Exacerbated (long post feel free to skip)

While I know I haven’t done a good job of updating this blog this year I have still been reading all of the blogs I subscribe to. Reading a couple of posts recently made me want to post an update on what is going on more from my riding perspective and mind set than just a general update so here goes.

 I am, along with at least one other blogger, currently struggling with the move up to second level and really have been since last fall. At first it was because I was getting a lot of attitude from Katai as she also struggled with the new expectations but then it became more because we were consistently derailed. First by saddle fit, then ulcers, then SAD, then more saddle fit issues, then my anxiety, then a new boyfriend, then a new puppy, then the weather, then a barn move, then a longer drive, then more expensive lessons, then the weather again…

This weather? Making riding difficult? No that can't be...

 Yeah, so while I’m certainly struggling with moving to 2nd level that’s been exacerbated by all of the other things going on in my life. It is a two way street though and while I’ve shared a lot about all of the other things there is certainly a component of the barn and riding no longer feeling entirely like my happy place, at least not to the extent that it did. The question then is whether I’m going to let myself continue to be derailed and just not focus on riding as much as I have been or completely let the blog go but I don’t want to do either of those things and honestly my life wouldn’t be complete without horses and working toward some sort of riding accomplishments.

Delicious blueberry, spinach smoothies are one way
to make the high heat and humidity tolerable

 So what am I doing to fix it?

 When I stepped back and analyzed why I was really struggling a couple months ago I found that I’ve added the following:
An additional commute in the morning of 10-15 minutes
An additional commute in the evening of 20-50 minutes
An additional commute to the barn each way of at least 20 minutes
Additional time spent walking puppies (I used to be able to let Veggie out in the backyard) of 10-15 minutes 3-4 times per day
Additional time with my bf

 If you completely cut out the time with my bf that’s an additional hour – hour and 45 minutes for days I don’t go to the barn and an additional hour and 40 minutes to 2 hours and 15 minutes on days when I do go to the barn from how my schedule used to be. When you add in time with bf at home and time with bf doing events that pull me away from home that’s a considerable change from my previously quiet (but also lonely :) schedule.

Lots of days like this with huge thunderheads as our weather wildly swings

Having laid that out I feel less guilty for not being able to get to the barn as much or guilty for our lack of progress. Then when I look at budget as well and that is also tight. Moving into the new apartment, needing to pay for parking every day, boarding at a more expensive barn without lessons included, a new puppy, a new (used) car, needing/wanting to go out on dates with my bf… All of these things were items that I took into account but it still feels tighter than I want which is annoying. The tighter budget means fewer lessons and less ability to do shows and/or clinics.

 With looking at the above there are a lot of things that I can’t control but there are a couple of things that I can control and one of those is the barn where I’m boarding Katai. So yep, you guessed it, I’m moving again. The new barn is cheaper by a good bit, and much closer. I’ll easily save 30-50 minutes each time I go to the barn between the shorter drive and the setup of the barn. I found it through my horse network since, like Jane’s place, it doesn’t have any online presence. I’ll do a post specifically about the barn soon, I’m getting so good at them at this point..

One of the busy weekends spent up north with my bf and his family

I have a couple of other ideas as well to help take some pressure off and bf is amazing as always since after I figured this out we had a long positive and supportive conversation about doing a food prep and chores day together. That way we could both get stuff ready together for our busy weeks since not having food to eat has been one of the huge stressors I’ve been dealing with. We’ve also talked about leaving more weekends open so that we can just veg and hang out together or do our own thing (riding for me and climbing for him) vs. always having stuff scheduled.

 I really like this guy.

 There are a couple of other plans in the works to help with reducing my scheduled time but right now they’re just in the beginning stages so nothing I’m comfortable sharing yet. It is making me feel like there is a light at the end of the tunnel though. Work has also gotten better in the last couple of weeks thanks to a shift in how our department workflows function and because we added some additional staff. I’m also receiving a promotion which is fantastic :) That all means that my stress should be far lower when I get home which will make for less need to veg and more ability to do the things I want to do.

Another busy weekend spent in NC with my bf for one of his friend's wedding

 As far as what I’m doing to help with my riding?

 I love my current trainer. She’s an amazing person and the tools she gave me to help with Katai’s ground work have made a significant difference. As long as I keep doing my homework I’m confident that next time I show I’ll have a much easier time getting through to Katai which was exactly what I hoped to gain from her. However, she has seemed to me to be uncomfortable helping me get to 2nd level and has encouraged me to clinic vs. taking dressage lessons with her. I truly appreciate her honesty, and, it’s then tough to feel like it makes sense to invest in many lessons with her.

At the new barn there is a dressage instructor that I follow on social media and who is riding at least a couple levels above me. In addition, there is another, locally well known, dressage instructor nearby who has a history of bringing riders up the levels. At this point I’m still comfortable mainly going it alone for a while both to help with my current level of burnout (weekly lessons just aren’t a thing I can do right now) and because we still really need to build strength more than anything else. However, being able to take a lesson a month or as needed to ensure we’re headed in the right directly would be amazing.

 Of course it’s also going to be extremely helpful to be so much closer to the barn. That will help reduce my burnout, increase my motivation to go, and make it easier to get there even when I have more limited time. More than anything I need to get back into a 5 day routine since Katai is not doing well on the 2-3 days a week that I’ve been managing for the past couple of crazy months. So, I finally feel like I have at least the beginning of a plan in place.

Hopefully the reduction in stress and increase in available time will mean I can increase my blogging as well but my first goal is to get my riding back to where it needs to be and then hopefully the blogging will follow!

Not So Super

My parent's road after one of the recent snow storms

Whelp, the Super Bowl is happening in Minneapolis today and me and all of my friends have been whining about it for at least a month now. It's not only causing there to be crazy traffic and limiting the places that I want to, or am able to, go this weekend it's also caused my boyfriend to leave town for the weekend and it's delaying my move to my new apartment which is right in downtown Minneapolis not that far from the new stadium.

I'm going to try to go to the barn later but with the traffic, the snow that got dumped on us last night, and the worry about more drunk drivers on the roads I'm still feeling a little hesitant. Plus the high today is only 6* if you don't count the windchill.

Saddle on the way to VTO, I just want it back!!

I've been spending the weekend cleaning and packing for my move which will start on Tuesday. I've also been enjoying spending lots of time with Moshy who's gotten the short end of the stick recently as far as my time goes.

Riding wise I'm still failing at making any progress. My saddle did finally get to VTO last week but I haven't heard anything about paying to ship it back which means that it likely won't be on it's way back until mid week next week. In the meantime I've been doing my absolute best to get to the barn to do spa days and lunge Katai but it's just been one thing after another including spending time with Jame's family since his grandfather is dying, crazy snowy/cold weather (we have gotten SO MUCH SNOW recently), still dealing with some SAD emotional things (although thankfully it's been better for this past week or so), and apartment things. I'm also still doing puppy class with Moshy on Wednesday evenings which makes that night tough.

My little squirrel trying to hide her bone in her pile of toys.
Also, yes that is a huge avocado toy, we're true millennials over here.

I'm going to do better with that and with blogging soon I promise! It's February so the worst month of the year is over and now we just have one more really cold month but it's a short one :) I'll get my saddle back soon too and that will be really helpful and much more motivation to get to the barn. Our weather/personal situation enforced break is almost over and I'm getting so pumped to get back to this again!

Fall Blahs

I LOVE fall. Usually our weather is gorgeous and it’s my happy place temperature wise with temps normally around the 50s-low 70s. However, like all our other weird weather this year we’ve had two spikes up into the 90s in between the 60s. The cooler weather came earlier than normal which was lovely but these weird 30 degree spikes are rough and migraine causing for me. I ended up with a migraine (although I actually caught it before it got too horrible this time) on Thursday and then Friday was 93. Because of that, despite my goals of making it out at least 4 times this past week I only made it out 3.

Part of that is that I still don’t have a saddle. Despite VTO’s quick turnaround time I miscalculated how long shipping takes with a box that large. It was either $40 to ship for 5-6 day shipping time for $106 for 2-3 day shipping so I went with the longer option. I know my saddle has gone to the adjuster at this time but with shipping back likely taking at least as long I don’t even know if it will arrive this week. That’s more than two weeks without a saddle and I’m starting to worry that Katai is going to gain back enough pudge that the, now narrower, saddle won’t fit when it gets back. I did end up talking with Jane on Sunday and she suggested that I try one of her back up saddles. I was doubtful but it actually fit pretty well so I’m going to try it out tonight and then possible ride in it for my lesson tomorrow.

It’s a really rough time for this to be happening since my friends, who are still looking at moving, are wanting to watch another one of my lessons before they make the decision. Oh well, I needed to get my saddle adjusted and this time as is good as any since I don’t have any shows or clinics coming up.

In the meantime I’m planning to get out to the barn 5 times again. Even if this borrowed saddle doesn’t fit well enough for me to ride in it I’ll be lunging and doing some bareback rides. Plus I still want to get a bath in for Katai before the weather gets too much colder. It's looking like our weather is going to be more consistent for the next week or so and I'm hoping that my body adjusts again so that I can enjoy it!

Monday [lack of] Motivation

I figured Olivia's comment needed it's own post this week because there was a behind the scenes moment that I had to share when I read her comment.

Olivia @ DIY Horse OwnershipAugust 28, 2017 at 1:36 PM

"Good job! I have to say she looks so white and clean despite all the mud. I can't even keep my non white horses clean; I don't know how you do it."

I really wish I had some fantastic story about how much elbow grease I put into keeping Katai so white and shiny but the truth is that she's had two baths this year and those were both prior to August...

Yeah, I didn't bathe my pony before this show. She was just still so white that it seemed silly! I probably still would have given her a bath if I hadn't expected the rain but as it was it seemed silly to put any more time in when I knew she was going to get covered in mud. Deeefffinetly won laziest horse owner award especially since I didn't even use a spot remover, just went through our normal grooming routine before we left. 

Katai really is just a princess pony and doesn't like to lay in her own poop :)

Cliff

Well, I feel like my rides have completely fallen off a cliff recently. It's not so much that I lack motivation, just a combination of things. Last week I rode 4 times but this week I'm going to have ridden 1 time, yep, 1 time or sort of 2 since I kind of rode bareback on Wednesday.

Proof of my laziness.
Also, all the sweat is just from standing, I hadn't even ridden at this point

The main thing is the heat. We had another big swing up in temperature, this time with really high humidity so the horses are sweating standing still in front of their fans. I'm certainly not going to ride (other than the 10 minutes I spent walking with a bit of trotting bareback) in that sort of situation.

Monday was an amazing ride. I did a full 45 minutes and we got the most AMAZING lengthening at the end of the ride. Then the fourth of July with fireworks going off everywhere and then finally the heat hit.

and spending lots of time grooming so
we could spend time in front of Katai's favorite fan.

Of course Friday-Sunday she won't be ridden either since I'll be at Pony Cup!!! I'm really looking forward to this trip and know that I'll be really motivated when I get back.

Unfortunately it is going to be tougher to meet my July goals. Once I get back from KY I'll have two full weeks of pony time and I'm going to make sure they're action packed! Then I'll likely be in Seattle for around 11 days straight from the 23rd through the beginning of August.

Then the plan is for no travel until my next horse show which is planned for August 26th or 27th!! Straight from there I'm taking the last week in August off through Labor day and will be traveling to Rochester, NY to visit my sister and hopefully meet Bobby from Poor Woman Showing. I can't wait! Even better, I'll likely be traveling Wednesday-Saturday but will have the rest of the time to spend time recuperating from the show and having a fun staycation :)