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!

Monthly check in!

Life is going great, though horses aren't involved much for me. I've ridden a few times over the past month or so, and fell off two of those times. Talk about a blow to the ego, and my butt was pretty sore also.

Before the roll of doom

The first time wasn't really a fall, but I am counting it as one because it was still so embarrassing. I borrowed a friend's mare to ride at the RISPCA Horse Ride, and she rolled on the beach after we went in the water. There was no warning, just all of a sudden she was laying down on the beach. I had to throw myself out of the saddle so that my leg didn't get squished. Then of course the horse got up and trotted away and someone had to go catch her. God, talk about mortifying. She was fine, I got back on and we continued with the ride.

During the lesson, before I got dumped.

The second time was after a great lesson that my friend treated me to. I was so out of shape but we w/t/c for a whole hour, plus jumped a few courses, and I was really pleased with myself. So pleased that I decided to let the horse have his reins for our cool out walk around the field, but then he pulled a very dirty spook and spin and thanks to the total lack of muscles in my body, I fell over like a bowling pin.

Thankfully, I did not fall off on the third ride. I rode this awesome chestnut mare at Maddy's barn. The mare was out of shape but she was so much fun to ride. She is extremely well-schooled and knew a lot of cool things. I thoroughly enjoyed myself! I wish I had the money and the time for a lease.

During my confidence building ride with Zoe, the chestnut OTTB

In non-horsey news, everything else is trucking along. I officially started my design and photography business last month, so that is my full time gig for now. I got so tired of wasting time applying to jobs and going to interviews and then not getting the job that I unsubscribed from all the job listing emails and decided to go to work for myself. It's been a lot of hard work, but I am building a client base and offering a lot of new things, like birth photography and freelance corporate design services. Here's my website, which I completely revamped: www.polarsquaredesigns.com. I am traveling to Upstate New York next weekend to photograph a breed inspection so I will post some of those photos here.

Hannah is 15 months old and is just cute as a button. She's a big handful sometimes but she's a lot of fun.

Since I no longer have any reason to spend money on horse stuff, my new thing is baby wearing. I have a good little collection going, and I use my carriers all the time. Here's one:

Cairo loves life, as usual

Holding carrots to give to Brantley

from Memorial Day

loving on Brantley, Maddy's horse

Pony rides at the local farmer's market

Out of the woodwork!

Hello blogland, just a random post to say hi to everyone and check in.

Hannah is 13 months old now, and she's on the go. She started walking slowly about a month ago, but this week she got a confidence boost from a friend's son, and now is out of control. I actually took her on a little hike on the trails today! She's amazing.

Taking after Mommy

This is what I look like, too, after I finish an art project.

 I've been freelancing like crazy, because I got laid off again in early February. Thank you for the terrible luck, Universe! But actually it's been kind of ok. I've been doing lots of different work including logos and fine art. If anyone is looking for a horse portrait, web work or design work, I'd really appreciate the referral! My Etsy store is located at www.etsy.com/shop/polarsquaredesigns.

I designed the RISPCA's annual Benefit Horse Ride design again this year. I think this is year #6. It came out nicely and it is always cool to see them on t-shirts everywhere the day of the ride, which this year is the first weekend in May.

There is still a serious lack of horses in my life and though I sometimes feel sad about it, I know they'll come back to me at some point. I did go riding a few times in February thanks to Maddy, and had a blast.

I haven't seen Lucy since about November. We had a really terrible winter here and there was no way I was going to take Hannah to an unheated barn to visit her. Now that it's nice(r) out, I need to contact Kayla and see if we can go bring her some carrots!

Hope all is well with each of you.