Lesson(s) Recap

My, apparently doubtful, co-pilot for Christmas shopping this past week.

One thing I’m hoping to do in the new year is more lesson recaps. I started this blog to journal what happens with Katai and my journey and since not much has been happening over this past year I’m not too disappointed that I haven’t been blogging as much but I do still wish that I’d been documenting more of it. With that in mind I’m going to try to catch up a little on what’s going on now so that I can start the new year in a good place.

First, I don’t think I’ve talked much about my current lesson format or it was a long time ago and we’ve all forgotten so let’s start there. I’m currently taking e/o week lessons with the trainer that works at the barn and rents the house there. She has a lot of training horses (and a couple of her own) and teaches lessons to a good chunk of the people who board at my barn. We’ll call her K. She is also how I found this barn. I’d followed her on Instagram knowing that she was in MN and she has a fantastic account. I always drooled over the really cute arena and after commenting on one of her Instagram stories and having her respond I finally asked where she boarded and found out about my current barn.

The results of our labor. Lots of tasty things, a few gifts, and some yummy alcohol

 There were so many reasons why I moved but the ability to work with her as a coach was a big one and luckily it’s proving to be just as great as I’d hoped. K is so, so low key. She can get really intense when needed but she’s just much more relaxed than previous instructors I’ve worked with and I really love it. I’m an adult and I do this for fun but my fun is to work on it really intensely and take myself way too seriously so having a coach who just is a little more relaxed and not such a perfectionist (which I so am) is extremely refreshing and really helps me not stress or dread my lessons. She’s really great about pushing and asking for new things but also not pushing past a point of comfort and even better she’s really got Katai pegged (probably since she’s very like her own mare) and is very thoughtful about how we approach things so that we don’t push Katai so far past her comfort zone that she hates the work. She does this in her own work with her mare too sometimes doing just groundwork, taking her out on the trails, or riding in a side pull. I can’t even tell you how nice it is to work with someone that knows how much those sorts of things can still help progress with dressage and just building a relationship with your horse.

Don’t get me wrong, I still miss Jane who was almost like a second mom, therapist, and friend. I’m not sure if I’ll work with an instructor who is so keyed in to what I need to do to improve and who holds me to such high standards again. Hopefully I’ll have that opportunity but if not, the skills she taught me are helping me in everything still so I’m incredibly appreciative.

 

One of the bf's extended family Christmases.
This was only about half of the gifts that showed up.

Back to the lesson recaps though! Our first couple of lessons were really allowing K to get used to me and Katai. Both of us were also incredibly unfit (and getting used to riding in a very small arena) so they were pretty messy and there were some mini meltdowns on Katai’s part. Fast forward to about 3 or 4 lessons in though and I had a HUGE breakthrough with the canter mechanic. Jane had been using the wording of keeping my body up and down which I think was making me shut down Katai’s stride and causing her to get sticky and pissy. I’m sure that Jane didn’t mean what I was doing but I couldn’t figure out how to do it differently. K had me concentrating on sitting up into the stride, without getting light in my seat, and half halting at the height of the stride. I had been thinking more of half halting on the down feeling and holding myself into her back. With K’s help calling out when I should be half halting I was able to feel it and it was such an amazing thing. Since then I’ve been able to replicate it and with that we’re finally getting Katai’s canter (and my canter mechanic) truly under control.

We’ve also had some nice breakthroughs with some of the items, or one main item really, that were getting us stuck in our 2^ndlevel progress. Basically Katai doesn’t listen to my halting cues or she gets so upset that she has a meltdown and we can’t continue. K has been so great about making it more light and playful and helping make the change without demanding it and then just moving on. We’re working on all halts and half halts. Everything from when I’m leading, to lunging, to riding at all gaits and in all movements. That leads us to my last lesson which was on the evening of my birthday.

 

So tough to choose exactly the right thing for Mimosa's. I decided to get bf's opinion

Unfortunately I’d had an awful day (really tough conversation with a staff person right at the end of the day) at work and my anxiety was high which I let K know when we walked in. K is really good at not babying anyone but I think she could tell that I was a little shaky and emotional so she let me know that we’d try to keep it pretty easy and just do stuff that I felt like handling. Recently there have been a couple of days where the canter wheels fell off the bus so we decided to work primarily on walk and trot since she knows I can handle the on my own as/if it comes up and it was unlikely we'd make progress with it that night.

To start we worked on getting her really through at the walk and really “oozing” forward on the bit at the walk. I did some leg yield to get her accepting the leg aids without dropping behind the contact and coming up. After a good long walk warm up with lots of lateral work we went to trot and really focused on keeping her down and forward. We worked on me pushing the contact forward like a wheelbarrow and really allowing her to find her balance at that lower place since her default is to come up. We actually got some really good work like that and did a few nice leg yield in either direction. We took a walk break and talked about what we were going to do next and we decided to work on her 2^nd level balance.

 

Sneak peek of some of my gifts. These were from K, my new trainer

The exercise was to do a shoulder in and then halt part way down the wall. Trot halts are pretty good but still a slight stretch so that goal wasn’t to get a perfect halt, just to introduce that it’s a thing we do and it’s ok to stop, with her weight balanced back, and then trot forward again still in SI. Once we started working on halt, while in a lateral movement, the wheels fell off a little so we did a lot of work accepting the try and making it into more of a game. By the end she was at least trying to understand the question rather than just getting tight and resisting. I’m really happy with how far we’ve come in such a short period of time with only e/o week lessons.

In addition, K is the first training I’ve worked with in a while who will ride her clients’ horses. Because of that and because of my goals for moving up to 2^nd level for at least one show at the end of the year this year I’ve asked if she could start putting a couple of rides on Katai. She’s going to ride for part of my next lesson and then we’ll talk about how many rides and when. I’m not going to be able to afford to do it on a really regular basis at this point but I do think it would help us break through this barrier that we’ve been facing and hopefully, at the least, help K know some of Katai’s quirks that much better as she’s teaching us from the ground.

No new Katai pictures, I've seen her a few times this week but didn't have much time for pictures.
I can't wait to work with her tomorrow!!

Because I've been taking e/o Tuesday lessons and Christmas and New Years are on Tuesday this year we haven't figured out when my next lesson will be yet but likely the week after New Years. I can't wait!

There are some other exciting things that are starting to materialize in my life so fingers crossed I'll have more to share soon :) Also, Merry Christmas!!!

Adjusting

Blurry but beastie pony :)

There has been so much to adjust to over this past year and I have to say that for the first time in quite a while I feel like I have a really sustainable routine. The main thing was moving Katai so much closer and changing from going home after work and then going to the barn after dinner to going directly to the barn after work. That’s possible thanks to having a partner able to help with puppy duty

My current routine Sunday-Saturday goes like this.

Sunday: No barn time. We’ve had two different DnD groups that meet on alternate weekends from about 1-7 so that pretty much takes up the majority of the day. We’ve now started leaving the morning open for my bf and I to do things together often involving house work and prepping for playing DnD the rest of the day

Monday: I wear clothes to work that are useable at the barn such as a sports bra and tops that are layered and will be ok to ride in. I bring breeches and socks and have my winter boots in the car. I carry my new grooming kit with me into work (everyone already thinks I’m weird so I’m over it) so that none of my stuff freezes. After work I change into breeches and tall socks in the public work restroom and then when I get to my car I put on my winter boots. I also bring with both lunch and dinner so that I can eat both at work and not starve. Most days I’m leaving work around 4:15-4:30 all ready for the barn. I typically get to the barn between 4:30-5:00 depending on when I left and how bad traffic was. On quiet days it’s less than 20 minutes and on bad traffic days it’s closer to 30 so not bad at all! Normally by then Katai is in her stall eating so I groom and tack up with her loose in her stall so that she can eat some of her dinner before I ride. I spend around 40-50 minutes in the arena between warmup, riding, and cool down, and then put her back in her stall to keep eating while I untack and groom. I typically give her more alfalfa pellets when I get back (since I purchase them for the barn to feed) and I like to help keep her calories up during the winter. I typically leave the barn between 6:00 and 6:30 and am home by 7 but often closer to 6:30-6:45.

Tuesday: Same as Monday only e/o week I have my lesson from 5:00-5:30 so I leave work slightly early and rush to get there and get ready on time to be in the arena just before 5 to warm up.

Wednesday: Typically this is the only week day that I don’t go to the barn. That means that I have an awful, rush hour drive home and spend about 45 minutes in the car in stop and go traffic.

Thursday: Same as Monday

Friday: Same as Monday

Saturday: I typically ride in the morning and head to the barn from home. I was always going to the barn both weekend days but since my drive is actually longer from home than work and it’s now easier to go after work Saturday is typically the only weekend day I go out. My drive is typically about 30 minutes depending on how silly all the weekend drivers are being. This is now pretty much the only day where I’m not tacking Katai up in her stall while she eats. I was a little worried that she’d forget how to come into the barn on her own and stand nicely in the cross ties but, knock on wood, she’s been a really good lady and remember all of her manners. I groom, tack up, and normally ride in the arena by myself which is nice. I typically take a little more time on Saturday unless we have plans so I’m able to do more grooming, trim her mane, work on her feet etc.

The only other thing that varies during the week is that my trainer typically teaches lessons M-W so Mondays and Tuesday (especially when I don’t have a lesson on Tuesday) are typically pretty busy. I’ve started to plan ahead for that and not plan to do anything too intense or that is too disruptive such as ground poles on those days. Thursday- Saturday I typically have the arena to myself so I do those things on one of those days.

Recently the weather has been really nice so that hasn’t altered this at all and I’ve got my fingers crossed that maybe we’ll continue to have the mild winter that we’re supposed to have!

Black Friday Shopping

This Black Friday was pretty boring for me. I got the fantastic grooming bag that I mentioned in my previous post but otherwise I didn't get much that was especially fun.

I did finally get a couple of Eskadron pony polo wraps in black and light pink. I already love the length, softness, width, and velcro set up but I'll do a review after I've used them for a while. I now have polo wraps in all of the colors of saddle pads that I use regularly so I can match #dressagequeen.

I also finally got a couple of sets of LeMieux bandage pads one set of four in black and one in white. Since Katai can't stand boots and polo wraps alone don't offer that much protection I decided that it made sense to upgrade and see what I think of these. I got each set of four for only $24 plus some change when normally on most websites they would have cost me $50. Not bad at all really!

Like these

We'll see what I think once I've had a chance to use these more as well.

I also picked up a set of, what I thought were, winter breeches but turned out to be summer breeches. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one that assumes the word thermal means winter gear. Oh well, I'll just exchange them for the same Horze pair that I have and love.

I also got a planner specifically so that I can plan out my rides better. I feel like at this point in our training it's taking more planning to actually accomplish what I want to between lessons and I'm hoping that having it laid out at least in a framework in a planner will help. It should also help me plan out when I'm going to ride better since I can make sure I don't run into conflicts like I have been a lot this past couple of months.

In pink of course

I also got a package of Lexol tack wipes. They aren't my preference for tack cleaning but for in between wipe downs of my saddle and bridle they'll work great. I've been using a damp cloth but I don't have a good place to put it now with the unheated barn where it won't freeze.

Last but not least I picked up another Asmar long sleeve tee. Awhile ago I snagged a bright orange one while I was checking out tack stores in WA or OR (I can't remember which) that was on clearance. I love it but also wanted one that was, you know, a more normal color. These were on sale at RW so I got the heather grey one and I'm already looking forward to wearing it more. At some point I want the black one and the navy blue one but this is a good start!

Overall I'm really excited about my purchases (other than those darn breeches) and will share more pictures and maybe a review or two soon!

End of an Era

So cute and so stained.
 It was also getting too small for all my stuff

Back when I moved into what I still consider my first "real" boarding situation I had a tack locker that was school sized. I actually sort of liked the set up at that barn with a large room for saddles and personal lockers just for the smaller stuff. Too bad the trainer who owned the place, J, was so awful.

Back when it was much less stained.
Also, I know I've mentioned it before but I still miss that pink lined bridle

At any rate at that point I knew that I needed something to hold my brushes that could fit in that space and when I went to the horse expo they had these containers and were able to personalize them. I've used this one ever since which has been about 4.5 years.

It's worked so well that I've never shopped for new ones but I realized that at my current barn where there is no heat I needed to figure out a different method. The problem is that I can't bring any liquids including first aid supplies since I don't want that stuff to sit in my car and freeze. I was carrying a "barn bag" back and forth with me which was basically a canvas tote bag but it was all just dumped in the bottom and it was tough to find what I wanted.

When the black Friday sales started I casually was looking for totes and organizers and found this!

Puppy for scale (she loves posing for pictures hehe)

See I hate the ones with the draw string bag type top. It's clumsy in my opinion and makes it really tough to find what you need. This one unzips at the top and has lots of separate compartments which makes it awesome. I have a tone of stuff in it including all of the first aid stuff I'm likely to need, polo wraps and bandages, brushes, and tack cleaning wipes. Along the outside I have all of my grooming spray and detangled as well as scissors and a few other odds and ends.

Because it has the handy shoulder strap it's easy to carry to work and then the barn each day that I plan to ride and that way I don't have to worry about any of it freezing. Since it zips closed it also keeps the majority of hair and barn smell contained. So far I really like this grooming bag and its working really well for me.

October Goals Analysis

Winter's here!

Well it's almost the end of November and I never got this posted since I was waiting on more media. I'm going to go ahead and post this anyway and should be able to post the next one at a more appropriate time :)

Also, happy Thanksgiving!

My goals for October are to get back to more consistency. I don’t really care what I accomplish but I at least want to go through the motions with the following things.

-Get to the barn 4-5 times per week
               I did pretty well with this. There was a week where I made it out a solid 5 times but there were at least two weeks were I was at the barn 4 times. I didn’t ride as much as I hoped but the goal wasn’t to ride a certainly amount of time, rather it was to just go.

-Groom better
                I did pretty well with this one. I trimmed Katai’s mane, took better care of her tail, trimmed her bridle path, and a few weeks ago I got her partially clipped!

Time to start watching Christmas movies clearly :)

-Dress like we mean it (both me and Katai)
                Katai has been looking like a million dollars with matching polos, saddle pads, and browbands. I haven’t been looking as put together partially because I’m still figuring out the whole going straight to the barn from work thing. I’ve typically been trying to wear the same top throughout the day (thank goodness for not having a dress code at work) and then I just put on breeches at the end of the day. It does mean that I’m wearing my most work appropriate tops though which don’t always go well with my breeches but oh well.

-Take two lessons
                Nope but there were scheduling difficulties on both sides and I was really glad that my coach agreed with me on not trying to take a lesson when I knew that Katai’s ulcers were bothering her.

-Have barefoot trimmer friend check my hoof improvement work (third week in October)
                Done and I got some praise on how nice Katai’s feet were looking!

-Build up to Katai wearing the BoT sheet for longer periods
                Yep!

I haven't decorated our apartment yet
but the decorations where I work are very festive.

On to November:
For November I’m hoping to get pretty much back to where we were when I left Jane’s
-Get to the barn 5+ times per week
-Make sure at least 1-2 of those times are not riding and work on other necessary things such as ground work, trailer loading(?), etc.
-Take two more lessons
-Continue with grooming better as possible with fluffy pony

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.

Shopping

This may sound silly but I knew I was feeling better mentally and motivation wise with horse stuff when I wanted to do some shopping again.

Yes, I’m pretty sure I’m officially a tack whore.

I had picked up a few things since I last posted much but nothing too exciting. I got a couple pairs of summer appropriate breeches and a couple of warm weather shirts. I also got some fly gear and other assorted summer items all from Riding Warehouse. I had also picked up a rope halter and lead rope since the main thing I was working on with S2 was natural horsemanship techniques and I didn’t have appropriate gear for that.

Honestly, whenever I move barns I feel like I need to get at least one or two things in order to have what I need with the new set up. At this barn I needed to reassess my winter gear and pick up another blanket for Katai, namely one with a neck cover. I’m not quite sure what this winter will bring but I’m pretty sure that I’ll be riding enough that I’ll need to clip. I’m going to go pretty conservative at first since I’m not sure how Katai handle the lack of heated barn and heated arena but I want to make sure I’m prepared so I picked up this pretty blanket so that I’d have one with a neck.

I spent the additional money on this name brand since I have two of the liners for this system and they also sell various, different weight neck covers. Hopefully that will give me some flexibility to make sure she stays warm and dry. This time I didn’t need much more than that. I may pick up a blanket bag for the front of Katai’s stall but with the move I’m really needing to stick to my budget so I’m going to make what I have now work, and store stuff in my car for the time being, and will just figure it out as I go. However, that doesn’t mean that I didn’t do some shopping just for fun. The items I have on my list for potential future splurge purchases (maybe Christmas and birthday money?) are:

Now Katai can finally be a proper pony ;)

HKM Flower Power pony dressage pad

Eskadron bandage liners

Eskadron polos in pink (can you believe I don’t have any pink polo wraps?!?)

PS of Sweden grooming bag (totally over the top but the space to store my phone and separate brushes sold me on this one)

Updated Goals

My new coach made this adorable name plate for Katai's stall

I think it’s safe to say that I pretty much failed/will fail all of my 2018 goals. Rather than ignoring that and coasting for the rest of the year or feeling defeated by goals that are no longer appropriate I’m going to make some new goals.

October:
My goals for October are to get back to more consistency. I don’t really care what I accomplish but I at least want to go through the motions with the following things.

-Get to the barn 4-5 times per week
-Groom better
-Dress like we mean it (both me and Katai)
-Take two lessons
-Have barefoot trimmer friend check my hoof improvement work (third week in October)
-Build up to Katai wearing the BoT sheet for longer periods

November:
For November I’m hoping to get pretty much back to where we were when I left Jane’s
-Get to the barn 5+ times per week
-Make sure at least 1-2 of those times are not riding and work on other necessary things such as ground work, trailer loading(?), etc.
-Take two more lessons
-Continue with grooming better as possible with fluffy pony

December Goals:
For December I’m taking the pressure off both of us since I know it’s going to be tough to accomplish much while we adjust to the cold at a non-heated barn and with the holidays
-Step back a bit and have some fun including reducing to going to the barn 4-5 times per week
-Teach at least one “useful” trick such as targeting and/or stretching
-Focus on varying fitness with poles etc.
-Keep up on trimming Katai’s feet even with the cold
-Adjust to the cold in a non-heated barn
-Take at least one lesson

It's important to inspect inside one's nostrils 

Big picture goals for the rest of the year:
These are my bigger goals that I want to work on through the rest of the year
-Work on the following to strengthen the canter
                -Use square corners (at all gaits)
                -Straight rein backs, lots of them
                -Strengthen the walk to strengthen the canter. Focus more on walk and making sure that it’s mechanically strong and not just the gait that we do when we’re tired.
                -Canter/Walk/Canters -Get her stronger on the outside rein
-Re-address half halt (as a horse that has a tendency to rear my tendency has been to push her forward and rush her. In addition she’s a very forward horse. At this point though she needs to understand and listen to my half halts and halting aids and reply promptly)
-Start yoga on a consistent basis to gain strength and flexibility. My funds are short for the rest of the year so I’m going to follow in other bloggers’ footsteps and start following YouTube videos. Let me know if any of you have any suggestions for good ones!
-Lose some weight again. I swear there’s a thing with being in a relationship that’s as bad or worse than the freshman 15. I’ve put on a decent amount of weight and I’d like to lose it again. Luckily we live in an apartment that has an amazing, free gym!
-If the opportunity arises, ride in a clinic

Tack Storage

With the moves, for me and Katai, I needed to do a significant amount of downsizing. Not only did I lose storage space at the barn, I also lost a lot of storage space at the apartment.

At my last apartment I had an entire closet (that was pretty large) full of stuff as well as a large tack trunk. Even then I was often busting out of that space so it only made sense that when I moved in with another person I couldn’t necessarily expect to use the same amount of space for my passion (ie: buying all the horse things). However, I also wasn’t willing to get rid of TOO much stuff so when we officially signed the lease for this apartment I right away “called” one of the small hallway closets.

Tough to tell from this picture but at my old apartment
I had this HUGE closet and it was packed full of horse stuff. This doesn't even include the stuff I had in my antique horse trunk or my tack locker at the barn.

I wasn’t sure exactly how I’d fit all of my stuff in that space but I knew that I needed some dedicated space for all of the tack and horse items that I couldn’t keep at the barn and that I wanted that to be near the front door in a space where it could be a little messy as barn stuff often is. I had just been tossing stuff in there and it was reaching cartoonish levels when I saw an Instagram story from my new instructor of her tack set up. She had a full tack room to work with and I only had a small closet so I knew that I’d need to get creative to make my plan work but at least I now had something in mind. With that I began measuring the space I had and shopping online.

It just so happened that Target had a sale on shelves so while I started with looking on Amazon I quickly found something even better on Target. Unfortunately none of the dimensions worked out exactly the way I wanted but since I didn’t want to go custom I needed to find something close.

What it looks like now! Much smaller closet but much cuter organization :)

In the end, I purchased these really cute cube shelves! They may not be ideal from a storage set up perspective but for the cost they work well and the ability to use the storage cubes to organize all the small items is invaluable. I also had been wanting to hang my saddle pads for a long time and after seeing my instructor’s set up I settled on that as part of the plan. With that in mind I bought an adjustable curtain rod and two holders, one storage cube (I already had the other two), a couple of hangers and voila!

It doesn’t fit perfectly, the fact that it can’t be flush with the trim drives me very slightly nuts (but no way am I pulling the trim in an apartment and incurring the cost to fix it when we move out) but I can deal with that especially for the cost. Overall I think everything cost me just about $65 which I can definitely live with!

New Barn Feels

First I just want to put a note that I've been trying to comment on everyone's blogs but for some reason google isn't allowing me to submit comments. I thought it was just a temporary thing one day but I'm still not able to at this point. I'm going to reach out to support to get it figured out but in the meantime just know that I'm still reading them all!

Mostly I’m loving the new barn. I adore the arena which is the perfect combination of cozy, cute, and had pretty decent footing. It’s not spacious by any means but two people can ride fairly comfortably in it and, let’s face it, Katai is tiny so if I can’t maneuver her around a space this size I don’t have any hope of getting any geometry correct in any test at this point ;)

Katai has a nice sized stall, the hay is amazing, I love having a nice low key trail just outside her paddock, there’s a grazing pen for horses that are in dry lots just so that they can have a mini graze while their people hang out, 99% of the people are great (just like any barn), there are a ton of very long term boarders, the barn manger is FANTASTIC, and I really like my new instructor.

The only drawback so far has been that 1% of people here (let’s be honest, that’s one person) haven’t been very nice but I can handle myself and I’m hoping that with time that will calm down (side note, it's already gotten better between when I typed up this post and when I posted it). It’s never been an issue for me before since I’m good at making friends, I work hard, I’ve been around horses since I was 7 so I know a few things, I have good communication skills, and I tend to get along with everyone but for some reason there’s one person here who I apparently rub the wrong way. Oh well, we can’t all be friends with everyone.

The other main drawback is that the two larger, outdoor arenas are fairly rocky. They’re fine for most horses but Katai is barefoot and we’re rehabbing her hooves right now so she’s still a little tender. The last thing I want is for her to not trust her footing so we’ve just avoided both arenas for the most part. With winter coming it isn’t worth worrying about but we have a couple of ideas for how to combat it next year if her hooves still aren’t at the gravel crushing phase.

The best thing is that Katai has been calm, happy, relaxed, and just seems really content at this barn. She was happy at Janes but still had more anxious energy than she does here and it’s a huge improvement from the last barn where she constantly seemed to be in flight or fight mode for some reason. I’m also loving the cost and the much, much shorter commute.

In addition, K (my new instructor) is nicely low key and relaxed about things while still having great suggestions and I love how she explains theory. She’s also already talking about bringing me to shows next year which would be amazing. I’m excited to keep taking lessons with her and see how far we can go together! I also have plans with one of the amazing barn people who invited me to go to a hunter pace with her! With weather and other things we aren't going to be able to do the hunter pace this year but hopefully next year and we already have plans for a trail ride in a couple weeks!

Zen

There are so many new things going on that I don’t even know where to start! I was going to just post a bunch of updates in the one post but I’m getting tired of doing that so instead I’m going to do a bunch of more involved update posts about some of the things that are happening in my life right now.

During the move. Luckily it's cleaner now but not quite
where I'd feel comfortable sharing a picture on the internet

To start this off my boyfriend and I have successfully moved into our apartment together! This marks a huge step for me since I’ve never lived with a significant other. I can’t imagine a more amazing person to experience this with though. Yes, I’m pretty sappy about all of it.

Walking Moshy in our "backyard"

Our new apartment has amazing views of a couple of Minneapolis landmarks and we’ve got a great view from our public roof top. The gym is amazing, now I just need to make use of it, as are all of the other public spaces. I love the layout of our apartment as well as the fixtures and we have in unit laundry which is fantastic. We’re still in the moving in phase, even though we’re mostly unpacked, and working to find homes for some of those last pesky things. We also have a few more things to pick up from James’ apartment but 90% of our stuff is here at this point.

Moshy's favorite place to play guard dog

We were also excited to be entertaining friends for the first time this past Sunday doing something extremely nerdy *cough* D&D *cough* and we’re both looking forward to being able to do things like this. Neither of our past apartments were good for having people over so that was one of the things on our checklist when we picked this place.

We have gorgeous views!

It is still a bit small so we’ve both had to downsize a bit. Space wise it feels huge compared to my last apartment, which was only about 400 sq ft but that apartment only needed to fit my stuff and since my bf owned a home at one point he has way more things than I do. We’ve both done quite a bit of downsizing and have a bit more to go but we’re getting there and it’s starting to feel less cluttered. I also came up with a really cool set up for my horse stuff, at least the horse stuff I’ve been able to keep through the downsizing, but that’s for one of the next posts!

At night the view from our public access rooftop is spectacular