – We ended up going with sBs instead, which is an upgrade in my mind, and it’s done!

Get Baby Horse lifetime recorded with USEF – This was included with the sBs registration, so it’s also done!

Chill the eff out, you psycho – I definitely did this with showing, which is what it was aimed toward. I chilled way out. I probably did not do this about my horses in general though after Presto gave me the heart attack of a lifetime but I feel like I get a pass there.

Finish half marathon under 2:40 – I honestly don’t remember my finish time. I think it was over that since I stopped with 100 yards to go and waited for my dad so we could cross together. Guess that technically makes it a fail, but it doesn’t feel like it, so again, I didn’t structure this goal well because I kinda missed the point.

Keep running 3x a week – I’ve actually done this, for the most part. Sometimes if the weather is shit or I have a lot of horse stuff going on, I skip days, but I still run on a regular basis.

Work on my core strength – LOL.

Take a non-horse related vacation – Thank goodness for that Utah Christmas vacation swinging in there at the last minute or this one would have been a fail. I’m great a horse vacations. Less so at non-horse ones. It’s hard for me to want to spend money when horses aren’t even involved.

As usual, way better at the horse part of the goals than the personal part. That’s not surprising.

There were 3 goals in my original list that I ended up taking out for various reasons (read 50 books, go foxhunting, get a year end award) and I actually DID accomplish all of those. Still kinda glad I didn’t put them in there though, it made everything happen more organically instead of me doing it because I felt like I had to check the box.

I think there were some good goals in there, but also some bad ones too. When I’m setting these things I need to do a better job of thinking of the big picture, and what I’m REALLY trying to accomplish, not the numbers on the paper. This stuff goes a lot deeper than that… or I think it should, anyway, if it’s going to mean anything. I’ll have to fix that for 2018!

Oh, 2017. In a lot of ways this was a really great year for me. In other ways it was by far the most emotionally taxing. I do think I’ve come out the other side of it a wiser, more introspective person, but maybe that’s just wishful thinking.

It kinda seems like this year was an exercise in learning to cope with turmoil. It started in January with the political climate and then magnified times a million in March when Presto was born. The day he graced us with his presence was one of the happiest days of my life, for sure. I was just so impressed with him, how strong he was, how confident he was, right from his first breath. He stood up and nursed so fast, neighed a ton, and was cantering around within an hour of his birth. All the tension and nervousness of the preceding 11 months of pregnancy drained away, and I just stood there in awe of what a perfect little baby horse we’d made.

And then of course disaster struck when he came down with chlostridium 48 hours later, and the highest of highs became the lowest of lows within a matter of minutes. Despite getting him into the clinic within just a couple hours of the first symptoms, his prognosis was quite poor. Leaving him at the clinic that night was one of the toughest things I’ve ever had to do, because I was terrified that was the last time I’d ever see him. I was so numb I couldn’t even cry. The world just felt like it had come to a grinding halt and all the stars blinked out of the sky at the same time.

But we underestimated that strong-willed little baby horse, and he rallied. The next three weeks were a series of major ups and downs as his body fought the bacteria and then tried to heal itself. He’d have good days and then terrible days as we struggled keep his bloodwork in check. At one point his protein levels were so low that it didn’t look like he could possibly bounce back. He was, quite literally, living on plasma transfusions and fluids.

I spent every day there with him, as much time as I could. Some days it was just a few hours, other days it was up to 10. I lived with a cement brick in my gut 24/7, too afraid to be hopeful, but really wanting to be. I lived in constant fear of a bad phone call. I updated you guys here and on social media as best I could, trying to be as positive as possible. I didn’t really want to tell you about the hours that he stood there in the hot sun looking listless, or the periods where his tummy would get so painful after nursing that he would throw himself on the ground and thrash until we got enough pain meds in him, or how much time I spent cleaning and putting ointment on his skin where the diarrhea had scalded all the hair away, or the days where I rubbed essential oils on his joints in a wildly desperate attempt to keep the infection from spreading to them. It was hard enough to live those parts. I didn’t want to talk about them. I still don’t really even know what I wrote about during that time, because I’ve never been able to go back and read the posts. I don’t want to. Looking at the pictures is hard enough.

After one particularly trying day I cornered the vet and asked if we should just put him down. I wanted him to pull through with every fiber of my being, but I wasn’t willing to torture him. She looked me dead in the eye and said that he wasn’t done fighting, so she wasn’t done fighting either. I squared my shoulders, nodded, got in my truck, and bawled my eyes out for the entire hour drive home.

I spent a lot of time crying in my truck over those few weeks. An hour drive back and forth each way sure does give a person a lot of time to think, stew, cry, and beg. I am not a religious person, but I appealed to every deity I could think of, offering up all kinds of fantastical trades and promises. I examined every aspect of my life and how I was living it, thinking that maybe if I could be a better person, the universe would let Presto live. But what really helped me cope, and what really gave me strength to get out of bed every morning and help Presto face it all again, was you guys.

I’ve never been a particularly warm or socially outgoing person, but boy did I learn just how many friends I had, and just how great they are. At a time in my life where I was feeling like I’d really lost hope in the human race in general, there came an entire army of goodness to show me that there will always be people out there that care and want to help. I was floored by it then, and I remain floored by it now. You may not have been there with me physically, sitting in that red West Texas dirt, holding an IV bag, fighting back tears every day, but you were there in spirit. When I started this blog in 2014 I thought it would be a fun little place to document Henry’s journey, and it’s turned into SO much more than that. I’m not sure where I would have been mentally during all of this without the support network that I had, and I’ll always be eternally grateful for everything.

The experience I had with Presto’s illness is not something that I would ever wish on my worst enemy, but I learned a lot from it. Never take anything for granted. Tomorrow is never guaranteed. The human spirit can endure a lot of hardship, if you have the right support. Appreciate everyone. Kindness matters. Remember how lucky you are, even when it seems like you aren’t. Little things can make all the difference. Life isn’t always fair. There is a lot of power in positive thinking. We put our hearts on the line when we love something, especially something as fragile as a horse, but it’s worth it no matter how it plays out. And last but not least, the horse community might come with plenty of flaws, but when the chips are down there is no better group of people.

Presto did get better, against seemingly insurmountable odds, and he did get to come home again. It took weeks for my anxiety level to start to go down, and for me to stop setting my alarm several times a night so that I could wake up and check his camera. I had just started to relax a bit when he came down with rhodococcus and once again we found ourselves on a dangerous roller coaster. Yet another thing that could have killed him, but yet another thing that he overcame. While he managed to bounce back pretty quickly from all of this, the whole ordeal left me with a lot of trauma on my psyche that has taken a long time to reconcile. In some ways it still hasn’t, I still feel like we got too lucky, and I can’t help but feeling like I’m always looking over my shoulder. I’ve had to figure out how to cope with that, which includes accepting the fact that some things are just beyond my control. I’ve had to learn how to enjoy what I’ve got, while I’ve got it, and stop worrying about all the things I can’t change.

If it sounds really dramatic, well… it WAS. I’ve never experienced such a wildly extreme yo-yo of emotions in such a short period of time in my entire life. It sent me reeling and rocked me to my core.

Yet throughout it all, Henry was my constant. He waited patiently in the background while I dealt with Presto’s illness, and he was there with his goofy faces to make me laugh again when it felt like I couldn’t. He never wavered from his sheer HENRYNESS… that cheeky personality that somehow manages the perfect balance between being 100% genuine while also being a complete turd. He was exactly what I needed both to keep me occupied and to keep me balanced. Nothing makes my soul happier than that horse, in good times or in bad.

Aside from being my therapist, Henry is my best dude. In 2017 our relationship evolved to even greater heights and I feel like we’re finally at a really good place where we have a rock solid partnership. We trust each other, we take care of each other, and we have a lot of fun together. He’s extremely kind to me when I mess up, but he still holds me accountable and expects me to do my part. I strive to always remember that my biggest responsibility is to be Henry’s guardian and advocate, and try to always tend carefully to the qualities that make him so great. It’s possible that he’s a little spoiled, but I don’t think that’s such a bad thing.

We started the year by dipping a toe tentatively into Training level, and we ended it with all the confidence in the world. I am still floored by what a great horse he’s become, and this year he’s exceeded all of my wildest expectations. I never ever thought we’d get here, yet… here we are. He’s the very rare kind of horse that can rocket around cross country on Sunday and go for a bridleless and bareback hack on Monday. I struck gold with Henry and I know it.

If there’s anything this horse has taught me, it’s that goalposts can always move. Dreams can always grow. And, of course, you should never judge a plain fat brown crooked-legged horse by his cover. He’s not a great mover and he’s not a particularly careful showjumper, but there isn’t a horse out there that I would trade him for. Everything that happened with Presto really helped me remember how to see the big picture and made me reexamine my priorities, which in turn made me appreciate Henry even more.

I spent the first couple years of our eventing career putting entirely too much pressure on myself. It took a while, but Henry has taught me how to relax and learn to savor the small victories. How to be happy with what we accomplish, and to not belittle those accomplishments by comparing our results to someone else’s. It took a while, but this year he really taught me how to have FUN again. True, pure, completely unadulterated fun, with no expectations and no deadlines and no strings attached.

Aside from my two fantastic beasts, 2017 was also full of other adventures. I went to Rolex and had a blast with friends. I got lucky enough to travel back to Europe, look at horses in 3 countries, pat some of the world’s most famous stallions, and see Germany’s best young horses compete. And somehow I even managed to branch off of this blogging thing and land a regular, paying gig writing for my favorite magazine. Is this even real life? MY life, at that?

I’m ending the year with a little bit of unresolved inner turmoil about life in general. Where I want to live. What career I really want to get up every day and dedicate myself to. What the next 5 years might look like. I’m at a little bit of a “where do I really belong” crossroads that will probably require some tough decisions, and a lot of courage, in the year to come. I finally feel ready to make them though, and I feel like a lot of that can be attributed to the year I’ve had and everything I’ve learned along the way. Life lessons are hiding in hard times.

Most of all, 2017 reminded me that I am beyond privileged to get to do the things I do, with the people and horses that I get to do it with. There was plenty of hardship, for sure, but there was plenty of jubilation too, much of which can be attributed to you guys. Thanks for riding along with me.

The timing here kind of works out perfectly with these end of year wrap up posts, since it’s cold and dreary in Texas and not much is happening with us. Henry update: spooky, cheeky, WILD little turd. God I love him. There ya go, you’re current on his situation.

We kicked off my 2017 review posts yesterday with a few of my favorite things from the year. A lot of people also do recap posts with a quick month-by-month summary of events to hit all the key points of what went down. If you want that, I have an archive feature over in the sidebar where you can view all the posts by month. I feel like most of you who read along at least semi-regularly probably remember the general gist of what all happened though. Dunno what it felt like to y’all, but to me it felt something like this:

Tomorrow we can talk about my general overall feelings about the year and what I learned. Fair warning, things get heavy. But for today let’s take a little bit more of a fun approach to the regular year in review post. Instead of trying to write up a summary of each month, I went back through my Instagram and facebook and pulled out my TWO very most favorite horse-related pictures per month for the year. They may or may not be the best photos in some cases, or the prettiest, but they’re the ones that really sum it up best.

January

February

March (ready for the seismic shift in focus?)

April

Okay that’s already two for April but I made the rules so I can break them too… one of my very favorite pics of Sadie and Presto was taken in April.

May

June

July

August

September

Oh man, September. This was a big month. This one gets 3 pics too. Sue me.

October

November

December

A year of ups and downs for sure, but luckily a lot more ups than downs. I started the year with one fantastic unicorn creature and now I’m oh-so-incredibly-lucky enough to have two. I love my boys, and can’t wait to see what next year brings with them. ❤