Way Yes

I had a very nice weekend- still managing some difficult aspects of life, but I feel like I’m hopefully taking the route that leads to me feeling better about it. This weekend I had a LOT of great friend time, me time, horse time, run time and everything!

We remember.

Friday I had a dressage lesson – where we worked on a canter exercise. It was tough! I had to cut the lesson a bit short to run out to the Westshore for my friend and namesake’s birthday celebration 🙂

Saturday, riding and running. My ligament injury is not 100% but slowly improving run by run. It was a bit painful and ‘tugging’ on my run, but you know what, it was better than it has been- so I’ll take it!

Just a good day- photo by Lindsay. 

Saturday night was visiting with friends- I brought dessert and drank some (a lot?) of wine. Haha. This was in preparation for Sunday’s big event…Bringing the horses to THE BEACH!! Yes, in November?! Hahaha. It was great though. They managed to keep their hair on mostly, Oats was a bit anxious and nippy with some of the other horses, and he spooked at a dog, but yeah for it being November, cold and windy, and a bunch (6 total) of horses? Very good. 🙂

Got home in the afternoon and had to get ready to host in-laws at our place for dinner. Busy busy! It was a lovely evening and the dinner my husband made was fantastic! I also drank a lot of wine, hahahah.

Monday- counseling session to work on some of the issues that have been challenging me this week- it was productive, and I had a better idea of where things went wrong recently. Hindsight is 20/20, isn’t it? I didn’t ride, but Oats got to cruise around the indoor while we were talking and chill out. He also had a farrier appointment. Another busy day! So glad to have Monday off, phewww.

And that brings me to today- where I am trying to be more relaxed, present in my surroundings, and not taking myself, my health or my abilities, for granted.

There’s no one new around you

A long weekend, and a pretty good one! I have to say that as the days get shorter, I get much less enthused about…running, riding, and trying to fit things in that aren’t my couch, or Netflix. Sighhh

Oh well there were activities this weekend to force myself off the couch, like:

Riding Oats on Saturday and doing a fairly technical serpentine exercise, with transitions at ‘C’ on each loop of the serpentine. Kept us focused, and I eventually went up to walk-canter-walk for the transitions. A very good one to keep in the back pocket!~!

Went to watch friends ride at the Jane Stone Winter Series jump clinic on Sunday- they rode excellently, it made me feel both nervous and jealous! Wow what a technical challenge. I also made great use of my in-laws hot tub and ran up Cobble Hill mountain too. A good day, despite the blah and dreariness.

Made cheese (ricotta) with Ian on Monday. Fun! And bonus, he made a great cannelloni with it too. Yum yum.

And yesterday back at work, but I did go riding and schooled some small fences, with trot fence gymnastic (my personal nemesis, like oxers). I even did a trot-in xrail, to a one-stride vertical that I hopped off to set up, and accidentally set at 2’6”! And Oats was foot-perfect! YEAH!

I did tell Vicki last week that I was feeling like I needed to start challenging myself a little bit more, and I guess that was it!

We remember

It was our Remembrance Day, and we had Friday off to acknowledge it. So, we had a long weekend, which is pretty nice.

We packed it, but this time it wasn’t full of friends-events, it was just time for my husband and I to do our thing- hang out, go riding, go running, exploring, go for happy hour on Friday…

We did have a chance to celebrate my husband’s birthday with my parents on Saturday- his parents were going to join us but there was another crash on the Malahat and they got trapped at home! That is the second crash this month, and we are not even half-way through the month. Jesus. So, we missed them, too bad.

Oats was great this weekend, I ended up riding him five days in a row? WTF? Some were very short/relaxing rides. We were even able to get some video, courtesy of my long-suffering husband, hahah. Finally, some jump school clips!

See here.

I rode Sat/Sun as well, and royally messed up my knee on Sunday too. As it turns out, running three days in a row, and running up Mt. Work is a Very Bad Idea. Ouch…I went for a brief ‘shake out’ run on Sunday and it was certainly brief…At approx 3.71km, my kneecap shot off to the left and it was excruciating. I limped home, and got dressed for riding. Well that sure showed me….Jesus. Another relapse. SIGHHHHH.

Oh well, my knee only ached a bit at riding, and now I am focused on rehabbing it yet again. Why do I do this to myself????

Damn.

Otherwise, a great weekend with lots of good food, good happy hour, and even a silent moment of remembrance on the back of my horse, while we heard the distant sound of a bugle calling the Reveille.