Goals?

Going to the funny memes since this is a heavy blog post

I'm doing something a little different this year and not setting traditional goals per the Jane Pike way of doing things. If you're curious what I'm talking about you can check out the podcast where she specifically talks about this here. 

However, that doesn't mean that I'm not going to talk about plans and progress for the year, it's just that I'll be sharing my action steps rather than larger goals, or dreams as Jane Pike talks about. I'm planning to outline the action steps I'm working on now and update the blog with progress on them on a regular basis throughout the year to make sure I'm not losing ground.

In thinking through those action steps for the year and how I can structure my to do list in order to be successful I'm going to have include an update on this blog. Even if you don't read the rest of this wall of text make sure to check out the last item.

This year I'm going to really work to maintain focus on doing what I can do and not putting time and frustration into things that I know aren't going to be possible. With that in mind, here are my current action steps that I plan to carry through the year.

Action Steps:

-Managing My Anxiety: I'm going to be working through the materials from Jane Pike and practicing the skills I learn there. I'm still working on finding a therapist that I gel with so that may happen this year as well. This also involves practicing the skills I'm learning with Katai which will hopefully help with her anxiety.

-Build A Good Team: I've recently found a body work professional that I think is fantastic and we have a vet I really like. I'd like to find someone who does Chiro that I can schedule with as needed and I'm curious about trying PEMF. I also need to find a saddle fitter who can check her saddle and back on a regular basis. You'll note I don't have an instructor on this list and that's because my only instructor options would be a trailer ride away. I'm going to take advantage of any opportunities I have this year but otherwise it's our year for me to get us back to where we were which I'm confident I can do.

-Work Outside: One of the big things I can do to help Katai's anxiety at shows is to spend a bunch of time this year working on getting her more comfortable outside. I finally have access to a wonderful outdoor arena and so many trails. This is our year to really focus on working outside. Plus this is completely free lol

-Continue to work on my Finances: I've made such huge progress with following a budget over the last year or so and I want to continue to work on that. I'm putting a lot of focus into paying down high interest debt and sticking to my budget. I've been pretty good but still go over on food/coffee on a regular basis. I don't go way over but ideally I should have some left at the end of two weeks so my goal is to start to get to that point.

-Build Fitness for Myself and Katai: The main thing I'm going to do is increase what I'm already doing. I'm going to increase my average step count, track calories, ride 2-3 times per week, and do short, easy workouts on the other days with focus on building strength. Specifically for Katai she'll be getting ridden 2-3 times per week (for now) and lunged once per week. As the year goes on I'm hoping to increase the number of rides/works to 5-6 per week. One item I'm really going to be focusing on is building strength and time at the canter.

-Showing up: This is a big one and that's to just keep showing up. To this purpose, one of the things I learned about myself when I was going every day is that I need to just go whenever I can and not to try to stick to a set or specific schedule. That's not to say that I'm only going to go when it's convenient, just that  especially during the winter when the weather could prevent me from going, I need to go every day that I can even if that means that I go 10 days in a row since then there might be 5 days in a row where I can't go. It also means just going even if I'm not feeling motivated or if I'm tired etc. because once I get there I can pretty much promise that I'll feel better and get something accomplished. To hold myself accountable, and share with friends (which I enjoy) I'm going to do two things.

The not funny media, this has just been so helpful!

The first, I'm going to be journaling every ride, body work session, and anything else in the Equilab app. I REALLY wanted to find a way to do something on paper since I enjoy the process of writing but the problem is that it's too easy for me to not have my notebook or journal available when I have the time to write the entry where I always have my phone on me. In addition, there is so much other information I can capture through the Equilab app such as ride data.

Posting a picture of my sister's adorbs cat, Gritty, to signify that
the next paragraph is important since everyone loves cat media ;)

The second, for the next month or so (till the end of February at least) I'm going to experiment with letting this blog sit and doing more with Instagram. That isn't to say that I won't blog anymore ever, just that I'm going to give this a try. It also doesn't mean that I'm just going to keep doing Instagram the way I have been, instead I'm going to add more text, update more often, and add more media including photos and videos. I have friends on Insta that do this really well and I'm curious if this social media platform will work better for me. The reason? I've been struggling to find time and/or motivation to sit down at my computer and put together a blog worth of content. I have things throughout the day that I'd like to update everyone on but not enough to make a whole post. At first I thought it was just because I didn't have content but now, even when I've had more content I'm just struggling to put together a whole post.

If you aren't already following me on Instagram and you're reading the blog please add me to stay up to date for the time being! My Instagram account is @kataipony

If you are following me already or choose to follow me I'd love feedback on this experiment so please let me know what you think. Again, this isn't me ending this blog for the long term, just me trying something else for a bit to see if ti works better for me while still being a good platform for me to keep all of you up to date with all of my pony and personal happenings :)

Past Year Changes

So many changes have happened over the past year or so that I wanted to sort of summarize where we are now especially since I haven’t been good about updating my blog this year!

My new, much more limited, shared
tack set up in one small corner of the tack room

Tack:
- Fleece TSF Stretchtec girth liner
I love this thing! I worked really well for the pale skinned princess this summer and kept away the skin funk/girth galls that she’s occasionally picked up the past with her leather liner. It’s nice and fluffy without adding too much bulk and despite my minor misgivings that it would make my saddle more unstable it actually was fine probably in part due to the shape of the TSF girth.


- PS of Sweden reins
I’m not totally sold on these yet. I like how slim they are with my tiny hands and appreciate how soft they are but they’re thinner than traditional leather reins and less “sticky” so without my gloves they would slip right through my hands and even with my gloves I feel like I need to use more energy to hold them. Because they’re so thin they also twist so even when I don’t have them twisted they’re not straight between the bit and my hands and that drives me a little batty. I’m still using them and overall I like them but for the cost I probably would have stuck with my cheapo ($20ish) Horze plain black pony reins.

- Bates “webber” style leathers
I totally love these! I was in the camp of not being able to feel the additional bulk from regular leathers, or at least not until I switched to these. Now I can clearly feel a difference and I’m happy to put up with the slight additional fussiness of running these up for that really close contact feeling. I’m also thrilled that my leathers finally are black to match my saddle.



I'm very glad that grass is now only available when hand grazing

Feed:
- CA Trace
As I was falling further down the barefoot rehab rabbit hole I found out a lot more about diet and with some help from FeedXL made some big changes to what Katai is eating. She’s now getting CA Trace pellets and since I can’t get those through Smartpak I’ve canceled my smartpaks. I am getting Magnesium 5000 through them still but I’m getting the bucket on auto ship vs. the smartpaks. She’s also getting whole flax seed and plain white salt. That’s it! Her coat and feet are looking really good so I’m pleased with everything right now.

- Treats
I found some great low sugar treats that don’t break the bank so I’ve gone from feeding peppermints (which she was getting a decent amount of over the summer) to these apple treats just to try to reduce the sugar content in her diet further



Luckily the arena is nicely well lit since
most of my rides take place after dark at this point

Routine:
With so many life changes my routine has changed quite a bit this year. First I completely fell out of any routine haha. However, now that she’s so much closer and everything is quieting down a bit in my personal life I’m finding my routine again and I’m really loving our new schedule!

- Weekday Commute

At this point I’ve transitioned to going to the barn directly from work. Not only is the barn closer to my workplace than home (by maybe 10 minutes or so) but by going straight there from work I save the worst commute I have which is from work home during rush hour. This easily saves me 45+ minutes in the car and because of that I’m getting home from the barn around 6:30 which means that my full day away from home is long but I now have the rest of the evening free. 



Katai's new paddock. I love that she has a buddy and shelter!


- Weekend Schedule
With that instead of going both weekend mornings and 3 evenings during the week I’ve transitioned to going 4 evenings and one weekend day typically in the morning. This is allowing my bf and myself more flexibility on the weekend plus because I’m getting home so much earlier when I go during the week we just have more flexibility in general.

- Lesson Schedule
This has been a tricky one. With everything going on it’s been oddly tough to have a weekly commitment on a specific day. Not only does it limit when and how we plan to do things at home or go out on dates, see friends, etc. but it locks in the rest of my riding schedule since I typically want to ride at least the day before and preferably two days before my lesson and normally I give her the day after off. In addition I’ve been trying to be better about sticking to a budget. Moving to a barn where I’m spending less and saving on gas have both been helpful but lessons are a huge expense that I’ve also been trying to reduce. With that at this point I’m taking e/o week lessons on Tuesday evenings. This, so far, has been the right combination of routine enough to help with my motivation to get to the barn while also allowing for flexibility. I’m good at working on riding homework and since we’re both lacking strength a lot of what I’m doing is basically bringing her back into work so the additional time between lessons right now is actually really helpful.

Looking so much better! Ignore the white paste,
we're using baby rash ointment as a moisture barrier

Feet:
-As mentioned previously I’ve taken over doing Katai’s feet and one of my goals in October was to have a mentor and friend stop by and check my work. She did and felt that Katai’s feet looked really good! She had some great suggestions for me and she’s going to do a re-check in 6 or so weeks and then likely I’ll have her out more ocassionally.

I really like this barn. It's nice and airy and open and kept extremely clean.