Enforced Down Time

Well, after posting “all” of those posts there were even more life changes and a timeline that changed slightly so things have been really busy again away from the barn.

 Katai is still doing well but I’ve been maybe seeing her 1-2 times per week at this point. As July was coming to a close I decided that for a few reasons, during the month of August I was going to just coast and only go to the barn if I felt like it and/or to make sure she has everything she needs. Luckily with full care board at an amazing facility that’s ok and while I still feel guilty about it I don’t feel as guilty as I thought I might. I think I really needed this “vacation” from riding. It’s been something I’ve put my whole heart into for the past 5 years or so without really significant breaks so this has been nice and refreshing.

 Also, since Katai will be in quarantine for the second half of the month and I’ll be unable to ride or work her it seemed silly to try to get her back in shape for two weeks only to have her lose that conditioning while she’s standing around for two weeks. As of now Katai is at the new barn and in quarantine but that’s for a different post.

 The life changes are really exciting however :) As I mentioned previously other things were in the works to help with the overwhelmed feeling. One was moving Katai closer, another that happened to come up was the work change/promotion that significantly reduced my stress, the third is that my bf and I were starting to talk about moving in.

Tiny sleepy fox puppy

Initially it was going to occur next spring to coincide with the end of the lease I signed but the more we talked about it the more we felt that actually moving before winter was ideally the way to go. We moved up our plans to look at apartments while keeping in the back of our mind that we may still need to wait until next spring. We looked at a couple of meh places and then we saw two that we really liked that checked all of the boxes. After some debate we ended up with a favorite and went ahead and signed the lease to start moving in September!!

My bf will have until the end of October to move and I’m working to finalize a sub leaser who will likely want to move in mid-September. Talk about stressful with moving myself and pony twice this year! However, both moves are going to significantly reduce my bf and my stress and open up a bunch of time that we haven’t had which is much needed. I’m also just so thrilled and excited to move in with this amazing person I love.

Vegan tacos!!!!

At any rate moving for me will likely occur during the first week of September right as Katai gets out of quarantine. To help I did take the full week off instead of just Labor day so hopefully that allows me time for both getting Katai back into work and for moving. I will post a brief update of the move to the barn and I’m hoping to do a mini barn tour this week. Otherwise the blog will likely be pretty quiet until all of the moving is completed. Hopefully at that point I’ll be refreshed and rested from pony stuff and ready to start this blog back up in ernest!

All The Changes - Mindset

This is less a post about mindset and more of a post just listing some of the really positive things going on in my life right now since so many of my recent posts have been pretty overwhelmingly negative.

The BF

Not too surprisingly he's one of the shining beacons in my life right now. Being with him is everything I hoped a relationship would be (both the amazing and the tough) and more. He's supportive while also pushing me to be the best version of myself and he appreciates when I do the same for him as well.

Stopped at a light today I took this picture
of the place where we had our third date <3

New Barn

Not necessarily excited about the move but I am so, so, so excited to be closer which will help improve my motivation, and therefore how often I make it out there, and therefore how positive I feel about life :)

The Puppy

I've always loved and always will love Veggie but there's just something different about Moshy who's my little puppy soulmate. She is everything that I've ever wanted in a pet. She's just chill about everything and very calm, dainty, and sweet in a way that none of my other pets have been. I am all about rescuing animals and all of my other animals have always been rescues and I will absolutely rescue again but picking out the exact puppy, and breed I wanted means that she is just perfect for me.

Cleaning her tiny paws

 Media

I've still been watching through the Robert Dover clinics for tidbits to work on but in addition I discovered Oliva Tower's Dressage Youtube Channel. She's humble, funny, down to earth, and shares both the good and bad. She struggles/struggled with mindset so it's really enjoyable and motivating to watch her work to improve. I highly recommend all of her videos but the two below are some of my favorites.

Work Right Now

Work certainly wasn't one of the things on this list for a long time but thanks to an amazing manager who honestly asked for my feedback which gave my the ability to share how I was feeling some changes have been made which resulted in a promotion for me as well as a change in workflow. That has removed one of the most repetitive parts of my job and freed up time for me and my coworkers to actually get all of our work done and work on improving projects vs. just constantly struggling to keep our heads above water.

She also really heard me on not wanting to travel as much with some of the stuff I have going on in my life right now which means I haven't traveled since early this year which has been a nice break. I enjoy the travel and am looking forward to getting out to WA again but it's been really nice having a quieter year this year.

Another Update

Crabby looking sleepy puppies.
Their answer to dealing with the blizzard we're having is to sleep and cuddle

I'd like to be able post things other than just update posts but after taking such big breaks between posts it seems like it makes sense. Updates first and then I'm hopefully going to spend some time today writing more posts so that I have some prepared content for the next couple of weeks.

Plans for this week are to;
-schedule travel to new barn for Katai Doneish, I've received confirmation that travel will happen this next week, just not exactly when...
-make sure the vet visit for shots and coggins gets scheduled for before we leave  Scheduled and completed as of Friday
-drop off extra tack at the local tack swap this Friday - did not do
-finish “pulling” her mane 
-trim her beard and ear hairs as well as cleaning up her feather  I didn't get her ear floof trimmed but that's less important to me than the other stuff.
-bring home all the extra stuff I have at the barn and get it cleaned and organized for the move 
-ride at least 3 times  Yay!!
-try to reschedule several lesson make ups (at this point I’m certainly not going to get all of these made up but having a few more lessons before I leave would be great!) 
-make sure I get a new drawer from Smartpak since I tossed the other one and the new barn uses them

Plans for next week are to;
-clean all my tack including Katai’s leather turnout halter - partially done ahead of schedule
-post an update on the farrier/feet situation
-re-subscribe to feedxl since there’s a new ration balancer at the new barn that I need to figure out
-ride at least 4 times
-make sure I get at least one lesson in
-try to wash Katai’s legs (which should have happened when it was warmer but oh well, at least this way she won’t go back out to mud since it’s all ice again)
-wash blankets and make sure that all of Katai’s clothes are clean and ready to be used (moving to a more heated barn so we’re going to need different blankets than we do now)

 Plans for moving week (Week of April 15th):
-move pony to the new barn
-move stuff to the new barn
-confirm show plans for the summer/at least the next few months so that I can request PTO
-ride at least 3 times and make use of the move to practice for riding in a new space
-schedule lesson(s) with S2

Snowmageddon

Not the snow falling outside, which is happening, but this particular 13.2 hands of snowy white fluff.

Don't let her cute looks fool you

She was a PILL yesterday for my ride. I had really low expectations for that ride and just wanted to do about 15-20 minutes of stretchy, bendy, walk and trot work and just a simple canter each direction of the arena. Basically the only reason I was going to ride was to stretch her out and help her feel better after the hard work of the lesson on Tuesday.

Unfortunately all Katai had planned was to do the exact opposite of what I wanted. I asked for a trot and got a canter, asked for a leg yield (again with the trying to help her work out the stiffness) and got a lengthening, I asked for a canter and got a halt and so on and so forth.

Supremely frustrating but I'm proud of how I rode it which was to just keep trying to find a mutual solution to the disagreement and yet I wasn't coddling her.

I think the main reason for the fussiness was that she's using different muscles and likely a little sore. Combine that with a pony that likes to get the right answer but now is being asked to change what the right answer is and she was both physically and mentally locked up and crabby.

Therefore our ride turned from a 15 minute easy prance to a nearly 60 minute tough, mental, sweaty workout. However, we did get somewhere. Recently especially I've really been a diplomat. I know we're changing things so if I can get even 75% of what I'm asking I'm going with it, probably to the detriment of our riding goals, but it has helped to mitigate our riding related meltdowns. Yesterday was no different except I wasn't even getting 25% and through pushing to get at least that much I ended up getting closer to 100% by the end on certain things.

I did end up letting a lot of things go, she was still VERY tense but was letting me at least bend her and help her try to loosen up. I also had to let go of the stride length because about the only thing she seemed capable of was tiny itty bitty strides. Instead I made those strides fall at the tempo I wanted even if it meant that it took us forever to make our way around the ring. The real victory was that she actually was letting me put my leg on and was accepting it in both directions and was moving away from it equally in both directions. She also was taking contact on the right rein which was what initially started the meltdown (although I started out asking for about 25-50% of what I needed and at the end after all that fuss I ended up with closer to 100% of what I need).

I was good for the ride and after I was still pleased with how I'd handled but also emotional at how far back this step is. I dealt with this pony (or a slightly worse version to be honest) for over 2 years and she's been SOOO good recently that it's painful to be back here. We're still along for the ride and I know this is just a blip but it's a really painful blip right now.

In other snowy news, the weather man was actually pretty accurate.

I took the picture above a couple of hours ago and a lot more has fallen since then. It's still 33* and the ground is still warm enough that it's melting on the roads and just wet for driving but it's really sticking around more than I expected on the grass.

Also, here's a picture of my new little snowball!!!!!!!!!!

Already practicing the side eye

I'm dying over here wanting to just snuggle her so bad.

                          

Alas, I have just over a month to wait. It sounds like the breeder is aiming for the last week in November/First week in December and is working with the airline right now to arrange travel.

As to the details, she is a long haired Chihuahua. One part of my decision is that I really have wanted a dog I can bring to the barn and, while Veggie is the perfect dog in every other respect, he's just too keyed up by visual stimuli to be safe there. However, because I love his personally so much (he's an Italian greyhound/chi cross) I've really been wanting a Chi. Add to that the fact that a LOT of my horse friends have Chihuahuas all of whom are really nice little barn dogs and I decided to go with it.

I looked around for a long time for a breeder I liked that was producing happy, well adjusted dogs (especially important for toy dog breeders in my opinion) and finally found this one. I got first pick of litter, however, one thing I was inflexible on was that I wanted a girl and, wouldn't you know, this litter only had one girl. However, she is exactly what I wanted so all those positive thoughts I sent to her mom must have worked :)

Now I just have to somehow make it through the next 4-5 weeks and I'll get to finally welcome her home!!