Checking in

Well hellooo!

I'm dropping in to say a quick hello and dump some photos and videos here. I have been horrible about keeping up with blogger. I used to be addicted to Facebook, Blogger, CNN, etc etc, but I simply do not have enough hours in the day to keep up with it all. Maddy keeps me up to date with the most important stories, though.

Hannah is almost 21 months old and is really taking to the horses. She leads Brantley all by herself, rides a 26 yo chestnut TB mare named Zoe, and goes ballistic every time she sees a photo of a horse or pony. I am very happy about all of this and even Kenny is pleased. He said recently, "I know this is all going to cost me a lot of money eventually, but I am still happy about it." Thatta boy *pat pat pat*.

 

  

  

loving Brantley

  

Hannah and I riding Zoe

I adore all three of these beauties

Look at her. She's all "this is MY horse".

Maddy surprised Hannah (but mostly me) with a new tiny saddle just for her. This thing is ADORABLE. I just about fell over when I saw it. I had been looking for a little kid saddle for Hannah for a while but I refused to pay a ton of money for it. Maddy surprised me with this little pink and black saddle. We had to wrap the stirrups 5 or 6 times (haha!) but Hannah loved it. She even had her first semi solo trot that day.

 

Lucy is still doing well in her not-so-new home. She colicked badly about a month or so ago and had to spend four days at Tuft's, narrowly avoiding colic surgery. She's back home and doing fine now but that was pretty tough to find out about. The last time I saw her was in July during a quick visit where I thought it would be a good idea to ride her bareback after she hadn't done anything for a long time and I was vastly out of shape, and promptly almost got bucked off. I should probably schedule a time to visit soon.

My business completely took off and I have been so busy. I was mostly doing photography over the summer, but now that the winter is around the corner, my design work is stacking up. I love it. I designed a whole host of print work for a local software company who turned out to be great clients. I also did some corporate photography work for them. Now I am working on a new website for a big name cosmetology school, and I have three other websites in the pipeline. I've done a few logos this fall and am working on a new one now for a dressage trainer, and on top of it all I am still doing the occasional painted saddle pad and I had six ornament orders this season. Plus, you know, a toddler.

I recently had t-shirts printed with a design I did about 12 years ago. Someone stole the design and was marketing them on teespring.com. To my horror, I discovered the campaign just before it finished and was able to get teespring to pull the whole thing down. I decided to market them myself since they had been so popular, so I got a whole bunch of adult and kids sizes printed. They are for sale on my Etsy page and would make great Christmas gifts :) wink wink!

Kenny and I also started a house flipping company and just finished our first house, a large 4 bed/2 bath home about 20 minutes from where we live. We sold it after just 48 hours on the market (we are currently under contract), which is pretty spectacular if you ask me. I can't wait to do the next one. Here's the Zillow page for it. It was a total renovation and I am thrilled with how it came out. There are tons of progress photos on our Facebook page, Taylor Real Estate Investing.

Cairo is doing fine, though she was recently diagnosed with anaplasmosis and Lyme disease :( poor girl. She just finished the doxy regiment for that and is feeling much much better.

 

I have been able to ride here and there, mostly because of Maddy's encouragement. I went on a hunter pace with Maddy and another friend in the fall and had such a kick ass time. It was awesome. I have gotten braver about riding Brantley now that he is becoming such a nice dude with all of Maddy's hard work. I also ride Zoe, the same chestnut mare that Hannah has fallen in love with. She is just the coolest horse and I am very grateful for being able to ride her.

Me looking halfway decent on B

One of the highlights of this whole season was spending four entire days at Equine Affaire with my best horsie friends (but truly, my best friends). Maddy rode with Dan James and it was just an awesome baby-free weekend. I took 900 photos in four days and it was totally nuts but great at the same time.

Maddy impressing the hell out of Dan James

I got to ride Brantley in the coliseum! And didn't fall off! haha

So that is what's new with me. Maybe as things slow down for the winter, I will have more time to keep up with everyone blogs!

Hello, Blogland

Hi Peeps.

I've been writing this entry in my head, and occasionally actually IN Blogger, for a month or so now, but it always seems so boring and unworthy off the "Publish" button.

Why? Because I have no horse, and this is a horse blog.

I've been going through a horse crisis of sorts. Horses make me depressed, and yet I miss them fiercely. I've ridden a handful of times but a few weeks ago when I rode Maddy's horse Brantley, I ate dirt because he casually refused the Smallest Crossrail on the Planet (after basically giving me a clear memo that he wasn't going to jump it approximately five strides out) in textbook form at the TROT, and like a total jerk I casually looked at the ground and fell right over his shoulder. So really, the whole thing was a FAIL and it hurt my soul more than it hurt my body, because what the hell happened to this?

 

Lucy is flourishing in her new home, which I am so grateful for. With a horse as unique and potentially difficult as she is, I am so relieved she is secure in a great situation with a girl who loves her even when she's nutty, and a trainer who is prepared to deal with her on good days and bad.

 

I've seen photos of her sleeping in a stall full of fluffy white shavings, being cuddled by everyone at the barn, and looking calm and happy. I've heard stories of her being fed lots of treats and munching on hay that's up to her knees in her stall. She gets lots of turnout and I can tell she's in the right place. If our story together had to end, I am grateful hers continues as it is.

 

I am sad and embarrassed that I failed and became another statistic. Girl gets pregnant. Girl has baby. Girl tries to keep horse, but just cannot handle it. Girl sells horse. Girl loses that whole part of herself.

 

Classic.

 

Not that I don't love being a mom, because Hannah is my greatest joy. I just wish I could have figured out a way to do it all.



I went to Equine Affaire with Maddy, Natalie and Lauren, who was up visiting for the weekend. They all bought things for their horses. I bought chocolate and ate my feelings. I just suck so much at being horseless.

So that this entry is not totally depressing, here are some recent photos. Hannah is now 8.5 months old. She says "dada", walks with a walker and also along couches or tables, crawls, high-fives, claps, and plays peek-a-boo. She's also realllly adorable:

Jerk Face gets schooled

Lucy likes to play little mind games under saddle.

Yesterday, Maddy rode her and didn't steer at all except to change direction. The rest of the ride, the reins remained looped over the horn of her saddle and she let Lucy truck around. At first, Lucy was looking for a battle. She tried scraping Maddy off on the wall. She tried intimidating her by trotting straight toward the side of the ring and then veering off in one direction just as she was about to run into the wall (REALLY, HORSE?!). She tried speeding up and slowing down. None of it phased Maddy and after a while, Lucy was like, "Well I guess I'll just trot around, *SIGH*."

Today was round 2. I went to watch Maddy ride and wasn't sure what to expect. All I hoped is that my horse didn't kill my best friend.

I was so, SO impressed with how Maddy rode, and how Lucy responded. She tried all the same crap that she pulled yesterday, and once again, Maddy just sat there and posted along to the trot and didn't let the horse pick a fight with her. Soon, Lucy relaxed through her back, unpinned her ears from her head, and simply trotted around. I haven't seen her move like that in a long time. She gets so tense and stompy sometimes and it is almost painful to watch (and it it is not pleasant to ride!). Once she relaxes, though, she goes nicely and almost cat-like. It was great to see.

Lucy picked her own path and as long as she remained going in the same
direction at the trot, Maddy let her have total control.

This made for a pretty relaxed mare!

Between Amanda and Maddy, I am going to have a new horse in the Spring! And I couldn't be happier!

Well that is inconvenient

The problem with being a contract employee is that the business constantly dangles your mortality over your head. I chose not to let it get to me; life is going to happen whether I'm "full time" or not, and plus, I really liked my job!

Well on Friday, after working there for a year and a half, I got laid off due to budget cuts. I was supposed to have a meeting with HR to discuss my maternity leave, which I had given them plenty of notice about. It turned out that the meeting was actually to give me the axe, so now I am jobless at 5 months pregnant and a month before Christmas. Thanks a bunch, former employer!

I am so lucky that Kenny is supportive of this horse addiction that I have. I was a wreck after I left the office for the last time and called him in tears, but he said all the right things and calmed me down. I immediately went home after being laid off and applied for unemployment (for the first time ever), applied for a few jobs, and put Lucy up for full lease online. I am not sure I'll find someone to lease her, honestly. It's absolutely frigid here right now and not many people are really horse hunting. However, it is worth a shot.

In the mean time, Kenny will continue supporting her and for that, I am so grateful. I'll supplement the unemployment money with saddle pad orders (hopefully!) and any other design work I can get. I hope to get a new job asap. Someone asked if I'm going to just surf on the unemployment wave until the baby comes and honestly, I'd be so bored! I like to go to work and accomplish things.

In all of my newfound spare time, I've been doing a lot of cleaning at home, catching up on projects, helping Kenny with the renovations, painting saddle pads, and I EMT'd for a horse show over the weekend. It was 20 degrees with 45mph winds. BRRR! Luckily it was an indoor show so we were at least out of the wind. I was frozen by the time I went home at 4:30pm. I took a boiling hot shower to warm up and went to bed, exhausted, at 6:30.

I had a fun day at the barn on Saturday. I rode Lucy and she was so chill and happy! I didn't bother lunging her because all the horses got turned out on grass before we rode, and this was the result:

Comic (l) and Lucy (r)

Comic, Lucy, and Brantley

Brantley and Lucy having a zoom

Comic and Brantley had a contest to see who was more manly. Lucy won.

Go Brantley, go!

pretty Lu!

After all that, they were pretty tired and well-behaved under saddle. I was a happy girl!

Amanda is planning on taking her to a show next weekend, so that should be fun! This particular show has an OTTB division, which is really nice. Maddy is going with Brantley, too! It will be a fun day.

another great day!

First, I actually succeeded in getting Kenny to the barn in a somewhat clean ensemble, with the dog; and also I managed to clean the 2" of dirt off Lucy that I found her covered in this morning. I even had to shampoo her legs - they were disgusting!

Maddy took the photo for me and..drumroll please....

everyone's looking (kind of) at the camera!!! SUCCESS!!!

Then I tacked up and had another super ride, and this time, I got photos!

YAY! Good pony! I should go buy a lottery ticket or something.

Then Amanda got on for a few minutes:

AND she got to ride Merlot the dreamliner.

Then Maddy got really brave and decided to jump Brantley over one of the XC fences:

So all in all, it was an A+++++ day and everyone had a super time!