I have many many tasks ahead of me. I’m trying to decide exactly how to organize my life….. I can and should make lists… but I don’t want to get overwhelmed in making the lists. THINKING of all the crap I have to do makes me tired. I have to get through this week… then make plans for the next two months.

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I did manage to make in time for a lesson tonight. I had planned to hop on Cook tonight but Mere (and Marilee) had Missy ready to go for me, so I went with it. and boy, am I glad. We got some things accomplished tonight.

so the bad:

I ate the same jump like 3 times! (chipped it… for non-horse people, got too close to the jump which makes it look really ugly). So the reason it makes me mad in hindsight is because I didn’t do anything different. I followed the same path and same rhythm and repeated the chip… I have to learn from my mistakes!

Oh! One time I forgot where I was on course. I didn’t know my next jump was. By the time, I remembered, I was off course. Had to circle.

The good.

We flatted nicely. I got around. Missy was good. She was way slow, relaxed. Our canter was really nice. I thought I had some really really really nice jumps. I did a good bending line with 3/4 strides in between… which wasn’t nearly as fast or bad as I thought it was gonna be (I thought it would come up REALLY fast… it didn’t, it was fine). We went over a scary jump. And after schooling it a few times as a single, it was the least worrisome jump on course.

I’m WAY getting better at controling my nerves. Sometimes when I get nerves, I stop riding and become a passenger. I have been better about that.

I need to blog about the things going on that I have been too tired to fill in during my last few blogs.

Backstory. we have a barn cat named Little, who Meredith is partial to. It looks like she got herself into trouble, in the family sort of way (she is getting fixed after this litter). We don’t want anything to happen to her, so I brought her home to let her have her kittens at my house.

I set up a tub with blankets in my closet hoping she will go there and not under my bed to have them.

I’m also waiting on Tig to have her baby.

Babies babies babies!

so I was worried for nothing.

All ponies were good.  Cook was lovely!

Soooo tired.

Will ride as much as humanly possible this week.  I’m glad the time changed so I can try and get there after work….

Im totally sick and I have to go ride Cook and Miss in a lesson today.

And its’ cold.

How bad is this day gonna be?

Long story short, cause I’m tired.

Cook’s eye was messed up today. She looked like Rocky Balboa at the end of Rocky I. I went back out to check on it and it had swelled close. Panic time. (and a little crying spell). Called the vet, vet is out town. Called the on-call vet, talked to her. Washed it out. Put antibotic in it. Warm Compress. Banimine. Mere was great about the whole thing, of course. She put the goo in her eye (my quote was… I really don’t want to stab her in the eye with the eye medicine and make everything worse…. that would be my luck.)

what happened?

Who the hell knows. Such is the nature of horses. She’s in a pasture with nothing, no trees or anything. I think that Patty got tired of her harassment and punched her in the eye.

So we will monitor and if it doesn’t get better, she will have to have like a scan done and other horrific, expensive things.

I went out there tonight and the swelling is down down. She can open the eye. She now looks like Rocky… regular Rocky at the beginning of the movie… still beat up.. just not as bad.
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Lauren is getting a new horse and I just wanted to blog… that I wish her absolutely the BEST of luck. I LOVE YOU, and will be behind you guys 110%! we are both VERY similiar in our “horse dreams”. Here’s a toast to making that move forward.
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Kathy finished writing her thesis.  Congrats.  I know its’ a big relieve for you.

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and last but not least… while Cook was drugged and therefore resistant to resisting… I measured her….

and drumroll…….

15.0 HANDS HIGH.

Thank you VERY much!

Cook is having her 20th Birthday Party on April 22nd. (This is a change from the 7th…)

:-) I will have more details as the time gets closer.

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Lauren Upton called my horse “14.3″ yesterday.

I am getting the measuring stick out once and for all to put this to rest. My horse is 15.1ish.

15.04567HH.

Not 14.3.

I am not riding a pony…. which for non-horse people… its like calling my horse a midget.

Lauren WILL owe me an apology. :-)

I have been running, running, running… working on barn stuff, working on Miss, Cook and whoever else comes along.

Update on Cook - I gave her a round of meds because she was exhibiting back soreness issues… over the weekend, I also turned her back out at night so she would be around to walk around and get some energy out… She hasn’t been pacing, but she has been regularly getting upset in her stall and not eating breakfast/dinner.

I rode her yesterday and wow! Western pleasure pony! she was ultra relaxed, ultra happy and just fun to ride. What was even funnier was that when we were down in the ring, Mere needed to borrow the snaffle/bridle I had on Cook. No one carries an extra bit in their back pocket so we rigged the bridle into a “bitless” bridle. Also, the bridle I switched with Meredith was way too big for Cook. So anyway, I hopped back up and Cook was still great. She had no issues with the tack change, or lack of tack. It was pretty comical. This was a prime example of where Cook can really be the greatest mare ever.

Update On Miss - she’s fine. Meredith rode her twice. It’s the first time Meredith has been on her Post-Howard. Its’ good because she was/is able to give me alot of tips on issues we have AND also she knows what Missy feels like. It was good to see her ride Miss.

I didn’t do MUCH riding this weekend (just Cook once) because I had had too much other things going on with the old barn, the new barn and all in between. I am very much interested in breeding, foaling, and teaching babies…. which is sort of new for me. I never really had an interest in breaking and training but that’s Mere’s main interest, so she has rubbed off on me.

I’m about to move into warp speed - Horse show season is here and I really want to show both. I am in -decent- shape but I really need to push a bit harder over the next few weeks in order to build up my stamina. I really, really want to have both horses showing. I don’t know how many show years Cook has left in her.

Anyway I hope everyone else had a really good weekend. I am going to bed early because the time change is kicking my butt.  Oh and I have Gatsby right now so I have TWO dogs sleeping with me right now.  Makes for a comfortable night with about 10 inches of space.
Night!

I haven’t been blogging cause I’ve been running too hard.  Have tons of plates spinning in the air right now.  I’ll blog and catch everyone up this weekend.

I hate blowin my nose. I mean really hate it. and its’ not stuffed up but its’ dripping constantly and I am sneezing to death.

I came home and took a decongestant and fell asleep sometime around 9.

and that was my day.

I’m completely boring.
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Meanwhile my friend Lauren is totally doing a cool thing and making a photo blog…. which I would completely steal the idea if I wasn’t so lazy in taking, uploading and selecting a picture to blog every day.

So you guys just get my crappy words.

Cook was naughty little pony today.  I need the heat to come.  and the wind to stop.

Thanks.