T-3.5 hours…

OH man oh man. This week cannot end fast enough.

I did have a jump lesson before my hiatus for holidays, and it went..Ok. I felt weirdly anxious, which I am going to chalk up to the pressure cooker that work has been all week. I just couldn’t shake it.

My jumping went ok, Oats had a very uncharacteristic slam on the brakes to a small oxer even from a PERFECT distance?! WTF? So, yeah odd. We re-approached and he was fine, and jumped it lovely each time after that, but still. Even during our course he had his ‘stop-hesitate-jump’ through a two stride that just seemed not great. Admittedly, I was having a lot of trouble getting straight to the two-stride, but still…

I wanted to ride the course through three times but the way I was feeling? Nah, not productive. So I rode it through twice, and called it at that.

It was ok, but I couldn’t shake the weird anxiety. UGH. Also I am thinking that I should look into some more preventative medicine for old Oats. He is getting up to 17, and not a spring chicken anymore.

I can do this. A few more hours. I can do this.

The countdown is ON!

T-3 days and counting…Oh man am I ever counting down the hours/days.

My Reese’s Advent Calendar. I LOVE IT.

Anyways, dressage lesson last night with Karen and my friend Lindsey joined us, as I usually do a semi-private vs private because privates are $$$$ and my other regular lesson partner is injured, so I asked Lindsey if she was interested. She was! Win win.

I think she got a lot out of the lesson, at least from what I saw!

My takeaways for my ride: Practice transitioning from posting trot to sitting trot. Wow, this was way harder than I originally anticipated. I go from smooth posting to WHAM WHAM WHAM bucket of bolts sitting trot jarring my everything. Gag. It was hard, and my abs hurt? WTF?

We worked on that for awhile, making sure I didn’t tip forward and get all bunched up holding my breath (told you it was hard). We then went up into canter, and worked on getting a ‘jump’ from Oats in the canter. We were close but my timing was off in the ‘release’ part of the ride- I wasn’t releasing fast enough or near enough. Ah, well.

I need to practice posting trot to sitting trot though. Ouch!

I am also eating a LOT of holiday candy. Man, I love Christmas candy. Mmmmmm even grabbed some treats at the Dr’s office this morning! 🙂

Getting past the past

Man, I am tired. After a very nice and fairly relaxing weekend (we made and decorated sugar cookies!) and went to watch some live music including Christmas carols at the Breakwater Bistro, it was straight into a rather hellish Monday at work…Ugh.

I only have 4 more days. I can do this. I find this time of year really stressful and tiring. I sometimes have a hard time getting in the ‘Christmas Spirit’ TM but I am taking it day by day and hopefully things will turn around.

I’m not kidding. We made & decorated a LOT of cookies!! Good times with a good friend.

In the meantime, I am just tired and kind of dragging myself to the barn to ride. My rides feel kind of short and half-assed, and yet the work Oats is giving me is really GOOD?! Go figure eh? We have been focusing on transitions (transitions, transitions, transitions..) and I am really happy with how he is going.

It’s cold though. And dark. And just…blah.

I can’t go on. I’ll go on. We have a dressage lesson today, and my friend with her horse will be joining us- I’m looking forward to seeing what she learns today!

If you’re born on an island, the ocean heals you

Another jump lesson recap!! Oats and I warmed up really nicely last night, so nice in fact that I am wondering how I can capture that magic for our next jump lesson? He was soft, forward, responsive and very fluid. It was just lovely.

Last winter was very snowy.

I was feeling confident after that warm up, more confident than I usually feel about jumping! Lucky me because last night was the night to start being challenged with height a bit more (it was not a complex lesson, compared with the last few weeks of very technical coursework).

We did a trot-in one-stride gymnastic (x-rail to oxer) and by the end of the warm up over the gymnastic, the oxer was up to 2’6” with nary a peep from me! I did feel a bit anxious about it but you know what? It was riding fine.

We then made a small course of 6 jumps, incorporating the gymnastic into the course. That rode fine, so the jumps went up (another panel jump went to 2’6”) and we worked up to a course of 12 fences total. Oats was a tad surprised by the bigger fence and was like wait, woah and had to really lift his hooves to clear it. Good boy!

In the course we did the gymnastic twice and the 2’6” fence three times. That’s a lot for me, hahahah. The course rode quite well though, and I was very pleased with Oats making the effort.

I have been saying it’s time to be challenged and here I go- it’s time and I am ready!

New look

I rode Tuesday (no lesson, but I did practice our lateral work via the diamond-shape pattern. It was tough but kind of meditative?). And I took Wednesday off and got a haircut!

I really like it, and I think it totally suits me 🙂

Jump lesson tonight. I hope it’s a bit warmer at least….Yeow. Down to zero last night, blahh.

Let the festivities begin!

For Christmas, I mean. Ian and I set up our decorations on the weekend, in preparation to start the holiday season (which apparently starts the first weekend of Dec. Who knew?).

We also had his Christmas party and I enjoyed it a lot. A little too much, actually. I need to rein it in after one big blowout, I can’t handle that much fun these days! (Or I can, but my stomach can’t. yeeesh). It was a night filled with blackjack, dancing, good food and lots and lots of wine, my ultimate downfall.

Sunday was a write off, thanks to the wine-related hangover and accordingly sour clenched fist of a stomach…Thanks body you really got me this time! I did make time to go riding on Oats while Ian made a special trip to Greenhawk for some Xmas shopping. Yessss!

This week no dressage lesson tonight, so I’m bumming around on Oats. Lucky because it is also COLD this week, like 0 deg at the barn at night. Ouch. Still going riding though and maybe a little shopping myself! Oats was very pleasant to ride this week, some disagreement on ‘collected canter’ aka he doesn’t know wtf I am doing/asking for, but oh well it’s a work in progress.

Jumping on Thursday, as per usual. Christmas cookie decorating with a friend on Saturday!

Part-Time Friends (Jump lesson!)

We have been working on some really interesting jump exercises recently. Every lesson I come in with anticipation and sometimes dread, ha, to see how much Nicole will challenge both Oats and I.

I am ready to accept the challenge!

This week we worked over 3 bounce x-rails (bounce-bounce-bounce), and then eventually into a course that had some interesting technicalities. Boy did we struggle with the bounces- I almost ATE it when I got left behind, and then bounced in the butt with the saddle and ended up on Oats’ neck. Whoops! Yikes!

Anyways, we also incorporated jumping a small jump, like a rail on the ground basically, on a 10-metre circle. Oats was really good at it, and did it three times in a row even.

Course time: Start on the left rein to the three bounce jumps. Left turn at E in a 10-metre circle over the small jump. Continue left and go across the diagonal, jumping the skinny on an angle. Going right now, jump over three bounce jumps. Right turn at E in a 10-metre circle over the small jump. Continuing right, go over the diagonal jumping the skinny. Continue right over the oxer, landing at ‘H’ and cantering into a ‘tear drop’ shape, jumping the single fence along the long side. Canter left lead into a 20-metre circle, ending the circle by turning in to ‘X’ and jumping straight down the middle, ending at ‘C’.

We aced it!

sort of- ha. But it was a great workout and an excellent challenge for the both of us. Whoop.

Hostess Strawberry Cupcakes. My food review.

Hint- they are NOT good.

I am pretty behind in my food reviews (I have a lot in the backlog right now, like Baileys Pumpkin Spice, Lavender Yogurt from Liberté, Liberté Greek Crunch in Coconut , Califa Farms Mocha Cold Brew)….

But I couldn’t resist with this one. So many things to say! So many things I didn’t like about it also.

First off, the packaging. When I was a kid, Hostess Cup Cakes came in chocolate with white squiggle icing and also in a twin-pack (two cupcakes per pack, a US delicacy and a treat to behold). They tasted like everything I wanted when I was a kid: Sweet, chocolatey, two of them…That’s pretty much it.

These ones? One per pack, which in of itself is disappointing. Why the new style of packaging? Is this some sort of child/adult obesity crisis type of scare, making us think that only one should be eaten at a time? How does that explain Pop-Tarts then?

The smell is lightly floral, with undertones of cardboard, and the look says we stopped trying like, 10 months ago. And the taste? Man. I have never experienced a snack cake that is both greasy AND stale at the same time, existing on simultaneous planes. Just yuck. The chocolate ‘frosting’ is hard and lame, kind of bitter tasting. Has a special eau de cardboard that you can’t seem to escape, also tastes vaguely like newspaper.

The cake itself bills as ‘strawberry’ but tastes more like failed dreams and stale aspirations. Bland, rather chemical tasting, not enhanced even remotely by the greasy ‘crème filing’ that looks and tastes like the edible oil product it is. Grim.

I’m actually glad these are not packaged in pairs anymore. Nobody wants to eat more than one. Also, now I’m not sure if the ones I had in my childhood were any good, or I just had way, way lower standards. ????

I guess they can’t all be winners!