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!

Lucy: back in action

It's been a while since I've updated because Lucy has had some time off to get over whatever she did to her knee. The vet went out and looked at her and prescribed some meds to get the swelling down. There was never any heat or lameness so we aren't sure WHAT she did to it, but the good news is that she is back in work! I got to visit her yesterday, and I got to warm her up for Morgan's ride.

I am soooo out of shape. It's really quite sad. I have been going to the gym but I have had a very hard time balancing my weight with my calorie intake without affecting my milk supply, since I am breastfeeding Hannah. So many people have told me not to worry about it for the first year, but I like being trim and in shape! So this is quite frustrating. I have no stamina for riding. I rode for maybe 15 minutes and got off and saw stars. I had to sit down! Horrible.

Lucy was such a good girl, and was very forgiving of my crap riding. She felt really good.

Hannah helped her daddy take photos

Morgan hopped on and made Lucy look like a million bucks:

Morgan is aiming for a little schooling three-phase next weekend, as long as Lucy doesn't sabotage herself again!

Hannah is doing great. Can you believe she will be five months old on the 18th? I can't!! She is so funny, and so cute. I am still job hunting and have one very serious possibility and while going back to work is a necessity, it's going to be very hard to leave this:

Lucy kicked butt today

Lucy went XC schooling today and I think she impressed all of us. One of Morgan's students rode her in preparation for an event they're doing this weekend. She was originally going to take the horse she has been riding all summer, but that horse has unfortunately been feeling under the weather, so Morgan asked if it was ok if she rode Lucy. I thought about it and decided it was alright with me, but I was curious to watch E ride Lucy today, and see if they were a good team.

Well, they certainly are a GREAT team. I was so impressed. Lucy had quite a bit of work to do because E had actually entered the Novice division with the other mare, so that's what she was planning on doing with Lucy. The main goal today was to get Lu re-exposed to all of the XC jumps that she may encounter on a Novice course. Keep in mind that I only ever did weenie eventing at the Elementary level, so the jump to Novice is quite a big one! But Lucy was a machine out there today, and no one is particularly worried about how she'll be this weekend.

Warming up

Ditches: no problem! 

And, the final few jumps of the day (Hannah was ready to go home at this point):

This week's Lucy update

Lucy has been a busy girl. She went to a schooling two-phase over the weekend. The dressage "left a lot to be desired", as Morgan put it. I laughed...I speak Lucy-ese well enough to know that means Lucy was a bad girl. Morgan said it just wasn't her day and she felt very tense. However, in the jumping phase, she was excellent and the most rideable that she has been over a course. So that's great news!

Yesterday I went to Apple Knoll again to see her jump in their jumper night rounds. Morgan decided to skip 2'3" and go straight to 2'6". She warmed Lucy up just lightly, and then let her chill out while they waited for their turn in what ended up being a monster of a class. Seriously, it took over an hour and a half to get through all the 2'6" rounds. Lucy stood there half asleep on the buckle, a hind leg resting, not caring about anything. It was good for her to relax because when it was her turn, she was very chill (for her) and did a super job. Morgan was very pleased!

Here is the video:



They didn't place but jumped clean and Morgan felt that was one of her best rounds so far. Check out that super handy turn during the jump off. FANCY!

Next was 2'9"and thanks to just doing the 2'6", Lucy was quite awake. She sure enjoys herself when jumping lol. Morgan did a great job. One thing I can clearly see improving is Lucy's willingness to come back underneath herself if she gets strung out. When I tried jumping her, she'd get so strong and strung out and when I tried to package her back together a bit, she would just get pissed off and that's when the tantrums would happen. I saw none of that at all this week, which was refreshing.

She is also getting very careful with her feet; not like she was disorganized before, but it's like she's making a connection between speed and her ability to get her feet out of the way of the poles in time.

This was another big class with some very competitive horses, but Lucy took home 7th place!! I was so happy for Morgan.

Jumper Night

Lucy went to Apple Knoll Farm for their weekly jumper night, held every Wednesday throughout the summer. I used to go to it with Dreamer way back in the day, probably around 2002/2003. It was always a lot of fun and I was excited to take a trip down memory lane when I went to watch!

Kenny, Hannah, and I got caught in a bunch of rush hour traffic, which meant we got there just in time to watch Lucy walk out of the ring after she jumped :( I was so bummed, but then we caught up to Morgan and she said I had only missed the 2'3" class, and she still had the 2'6" and possibly 2'9" to do!

Lucy had been kind of a huge brat in the 2'3" class so Morgan took her up to the schooling area to work on a few things. Lucy did improve slightly, but she got hotter and hotter, and in the end Morgan decided to just let her chill out for a while, since schooling her to quiet her down was having the opposite effect.

in the schooling ring

bad horse...

just chillin' as dogs, kids, strollers, 4 wheelers, and other horses go by

They hung out and waited for their turn in the 2'6" and then Lucy went in and kicked butt. I was beaming from the sidelines watching her cruise around. Was it the most beautiful, fluid jumper round ever? Hell no, but she was fairly obedient, was totally game for the jumps, and clearly had a great time. Morgan rode beautifully and I was just so pleased. She had figured out very quickly that she couldn't hold Lucy, because then Lu would get very ticked off very quickly, and that's when the antics started. I knew exactly how Morgan felt...when riding Lucy to a jump, it's basically barely controlled chaos. I always felt like I was handing my life over to this horse, who hadn't exactly proven to be the most trustworthy animal ever, but if I tried micromanaging her, she was way worse. Morgan said exactly that; that she had to just let go and trust that Lucy was going to make the right decision. It's scary to let go like that but that just goes to show you that I truly sent Lucy to the right place.


Lucy and Morgan in the 2'6" class

2'6" jump-off

Morgan's student was also jumping so we watched her 2'6" round, and then they both hacked around on a long rein before the 2'9" rounds. Morgan told me that was her favourite part about Lucy. No matter how bonkers she is when she's working, all you have to do is drop the reins and let her walk around and she will do so with happy floppy ears, not a care in the world.

just walking around the parking lot waiting for 2'9"

The 2'9" class was even better than the previous one, probably because the height prevented Lucy from bombing around like she wants to do. She had to actually think a bit, and use herself over the jumps. She jumped clean and aced the jump off, and ended up in 7th place in a rather large class! Again, I smiled so hard my cheeks hurt. I was so proud!

Overall, the day went better than I could have hoped. The icing on the cake was watching Lucy calmly walk on the trailer with absolutely zero hoopla. You go girl.

girl power!

Lucy has a girl crush on her travel partner, MB. MB is not pleased.

by Lu! I will see you soon.