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!

It felt just like Christmas

Borrowing a title from the band ‘Low’ for a minute for a weekend update.

The update is again, good and bad.

Can you believe this was 2 years ago?

Good: My work lunch was fun, I ate way too much and drank even more. The delight I discovered was in my work gift x-change- Fireball whiskey and hot chocolate. Mannn…Wish I didn’t know about that the next day, that’s for damn sure!

Also good: Decorating the tree! Finally had a free night (Saturday) to set up the fakey tree we got. Confession time: Also bad because I just don’t like fake trees. I am trying to be a convert because our fascist building rules say no more real trees but damn, it just isn’t the same. It looks ok though.

And great: A jump lesson on Saturday with Nicole and Oats! He was good, I was…well, less good and pretty hungover. Gak. He was very forgiving and I couldn’t see or ride a distance to save my life, despite crowing recently about how much of a rockstar we have both been in our solo jump efforts. Oh well!

Bad: My trainer’s mom died very suddenly Sunday night. She had a stroke from what I understand, and when she was removed from life support, passed away instantly. I’m very sad for Nicole and feel that life for sure has dealt her the toughest blows this 2015. From putting down her old horse of 17 years a month ago, to some relationship troubles, to getting injured a few weeks ago, to her mom passing–she has not had a good or easy time of it.

Feeling sorry.

Also bad: The weather. WTF! It was soooo insanely windy and crazy all weekend, but Saturday in particular. Last week was pretty nuts all week too. And now it is freezing again. We seem to be stuck in a cycle of windy/rainy storm cyclone, then freezing with frost on the ground, back to windy/rainy. Can I get off this carousel please?

Bad: Fake trees. Blah!

More bad: Hangovers! But they come from a fun place, so….Take what you can get maybe.

And to wrap it up: An ok ride on Sunday, can’t quite remember what we were working on but it was fine. An equine counseling session yesterday that was quite cathartic and emotional for me, so I elected not to bring that to Oats for a ride.

Instead, I worked him free-longing to do some ‘join-up’ work and it wa really nice to see him follow behind me! I was sooo late coming home though, eeek.

 

Christmas party season begins!

Last year I had the distinct pleasure of being invited to 3 Christmas parties on the same.night. ARGH!

Photo booth!

I wanted to go to them, honestly I did! So, I went to two in one night.

This year, luckily things are a little more spread out- phew! So, we went to my husband’s work party, which usually kicks off the holiday party season. The food was quite good this year, we got 3 free drink tickets each, and were completely robbed in the draw prize selection…Out of every table, everyone won at least one thing. One table even had every person from their table win a sweet draw prize! Our table? Sat there empty-handed the whole freaking night! So unlucky eh?

Silly photo booth! Note to self- strapless dresses make it look like you’re naked…

Also the cab situation- you could NOT get a cab for love or money that night. Not one. Grumble…There was a band playing and gotta love them for their ‘try’ but jeeeesh, they were pretty bad. Like, sucked the energy out of a room bad. Nobody really danced- a few made an effort, but like, the songs were all CCR or ZZ Top. Not my cup of tea, thanks!

The night went really quick though, and I enjoyed myself.

We got home around 11:30 p.m. or so, and I had my jump lesson with Oats and my trainer on Saturday at 2 p.m., so I didn’t have to really worry about waking up early hungover or anything. Not that I was…But I was congested/sinus headache from hell.

We went to my friend’s craft sale- I participated in it last year but decided selling isn’t my gig, and opted out this year. I bought a loaf of fresh bread! Love it. Then I went off to my lesson, and I’ll post more about that later…

Saturday night I went with a friend to eat at Foo’s Ramen Bar, and then go see the last installment of the ‘Mockingjay’ franchise. Good film but freaking long. Wow. Foo was awesome, the ramen is a super good deal ($13 for the special, pork belly miso ramen) and very filling and delicious. I would definitely recommend it!

Overall, a very pleasant weekend- except that I also forgot it was my dad’s birthday and my phone was acting up (again) so I missed a message from my mom telling me it was his b-day! Ack!

Happy Birthday Dad!

“Be gentle in what you do, and firm in how you do it” Buck Brannaman

So, weekend recap. I normally like doing these on Tuesday, because sometimes Mondays are just.too.damn.difficult to wrap my poor brain around, let alone blog coherently on the same day…

Friday night, I rushed after work to set up for the craft fair at my friend’s place. Made it home around 6 p.m., slapped makeup and a dress on, and we cabbed to my husband’s work Xmas party. We had a great time! Drinks, casino games for charity, food, dancing…What’s not to like! I had been feeling tired, generally put-upon and draggy but just felt totally livened up!

Fancy Christmas party!

We got home around 1 a.m. and then the next morning up bright and early for the craft sale.

I was tired, no doubt. It was kind of a long day, but I sold all of my products with three exceptions: 1 lip scrub and 2 foot scrubs. Not too shabby!! I’m not sure if I will do it again, I liked making them more than selling them, to be honest.

Craft sale- bath/body

No Oats riding on Saturday, as I was at the craft sale for the whole day!

Sunday I went riding and Oats was in rare form…Excited to go down to the ring, squealing a bit and kind of jumping around on the way down. Part of my brain was like hmm…Should I have been longing him before I ride, as he’s had two days off?

Anyways, he settled down fine in the ring, with only a few head-tossing moments when Donato was thundering behind us in the canter (large horses cantering with us is a FIRECRACKER moment for Oats, and he generally starts losing his shit when that happens) so I pulled him back down to trot to prevent any major bucking or leaping sprees.

He was pretty good though, otherwise. We worked on straightness at the canter on the diagonal over a pole, and then trotted a small vertical (funny, we first trotted to it and he slammed on the brakes, he -and I- had gotten distracted by someone walking past the indoor arena waving a blue jacket!) But we pulled it together, and re-approached from the right facing away from the open side of the indoor and did it twice, successfully.

He was so tired after though, I was surprised my little Oats was huffing and puffing. To think of it, I was sweaty and out of breath too! hah.

We are apparently in the middle of a tropical storm right now, so I expect tonight’s lesson might not go…smoothly…But we shall see!