First Update of 2023

Wow, this is the longest I've gone without blogging probably ever. 

I don't really know why, I think I started moving away from the sport, which was the reason why I started this blog. Then work picked up, the weather got bad, and I started shifting my life toward other things. I also noticed a big downturn in my personal computer usage, and I don't have any of my accounts on my work computer. I still haven't mastered blogging from my phone! 

Having the most fun, just not
documenting it

But don't take my silence to mean that I haven't been enjoying the hell out of my horse and just my life in general. It's just that for the first time potentially ever, I'm not really working toward anything in particular with the horses. Mostly because we had the most insane winter with rain, so I only just really started riding again. Nothing has felt worthy of a post. But maybe I can recap how the last few months have gone with my life horse-wise and non-horse-wise. 

Here's a quick rundown: 

TC

He is still obsessed with his pasture. Actually to the point where he can't be on it overnight because he won't come in for water and we worry about him. 

I've ridden him more in the last couple of weeks than I did from like mid December through the end of March. I'm still not doing dressage and have no plans to. I think we'll try our hand at some ETS shows this year, but mostly I just want to have fun with him at the ranch. 

I think he looks great given what we've been doing
lately, which is basically nothing

He's also so happy

Rico

Rico had his 27th birthday in February. He is sound and spry and very happy. Most of his day is spent following TC back and forth from the stalls to the pasture. Although sometimes he just watches TC gallop back and forth being a dingleberry. 

He's at the age where every time he lays down I hold my breath but I've been feeling pretty peaceful about him and my time together. No amount of time with this horse will ever be enough but I'm grateful for the time we have had and however much time we have left. 

That being said, he had probably the best vet check he's had in years this spring. His liver values are almost normal! I have to thank that weird gray horse for keeping him on such an excellent fitness plan. 

The best boy

Oh Rico, you think you escaped but you don't
realize that it was orchestrated 

Sunny

The pony got the winter off and I'm starting him back now a few days a week in the long lines. I'm also putting him through my bombproofing protocol, which is a lot less embarrassing to do at the ranch than at a boarding stable. He's had a couple of days of this and thinks I am absurd. 

The kid is not riding him right now, we told her that Sunny Horse is too spicy to ride in the winter. But she did have her first riding lesson with Miss Kate a couple of weeks ago and she'll take regular lessons for a while. It was honestly amazing, I am not a teaching-little-bitty-kids person and Kate is amazing at it. Plus, I can't maintain the pony for her consistently but Kate's ponies are maintained by her wonderful program and are generally a little more positive about children than Sunny is. Even Flounder, who the kid remains OBSESSED with (I mean, same). 

Loving how my position is looking even without
jumping all that much

Jumping

I took a break from jumping due to the weather. I JUST started back a couple of weeks ago and I am a disaster. Oh well, this is why I have a Flounder to pack me over jumps and go tell on me to Kate. Over the winter, we did two back to back cross country schoolings and we discovered some residual fear that I have out there. Most of my lessons this last year have been on reschooling my nervous system to not be so much in SNS activation. It's been absolutely amazing and I think one of the reasons why TC has been so happy. I still have work to do in specific contexts, such as cross country schooling. So we'll see how much of that we do this year. But we'll definitely do some hunter/jumper shows!

Look at how great he is

We even jumped a table 

Pottery

I've started taking pottery classes. I was convinced on a whim to take one with a coworker and fell in love with it. I am not a particularly artistic person, not anymore at least. I haven't had an artistic outlet in years and it feels really good to be creative again. I love throwing on the wheel and have started doing some hand building to put things on the things I've thrown. We took two classes and I'm now just signed up for open studio. We'll see if I continue, but man it was nice to do when it was raining! 

Maybe I'll write a separate post about pottery at some point, it's really quite fun. 

I put a snake on a mug

Friends

I've felt so lucky to see my friends a fair amount recently! This mostly has encompassed me squishing their dogs and yelling about how cute they are. 

I cuddled the shit out of Peony's dog

Kate and I went cross country schooling

Tormented Kate's dog too, don't let
me near your dogs or I will squish them
Not pictured: me slapping Nicole's dog
and making her other dog probably a little
concerned by how much I loved her

Furnishings & New Beginnings 

I've finally gotten my new place fully furnished (except a dining table but who needs one). I didn't post about it, but I left my last relationship last fall. Sometimes you just need to do that. I realized that a lot of the reason why I was staying in the relationship was society's arbitrary timeline/expectations, not because the relationship was a good one. 

I love all these pictures, my three best
ponies, all 4 years apart (2014, 2018, 2022)

I'm now living on my own again in an amazing space that I got to decorate myself. And I feel really lucky to have someone new in my life who makes me feel safe and more like myself than I honestly have with someone else. It's been good for my nervous system. And if that stops being true, I know for certain that I can give myself everything that a romantic relationship can. I feel lucky to know that I won't compromise my values for a future relationship just for the sake of being in one. Men are like desserts, after all, I love that full quote by Cher, it's on my wall. 

My new house is near a park!

Work

I love my job so much, I hit one year in this position in February. I have been working my ass off, probably a bit too much, to succeed here. And I'm doing it. I had my second review cycle and got another exceeds expectations and even a small raise despite my team having absolutely no budget. I'm up for promotion next cycle and it sounds like I have a lot of support across the org. More importantly, the work I'm doing is fun and engaging, the people I work with are amazing, and I'm comfortable financially without working two jobs. I mean, I could be more comfortable, don't get me wrong. But previously I'd be stressed about paying rent. Now I'm stressed about having to decide what horse shows to do this year and lamenting about the fact that I can't just impulse buy a truck camper or a pony. 

Trail rides during lunch remain my favorite

Honestly, life is really good right now! I feel bad that I haven't been sharing it on the blog. But I honestly don't know what to write about at this point. I guess I'll either figure it out or the blog will continue to be a baren wasteland.