♣Ambitious♣

So, I went for a run last night, and my phone was near dead, so I opted to use my iPod instead for music. One thing led to another, and I started looking through my gallery, digging up some old photos and videos (some of which I posted early on with this blog), including some from my first show season. Let's just say I've always been bitter about having to ride a horse before noon. Short, cold, tired, AND bitter Twix w/ her old owner Baby in her short stirrup mode Still short stirrup, but looking real good Sometimes Duke went fast I also used to take pictures during lesson weekends, too. Two full days at the barn every other week (sometimes  every  week) from 10am to 4pm on Saturdays and noon to 4pm on Sundays. I'm a barn rat at heart, and I hate being an adult and having to do adult things because I get minimal barn time. Chess/Chester/Chesapeake Fish/Fisher/Fish Face Splash (he had no nicknames :/) Todd/Toddy/Toddster/Mr Todd Th...

  Finishing off November the right way with questions from Viva Carlos . How old is the youngest/greenest horse you’ve ridden?  At least 4 years, but there might have been a 2 or 3 year old that I rode very early on. This has not been the safest/most logical journey for me. How old is the oldest horse you’ve ridden?  Buddy! Not sure of his exact age, but he was in his 30s. Were you scared of horses when you first started riding?  Lol no, but now it's questionable. Would you say you’re a more nervous rider or a confident rider?  Nervous, with emphasis on the nervous. I can deal with horses that are a handful, but I'm always on the border of a break down. Too many bad experiences. Biggest pet peeve about non-horse people around horses?  Not necessarily non-horse people in general, but my parents frustrate me. They aren't horse people, and they haven't really made an effort to learn about horses, so explaining things always takes a lifetime. ...

Right on time for those Black Friday sales, my shop has moved to Redbubble . I made the move for various reasons, but overall the new platform seems to be a better option with a wider variety of products. Redbubble has 20% off everything with code BLKFRIDAY , so have at it, y'all. I've also decided to make better use of my non-equestrian designs. There are a couple up right now, but more are on their way. One perk having a class where they teach you how to use Photoshop: cool looking homework assignments. Shockingly, my TA was not the biggest fan of this one Also, I bought a fish on impulse, so my Black Friday will be spent buying him everything.

Because sometimes we forget to post these during the right month. What do you consider “jumping high” for yourself? At this point, anything over 3'0" would be high. Even 2'6" still feels a bit daunting. Remember when I was young and reckless? What are your short term goals for riding? Do you think you’ll reach them? My big short term goal is to get back to showing at 2'6" without wanting to throw myself off a cliff. I'm not sure how likely that is. It depends on a lot of different factors at the moment. Long term goals for riding? Do you think you’ll reach them? Become a trainer. We appear to still be going in that general direction. How many barns have you been at in your riding career? Ah, geez, too many considering how long I've been riding. If I'm really counting all of them, 10, all for various reasons, and that number may go up to 12 by the summer. Newest location is straight grass and trails, my kinda heaven How m...

Horses are awesome, y'all. Despite the near constant stress that is caused by this hell hole we call higher education, I've still managed to go to the barn without feeling like I had a bajillion other obligations to take care of. The last couple of weeks have been quite a bit of swapping and intensive flatwork with some jumping. We've been fortunate enough to be outside for most of it, but winter is most definitely coming. Tragically, I haven't been on Oscar lately, but the bag of recent mounts is a mixed one. I started out on Dori a couple weeks ago and swapped a bit. Last week, I started on Kodi and did some more swapping, then I finally got my hands on Tiber to school for an IEA show last Saturday. This past Friday, I rode Smooch, who we love dearly. He actually gave me a hard time when I first got on. Some spinning, some inverting . . . he ended up knocking over the mounting station for shows . . . and then I forgot to put it back up, whoops. He settled right ...