countdown...eek!!

This week has both flown by and crawled slowly along. I have been super busy at work, so in that respect the time seemed to move quickly, but I am also apprehensive about Sunday, so in that respect Friday felt like it took a long time to get here.

Not to mention I have a social thing to do tonight and a wedding to go to tomorrow, so I have no idea if I'll even be able to ride before Sunday's hunter pace. Maybe if I go really early in the morning tomorrow I might be able to get a ride in before I have to get ready for the wedding.

I hand-painted two saddle pads last night, one for me and one for Claire. They came out well:

Claire's is purple and gold, and mine is green and silver.

I used to paint these and sell them back in high school/college but haven't done one for a long time. I had fun designing the artwork and painting them while watching a DVR'd episode of Covert Affairs. The paint had to dry, and then I ironed over it this morning to heat-set the paint so that the pads are washable. I think they'll look great! My friends have already expressed some interest in getting a painted pad for themselves, so who knows, maybe that little business venture can fatten up my (hopeful) horse show fund.

I tried the pelham bit on Lu a few days ago and while she seemed to really like it, she leaned on my hands quite a lot and didn't seem any more stoppable than she is with the snaffle, and in fact I think she had even less brakes. So we will stick with the snaffle for Sunday and maybe play around with some more bits if we decide to go to another pace.