March Goals

I’m not even going to attempt to recap any goals for this year since we basically haven’t accomplished anything in 2019 yet beyond lots of vacation time. However in continuing with the theme of trying to post more positive things, looking ahead to the rest of March, and what I hope to accomplish, feels good.

Blog More:

My hope is that even if the weather continues to be awful I can still do some more blogging. I’m sure I can find things to blog about even if they aren’t substantial riding updates.

I also want to start trying to get more media even if it’s the snow outside our apartment, Katai eating hay in her stall, or Katai being fluffy and rolling in the arena.

Fitness:

My bf (who has a lot of yoga experience) finally convinced me to go to my first yoga class last Saturday. Unfortunately for him this ended up being a way more difficult class than it should have which made me slightly frustrated and left me feeling a little defeated. I HATE group fitness classes of any sort with a passion and while I was really hopeful that yoga would feel different this one didn’t. We went to a Vinyasa 1 class that apparently was more like a difficult Vinyasa 2 class and the class was packed so the yoga teacher wasn’t able to spend much time with anyone.

At any rate my amazing bf persevered and has convinced me to go to a yoga fundamentals class next Thursday. I’m actually looking forward to this one! I do want to do yoga, I just want to gain some understanding of how to do things correctly and then do it on my own at home and maybe just occasionally join him for a class.

Along with yoga I’m hoping to spend more time in our apartment gym even if that’s just walking on the treadmill and doing core work outs. I really want to get more in shape as I’m increasing my ride frequency.

Bone collection, check
Nap, check

Plan for Shows?:

This one unfortunately is pretty up in the air. I don’t know how I’ll show this year. I’m not sure who I’d trailer with, which trailer I could borrow if any, how much budget I’ll have for showing, or where Katai and I will be riding wise. Right now I’m planning to take things as they come and take opportunities as I can.

I’m very much going to be working to make sure we can show a handful of times this year but if that’s schooling shows this fall that’s ok. For that reason I haven’t paid for any memberships yet but will be proceeding with that if needed. However, I would like to go through and mark some shows that I’m interested in and try to keep those weekends open/start talking with a couple of the people I board with to see if they’d want to join me.

Additional Lessons/Clinic:

I’ve been working with K to do a few weekly lessons (vs. bi-weekly). Unfortunately the weather has been totally derailing this but I’m hoping that the next couple of weeks in March will work for this.

I’ve also signed up for “clinic” with a local, upper level dressage trainer. This person is K’s trainer (KM) and actually the first person I ever took a dressage lesson with way back when. It was supposed to be this past Saturday but, continuing the theme, was canceled based on the weather and was rescheduled for 3/30. My hope is that by then I’ll have had some good rides, a couple lessons at least, and will be feeling more prepared. This person is one option for additional lessons once K moves and I already have tentatively also planned to ride with her on 4/20.

We (the bf, his sister and I) went to Two Cellos
and also got to see Jon McLaughlin who opened for them

Finalize plans for once K is gone:

It’s extremely sad that K is going to be gone the end of this month. I’m going to work hard this month to get as many lesson with her as possible and then finalize plans for once she’s gone. I’ve stepped out of one of my Sunday DnD groups as of last Sunday so I now have more weekend time available which may mean that I can more easily get lessons with K when she’s here. I’m hoping to finalize that within the next couple of weeks.

In addition I’m going to continue to figure out additional options including the following;

• KM may be coming out once per month through summer and will most likely be coming out once per month at least until summer. When I clinic with her at the end of the month I’m planning to talk through plans with her as well as far as when I could get lessons with her.
• The gold medalist instructor who’s lessons I audited this past month also offered a lesson or two on her lesson horses. I may make a plan to do so either this month or next to keep that door open. Of course I also think it would be good for my continuing dressage education to ride a more trained horse and take advantage of any and all lesson opportunities.
• I’m also going to continue to look at other options for moving Katai whether for later this year or in the future just because in continuing to have conversations about it with my support system I think that making sure we have a place to land if/when this place closes is pretty important at this point.

Layers

What an appropriate name for this blog post. First, we’ve got the layers of snow. Snow that JUST KEEPS FREAKING FALLING and won’t give me a long enough break to get to the barn.

Seriously guys, not sure what I did but pretty sure I’m in some sort of 3 year run of bad luck. 2018 concluded with the illness from hell and I was encouraged that it would all be up from there but alas all that’s happened is extreme cold (windchills down to -50*s), and lots and lots of snow. I’ve barely been leaving the house at all and have only made it in to work about 7 days out of the past three weeks.

That’s bad.

Luckily I can work from home, unluckily I hate it and even worse, the same snow that has me working from home also means I haven’t been able to make it out to the barn much at all. At least my boss, who is an eventer, lives 5 minutes from her barn so even if she’s working from home she can still go to the barn. I’m very jealous lol.

I was going to wait to blog until I had more positive news to share but we’re into March at this point and there’s a lot more snow in the forecast and the days where we aren’t getting snow are really cold. Grrrrrrrrrrr

 Luckily I live with a really amazing person now and have an awesome puppy so time at home hasn’t been awful but I am just absolutely dying for some consistent, productive time at the barn and am feeling really motivated to make progress so it just sucks that the weather isn’t cooperating. Second, while I don’t have much really positive riding stuff to share I do have some updates that I wanted to share so I figured it made sense to post at this point.

The first update is that I actually did get a bit done at the barn over the last 10 days or so. I was able to make it out late not last week but the one before, on Saturday, and then again on Monday and I had my lesson last Tuesday! The bad news is that I forgot to bring riding clothes with me to work on Tuesday so I didn’t ride and instead K put a ride on Katai. However, it went really well and despite not riding much she was really impressed with the progress I’d made on my homework. T

he second update is that I audited a lesson two Thursdays ago for a fantastic, upper level, local trainer. I’m still figuring out what I’m going to do with K moving. For the short term I plan to stay and will try to make e/o week weekend lessons work. If they were weekdays it would be fine and I wouldn’t be that worried but I have a REALLY tough time fitting things in on the weekend so I’m worried about that. I’ve also been planning to increase my lessons this spring and either take weekly lessons, get more clinic time, or at least take more as needed so that we can officially progress up to second level.

Long term not only am I really sad to be losing my trainer but the farm I am at will also need to close at some point, likely, in the next few years. I don’t know (or understand) all of the details but the land was re-zoned as commercial so I signed on knowing that they had approx. 3 years at that point. The city may allow them to extend but if not, there will be a TON of displaced riders and horses all looking for space at the same time and I don’t want to deal with that. The two things together are causing me to look at new places despite wanting to be doing just about anything other than move Katai again.

She can't resist grabbing a bite of Alfalfa as we walk past

The good part of it? I really enjoyed the lessons I got to see. This person is very easy going but still firm, has their Gold medal so would be the most accomplished dressage show rider that I’ve had the chance to ride with, and is just fun and has a good sense of humor. Unfortunately she had a cold when I audited so was a little less chipper but still fun. The riders at that barn are very talented and I saw more upper level riders and horses there than I have at any other barn in a LONG time. The arena was also really nice, big, and had fantastic rubber mix footing. It was also really busy the entire time I was there from around 6-8:15 with at least 3-4 dressage riders in the arena at all times. I would ADORE being part of a community like that.

The less good? I’m on a waiting list with a few people ahead of me and it’s a tough place to get into since even if a sale horse there sells the new owners often keep it there. I’m also slightly nervous about the intensity. I feel like over the past few years I’ve discovered that there is a sweet spot for me where I can work, make progress, and be motivated but not shut down and still have fun. As I’ve had more things happen in my life outside of horses that balance has shifted slightly so while I REALLY want to ride consistently, make progress, blog more, and for heaven’s sakes finally show more!!! I’m also really conscious of the fact that if I swing too far into that sort of environment I may burn out and it might stop being fun. I’m doing a TON of thinking about the last point and still figuring out where/what type of barn I’d fit at best in the long run.

One big thing I’m considering is that J’s farm (not Jane although Jane’s was a close second) was my absolute favorite environment to be in. If J hadn’t been such a heavy handed person I would have stayed in a heartbeat. Part of me thinks that ever since being there I’m really looking for something similar and this place is so similar it’s eerie. Everything from the set-up of having a heated grooming area but unheated grooming area, to having more trails, to there being primarily dressage riders, to the level of the instructor (J had her silver medal when I was there but shortly after I left she got her gold), tack lockers, pasture board for most horses etc. It’s so similar. That is really encouraging. Add to that the fact that I had the most fun riding and made the most progress/was most motivated when I rode with J and Jane and I think this could be a fit. I've also asked my bf and he thinks I should go for it and I put a lot of stock in his opinion.

But I did get these cool socks. Consolation prize?

In other updates I also went to a tack sale at a great, local tack shop last night with K and another barn friend. That was awesome! Lots of horse talk and shopping. It's been a long time since I got to do something like that and I had so much fun. Again, making me even more sad that K is leaving :(

Things for Sale

I really enjoyed Jen from Cob Jockey's post about budget and it was especially interesting to read since I've been doing a lot of work to improve my budgeting over the past year. Thanks to my bf and a new banking system I have a really solid system in place at this point.

It meant that when I got my refund I used it to pay off my smallest debt (so that I can snowball to the next one), put an emergency fund fully in place, and put just a bit in a trailer saving fund. I'm going to be trying to find every opportunity to increase that fund this year so that I can either get a trailer later this year or potentially next year. With that in mind, and minimizing because of the small apartment, I've been going through my horse equipment and culling some of the nice things that I haven't been using for one reason or another.

I figured I'd post it here to see if other bloggers are interested and if not I'll be posting these things to Facebook.

Let me know if you're interested in any of these and I'd also be happy to send additional pictures or get dimensions for anything. I may have a few more things to sell as I search through my collection but I figured this was a good start.

Mattes Pads: $55 for the first (used one) and $65 for the second

Mattes saddle pad in medium. It's been washed but has
been lightly used so there is some dirt and hair on the underside.
There's also a slight amount of staying where the billets sit. The colors are dark grey with pink binding, braid, and stitching for the logo

This is also a medium Mattes pad that has never been used. It was going to be my show pad but this one and the one above are both pretty big and I have other smaller pads that fit better. This one is grey with white and pink braid and black binding.

Unused liner :)

 Halters: Pink one is $5 and grey one is $10

The pink halter is a break away and has never been used. It's foal/weaning sized and fits but I just have too many halters.
The other is a Schockemohle in cob sized. This one has been lightly used but washed. It's a sturdy, high quality halter and it has padding on the crown and nose. The Schockemohle logo and brand name are on the nose.

Other Saddle Pads: $15 each

I think this is a cob sized pad and it's from B Vertigo.
I did cut off the billet straps but otherwise it's in fantastic shape.

White show pad in pony size from Horze. I bought this as a show pad but white on white just doesn't look great and I prefer darker pads. There is a silver braid and this one has all of the straps.

Pretty Things!!!

While I haven't been able to ride in way too long I do have some pretty new things that I'll be able to enjoy someday when the weather cooperates.

First, my PS of Sweden winter sale haul.

The pile, yes I went overboard...

Not a great picture but I got the grey broadband with the mirror like gems and I really like it!!

I got the really dark navy blue polos

and the pony sized dark navy saddle pad to match.
This is the same as the one I have from them in pink

and this brown one.  

I'm in love with everything and can't wait to get to use these pretty things!!!

My Eskadron bandage bag finally came in as well and I LOVE it. I was using a reusable bag and all of my bandages were tossed in it and often unrolled themselves. This has a bunch of pockets and clear little windows so I can tell if what I want is in there.

Also today my last two bandage liners came in from the Black Friday sale at RW. They had been awesome and called me to let met now how long it would take for them to come in and had said it may be as late as February so I'm pleased they arrived as quickly as they did. 

Now no more spending money for awhile :)

Cold

Cold is the reason I haven't been posting recently. At first we just had a temperature dip down to more normal temps for January into the single digits and low teens. I was still making it out to the barn but not riding a ton since staying warm while taking up is tough for me. 

Then I went and invested in some warmer gloves and figured out warmer clothes and the bottom fell out.

Yeah, it feels about 50* below zero right now. That's not only way too cold to spend time outside, unless you absolutely have to, the road conditions are also awful with lots of black ice. Even worse, we got dumped on with snow on Monday and still aren't fully dug out.

Many businesses are closed as well as schools. I worked from home Monday because of the snow storm and then worked from home again today because of the cold. Tomorrow is going to be even worse since it's continuing to drop overnight so I'll be working from home again. 

Thursday the high is supposed to be a much more reasonable -2* and then it's swinging right back up and we're supposed to have 39 and 38 over the weekend. Of course we're also getting precipitation those days so I still don't know if I'll make it out to the barn but maybe I can grab a couple minutes between the cold and the snow and make it out.

In the meantime I'll just be over here surviving, watching Olivia Towers vlogs, and dreaming of when I can ride again.

What's In My Riding Playlist

I'm the best at taking awkward, pony walking pictures

After reading Meghan's favorites post where she listed her favorite songs I thought that a riding playlist might be fun to share. This is currently what I'm riding to. There's clearly too much here for a ride but I like having extra time so that I can start wherever I want or skip something if I'm not feeling it vs. having to find a different play list.

I have a much more upbeat work out play list that I love but I have to be careful to not ride to songs with a beat that's too fast or I post too quickly. These are all a bit slower.

Strawberry Swing: Coldplay - The best, underrated, Coldplay song
Dare You to Move: Switchfoot - One of my favorite (if very pop-esque), motivational playlist songs
I Wanna Get Better: Bleachers (Thanks Meghan) - Great, positive sounding, uplifting sounding song
Anthem, Pt. 2: Blink-182 - Great for getting me pumped up to ride or work out
2 Heads: Coleman Hell - One of my favorite on this list and the video is outstanding (I have a weird thing for the banjo lol)
Thunder: Imagine Dragons - My playlist wouldn't be complete without this one. Also, when pony is ON this rhythm is pretty good for her canter
Carry Me (feat. Julia Michaels): Kygo - I love riding to this one and the lyrics are perfect for riding
Big Girls Cry (Odesza Remix): Sia - My favorite song on this Sia album
Ghostwriter: RJD2 (Also thanks to Meghan)
Gold: Kiiara - Just a solid song to ride to
High Hopes: Kodaline - Oh my gosh I could listen to this one on repeat all day
Outro: M83 - Still one of my favorites. It starts pretty slow but builds and the end is amazing and uplifting
8 (circle): Bon Iver - This has been my absolute favorite song for more than a year now. The music video is also what I wish all music videos were like since it doesn't detract from the music at all but is also interesting to watch. Bon Iver is my favorite artist of all time.
Skinny Love (Vanic Remix): Birdy Version, actually by Bon Iver - I love the duality of having this one right after the other Bon Iver song since they're so different. This is a FANTASTIC one to ride to
Punching In a Dream: The Naked and Famous - This one has been on my workout playlist songs ever since my first boyfriend introduced me to it
The Ocean (feat. Shy Martin): Mike Perry
22 (OVER S00n): Bon Iver - Amazing song. Don't listen to it with earbuds in though because it will do weird things to your ears
lovely: Billie Ellish & Khalid - Two amazing voices
The Woods (Ghosts Remix): Hollow Coves - Great beat for riding
I Found: Amber Run - This is more recent and I LOVE it
To Build a Home (feat. Patrick Watson): The Cinematic Orchestra - Just a good solid song

The Universe Has a Plan?

I’ve drafted this post a couple of times and each time it was more negative than I wanted it to be so I decided to try one more time and this time start with a recap of my last few trips to the barn.

I’m FINALLY feeling better and was able to make it out to the barn Friday, Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday (for a lesson). On Friday I lunged Katai with her halter and she was really good. I’ve been working on some positive reinforcement training getting her to slow down her body, listen to half halts from my body language, and trot slower while still carrying herself. She was finding the carrying part especially tough on Friday but mentally she was very keyed in and listening.

Who's this Scout horse and is his nameplate tasty?

Last Saturday I had a great ride with her and she worked really hard. K was riding a training horse at the same time and it was nice to have a riding buddy (who knows how to negotiate the very small arena with another horse) and great inspiration to have her also doing things like shoulder in and leg yields. I rode for quite a while and we did quite a bit of lateral work. I was able to really enforce the rules kindly and patiently and Katai was right on board with working that hard which was nice. There were no meltdowns and she never said no. We also did a good amount of canter and really worked on her twisting to the right and she was also game to work on that and do some SI at the canter. She was a little rushy but after the time off that didn’t surprise or bother me. Unfortunately I completely spaced and forgot to start the Equilab app so I’m already struggling with that goal.

We took Sunday off per the usual and then I rode on Monday evening. She was definitely tired and less willing to work hard but we still got some really great work. I stuck to walk and trot just based on how her body was feeling. She was really falling in going to the right which usually means that her hind leg is tired out, not too surprising after the canter work the previous day. It’s not helping that we have a ton of ice still so she wasn’t able to work out the kinks in turnout. It was another great ride though and she still worked hard and never quit. I did AGAIN forget to start the Equilab app. *grumbles*

Tuesday I had a lesson! Finally! It’s been since mid-December since both holidays feel on a Tuesday this year and then I was sick. We had planned that K was going to ride her and I was disappointed it was after such a long time off because I was hoping that it would be more productive. However, K still got a lot done and really focused on getting Katai to slow down her own body and carry herself without me holding her. This has been a theme in our lessons so it was great to have K able to feel what I’ve been feeling. She agreed that Katai is great at talking her rider into holding her up and also had no trouble working on it since she’s so much more advanced than I am  I know how to slow her off my seat it’s just that I haven’t been effectively training her that she MUST slow down off my seat so then eventually I get tired (when she decides to ignore me) and instead of using it as a training opportunity I start to go to the reins. It has been a really long time since I’ve seen Katai ridden and that was lovely. Her hind leg is getting so much more active and since she was still sort of tired and stiff that’s saying something. I did climb on at the very end but Katai was pretty pooped (muscle strength-wise) and also spicy at that point since they had just worked on the canter which included a couple of minor blow ups so we never quite got on the same page. I did get her to slow down a couple of times just off my seat so that was awesome.


I have some great homework!

The bad news? K is leaving us.

She has an amazing opportunity to move to the East Coast and work with a very well-known dressage trainer so I’m incredibly excited for her but also sad for myself. It’s not only that she’s a fantastic teacher, she’s also just an awesome person. I really like her take on things and how relaxed she is while still expecting good work. She really adapts to her students and their needs and holds me to a different standard than others. She’s also very honest about what I need to work on vs. glossing over things and I really appreciate that since it’s the way I improve the most. For at least the time being she’s planning to be home at least 1-2 weekends per month.

Such nice lipstick

Since I’m only taking e/o week lesson right now that sounds great except that weekends rarely work for me and I’m also concerned how long she’ll be able to keep that up especially going into summer and show season when I’m sure she’ll be very busy. It also is tough on my plans to show again since I’ve just lost another potential ride to shows and show coaching whether that was prior to the show or at the show. I’m also a little concerned how the barn atmosphere will change with her not being there on a regular basis and curious if anyone will leave.

Getting a trailer, which is a goal this year anyway, would fix a lot of this since I could trailer myself out for shows and take Katai to outside lessons and/or clinics. There are a lot of things floating around right now and bf and I had a great conversation last night about options, goals, plans, and how to potentially proceed. Mostly I’m just sad to know that a new friend won’t be around as much and feel like I’m losing part of my support system.

January Goals

Regular Barn Time:
My goal is to get back to going to the barn 5+ times per week in January pending crazy winter weather

Ride More, Longer, More in Different Gaits:
One thing I've recently diagnosed, actually as I was recapping 2018, is that likely part of what's been tough with pony behavior recently is lack of rides. There isn't much I would have been able to do about it even if I'd been more aware throughout the year but it does help me put the struggle to move to 2nd level into perspective. Therefore in January I want to do the following;

• Ride at least 3 times per week, preferably 4
• Track my rides on Equilab every single time to diagnose how long I'm spending in the saddle and how long I'm spending in each gait
• Likely increase the amount of canter we're doing for every ride
• Potentially increase the amount of working walk we're doing for every ride
• Likely increase total ride times

I think that the above will help with Katai's current excess energy/behavior as well as help with making more progress on fitness and strength.

Utilize exercises in 55 Corrective Exercises:

This new Jec Ballou book is awesome. Not only are there a bunch of wonderful things to do with your horse in different environments both mounted and unmounted but she has these great sections throughout the book of exercise routines you can use for specific reasons. I plan to start out by going through the high headed posture one since it's something that Katai has been more stuck on since the break and I think that doing these will be valuable. Plus it's a great way to do some helpful in hand stuff and break up riding/lunging.

For example, dressing Katai up in this cute matching set
and wearing something coordinating myself :) Then I just need to get media and I'll be set!

Keep up on grooming Katai/dressing well at the barn:

This is such a mental thing for me. I can get stuck rushing from one thing to the next and trying to take as little time as possible. If instead I take the time to groom well and focus on things like being nicely dressed at the barn vs. looking like a slob I find that I'm much more motivated and feel better about everything.

Blogging/Media:

I put both since I'm always more reluctant to blog if I don't have more pictures or video to share. My goal is to get back to my previous blogging routine of posting about e/o day or 15 times per month. It will be a stretch this month since I'm so out of practice but that's what goals are for right?

Focus on Budget - Reduce Overspending:

I'm really pretty good with money for the most part. My expensive/splurge items are having a horse in the first place and spending money on coffee/eating out/groceries. I don't spend overmuch on rent, I get my hair cut maybe 1-2 times per year, I don't get my nails done or do any other splurge type personal care things. I don't shop for clothes and when I do buy clothes I pretty much shop at thrift stores like ThredUp. I do occasionally splurge on tack but my biggest issue is coffee/eating out so therefore I'd like to do the following for the month of January;

• Only purchase "necessary" horse items such as food and supplements, board, and two lessons for the entire month.
• Not purchase any coffee from coffee shops - make my own at home
• Eat out 2 times or fewer, if I don't get food made I'll purchase something from the grocery store to eat rather than ordering food from a restaurant
• Stick with my grocery budget

Here We Come 2019

This picture again because we're so cute :)

I realize that the start of the year is completely arbitrary for a new start but like many others I enjoy the perspective of looking ahead to the next year and making plans and goals. In fact, while it never was before New Years has become my favorite holiday for just that reason.

After spending the end of 2018 in potato recovery mode I'm feeling so refreshed (even with the cold) and ready to really knock 2019 out of the park. I'm going to do this similar to last year and share my big picture goals for the year and then each month I'll post smaller goals that are broken out of the big year goals. To leave myself a little wiggle room, if posting isn't happening as much as I'd like I may change that to quarterly goals.

So without further ado.

Pony/Riding Goals:

Blog more with more media:
I hadn't truly realized how much I've gained from blogging and being part of this community until I wasn't posting much this year. It's amazing how this connection to everyone, even those of you I haven't met yet, motivates me and how everyones comments keep me pushing forward sometimes. I've also truly appreciated the advice I've gotten throughout the years.

Regarding more media, I'm awful at remembering to take pictures and video while I'm at the barn and  typically haven't had anyone to help. I'm going to try to do more myself this year and remember to capture more, especially since I always have my phone with me, but also push myself to ask others to take pictures and video when I can.

Motivational quote board in our arena

No Excuses:
This could be a personal goal but more than anything it relates to my ability to consistently go to the barn. I'm an over thinker and in the past this has led to me trying to have a perfect plan rather than just a plan. I'll be thinking about going to the barn and my brain will start worrying about interrupting feeding schedule, the potential for bad weather, traffic, other people at the barn, the cold, etc. So far the last few months I've been working hard to not overanalyze and just go to the barn when I can without over thinking it. It's been great and a big part of why I've gotten out there as consistently as I have and haven't turned winter and an unheated barn into a Thing. I want to continue with this mind set into the new year.

Track my rides:
I have the Equilab app on my my phone and have had for awhile but I've used it maybe for one ride. While the data isn't going to be as good at the Equisense it's still data that I'd like to have and if nothing else it should be enlightening regarding things like trends in the amount of walk/trot/canter I'm doing each ride and how long my rides are. I already ride with my phone, all I need to do is remember to start the ap before I ride so that should be very reachable.

Continue with dressage lessons and maybe increase frequency:
I've loved having weekly lessons and right now bi-weekly is working for me but I'm also hoping to take advantage of clinics, outside instructors, and riding with my current instructor more. In addition I'm hoping to have K put at least a handful of rides on Katai this year to help us break through the 1st-2nd level barrier that we're struggling with currently.

Vary Our Work:
In the past I've often had something on here specifically about trail riding. The problem is that multiple people close to me have gotten into significant accidents/been significantly injured while trail riding. Plus current pony is hot and can be explosive so it just hasn't been my thing. This year instead of specifically calling out trail riding I just want to introduce more variety including trail walks and other things in the arena such as pole work. I've picked up Jec Ballou's most recent book and plan to post more about that soon!

Get Back In Shape:
This one could probably be in the personal goals but my main reason for increasing my fitness is to be able to ride better. At various points I've been significantly more fit than I am now and it's been so helpful from a riding perspective. I've felt more in control of my body parts, less anxious about pony shenanigans, and just less anxious in general.

Show!!:
I'm setting really easy goals with this one to make it reachable. Mainly I want to get back out there this year and do at least a show or two. Even traveling to a clinic would make me feel like this was a win.

Spend Less:
I'm already on the right track. Last year I reassessed costs for supplements and moved to making my own instead of doing SmartPak. I also moved to a less expensive barn instead of a more expensive one and I'm taking bi-weekly lessons instead of weekly. However, I'm still buying too many unnecessary things (like more saddle pads gah) and while I bought them all on huge sales they aren't necessary items. Things that will make this easy are that I have a great tack set up for saddle, bridle, girth, etc. and shouldn't NEED anything else. I also don't plan to change barns or instructors so that should help to keep my costs lower than in past.

Things that will make this difficult are that I really need to replace my winter boots, I still need a couple more pieces of cold weather gear now that I'm in an unheated barn, and that I'm still hoping to buy a trailer. Plus showing is expensive! Ultimately if I can spend less in unnecessary purchases I'm hoping that I'll net out to close to what I spent last year.

Personal Goals:

Continue to Budget Better:

My BF has been amazing with this and has really gently been guiding/teaching me how to better track my spending. He's got me using more auto pay and keeping track of where my money goes. In the past I would just white knuckle the bit yearly expense, now I'm saving for them ahead of time so that the money is there when I need it.

Pay Down Debt:

I've been working on this for the last couple of years and made a ton of progress when I was paying next to nothing for rent and living at my grandma's house. Last year my expenses went way up and then I ended up needing to pay two separate apartment deposits and moving costs associated which added to increasing the balance on my credit cards. My goal is to get at least one credit card paid off this year and hopefully two

Get a New Job:

I LOVE my current job but it's time for me to move on. I'm not in a hurry on this one because it's pretty bitter sweet to think about but at some point this year I plan to move to a new role/company.

Stretch Goals:

Showing stretch goals:
Ultimate goal is to ride at rated shows and get my 1st level Bronze Medal scores and maybe try out a second level test toward the end of the year even if it's at a schooling show.

Get a Trailer:
This one is going on the list AGAIN. It's definitely a stretch goal but at the very least it's a thing that I need to keep working towards. This certainly doesn't jive with the "Spend Less" goal but part of the spend less goal is to allow me to do something like this.

Lose Some Weight:

Awhile ago I posted about how much weight I had lost over the past 5-6 years or so. Unfortunately I've crept up a bit and while I'm nowhere near to my heaviest I have climbed up significantly further than I ever wanted to. Being in a relationship is just so good for gaining weight :) It's time to lose this again both to make it easier for Katai to carry me and just for my health. This is a stretch goal because just with my goal of getting more in shape I'll likely get back to where I had been stuck pretty easily and I now just want to move past that and lose the last 5 pounds or so this year.

Christmas Presents!

As a break from all of the goal setting and goal recapping posts I thought that this might be a nice post plus, technically, this is a 2018 recap right?

First let's start with presents from other people.

Presents from my Parents:

In the past I've typically stuck to Amazon items for my mom and/or dad since it's easy and they have Prime so they save on shipping. This year though I sent items from The Collected Pony, Riding Warehouse, and PS of Sweden. My mom knocked it out of the park and even though I didn't let her know what my preferences were for my list she ended up giving me two of my favorite items!

I got the HKM pad that I'd previously posted about from the Collected Pony and I adore it! I've been really into floral patterns (especially with roses) this year. It's just as pretty in person as it is on the site and it's the perfect size for Katai. She also got me the Eskadron bandage liners that I asked for. She did get them a size too big (small horse instead of small pony) so Katai looks very European with them on, but they still work and are another awesome bandage liner option. Wait until I put both of these on her with her pink polos ;)

All the pretties

From Riding Warehouse she got me more low sugar horse treats and a pair of Dreamers & Schemers socks. It was a great horse related gift Christmas :)

From my dad I got an Amazon gift card and got a couple of necessities for Katai including more flax seeds and Vitamin E but I also picked up Jec Ballou's new book and some new stirrups. Jane had a thing about metal stirrup irons so I had swapped out my Composti's for some plain irons (and then sold the Composti's since I'm a minimalist). The rubber pads on my current stirrups has been falling apart though and when I went to look for replacements these came up. I've wanted to buy Composti stirrups again and thought that the wide beds might be worth a try. Of course I needed to get them in pink :) Also this Jec Ballou book is amazing so far and I'll be posting more about this soon.

From my bf's mom I got a pair of awesome unicorn socks and a bandage storage bag like this (that was on backorder so we're still waiting for) that she adorably refers to as "the pocket bag" :)

Dreamers & Schemers socks on the left from my mom
Middle unicorn socks from my bf's mom
My lucky unicorn pooping rainbow "show" socks that are much loved
I feel it's important to not take oneself too seriously when one is an adult who rides a pony 

Sort of horse related we did a secret Santa gift exchange with other members of my bf's family and I'd put picture frames as a hint since I want to print more pictures of me and Katai for our apartment and my office. The amazing person gifting these to me sneakily found out my favorite celebrity and found these awesome pictures of Charlotte and Carl which just made these pretty frames even more awesome.

Then there's the stuff that I got for myself. I'd previously mentioned that for black Friday I'd picked up a couple of things including the Lemieux bandage liners and Eskadron pony polos in black and pink. I also picked up an Asmar long sleeve shirt and a couple of other misc items. That was all I'd planned to do except for the couple of items bought with Christmas money above, however, then I saw the PS of Sweden after Christmas sale.

*headdesk*

I really hadn't planned to get anything, much less as much as I did, but I couldn't say no to such amazing things at 50% off and picked up two saddle pads (since they're currently my favorite pads), two sets of polos, a browband, and a jacket. I did need a second jacket since wearing my regular jacket to the barn causes people to stare and point when I'm out in public. Ok, maybe it's not that bad but it's pretty barn smelly. They shipped today and I'll share more pictures once they get here. I didn't really need the other items in any way but that sale totally got me and I can't wait to have all of my pretty new things. More on my 2019 goals for budget soon ;)

2018 Goals Recap

Our motto

 2018 was such an interesting and tough year for goals. To start out the year I posted these goals and then never really recapped them so here is a brief recap just to close these out.

Buy a Trailer - Bit fat nope! Needing to purchase a, new to me, car ate up all of my trailer savings and with how my year went I doubt it would have happened anyway. There's always next year!
Bronze Medal Scores at First Level - Also a big fat nope. I had received a 60+% score showing opportunity classes in 2017 and I've made huge progress since then so if I had shown I'm pretty confident this would have happened. There's always next year for this one as well.
Debut at Second Level - Also a nope, not sure if this one would have happened anyway but I'm hoping that with the additional progress we've made over the past couple of years now that it will be possible in 2019
Attend at Least Five Clinics - No but I don't count this one a total nope. I rode for the most well known/tough clinician that I've had the chance to ride for this year and it was a total success. Added together I also probably audited another clinic or two including one by Janet Foy.
Develop a Better Show Plan/Skills - Nope
Trailer Off Property More - Nope, unless you count moving to two different barns lol
Go On Trail Ride(s) - I'll put this in the meh category. I did go on a very advanced and technical trail ride at the WI barn and did a few more hand walks in the great outdoors there since that place had a ton of property. I've also hand walked Katai on the trails at the new barn. Honestly I'm just not much of a trail ride person so hand walking on trails may be our new thing instead.
Do More Reading - Nope but I'm hoping to do more for 2019
More Blogging and More Media - Definitely a no in fact I went backwards haha
Fitness - Same as above, no and I went backwards
Budget Better - Yes! Biggest success of the year. With the bf's help I'm now budgeting way better and have a plan to continue to improve

Toward the end of the year as I started to have more time, energy, and mental capacity I posted new goals and acknowledged that my original goals just weren't going to happen. So here is a recap of those updated goals.

October:
-Get to the barn 4-5 times per week - Yep! For most of October I was able to accomplish this!
-Groom better - Yep! I was, and am, still actually grooming better
-Dress like we mean it - Yes! Nothing like faking it till you make it
-Take two lessons - Yes!
-Have barefoot trimmer friend check my work  - Accomplished! I got great feedback and have continued to do her feet myself. I'm continuing to see great progress
-Build up to Katai wearing the BoT sheet for longer periods - Yes! She is now wearing it overnight or for up to a day or so at a time and I think I'm able to see an improvement.

November:
-Get to the barn 5+ times per week - Mostly accomplished. I made it out 6 days one week and 5 another. Around Thanksgiving I struggled a bit more.
-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. - Not really, I pretty much rode or lunged
-Take two more lessons - I can't remember if I got one or two so meh
-Continue with grooming better as possible with fluffy pony - Success! I even cleaned up the mare beard despite it being no shave November haha

December Goals:
-Step back a bit and have some fun including reducing to going to the barn 4-5 times per week - Accomplished a bit too well, for the last couple of weeks I averaged closer to 2-3 times per week with all the holiday craziness
-Teach at least one “useful” trick such as targeting and/or stretching - Nope but this is carrying over into next year
-Focus on varying fitness with poles etc. - Same as above, not really but carrying over
-Keep up on trimming Katai’s feet even with the cold - Yes!
-Adjust to the cold in a non-heated barn - Yes! We've had a fairly mild winter so far but I'm proud of how well I've been doing this and how few excuses I've made
-Take at least one lesson - Yes! One lesson, on my birthday no less, in the books