Fencing Options

Not much as happened since I posted last. My birthday is on Saturday, I work a double shift that day, and my coworkers are giving me a birthday party on Sunday night. Yippee!

Anyways, provided that business ventures and car repairs haven't rendered my bank account utterly empty within the next week or two, I will be picking up supplies and starting to build a fence for the Lady to live inside. (That just sounds weird).

Anyways, I've been thinking about what sort of fence I can afford and would like to put up. My horses have always been in barbed wire fences (not my favorite, believe me) so I could do that. Electric fencing is always an option as well, or simple wire fence. Not sure just yet. It could be nice to just have a temporary fencing option since it won't be on my own land.

That's a bit of a tiny ramble on what I'm thinking about horse-related right now.

Till next time.

Pony Time!!!

Guess which girl was able to see her own horses in person last week?!?!?!

This one, of course!

Due to previous circumstances, I was able to get almost all of last week off from work and go back to East Texas to spend time with my family and, obviously, the lovely little mare that I am privileged to call mine!

There's not a whole lot to say about it, really. I played with her a little bit, brushed up on her manners, and mostly just spend as much time hanging out with her as I could. A neighbor recently put two horses in the pasture next to the property, so both Lady and The Pony were quite excited about that, but it was more or less cute than anything else.

The silly horse, however, has put on a whole lot of weight in the few months since I saw her last, which both amused and kind of worried me. We have some work to do once she gets out here if I want to show her at all this fall!!

/Also got to see my favorite dog again!  That was great :)

Something is Missing

I've lived in West Texas for 7.5 months now, but its just now starting to sink in just how much I miss my horse.

The first month I was busy finding a job, settling into my new home, and just overall getting everything set up. The next month, I started taking lessons at a barn and looked around casually for a lease. Then started the craziness of getting registered for classes, finding the funds to pay for tuition, and scouring the internet for textbook deals. The month after that, I started leasing Missy, and then school started. So for most of 2016 thus far, I've had a horse on lease and I've been very very busy with school. It didn't really hit me until these last few weeks since school let out and I stopped leasing Missy in order to save money to move my own horse.

In many ways, Lady isn't all that special. She's 17 years old and shows her age a bit. She's a grade horse of some kind, mostly Arab and Quarter Horse. She definitely has her share of attitude and behavioral quirks that make it tough to deal with her sometimes. She was the horse that my trainer raised an eyebrow at and said was too difficult and that I should keep looking.

But this December will mark 9 years that she's been in my life. I was 13 years old when we brought her home and I could not imagine my life without her in it. We've been through so much together. People have asked me why I don't just leave her at my parents' farm while I'm in college. She's not costing me much at all just being there and she's happy to live outside and graze all day.

So, am I selfish for wanting to bring her here to live in an environment that will require stall time and far less turnout than she is used to?  I could build a fence on some family land about 20 minutes away from where I live and keep her there, but that would make it harder for me to achieve the show goals that I want. On the other hand, I love the college equestrian center where I take lessons and would love to keep her there.

All in all, something is missing from my life right now, and that something is my favorite ordinary mare.

Next week, I make the trek back across Texas and I'll get to see Lady in person again. The vet is coming out for her Coggins and shots, and I'll make decisions then. In the meantime, the thought of getting to hug and take care of my girl again is tiding me over.

Three Months...

It's been three months, to the day, since my last post here. Sadly, the biggest reason for the absence has been my absence from the horse world in general. <sad face + tears>

I gave up my lease on Missy at the end of April after having ridden approximately four times in March and April combined. School got the better of me, I was having trouble with my priorities, and work was quite busy, which never helps at all, does it?

Anyways, as of right now, I'm slowly moving towards getting Lady out here to live with me. I'm 85% certain that I will be trying out for Texas Tech's equestrian team in the fall. I still take almost weekly lessons with the coach of said team on a cute bay gelding named Fuego and we've jumped several times in the past month (we won't talk about how terrified I was the first time we went over an 18 inch crossrail. It was bad.).

My writing focus is over at L'Art Classique, where I talk about mystical dreams, college life, and various other aspects of being a unique and strange person. You can join me there. I try to keep my equine obsession away from that platform, so hopefully I can slowly get back to regularly scheduled  posting over here.

I'm still religiously reading all the other blogs in the equine blogosphere, and I should probably start commenting again too instead of stalking.

Love, Kit.

Definition

I know I've been MIA a bit lately and that will be fixed quite soon.

In the meantime, go read this post that I wrote up on my other blog.

https://lartclassique.wordpress.com/2016/03/11/lifechanges/

Horse Show Panic

This next Saturday is the first horse show of our season. I'm excited and nervous all at the same time! This show is going to be at the collegiate equestrian center, aka the first barn I leased Missy at. Great facility that I'm already familiar with, so that's a plus! 

I'll be competing in the flat equitation classes (seriously doubting that my equitation is good enough for this, but if Lindsey says I can do it, I guess I can!) and Missy will also be in several of the jump classes with R, her owner.  Super excited about all of that! 

I've been stressing out over everything related to this show... how to practice so that I can ride my best under pressure, what I'll need to wear to look appropriate, and how in the world do these classes work anyways?? 

With that in mind, what was your first season of showing like?  What were the things that made it good, or made it bad?  Curious here!  And maybe overthinking it all.

University 1.1

Six weeks in!!  All the school related stuff is actually going really really well right now!  In fact, today I have two mid term exams. Eeek!

Since I have these two exams, I might as well talk about those two classes.  The first one is Contemporary Mathematics. I've been trying to attend class more regularly, but honestly it is SO hard. When attendance isn't even part of my grade and I can get just as much information on the homework website as I can in class, there really isn't much point. But I try to attend class at least once a week, even if I spend half the time using wifi on my phone and taking notes only on the important sections.

Wow. That paragraph makes me sound like an awful student. I promise that isn't true. I've missed almost no other classes at all, so maybe it balances out?!  :)

The second class that I have a midterm in today is Aural Skills. The exam is almost entirely comprised of sight singing. We are given melodies that we have never seen before (usually composed for the class) and must sing them on sight. I'm actually quite good at this class - its going to be an easy A, I think!

My other classes are going quite well also. Music History is the only one I'm a bit behind on, since I haven't gotten my research topic completely ironed out. Thankfully, the research paper isn't due until Finals week, so that should be okay too.

I have been sacrificing a bit of my riding time to get in more piano practice time. It would be nice to have more time for both of them, but that's okay too, I suppose.  Yesterday was my first time to play in my studio class (private performance for my professor and fellow students)and that was fun!  I played two Bagatelles by Tcherepnine and got some great feedback on them both.

Still loving this school, y'all. It's a wonderful experience all around.

Monthly Goals - February/March 2016 Edition

January seems like it was so very long ago, and yet on the other hand, it felt like I didn't get anything done in February because it disappeared before I knew what happened. There were quite a few things that I did get done (namely finishing my best friend's wedding dress) and figuring out how to manage my time better.

I'm going to go back to a more traditional goals list for this month. Therefore.... 

March 2016 Goals

1.       Get up at 6:30 every morning again.

2.       Work out in some form every day.

3.       Continue using my current action plan to fight off the infection and no longer be sick.

4.       Enjoy the wedding planning, travelling and craziness to some extent! 

5.       There is no extra money this month, so don't pretend like it isn't the case.

6.       Horse show!!

7.       Finish reading a book. Finally.

8.       Write 500 words of fiction every day.

Shouldn't be too hard, right?  Haha... much easier said than done!