♣Ambitious♣

There's been some things on my mind lately. I thought about weaving this into my 2021 goals post, but it's evolved a bit more as I've grown and aged. Back when I was riding Baby regularly on my own, I started to hand walk for the end portion of my cool outs. That grew into a habit of letting her graze in the sacrifice area after a ride so she could have some time out before going back into her stall. I started this habit again with Lucie because, frankly, the horses at my barn don't get as much time outside as I would like. While hand walking, I noticed that she would roll consistently after every ride. Like, we would make it maybe 10 feet and she'd be on the ground. I thought it was a funny thing and because she's a big horse and has limited coordination when flipped upside down. I've kept up the hand walking with Liberty, Blackjack, and Satin, and I've noticed that they all roll, at some point, once the tack comes off. This might have to do with the wi...

Allow me to explain. Ever since I began to delve into a serious fitness routine, I've had to work the frequency and type of workouts around my school schedule. Architecture is routinely listed as one of the most time consuming majors, so I always scale back for my own mental health during the semester and pick back up once a break rolls around. This works out great with riding because it allowed me to figure out exactly what exercises would help with my collapse. It's a double edged sword though; while I know exactly what to do in order to correct my balance, there is inevitably an annoying period of shoddy riding before things get back into place. Naturally, I expect less than perfect right bends and right canter transitions when I'm not quite fit enough to support a better movement. If you look closely, you can see her blowing off my right leg and moving sideways through the poles It usually takes no longer than two weeks in order for me to get back into a routine . . . u...

  My trials and tribulations of fall semester. Song: "Doses & Mimosas" by Cherub

2020 actually wrapped itself up with some cool horsey experiences. First, one of the other boarders was out for the holidays and offered to let me ride her horse, Satin, pictured above. Of course I said yes because look at her! She's a beast! Satin had some foot issues develop late in the summer, and was fully lame for a while. Stall rest and a farrier change got her back right, and she's actually loving being back in work. Downside of her recovery is that she's in a bar shoe for the time being, and it, uhh, does not help with a horse that's prone to thrush. Getting her out of the stall and onto dry ground helps, and she's typically much easier to manage in the winter. Glad I got to mess with her without the added dampness of summer! Satin is a full Quarter Horse that didn't like Western sports, so she became a hunter. Trainer G has very . . . interesting descriptions for how Satin's brain works. Basically, it's a mess. She overthinks. Like, a lot. If yo...

I'm switching things up a little bit this year. Previously, I used to do 12 goals for 12 months. Then, I decided to partition my goals into specific categories because it made more sense for me. That organization has worked pretty well for me the last few years . . . except this year, for obvious reasons lol. I would use my usual organization again this year, but because the pandemic is, uhhh, still happening, I'm trying not to get super attached to competition based goals, which typically tend to take up the bulk of my Hashing and Unicorn Fairy goals. There's also just a lot of life changes that are likely to happen once I'm officially done with grad school. Student loan payments ain't cheap, and when I begged my parents to let me take our nearly 18 year old BMW to grad school with me, no one warned me that luxury cars, no matter how old, cost a butt ton of money to maintain. Lord, give me a Honda Civic. Remember when this was peak comedy on Twitter? In summary, B...