Catching Up, but first...

The 30 things blog hop! I've really enjoyed reading all of these and feel like they're a great way to get to know all of you. I started typing these up awhile ago but have had so much going on that they just sat in draft. It was amazingly hard to come up with 30 interesting things about myself!

1. I’ve always loved animals and grew up on a farm where we had ducks, dogs, sheep, horses, bunnies, goats, and cats

And my first pony, Prince

2.       Going back to the above, my mom had a huge herd of sheep when I was 5-10 or so that she sheared, spun, and sold the wool

3.       Also related to the above, in 4H I was grand champion dairy goat showman at our state fair so I’m kind of a big deal ;)

4.       I once saved someone who had slashed their leg open with an arrow by carrying them several miles out of the forest/trail system on the back of my horse when I was 13. The resulting blood stain on my horse scared my mom half to death when she picked me up from the barn that day

5.       I was homeschooled

6.       I have three younger siblings (oldests rock!)

7.       Both of my sisters are professional violinists

8.       My brother went to school for aviation and then joined the Marines, then didn’t re-enlist in the Marines and joined the Army instead

9.       I have my MA in HR

10.   I have sadly never traveled outside of the US except for a few road trips to Canada

11.   I have also been on road trips to ME, NY, WA, CA, OR, and of course hit a bunch of states in between.

12.   My favorite books are science fiction/fantasy and my very favorite book is Jaran by Kate Elliott. I’ve read it at least 30 times

13.   I pass out easily if people are discussing injuries or if I even barely hurt myself, in fact I once passed out while leading a new employee orientation at work right in front of a nurse I had hired

14.   I’ve never fallen off Katai and since I trained her she’s never had anyone fall off. Not quite sure how she’ll react if it ever happens…

NDPC 2016

15.   I’d never been on a plane until I was in my late 20s and that was to go to the National Dressage Pony Cup at the KY Horse Park.

16.   My BA is in Music Performance and I’ve played Piano since I was 5 and Cello from when I was 12-23.

I was probably 13 here

17.   I’ve moved basically every year since I moved away from home in 2011, currently I live in downtown Minneapolis, MN

18.   I have very eclectic music tastes and listen primarily to EDM and alternative but Kanye is my favorite for working out/running and pretty much the only thing I don’t listen to is country

19.   In my area people primarily ride western but there are actually a decent number of dressage shows within about an hour drive

20.   I’m a huge rule follower and almost the only time I haven’t followed the rules led to me walking within arm’s reach of Leonardo DiCaprio despite not actually thinking he was that cute

21.   My favorite tv show recently was the OA (it’s SO fantastic!) but I mostly just play NCIS on Netflix in the background while I do other things and rarely watch new tv or movies

22.   I’ve been vegan (or plant based) for just about three years now

23.   I used to be a voracious reader but now I pretty much read blogs and articles online and rarely read books. When I do read books they’re mainly non-fiction such as When Two Spines Align or How Not to Die (a nutrition book that’s FANTASTIC)

24. Veggie (my dog's) name was Wedge Antilles after the Star Wars character. I love Star Wars so I kept it but kept turning it into Wedgie which I didn't love. Then eventually it just became Veggie which stuck.

Veggie is second to the right,
clearly loving the Italian Greyhound meetup we went to last year

25. I'm a huge nerd and have always wanted to play D&D but didn't know anyone that played. Now I'm in a campaign with my bf (who is DM'ing), a couple of his friends, and his dad. It's way less awkward than it sounds

26. I'm not going to have kids

27. Despite REALLY not liking kids, my goal is to one day have a small piece of property and a few really nice ponies so that I can teach young riders to love dressage on appropriately trained and sized equines. 

Concerts like Rock the Garden are different though!

28. I don't like concerts or anything that locks me into sitting in the same place for a long time. I just can't sit still that long and it feels like a waste of time

29. I'm a minimalist and it drives me nuts having more than one thing with the same purpose. However, I have a whole closet, a large chest, a large re-usable bag in my car, and two containers at the barn of horse equipment plus my saddle, bridle, grooming stuff, a pile of saddle pads, and helmet

30. I really dislike spiders

Updates, Lesson Recap, and Future Plans

Because I haven't been blogging regularly I feel like I've just got all sorts of random life and pony updates. Lucky you, I'm going to just dump them all in one post and then try to get back on the blogging bandwagon over this next week or so.

Katai has adjusted so well to the new barn. She was right back to herself in very little time. I think that she enjoys the quieter environment. I actually have realized how much I enjoy it as well. I've always enjoyed the social aspect of being at the barn. I enjoy talking horses with people and I always feel more motivated to ride when there are other people there. However, knowing that I'll always have the arena to myself and that there won't be people watching means that I have an easier time concentrating on my riding and Katai rather than what other people are doing which is amazing.

Hussy mare is pretty sure she's in love
with Serenade, her neighbor mare

Jane is absolutely amazing! She provides really good, individualized care to all of the horses. What's really nice is that she treats them all almost like they're her own. She really loves Katai and treats her that way. Katai clearly is already very attached to her which is amazing and brings a really good feeling to our lessons where I can tell how much Jane cares about both of us having fun and enjoying our ride. She is able to really strike a good balance between pushing me and being very direct while still making it fun and lighthearted. For some reason (I think because of how reasonable and reassuring she is) my lesson anxiety (that I've had for my whole life with both music and riding lessons) is completely gone. I've never felt better about going to a lesson that I do right now with Jane.

I was going to do a lesson recap on the specific things that we covered on Tuesday but instead I'm going to just dump it here because again, it's more of the same. I'm sure everyone is probably getting tired of reading about how much we're improving, how amazing Jane is, how I can't believe how much progress we're making blahblahblah but that was still the case at this week's lesson.

For the first time we really NAILED the leg yield and got that amazing floating consistent trajectory feeling. We also had NO tantrums about canter transitions even though she was in absolutely raging heat. None, not a single bit of pony tantrum. I seriously don't know what magic Jane is working but it's amazing and worth way more than she charges. We also did a ton of canter in each direction and only had one break down to a trot. Plus, again no anticipating or almost no anticipating of the trot-canter transitions. I was so, so, so proud.

Rough water on Lake Superior

As for my personal life, it's been a weird week. I had taken a four day weekend, Saturday-Tuesday this past weekend so new guy and I had a road trip planned up to Duluth, MN. Unfortunately things didn't work out between us but the shit didn't hit the fan until we got to Duluth and spent a few hours walking around and shopping. At that point we had to endure a nearly 3 hour drive back home. It was an emotional car ride. I was, and am, sad and upset that things didn't work but I'm also proud of myself and how I handled things. In the past I would have just bit my tongue, pouted quietly and then dealt with it very passive aggressively once I got back so the fact that I handled it directly and yet politely was a big thing for me. My mom also has a great way of putting things into perspective and reminded me that this is exactly why trips like this are so important while dating since it causes issues to show up when it's easier to deal with, early on.

It was a dark and stormy day even before we decided we weren't a good fit for eachother

The nice thing was that I then had a couple of days at home Monday and Tuesday which I basically spent recovering since I was mentally exhausted and, I think, also was fighting off a cold. I don't normally go to the barn on Monday but did end up going to my lesson on Tuesday as planned (see above). I mainly try to leave all of this relationship stuff out of my blog for reasons like this. However, I was really confident that it was going to work in the first couple of weeks and then very confident that it wouldn't during this road trip and I don't want to hide the big things in my life either. It's a tough balance and I'll probably handle it differently next time. Live and learn.

The reason I brought up future plans is that part of what was so good about this guy and the reason that I was so excited to have found him is that he had very similar goals in life as I do. Then I was going to share that on this blog and realized that since I really haven't talked about it that wouldn't mean much to anyone here. Since this is already kind of a dump post I figured I'd just stick it here.

So, as mentioned I grew up on a farm. I was incredibly lucky to be able to have horses, goats, bunnies, ducks, etc. and yet I always just wanted to live in the city. However, even though I wanted to  live in the city I never doubted that I'd end up in the country again with my own piece of land. It was simply too amazing to be able to care for my own horses my own way for me to board for the rest of my life.

I do love living in the city, pretty much everything about it actually, and I LOVE boarding. It's great to be able to take vacations whenever I want and not to worry about having to do chores when it's -20* out. So, while I'm not in a huge hurry, there's also no doubt in my mind that at some point I want to have my own little farm and a small herd of ponies.

My dream location would be somewhere closer to the west coast. I don't have my heart absolutely set on it but I'd LOVE to be near Portland somewhere. My goal would be to own about 5 acres with a very small european style barn and some really nice large, dry lots with great drainage since ponies can't have much grass. Also, a nice track around the property for trail riding, a nice trailer, very nice fencing, a comfortable heated tack room with washer and dryer and... I could just keep going. There are lots of places that I feel I could be very happy, including near where I live now, but that would be the dream scenario.

Who wouldn't want this perfect tiny kitchen?

As far as living quarters for me (seriously who really thinks about anything outside of the barn) I've wanted a tiny house since before Tiny Houses were so popular. I never really planned or wanted one on wheels but I was going to either build a small apartment in my barn (who wouldn't want to feed the horses in their pajamas) or just a very small house. While I'm still considering a barn apartment I'm also getting very fond of the idea of building a tiny house on a trailer because of the freedom that would give me and also the cost. I'm working hard to get rid of debt and really don't want to turn right around and get myself back in debt. I'd like to have these things before I'm 40 but I also have way too much college debt from my master's degree so I'm trying to be reasonable as well.

Absolutely perfect

Of course not many other people want this mix of things or actually don't want/can't have this sort of life. This guy used to live in OR as a kid and wanted to go back, he actually initiated the conversation about living in a tiny house because I had basically given up on finding someone that wanted that. He also wanted a small piece of property, loved animals, didn't want kids, etc. It was amazing until it wasn't and I'm sad and still sort of dealing with it.

The good thing is that it really pointed out to me what I find most important in life.