♣Ambitious♣

Quarantine has made a minimal change in my routine for the past few weeks. I'm already a sedentary person and tend to spend most if not all of my free time at home, in my room, completely away from society. My job (though non-essential) does not yet have the ability to let me work from home, plus our IT guy has been elusive as of late. Outside of work though? Nothing in my life requires me to leave the house at the moment. And on god, I am losing my damn mind. See, my "sedentary" lifestyle is more of a bug than a feature. I thrive off of having a set schedule with obligations that have consequences when ignored. Issue is . . . I need other people to establish those consequences. I'm so friggen bored and exhausted sitting in my house and felt another wave of depression coming on until my body just flipped a switch and refused to let that happen. You wanna know what I did this morning? Woke up at a reasonable time, brushed my teeth, laid down again to answer som...

This year, I ended up with 12 goals to work on by accident but decided it would be cool to write about one of them each month. Well, it's March. And I have written about none. Love these habits of mine. In my defense, I did talk about this topic in a vlog that I have yet to post or edit at all . These three items are a recurring theme on my blog. Partially because I was an angsty teenager while writing the majority of these posts. Also caused because I'm a wuss. The majority of my fears started when I was learning how to canter. One too many jumping accidents also threatened my progress. Ever since my last attempt at a medal course, my brain has been fully in self preservation mode. It took an effort to really feel comfortable approaching a 2'-0" fence. Remember when Music cantered quietly through a four stride line and I almost cried? Cause that's still a very clear feeling that I can never forget. Miss this chunky wench I've been very slow wit...

Seems we're off to an interesting start in 2020. After two weeks of an intense design competition, several more weeks of playing catch up in my other classes, an emotional mid term presentation, very little riding time, and an entire paper written within three hours, classes will now be online for the rest of the semester. I have no idea how (or if) this is going to work. Good thing that ain't my job! Ok, but seriously, this semester has been a whirlwind, and I hadn't seen much of Lucie until this week since we are currently on spring break. We also got new footing in the arena! Which means my dry footed Thoroughbred will no longer have to deal with stepping on rocks! It still needs to be spread out though, so I took that as a sign that we should take on the trails in the neighborhood. she luv durt Too bad Lucie . . . does not like trails. She's generally level headed with a couple of hot moments. Ya know, like a normal horse. She could never be classified as ...

I've been very timidly stepping back into jumping with Lucie. Why? Because I'm timid. In my defense, her fitness was still needing work, and it made no sense to start jumping if I didn't feel great about her flatwork. At this point, she's trimmed up a touch (though I will always call her Tubby) and started working the right muscles. We started over small stuff for quite a few rides, just x rails and super tiny verticals. I didn't measure anything, but I doubt we got higher than 18". She's kind of a weird jumper in that she doesn't put any effort into the approach, can't be bothered to pick up her feet consistently, and barely holds herself together with the getaway, but she pushes off with a considerable amount of power over every jump. If I were more physically fit with even an ounce of core strength, this wouldn't be an issue, but I am not physically fit and have only half an ounce of core strength. Two pointing at the start of my rides...

I know everyone is saying it, but, guys . . . . . I have 2020 vision . . . so long as you don't look at the restriction on my license that requires me by law to drive with glasses . . . but I have 2020 vision. As usual, I'm splitting up my goals in order to put my priorities in the right place.      For goals/items that I seriously need to work on and improve and cannot let myself slack on Do more than the bare minimum to take care of my body Improve body control Practice working through fear, stress, and anxiety Take lessons      For goals that currently require a little more planning, discussion, and thought Show in hunters Show in equitation Take Dressage lesson(s) Photography professionally at a horse show     Self explanatory Show in Dressage Submit an article to an online equine publication Upgrade all of my personal riding equipment Try barrel racing Of course, I'll elaborate on these as the ye...

I initially wasn't going to do this because I didn't even start riding until 2011, but I'm much younger than many of the other blogs I read. My experience of the 2010s was incredibly different because it encompasses my journey to adulthood as well as the entirety of my horse journey thus far. 2010 I was 12, in middle school, having the worst time of my life. I was into art, dragons, horses, singing, origami, and was insecure about all of it. At this point, I'd been begging my dad for over a year to let me start riding. He almost let me volunteer at a local horse rescue. He almost let me adopt a horse. My best friend at the time told me about her trainer who was 10 minutes down the street from me. We visited on Halloween. I met Todd and didn't know how to use a cross tie. 2011 I took my first lesson on April 13 on a horse named April. Posting sucked. Circles sucked. I got to jump (i.e. trot over a very low cross rail) and I sucked. But I was happy. My co...

I did this last year and had fun so here we are again :) Favorite show picture Cheating because I finally got my photographer game together and have two favorite show photos. Also peep the new watermark! Favorite non-show picture She's LITERALLY the cutest horse I've ever seen Favorite thing you bought I actually . . . didn't buy anything horse related this year. There are things that I WANT to buy (and probably need to buy . . .) but, yeah, I went a full year not doing that. Favorite moment on horseback I'm trying really really really really hard to get better at this. Favorite moment out of the saddle Miami Beach actually isn't that bad. The city of Miami? Much to work on. Favorite “between the ears” picture I actually don't have any "between the ears" shots from this year :/ Favorite horse book or article Your Favorite Horse Breed Based on Your Zodiac Sign Was looking for my favorite article and found this ...