Off and Running

I brought up this window intending to blog, but no such luck.

Tuesday is my paperwork/desk day and now it's time to run and do more massages.

I'm looking forward to having Thanksgiving week off, but now I wonder if I'll take it off completely or not. I also enjoy the money as much as I enjoy the free time.

Lovely Saturday

Today is Peter's birthday. We are sitting here relaxing just for the heck of it. We're catching up our TV watching, cleaning up the house a little in anticipation of a fun day tomorrow. Alexa is coming over and we're going to play games tomorrow night.

I woke up this am and realized I had begun to blog yesterday and forgotten to finish it. I got distracted by TV and work and paperwork and visits with family. Oops.

Today I would love to just stay home. I haven't had a day of just staying home and not going anywhere in ages. Last Monday started out promising, but I had to go to the barn. Plus, I had pink eye, so I wasn't home for shear relaxation, it was b/c I was sick. Same with having been ill a few weeks ago. I had a week of staying home, but it's somehow now the same. Sometimes I'd rather be home alone. Sometimes I'd like to relax with my family.

Maggie is cleaning the barn with her friends today, so I have to leave in a few minutes to take her there. Sigh. I need coffee.

Flip side is I'll get to ride today.

Weight Loss Miracle

I have been meaning to mention my weight loss miracle.

I have weighed over 200 pounds since I broke my arm when Maggie was a baby. I have been up and down between 202 and 224 during that time, but I never got below 202. The other day I weighed and I was 200.4. The only thing I have changed to make this weight was to give up drinking all sodas. I never drank regular soda anyway and I always drank diet. I didn't even drink many of them. However, in September after talking to a friend about how bad they were for me (I already knew, I just liked them) I drew a line in the sand and gave them up. In the last 5 weeks I have had 2 regular sodas, but otherwise I"ve been drinking perrier and iced tea. I have lost 13 pounds since Sept 15. I have changed very little else...well, now I have b/c I'm seeing success and want it to continue.

Still Struggling

Today I am leaning toward taking Liberty back. I don't want to take him back, I just wonder if it isn't the smartest thing to do. Maggie needs lessons and that would be a better way to spend the money. Of course, if she doesn't have a horse to ride, that's not so smart either. I still have a week to make up my mind. I just have to keep thinking on it and praying. So far I'm not sure I have my answer...or if I have my answer, I don't really like my answer so I keep questioning whether I have my answer. Funny how that works sometimes.

I'm really struggling today with some things that I need to help Maggie with. Her attitude toward people telling her what to do is terrible if she doesn't like them. She outright dismisses people she doesn't respect. I need to teach her how to respect people she doesn't like and listen to them even when she doesn't want to. I took a long time to learn that and I hate to see her go through it...but it may be something that has to happen in it's own time. Life may have to bite her for her to get the message. Some people have told me things that she did or said over the weekend that I'm not happy to hear. I have talked her about them and she says that her actions were misinterpreted. I do actually believe her, but I'm disturbed that people think she was behaving inappropriately. I'm trying to teach her that what other people think does matter, at least in some things.

My heart is heavy today.

Where has the time gone?

I didn't mean to go so long without posting, I've just been so busy.

After being sick for a week I then had to make up all the work that was left undone while I was ill, so last week was extra busy. Then at the end of the week, Maggie and I had plans for one last CTR at Horsemasters, in East TX.

The best part of the ride this weekend was that Peter managed to pull off a big surprise! He drove down to the ride and met us at the first P&R. I was really shocked b/c when he didn't come on Saturday, I figured he was going to skip it. I didn't blame him really. It was 150 miles one way. There was no need to spend the gas money just to come hang out. But when I got to the first P&R I did a double take and there he was. I threw my arms around him and starting kissing him and hugging him madly. It was way, way cool.

The guy next to me in line, Mark Carter, missed the introductions. When Peter went down the line to talk to Maggie, I said something about my husband. He said "that's your husband" I laughed and asked him who else I would be kissing in the woods on my birthday. Mark said he didn't know for sure since he didn't know me that well and perhaps I was meeting my boyfriend (not exactly, but I can't remember the exact wording) He was kidding. So, when Peter came back through I introduced them and Peter joked about not telling my husband that he had come to see me. It was funny.

Too bad Freeley had to ruin the fun and good intentions by mashing Peter's hands. There goes Orchestra for a few weeks. Having him come was just the best birthday surprise!

It was great to have him in camp to help pack up and just hang out. I made the mistake of getting in the check out line way too early and blew precious time from my afternoon that I could have spent hanging out with Peter.

This ride was not one of our more shining moments. The weather was beautiful and Freeley was hyper all weekend. Maggie wasn't as overly sensitive as she was at Bigfoot Boogie, but she was not as relaxed as she had been at the benefit ride. I did not like the way the horsemanship judge talked to me or the girls. I had no quarrel with her message to any of us. She has an opinion of how things should get done and I now have more information about what she expects in the future, but all of it felt very patronizing and snotty to me.

We got fussed at for wearing our sandals in camp. I pointed out that we would never wear sandals to the barn, but that when you're camping you are in your "home" for the weekend. We came over to the horses b/c the judges were there. It wasn't like we were running around, frolicking with our horses with our sandals on. The girls were told they hadn't groomed their horses well enough. I saw them bathe the horses, so I wasn't sure what the problem was, but evidently they didn't do a good enough job. Some judges care more about baths than others. Jena called her horse an idiot for not doing something and was docked 2 points. There is some question as to whether the judge said to Jena, Maggie's friend, that her horse wasn't the idiot. I'm still looking for confirmation on that one. In any case the message was fine, but the delivery wasn't and I'm still not happy even after a few days. Riding safety is looking really good right now.

All of this brings me to the dilemma of Liberty. If we are going to back off NATRC for the next little bit, I don't need him. I like him and I'm having fun with him, but I don't need him. Maggie has never committed to riding Freeley yet and I"m not sure that he will behave for her in that setting anymore than he does for me. I just don't have a clue really. He might be perfect for her in that setting and he certainly has enough experience to be a good boy and take her down the trail. In any case, if they thought Brody was too green for Maggie, Liberty is no better, but he is smaller, which is a good thing. It will be 6 months at least before I'd trust him with Maggie on the trail and based on what everyone else tells me about kids/horses, maybe I should wait even longer. I see a different kid with a different set of skills than others see and I'm wondering if it's time to see her through their eyes...which isn't easy to do.

Originally before Deli was lame, we were going to do a few of the colder weather rides and then take the rest of the year off till the foal came and then start riding Deli again. WE don't know if Deli will ever be able to do NATRC again or not. Some people say that Ringbone can go away and she may be fine. Others say that to do NATRC is probably out of the question and chances are they will always be looking for her to have problems. We can do trail trials, but they don't happen that often. They also don't check for lameness.

Many of my friends think that even Deli is too much for Maggie. They don't see her when it's just us having fun. They have only see us stressed out, in a group. I don't know if she is or not b/c she certainly wasn't this summer when we were in Arkansas.

I just don't know the answer.

I did figure out the cost to keeping Liberty each month. For the first time in my life I find myself wondering if the new furniture I'd like to have wouldn't be a better idea.

I have one more week to decide. I have to get several rides in so I know. He's such a cutey and a good deal I know he'll make a great horse. But, I do already have some great horses.

So the question is, change sports (don't compete) or get the horse that will let us compete if Maggie will ride Freeley. The problem is that she will tell me that she will, but I won't know if she's sincere until after I buy the horse.

Alice's Birthday Surprise -- Peter's Perspective

This past weekend was Alice's birthday. On Saturday though I went to a friends annual Halloween party. I did not stay long at the party, leaving at 8pm because I had a plan...an evil birthday plan...

After I got back to the house on Saturday night, Alice called and told me how dissapointed I was that I did not surprise her for her birthday by driving over that afternoon. I told her that I had really wanted to go to Alexa's party since she only has it once a year. You can imagine the response I got from that, but I knew what I was saying. I also told her that I wanted to stay home so I could do my normal Sunday cleaning chores. She was dissapointed but she said she understood.

I woke up the next morning at 5am and took care of the dogs before loading up Frankie and heading out to the camp site (about a 2.5 hour drive). I got to the camp site just in time to get out to the first P&R location (a point on the trail where the horse's Pulse and Respiration are taken to make sure that the horse is fit enough to continue). Alice had not been through so all I had to do was sit and wait for her to get there.

While waiting, I saw a few of Alice's camp-neighbours and they told me how dissappointed Alice was that I had not driven over on Saturday. They all agreed that Alice would be very surprised. And she was. When she saw me her jaw dropped and she gave me a big hug and was quite happy that I had appeared. Oh, and Maggie also was surprised.

So what did I get for giving her the surprise? A mangled hand. It was dusk before the awards meeting even began so in order to facilitate a speedy departure, Jenna (a friend of Maggies who had come with us) and I went to load up the three horses. In order to load Freeley, you have to keep a hold of his lead rope after he loads into the trailer to keep him from backing out. So Jenna loaded Freeley into the trailer and I held the lead rope. Unfortunately, Freeley decided he wated out of the trailer and jerked back. Since I was holding on to the lead line, it resulted in my left hand slamming into the side of the trailer causing a number of cuts and scrapes on the back of the fingers and some rope burns on the fronts of the fingers. Also my fingers are somewhat swollen and bruised. No cello playing for me for a while until my fingers heal.

Regardless, it was worth it to surprise Alice like that. We had a good afternoon together packing up camp and all so I think it was worth suprising her like that.

Prayers for a friend

I just got word that the daughter of one of my horsey friends fell off her pony tonight and broke her arm. She's really upset feeling like it shouldn't have happened. I tried to tell her that all kids fall off and bones get broken. Maggie fell off at 5 or 6 and broke her collar one. We all survived and she was back on her pony before we knew it! God Speed to my friend!