2017 Year in Review: Part the Second

Meeting the famous Connor at NDPC

July

July started with a quite week where I did some prep for Pony Cup. I complained about the heat and recapped NDPC here and here which included meeting Jen and Emilie. I posted about starting "boot camp" with a short amount of time to prep for our next show. The I rounded out the month by posting some confirmation progress photos and sharing some of the photos from my LONG, unexpected 2 week work trip and also did some more complaining about work travel.

August

I started August still on the West Coast but jumped right back into lessons and shared my first lesson recap in a few weeks. Then I posted a thoughtful post about the things I was spending more or less time on. Then we started talking about prep for 2nd level, posted my 500th Post, I rounded out the month by posting our first 1st level recap! 

September

September started my downward trend in motivation to blog and ride. It also marked my 1 year anniversary of riding with Jane. This was followed by a post about my trip out to see Carly and Bobby. I was so glad that I got to meet him this year but it did make it that much sadder when Carly lost him. Then I shared about my farrier drama which really started my downturn in riding. Just as Katai's feet finally got trimmed I sent out my saddle to be adjusted which I whined about. I ended the month with a trip to watch a friend's lesson and then sharing some exciting news!

5 year anniversary/birthday treats

October

In a lot of ways it seems like October was just yesterday. I can't believe it's already 2018! I started the month posting about my 5 year anniversary with Katai :) Then I posted another tough lesson recap,  and an exciting post about having my friends join me. Finally I ended the month with another tough lesson.

November

I really fell off the wagon with blogging in November with only 5 posts for the whole month. I started off by trying to diagnose what had caused her to be so difficult over the previous week or two. Then I hurt my back and shared puppy pictures, and finally shared a lesson recap.

Moshy joined the family and thought
working from home was exhausting

December

Was just as bad as November posting wise. I didn't even post anything until the middle of December where I started with a catchup post about where I'd been, puppy, and a second update post about black Friday shopping. Finally I shared a post recapping my lessons over the past couple of months and then posted these yearly recap posts.

Hopefully I'm back on track and will be able to make my blogging goals for 2018!

2017 Year in Review

Comparison thing I created in January

January

After recapping the past year and setting those apparently tough to meet goals I posted about my first work travel of the year and then was able to actually get video of my lesson!  I commissioned a drawing of Katai and tried out Vienna Reins for the first time.

February

February started with a sassy pony and then I talked about some of my blanketing strategies. I talked about motivation and how I was "tricking" myself into riding on the really cold icky nights. We went on to have a really great lesson, lose my new camera (after less than a month), and got one of my best purchases to date! 

This amazing wool quarter sheet!

March

In March I had another, long, work trip and then had sort of a tough lesson. I posted some GIFs of some of our struggles, started our trailer loading practice with lots of fireworks, and then recapped my first day at World Cup!!!

Photo from April

April

April was my busiest blogging month with 19 posts! I started the month with a couple of recaps of Wold Cup. Then I almost missed our spring vet visit, recapped another lesson, shared more of our tough trailer loading practice, shared my bad taste ;), and talked about Katai's hatred of dressage boots. I also recapped a good lesson, finally, and talked about the history of Katai's name and her new show name.

May

I started of May by asking for help with equestrian memberships in regards to showing. Thankfully I'll be able to put that to use this year!! Then I posted about a really great night at the barn, shared some more GIFs, posted again about the struggle of my work travel, posted about my show outfit plans, and finally recapped our first show of the year.

Back when I could ride in short sleeves

June

June started off with a recap of our first rated show and blue ribbons, which I'm still sort of shell shocked over. I then shared some show media, more show media, shared media of a ride outside, started posting a bit about my personal struggles with 2017 , bought a show pad and some items for the fight with flies, and set up new goals for the year.

I didn't recap these new goals officially but they were mostly all successful. It just seemed a bit like a cop out and many of them are more like monthly goals than yearly goals. At any rate, I'm looking forward to setting achievable goals for 2018 and looking forward to finishing up the rest of my 2017 recap in my next post!