New Year's Eve Prayer

... the Rest of 2011

2011

(The rest of the best ... or just plain weird/funny/random)

San Francisco

SubMan NOT to be confused with SubDude.

Me no like the rain!

Us in the future

Are there gators in here?

Sleepy Hampton

More sleepy Hampton

My god my horse always look exhausted!

Saw this beauty at Octoberfest. (!!!!)

Me and Steph discuss how cute JJ is.

San Fran ... look closely ...

Because this is hilarious

Not Hampton's halter

Halloween

Some truth to this

Chris Cornell acoustic concert (yes, he was amazing)

One of my favorite photos of JJ

The best of 2011

2011

What an amazing, fun year with my horse and my friends.

First show. No disasters!

Baxter comes to live with me for a while.

Good-bye green horse canter.

Hoosier Horse Fair

NEW TRAILER.

My rig.

Hampton approves.

CAF show

When your horse acts like a squirrel, laugh it off.

... how can you not forgive this face?

Love.

I take a trip to San Fran

Trail rides with my favorite people (and horses).

Hampton: 17.1 hands, Janis: 5 hands?

Our first combined test. And first course.

Good poneh.

Hampton gave it his best shot.

Out in the hay field.

Major success at Octoberfest

Hampton, Me, Steady, Amy after a SWEET weekend.

JJs cute face

Hampton passes out in a hay bale.

On Christmas. :)

A Day in the Life

A day in the life of Karen and Hampton: December 18, 2011.

8:00 a.m.: Wake up. Smile because it's time to head out to CAF for a lesson!

8:10 a.m.: Start a load of laundry. Find beer money a $10 bill. Sweet!

8:20 a.m.: Leave the house

8:25 a.m.: Squirrel runs under my truck. I hear a thump. Fatality.

8:30 a.m.: Stop to get gas.

8:35 a.m.: Stop to get a McDonald's frappe.
(Is anyone else addicted to these things? OMG they are SO. GOOD.)

8:50 a.m.: Arrive at farm. Go catch Hampton.

9 a.m.: Feed Hampton breakfast. Go hook up trailer.

9:15 a.m.: Finish hooking up trailer.

9:20 a.m.: Pack up all of my tack and other supplies. 

9:45 a.m.: Everything is packed and we are ready to hit the road. ON TIME!

9:50 a.m.: Hampton won't get on the trailer. WTF.

9:55 a.m. Proceed to make Hampton's life a living hell. Cussing. Growling. Yelling. I hope that the BO doesn't look out her window to see me beating lovingly scolding my horse. A shipping boot flies off in this process.

10:05ish a.m.: Hampton decides life is better if he gets on the %*^&* trailer.

Hi I'm Hampton and I WAS A WANKER TODAY!

10:07 a.m.: I hop in my truck, sweaty and out of breath. I suck down the rest of my frappe.

10:10 a.m.: We are on the road.

11:20 a.m.: Arrive at CAF. Unload, unpack. Get the horse settled. He clearly was in no mood for a road trip today. He was a bit warm and sweaty - not really like him. But he settles in nice.

11:30 a.m.: Go watch Amy's lesson on Steady.

(You'll have to read her blog on how they did but I thought they looked great!)

Noonish: Go tack up Hampton.

Note: I believe this is the first time I have ridden Hampton off the farm and NOT lunged him first. He was great!!

12:15 p.m.: Lesson with LAZ begins. We worked on a simple grid: bounce to a one stride. We also worked on adjusting strides down a line. Way fun! Hampton was super. 

... I will post an analysis on my lesson next post so that this one does not turn into a novel.

1 p.m.: Untack tired, sweaty pony. Throw cooler on him and give him hay. Watch a bit of another lesson going on.

2 p.m.: Off to lunch with Amy, her adorable daughter and new friend Susan. Yummy Mexican food.

3 p.m.: 4 horse crazy girls at one table = lots of chatting and giggling.

4 p.m.: Waitress probably wondering why these weirdos are still at her table, eatin' her chips.

5:30ish: Head back to CAF with full bellies. Get our tack and ponies ready to go home.

6 p.m.: Hampton makes half-ass attempt to be a mule about the trailer again. Amy and her daughter witness a mild beat down. Hamps gets on the trailer fairly quickly.

6:15 p.m.: Steady also decides to be a PITA about the trailer. But he gives in after I annoy him by tapping him on his blanket with my whacking stick.

6:20 p.m.: Back on the road!

7:30 ish: Arrive back home. Throw horse's blanket back on and put him back out in the pasture. Clean up trailer. Head home.

11 p.m.: zzzzzzzzzzzz

* Times are approximate.

Now you see why I ride dressage

About to puke? Or overthinking a Training Level test?

My last post was a prime example of why I ride dressage and enjoy it so much!

I overanalyze EVERYTHING.

I think way too damn much.

It actually is so bad that I self-sabotage some situations.

I want a plan and goals. I like directions. I don't like feeling "lost" or "uncertain." Change stresses me out.

I went to the chiro yesterday (yay! Finally got an appointment for myself, not just Hampton) and she felt my neck and said, "So, um, you have really tense muscles. Let me guess. You hold it together. You hold everything that stresses you out - inside."

Gosh lady it took a medical degree to figure that out?

Anyway my neck was significantly out of whack. So was my back. And ears. I've been getting really dizzy recently and simply by yanking the hell outta my ears, she seems to have fixed it. Did you know that there is a saddle joint in your ear? Well, there is. There's a stirrup in there, too.

Does anyone else have this problem? Not the ear problem, but the overanalyzing everything issue?

How does one fix it?!?!

'Same boy, different name'

It's story time.

Way back in the day when a certain girl was super naive and optimistic about human nature, she found a boy. His name was Aaron. This Aaron fellow was super nice, dangerously good looking and a certain girl liked him right away. He was attentive, funny and showed this girl off to his friends. They talked or hung out a couple times a week. Things were going well.

For 2 months.

Then one night, Aaron called up Girl and said he wasn't feeling well and that he wouldn't be able to see her that night as planned. "Ok I hope you feel better," said Girl. And they hung up.

They never spoke again (Well, until about 4 years later when Aaron apologized profusely ... in a bar. Classy!).

So, having not experienced this "sham" before, Girl was worried. Did his phone break? Did he die? Did he get in a car accident? She left a message for him and he never returned it.

It did not take long for Girl to figure out what had happened. He simply dropped her. She was never that important in the first place.

This is fine. It is the coward's way out and Girl felt stupid for worrying and then felt like a fool for not seeing the signs sooner. She moves on .. blah blah.

Over the next 6-7 years - this same situation happens THREE more times. (Not with Aaron, but with 3 different boys).

Which bring me to the point of this post.

"Same boy, different name."

Or, "Same job, different place."

It would be foolish to continue doing what I'm doing and just keep switching locations. The red flags have been waving in my face for a while now.

So - this means I need to plan some sort of overhaul for my career. (My relationship situation, or lack thereof, is a whole 'nother story and won't be blogged about thanks!)

Great. So I've made that decision. What now?

Dressaaaaahhhhhge Lesson

What Hampton wished he was doing this morning. Yes, this is him. 

Loaded up the steed this morning and headed over to FHF for our dressage lesson.

It is such a treat to not only ride with an incredible instructor, but also in an indoor with fantastic footing and mirrors.

The indoor was especially nice today because it was raining and muddy and dreary and gross outside. So, screw you, Indiana, you did not stop me from riding today! BAM!

Spring 2011

Anyway, Hampton was his usual, wonderful self. He just keeps getting better and better. Our issues are small and very normal ... and also mostly my fault. Such as, I need to remember to turn with the outside aids and not let the wall turn us. I need to make him quick to my aids right away, and not let him fall apart in the walk. He also tends to blow through my aids in leg-yield-head-to-the-wall, and we end up hugging the damn wall. So that's homework to do.

Here's what else we did:

• Leg yields: And lots of them. Leg yield away from the wall, and head to the wall. By bringing my hands away from the direction of travel, our leg yields became straighter and smoother. We did some leg yielding in the canter, too, which is much improved.

• Trot lengthenings: Hamps is really getting the hang of this now. He's learning to put his front feet out in front of him and really pushes from behind. We also did lengthen across the short diagonal, then immediate leg yield (head to the wall) when you reach the wall. This helps prevent the horse from dumping on the forehand at the end of the lengthening.

• Turn on the haunches: While I have worked on TOH in terms of aiming toward a walk pirouette, today we did an actual TOH, with a dramatic turning of the shoulders and keeping the butt more in place. This forced Hamps to really cross his hind legs over.

• Canter work: Our trot-canter transitions were the bombdiggity. We mostly did more turning off the outside aids and leg yields. Also, canter to trot and right away leg yield. That's a challenge for Hampton's balance, and also the timing of my aids. But a great exercise.

... So I hope we can get back there soon. I typically stay to watch others ride for a bit because I always learn something else by watching. So really this hour-long lesson was an all-day event. :) Fine by me.

Can't wait for our jumping lesson on Sunday. Holla.

Merry lesson week!

As one of many a Christmas treat to myself, I am taking Hamps for a dressage lesson on Wednesday AND then to CAF on Sunday for a jumping lesson.

Sure is nice when you only have to work on Monday and the rest of the week I am on vacation.

Vacation for me = riding lessons, beer, wine. Food. Not all at the same time.

Engineers, cats & rainbow physics

You may remember this YouTube video that went viral earlier this summer. It is supposedly an eHarmony ad. Even if she is just acting, it's still funny.



So I just found a response to this ad - made by Paul from "An Engineer's Guide to Cats."



And here is "An Engineer's Guide to Cats:" T
The cat yodeling should not be watched while eating or drinking.

Sunshower

Hampton has morphed from sleek showhorse to furry yak-looking creature for the winter season. I haven't  pulled his mane or clipped him since Octoberfest so he is looking extra feral.

at least he's staying chunky so far!

Temps were around 28 today but it was sunny with little wind so I rode. Yesterday the arenas were actually in good shape, but today they were both frozen. BOO. I thought about riding in the back hayfield but someone was shooting guns off in that direction. So, no.

Instead we ventured out into the drainage ditch between corn fields. Footing was good, but you can't really do much other than ride in a straight line. So we did trot/walk/trot transitions. Boring, but beneficial work. And I concentrated on my position and sitting trot. I didn't feel especially productive but that's how it's going to be until spring. meh.

Hopefully I can sneak in a dressage lesson next week before hitting up CAF for a jumping lesson. May have to clip the yak up as well so we look presentable.

I wish I was making the migration to Florida. Maybe one year?