Thursday, January 24, 2013

Brrrr Its Cold!

As the title would lead you to believe, it has been REALLY cold here for the last couple days. I know, I know, there are a lot of places much colder than here in Maryland. But, I don't live there..I live here...and to me its really fracking cold! Ugh! And, I know that I am never happy. Its far to cold in the winter, and way to darned hot in the summer. I need to find my own private island that is always 75 degrees with a slight breeze and NO HUMIDITY! Sigh. But I digress.

The whole point of this post, was not to whine about how cold I think it is, but to tell you just how cold it really is. I got a text this morning that Tia, after being in her nice warm stall with plenty of hay all night, was shivering. Now, I just want to put this out there. I am not the type of person who blankets her horses just because. (I actually got good hearted crap from a good friend about having a blanket on her!)There has to be a real reason. Up until now, there hasn't been. She has a really nice winter coat. Her body weight/fat is where it should be. She is active and healthy. That being said, Aunt Nikki was nice enough to let her borrow one of Ber Ber's blankies for today.

Not only did she stand nicely, no kicking, squealing, whirling of the hind end, to be blanketed, she seemed to stop shivering almost instantly. Sigh. Looks like someone is gonna need a blanket if these temps keep staying this low. I put a "text" into my Mom to see if she has a 76" or a 78" blanket I can borrow for now that she isn't using. She is in a 78" at the moment, but Nikki says its a bit big. I'm a fan of the blanket being a bit bigger then to small. Just my opinion tho, so I might stick with a 78".

And now, what you all have been waiting for! Pictures!!!

Wearing her borrowed blankey!

Stylin'

Whatcha doin' Aunt Emily??

I think I shall nap while you take my photo!

See my icicles on my nose??!!

Sorry I had to add this one. I took it this morning.
Its my backyard over looking the farm behind us. 

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

A Bit off Topic

We received notice about 3 weeks ago that the house we are renting, just moved into this house 10 months ago, has been sold to a developer and we have to be out by April 1st. It isn't just us that is effected. The girl that lives next door, a good friend and former student, has 7 horses on the property. Her place was sold as well. The place behind the farm that has been an older gentleman's home for over 30 years has been sold as well. I am just sick over this. How can people treat other humans this way? I know that in life, you have to do what you have to do, but could we have had at least a clue that the properties were up for sale? If the owner really wanted the places sold, why not offer them to the people living there first? Now, we all get to watch as what we were currently calling home gets dozed to the ground to make way for office buildings, or a shopping center.

I am still struggling with this whole thing. The housing market sucks. Everything around us for rent is ridiculously priced and we cant get approval to buy anything, which would actually be cheaper, until this September. My husband has been very supportive during this whole thing. He knows I am beyond stressed out for multiple other reasons and this was just the icing on the cake. Everyone keeps telling me the same thing. "You guys are strong. You will get through this. You have been through much worse, you got this." I wish I had that kind of optimism right now. Honestly, I kinda just want to crawl into a hole and cry.

I am not sure if it is caused by the stress or if I did something horrible to my neck on my own. My left shoulder is permanently damaged from the car accident I was in in 2009. Normally, I have a constant dull ache in that shoulder with some slight swelling and popping. I'm used to it. I can deal with it. About 3 weeks ago, see the correlation, I pulled something in my neck on the right side. I have iced it, put heat on it, ignored it and tried drugging myself with Motrin all day and nothing seems to be helping. Over the past week I noticed the pain in both my shoulders got worse. I am having a hard time turning my head to either side and God help me if its a fast motion! Yesterday was the beginning of stabbing pain in all of my joints. ALL of my joints. Not just my shoulders and my arms. They start in my shoulders and the pain travels down both my arms, through my chest, into my hips, through my knees and stop and hang out for a while in my toes. If I were to ever be hit by lightning, I would think it would feel like something similar. After the initial "shock" the dull ache hangs around in my entire body for about 10 minutes before I get about a 5 minute break and it starts again. I will be trying to get in to see my doctor at some point soon.

I am still going to the gym. Last night there was no way I was making it there. I had to pull the car over 3 times to cry on the side of the road because of the pain. There was no way I was doing anything other than sitting on my couch playing hay day. I am really enjoying the gym and feel terrible when I miss a day. I feel like I am accomplishing something when I go. It gives me time to relax and work off some of this stress. I ran for the first time on the treadmill about 1 - 2 weeks ago. Running is not easy when you are a fat person, but I did it. I was pretty proud of myself for that! My legs were screaming at me the next day, but oh well. No pain, No gain right!

I am getting back into riding as well. I have spent the last few years not really riding at all. I would occasionally hop on Mocha or Mia and just putz around. Sport was my normal go to trail guy for a while, but even that was few and far between and when his lameness got worse, I couldn't put him through carrying my weight anymore. That being said, I had my first lesson on this past Sunday. My student Becca and I are trading off lessons for a while. I need someone to tell me to do things when I ride, and this gives Becca some more experience teaching. She did, however, say that she found it very hard to tell me to do things. She has spent the last 11 years taking instruction from me...you would think she would be hell bent of revenge at this point! :) I really enjoyed my lesson and was rewarded when I couldn't feel my legs when I got off an hour later! I'm a western pleasure baby, this whole posting thing is for the birds!

Tia is doing really well. I am starting to see her act more like a horse, which is amazing. Since bringing her home, she has been what I would call a Gestapo Woman. The horses would get to playing and she would immediately turn it into a fight. I watched her the other day with the horses running around like loons in their pasture. She was running and playing with them. There was no kicking or rearing or bucking. Just three girls playing like normal horses should. It made me feel a whole lot better seeing her this way. I am watching her hip/stifle area has she comes and goes and she is much less sticky. Her movement is more fluid and her hind end seems to me more underneath her then before. When the weather warms up a bit we are going to ride her again. This time, we will ride using the whole ring and through some ground poles out there for her. Gotta get those legs lifting.

I have ordered Tia a new stall sign as well as a magnet for my car. The lady who does them is just amazing. Here is the link to her facebook page. She has some really cute designs and I thought, why not! They aren't real expensive and they are hand done. Here are a few examples of her work..hopefully I don't get in trouble!


If you were wondering, Butters and Scooter are real horses owned by a friend of mine. You can see pictures of them here





I told the lady doing the work to just take her time and to do both my magnet and the stall sign at the same time. She was running a bit behind on one of them, and honestly I didn't NEED them right away. I cant wait to see them!

I will try to get some new pictures of Tia this weekend. I need to spend some one on one time with her. Is it weird that I think she may have gotten a little bit taller???? She looked a bit taller to me the other day. I will have to re tape her this weekend as well. I want to come up with a cute idea for her birthday too. Maybe make her a birthday cake and totally embarrass her by making her wear a silly birthday hat! Yep, I am that guy!

I hope everyone has a great week. Its more house hunting for us this weekend. Im just ready for this to be over with already!

Erin

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Blog Hop...

This is a neat idea I found on another blog I subscribe to... Its called The Blog Hop.

Share a memory from:
1. The first horse experience you can remember.
2. Your first "aha" moment--when something really clicked for you as a rider.
3. Entering the ring. Could be your first show, or another time when simply entering the arena could be considered a "debut" of sorts. 


1. My first horse experience that I can remember is actually one that I hold very dear to my heart. My grandparents, God Love Them, used to raise QH's and App's. My grandfather used to always tell me when I would go out to the barn to see the horses  -  "Erin Jo, you be careful with them horses. They are treacherous!" It used to always make me giggle every time he said it. Now that he is gone, I long to hear him say it just one more time. My mom and I joke about it often.

I miss this man so much!


2. My first "aha!" moment had to be when I was taking lessons every week from my awesome trainer, Mary Alice. I was riding my evil paint mare, Majic. Majic was a bit of a pest. She could be very high maintenance, and was constantly getting into trouble. But, she was a nice riding mare, and her and I seemed to click. She used to do this whole lunge/rear/crow hop/buck thing going into the canter. We worked for a while on getting her to just go softly into the canter. I would get frustrated, Majic would get pissy and Mary Alice would laugh at me. Finally one day she made me ride without my beloved stirrups. You should have seen the look on my face when she told me to lope! But I know better then to question my trainer! Ever! So, I asked for the lope. Majic did her lunge/rear/crow hop/buck thing and I, somehow unbeknownst to me, used my legs, my seat and my hands to make her cut it out. We stopped and did it again. This time I was ready for it. The moment she tried to lunge, my feet went under her belly and my hands asked for her head to come down while my seat pushed her forward. A nice soft lope was the result. I'm pretty sure we both cried that day. My aha moment was that sometimes, things that you think are there to help you, IE stirrups, can sometimes be your henderence. She took away my comfort zone so that my body and my brain would work together like they should be!

3. The first time I showed was on Majic. I was pretty sure I was gonna puke. She was antsy, I was antsy, and everyone on the rail that was rooting for us, was antsy too! Thankfully, after the first class, I was much better. Majic was def one of the best horses that happened to me. She was kind and thoughtful, evil and bitchy, spooky yet sane and most of all, she loved me. She took care of me..even if it was against her better judgement!

Miss Majic!
There's my Blog Hop!



Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Changes

Can I just take a moment......AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OK. I think I am better for the moment. Sigh.

Things were going so well. Things we falling into place. My husband and I were making plans to buy a place this fall/winter with enough land to have Tia at home. And, maybe even a few more. ;) Houston, we have a problem.

Will called me Friday night while I was driving home. The house that we are currently renting has been sold to a developer, along with all of the property around us. We all, 4 families I believe and 1 of the families has 6 horses, have to be out by April 1st. We just moved 10 months ago because the house we were renting was going to be torn down to make way for restaurants...that didn't happen. That house is now up for sale.

I didn't want to move again until we found our own place. We were planning on finding our dream home, or building our dream home, and that was going to be it. No more moving! I kinda feel like a nomad! Sigh.

It is what it is, and I know everything happens for a reason. We have been through much worse and we made out OK. We can handle this. We got this. (I'm just not happy about it)

Tia is doing very well. Switching her to Corta Flex and a separate MSM has done wonders for her. I can see major improvement in the hip/stifle area. She had her farrier appointment this past Friday...that didn't go as well as expected. I couldn't be there, so Nikki held her while the farrier did her feet. Tia decided to rear on the cross ties and then act like an ass outside the barn. I made sure to go ahead and schedule her next appointment for when I can be there. She doesn't act like that with me...and if she does, she wont for very long. I pretty much wanted to kill her and Mia Sunday morning. I had somewhere we, as a family, had to be that morning. Wouldn't you know that would be the morning where Tia and Mia acted like idiots and refused to do as they were told. REFUSED. And I had to leave, so I said screw it. They are apparently back to normal now that the Alpha mare is back from her show weekend!

I signed up for a year at the gym. I have been going Mon - Sat and I am loving it. I am currently down 6.2 lbs! Yay!! It is def helping with my stress levels and is giving me an outlet that I didn't have before. Its not like I can go ride my green broke PONY mare in the dark. Not only would I probably squish her, I'm sure I would end up as a tree ornament as well. So the gym is where I am every night and Saturday afternoons.

I got to take photos at Hideaway Horse Center this past Saturday during the Luis Galindo Lesson Day. I am loving my new camera. I am def getting better at my timing. Here are a few pics from the day.









I had to...Cuteness Overload!

My little girl was super sleepy..this is how I found her when I got home!



I hope everyone has a good week! TTFN!

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Would it be rude...

....to kind of take the blog in another direction now that Tia is on the mend??

I originally set up this blog for Tia and to document her rehab, but now I am thinking of incorporating a little more then just Tia into the blog. Here, I will give you a little taste as to what I want to do and you guys can tell me what you think!

Tia: IS AMAZING! Bottom line. Amazing! I love this mare. I had a lady come out and look at her this past Sunday. For Tia's third time being ridden since coming home she was ridden outside of the round pen in the big huge scary riding ring by a complete stranger on an extremely windy day. And what did she do?? Absolutely nothing. She was good as gold. She threw her normal temper tantrum at the beginning of the lunge session and then got her wits about her for the rest of the day.

When Tia came home, I am guessing her weight was about 600 lbs give or take a few. We weight taped her on Sunday. 821 lbs. I would like to get some more muscle weight on her, but all in all, she looks like a fat little porker! I love it! We also took a moment to see just how tall she is. In the stall, on sawdust, the tape said 14.2. I will re tape her this Saturday on pavement to get a better number.

Saturday morning, before the lady came to look at Tia, I spent a lot of time in tears. I spent a lot of time hugging her and telling her how much I loved her and appreciated everything she has done for me. She stood there and let me love on her, let me hug on her and even gave me a hug back. Horsey hugs really are the best...aside for Chi hugs! (fill you in on that in a minute) When I got home that night, I told my husband about how it went with Tia and how it made me feel to possibly lose her. It was then decided that Tia didn't need to go anywhere. She would stay with me until I wanted or needed to find her a new home. THIS MADE ME HAPPY! Now I don't have to worry about how anyone else will treat her. How anyone else will train her. How anyone else could possibly put her in the position she was in before. I know she is safe and will have the best care and training I can give her. That being said, I WILL RIDE THIS MARE.

I am going to lose this weight the hard way. No surgery for me. I will go to the gym every day if I have to. I will change the way I eat. I will change the way I see food. I will change me for Tia. I am going to the gym for the first time in my life tonight. A good friend of mine has invited me to the gym for "Movie Night" I think is what it is called. Basically, you workout on a treadmill, elliptical, or stationary bike while watching a movie...the whole movie. I'm pretty sure I am going to die, but its OK.

This past weekend, after my appointment for Tia, Becca and Nikki went out to ride. I got my cool new camera for Christmas, so I decided to take some shots and see how I do with it. Here are a few of the shots I got.

I just couldn't help but love this shot. Very simple. 

My little Chi (Gwen/My daughter) and her horsey Mia

I never ever thought I would trust this mare as much as I do. 

One of our two Goaties

I took this from the driveway. They were on the other side of the field. 

Becca was just relaxing on her way to get Chi for her turn to ride. 

I love the dimension of this photo. Nothing fancy. 

Becca and Mia

She CAN bend!

Forced Kisses!

Forced Hugs!

This mare loves to jump. I got a few other jump photos, but none were as good as this one. 

It was such a nice day. 

So, I decided after taking 300 photos that day and only catching 2 or 3 jump shots, I would go home and play with the ISO/Shutter Speed and Aperture on the camera and see if that helps. There is just to much of a lag time with the shutter speed to catch the shots I needed to get. That being said...I think we are going to try again this weekend to get some nice jump shots....so I can get a better handle on it before photographing Nikki's lesson at the end of January (which I am totally stoked about!)

This weekend is looking like its gonna be a busy one....as usual. William, my hubby, has agreed to build us our own cubbies and cabinets in the tack room!!! He will be going to the barn with me to feed Saturday morning to take measurements so we can figure out the best way to build what we want. I need to find a tack swap here soon...I need to sell some things and get a few things as well! After feeding Saturday morning, Will, Chi and I are going to have lunch together and then hit the mall before heading home so Will can watch .... dun dun dun .... football! I will be heading back to the barn! Then on Sunday its a normal feeding day with a little Arundle Mills Mall mixed in with the family.

I am looking forward to 2013. I have made my resolution. Its technically not to lose weight, or eat better, or be a better person, or be happy with myself. My resolution is to be able to ride my mare. MY mare. And I will accomplish that goal come hell or high water.

I hope everyone had a safe and Happy New Year.