So, yeah, the rain inspired my foray into more barn stalking.

The last barn I stalked was between work and home and would have been ideal.. except that they aren't accepting any boarders.  Big shady trees, old but maintained facilities, a round pen and a jump field.  Sigh.

I went out to the barn yesterday with all my riding stuff in hand, but the weather wasn't agreeable.  So I spent time picking his hooves and brushing out his tail while he ate his beet pulp.  It was a peaceful way to spend some time with my horse without having to ask anything of or expect anything from him.

Shiny butt.

On my way home, I swung by a property that my boss told me about.  He said that his wife used to get manure from them.  Unfortunately, the signs scared me off and I'm going to have to figure out another way to see if they board.  It's an adventure!

See, scary sign.

Possible horse pasture on right?

I attempted to upload an app to my iPhone this weekend, only to be told that I lacked adequate space.  I have a 32 gig 4s.  And, oh, over 2,500 photos and videos.

So then I attempted to upload that multitude of media to my Mac, only to be told that I had inadequate space (3 gigs remaining - whoops).  And then I spent hours (okay, like two) moving 65 gigs of photos and videos and crap to my ginormous external drive, all so I could finish downloading an app that I haven't even opened yet.

The point of all this?  No pretty pictures for this post, because the iPhone is completely empty.  :)

So, normal weekend summation:

Archie

Fitness Stuff

I was supposed to meet the farrier at 11:00 this morning to reattach the Kid's thrown shoe.  He called me at 10:45 to say that he'd already reattached the shoe, so I turned around and slowly meandered back to work. We're trying clips on that front left, even though the farrier doesn't really think it'll help.  I didn't grasp the full gist of the conversation, but the Archer's front feet are shaped differently.  The right is dished and the left is normal.  So, something about the positioning of the shoes makes the good one easier to grab?  Maybe?

Things this weekend:  (because bullets are fun!)
→ riding Archie tonight
→ running a 5k on the beach tomorrow to benefit turtles.  I love turtles.
→ outlet shopping with the hubs
→ mowing my own lawn again, this time without supervision!
→ bonding time with the Subie, to aid in her recovery.  :)
→ dinner with my friend
→ photos at the Humane Society
→ soccer!

And to end, because you're awesome and everyone deserves this.

I think I've described an anxiety attack before.  If so, I apologize.  But, yeah, we'll get there.  (tl;dr?  car accident)

After giving Archie his beet pulp, checking to make sure the farrier didn't magically reattach the shoe, spraying him with our magical fly spray, and taking goofie selfies while giving him kisses, I left the barn to head to the gym.  D and I had worked out on Monday, since I couldn't ride, so I was already sore but had a ton of different muscle groups upon which I could inflict damage.

Goofie kisses.

Let's add a little imagery to this story.

Me, driving in my POS 1997 Subaru Legacy Outback... that I love a ridiculous amount for a car that wants to die.  I've stripped off the shirt I wore to work and am just cruising along in an almost inappropriate gray tank top and black skirt.  I normally wear the tank under clothes or to run, because it looks okay with a boob-minimizing sports bra.

I'm not a super amazing driver, but I'm a hell of a lot more aware since my car was totaled on April 25, 2006 (read: how I met my horse).  I stop at a red light behind a line of traffic.  I check my rearview mirror because I like to know how close cars are to my butt.  I see the dude pull up behind me in a little white car.  And then I see him start to panic and jerk his steering wheel to the right, all the way to the curb.  And then I see him get slammed into by a gray minivan, which causes him to slam into me.  Because I saw it coming, I braced.

I hear the guy in the middle start yelling something to the effect of, "Get off your damn cell phone," while he's walking to my car.

I don't know exactly how to describe the onset of an anxiety attack.  It's like a bomb with a timer, only you have no idea how long the timer is set for.  Sometimes I have several seconds of painful clarity and sometimes I have one.  I had about two seconds before my body took over my brain and I tried to tell the guy that I was going to have an anxiety attack, that it was okay, but he was on the phone with 911 and didn't hear me.

I was able to call D and give him a rough idea of what was going on, bless his fucking heart for understanding my gibberish: ...pant.... car accident ...pant.... Montgomery ...pant.... not bad ...pant.... not bad ...pant....  He told me he was coming and we hung up, then I had to explain to the smooshed dude what was going on with me, you know, in the same fashion.  Hyperventilating blows.  (ha ha)

Pretty quickly, three squad cars and an ambulance showed up.  The EMTs verified that I was relatively okay and made me take my Xanax, so then it was a matter of waiting for my body to stop lock down.  Everyone kept telling me to sit down but I didn't want to sit down because I'd had that skirt for a really long time and I really like it.  So I was pacing, panting, with individual appendage twitching and my left hand tapping.  At some point, though, the attack ebbed and I had the presence of mind to put some damn clothes on.

They had us move our cars into a parking lot and I got to see the extent of the damage to the middle car.  His entire back bumper came off and his front was still on, but marred on the corner where he hit me.

Somewhere around this time, D showed up and nagged me about not having my insurance paperwork right there and then I bitched back at him.  I get that it's important, but I also couldn't feel my legs and sorta didn't give a shit.  Yay, Xanax!  The kid driving the minivan, who had been on his cell phone and subsequently caused the accident, came up to me.  His words, verbatim, "Ma'am, I just want to tell you how sorry I am.  I go to church.  I'm not a bad person."  Instead of going apeshit, because, dude, brakes? or because entry into a building does not make a person good (I really had to stifle the angry atheist in me), I told him that I appreciated his apology.

Ten minutes later he asks if I have a grocery bag or anything in my car.  I say that I don't, and D and I give each other weird looks and wonder what a random time to clean his car.  D and I take a moment to assess the damage to my car, which isn't that bad.  Granted, the Subie was actually in mint exterior condition, minus a few tiny rust spots.  And now she's not.  The right side of the bumper detached from the clips holding it and there's a big fugly spot.

I think I can scrub the white paint from the other car off and make this dinger less noticeable.

So then the cop comes over to give me back my stuff and to give me the contact information for the apologetic church-goer.  At which point I learn that this stupid punk has no insurance.  And knew that he had screwed me and the smooshed guy when he made his apology, but didn't have the guts to fess up at that time.  I had angry thoughts.

I saw the cop tell the smooshed guy and I saw him go ballistic.  I talked to him a little before we left and, fortunately, he's got collision insurance on his car, but he's still out the deductible.

And then we went to the gym and I worked out and realized that the back of my head hurt and my abs felt like they'd been ripped to shreds.

I needed some spotting for the 75#.  Le sigh.

After all this, I really wish I had gotten the smooshed guy's information.  I'd like to send him a thank-you card.  If he hadn't cut his wheels into the curb, I would have sustained much more damage.  I don't have collision insurance and I'm not quite ready to buy another car yet.  So, yeah, gonna do some stalking.  (When I was in my car accident almost exactly seven years ago, I had the presence of mind to turn my car sharply to the left.  So, instead of t-boning and possibly killing the lady who pulled out in front of me, we collided front bumpers.  Hard.  She never showed any appreciation for my quick-thinking and never asked if I was okay.  I mean, giant skid marks across three lanes of traffic.  But she did ask if she could take her fried chicken on the ambulance.  I don't want to be that lady.)

A) I have a lot of crap in my car.  B) You can see how far to the right the smooshed dude pulled his car.

On Friday, I went out to the barn to ride.  I was all sorts of excited.  And then it started thundering.  Is it one of my neurosis, or was everyone taught not to ride when it's thundering?  (It started raining about ten minutes later.)

Ps.  Ear bonnet issue solved.

Let me show you the victory dance of my people.

Thing I'm excited about:

• Stopping by the natural foods store to get citronella oil (I've recently learned a method for making my own, however, my citronella plant needs to recover from winter before I start killing it) to make some fly spray for the Archer.
• Riding the Archer.  (Our IHSA team had a chant.  It was "RIDE THE HORSE!!", but, in our magically inappropriate ways, said like someone special.)
• Dinner with my friend K and my husband tomorrow night at a nice little spot that has good beer and great veggie options.  I haven't seen this chica in a really long time!  (Also, she just got the Skrillex half-shave and I'm insanely jealous.)
• The yoga class I took last night with another friend!  I'm like the unofficially recruiter for my friends.  I knew she got a certification in yoga instruction, and I happened to see that my gym was hiring and bam, she's got the job.  So last night was her second class and she did great.  Also:  my little arthritic lower back felt amazeballs afterwards.
• Getting paid!
• D's dad finishing up the last of his primary to-do list tomorrow.  I hate to say this, but I am excited about focusing more on getting the house settled by ourselves.
• A double-header on Sunday in soccer.  Less excited about the random running around, more excited about touching balls and burning calories.  And, most of our team should be there, which makes it a ton easier.

Ponykins is ready for some new fly gear.

What a random day.

The plan had been:  work, give Archie beet pulp, meet husband at gym and go home.

Instead, this happened:

Not pictured:  my skirt, where the lentils from this soup landed.

So I left work early, showered, changed, napped, and went and rode the Kid.  Where this happened:

Blue Horns.

Donkey Ears looks special.

So, I've never put a bonnet on before and I had to lean up his neck to reattach that string thing, like, three times.  Tips accepted.

And then the mane was finished!

I don't think I've shared this story.

Let's go back to.. uh.. 1996-1997 (excuse me for a moment while I freak the fuck out... THIS STORY TAKES PLACE NEARLY TWENTY YEARS AGO! Dammit.  I feel old).

I was in seventh grade.  I had a blue quilt on my bed.  I decided to repair said quilt where the seams were ripping, while leaving it still on my bed.  And then I got up to do something, forgot that I'd been sewing, laid back down on the bed, and felt a pinch of pain.

When I got up again, my leg fell from out under me.  And then the pain hit.  I remember yelling and my brother giving me support as we shuffled to my mom.  And then all three of us shuffled back to my bedroom to look at the bed.  The sewing needle had split in half, launching part of it into the muscle of my thigh.

My parents took me to the emergency room (foreign body!) because my dad was particularly concerned about infection or me getting hit while playing soccer or falling off a horse.  The Army doctors pulled up xrays and, chuckling to themselves, said that there wasn't anything to be done about it and that if they attempted to remove it, it'd be like "finding a needle in a haystack."  Har, har, har.

They told me that eventually, it would work itself out.

The point of this story is to say that, to this day, I still have half of a sewing needle lodged in the muscle of my thigh.  Which is fine.  Except lately it's started to randomly throb.  Also, "work itself out"?  WTF would that look like?  Would it be like an ingrown hair or would the entire length travel to the surface and would I have to ask D to kindly chop into my leg to grab it?

A few years ago, at the vet clinic, we had a slow night and took a rad of it.  Which my husband then used as a rotating header on his blog.

I have to start with this:  I'm a runner.  (I'm also an American and I'm getting pretty tired of this shit.)  But, if you've never run a race, there is this absolute feeling of euphoria when you approach the finish line.  I sprint.  I shouldn't be able to sprint, if I paced myself faster during the race, but I still sprint.  And then I crumble at the end and take huge gasping breaths and people cheer and I eat an orange half or a bagel and I drink my water/chocolate milk/beer, and I loll about in a wasted sort of happiness.

That's how races are supposed to end.  And if someone had blown something up when I finished the half marathon in November, if I didn't get my bittersweet exhausted post-race bliss, I would probably never run again.

I almost married a sociopath once.  Little snippets of conversations came back to me when I was thinking about what sort of fucking whack job would go after people running.  Running.  Nearly a defenseless state because, once you've run twenty-six point two miles, you've got nothing left.  I wanted to saw my legs off after my little thirteen-miler.

We fall.  We get back up.  We're riders, we do that.  It's ingrained in our psyche.  Runners:  you fall, you trip, you break stride, you correct.  You keep going.  You finish.  And no one should ever take that finish from you.

---

On to horsie stuff...

Side note:  he undertracks on the right and overtracks on the left.

I only had minimal time yesterday to ride because the husband was expecting me at the apartment to officially close it.  I couldn't bear the thought of trotting in my normal little circles, so I took him out of the pasture and we warmed up on the dirt road, walking, back and forth, before I asked him to pick up a trot.  We trotted near the pasture for a little while and then I trotted him down to the meadow.  He lost his shit a little bit back there.

And I wish I'd taken a photo of this, but the owners of the property back there set up a little tiny jump.  I think it's a jump.  It's a skinny with three little rails.  And.. yeah.  We knocked that shit over.  I have all the best intentions of going back this weekend and repairing it.  We jumped it twice (already knocked over after I walked him over it) and he wasn't amazing either time.  The first, he stopped afterwards and started bucking.  The second, it was like his hind end almost couldn't come up over the jump and then it immediately slammed back down.  No bueno.

I'm not going by the barn today.  Instead, I'm going to try to go by the feed store again.  And then I'm going to hustle home and try to get as many boxes moved in as possible.

Weather sucks.  Like bugs suck.  Roar.

Archie

Other Life Stuff

I'd had it in the back of my mind that the deadline for the Happy 5k (previously mentioned here) was April 15th.  I signed on to the website yesterday just to double-check and was horrified to find out that it was.. uh.. today.

So, yesterday, after working eight hours, photographing four chihuahuas, two mix breeds and a cat, feeding the Archer his beet pulp and photographing his handsome dappled butt, and doing arms and shoulders at the gym, I ran 3.1 miles through the new neighborhood.  I got lost.  :)

They say that there's a syndrome that our generation (because, y'all, most of us are the same approximate age) suffers from called "Fear of Missing Out (FOMO)", which is why we religiously check our facebooks and our blogs and our Instagram feeds.  My husband has often teased me (or nagged or harassed) about my addiction to facebook.  We'll be sitting at dinner and I'll check it.  He'll be driving and I'll check it.  And it's not like anything on there is so overwhelmingly important that I need to read it right now.  So I used some of those two semesters of psychology and moved that icon into a folder on the second page of my iPhone, rather than in the bottom right corner, all prominent, on the front page.  And it's worked.  I will say, though, that Instagram might be my new facebook.

I do think that I suffer from another sort of wistfulness: races and shows.  If I hear about races and I don't sign up for them, I have a huge feeling of regret the day of... even if I didn't have extraneous money or didn't train or had other obligations, there's always a sad face for a moment.  Fortunately, it's less of an issue with horse shows, because I never hear about them.  The dressage barn used to keep a list of the shows they'd be attending for the year posted and that always made me sort of sad.  But, ultimately, "out of sight, out of mind."

---

This weekend, the in-laws return.  Evidently, the grandparents have purchased us all sorts of clipper stuff for the bushes in the yard, which, unfortunately, his parents had already bought us anyways.  Never too much of a good thing?  I hope to ride tonight, even though I'm supposed to meet them for dinner, but the rain may dictate the events today anyways.  But definitely squeezing in a ride tomorrow.  And Sunday, before soccer.

Yay for the weekend!

I think that I'm invigorated by all the pleasant things going on in my life (the house, the dog door, Savannah's improved health, Archie's freaking self) that I want to continue to make good stuff happen.

Action shot!

Good girl!

You knew there would be screen shots from the webcams still, right?  This is out of our bedroom window.

Since I haven't gotten a call back about the barn that's tucked behind the feed store, I stopped by the feed store yesterday.  Except.. they were closed.  I could eyeball a little of the barn and I think it's bigger than I remember.  I only saw it once.  So, I guess I'll keep calling.  It would be insanely close to the house and on my way to and from work.

I've also been staying abreast of the Craig's List offerings.  The barn at which I took my dressage lessons is offering pasture board for $295 (includes feed, hay and wormer), which is $120 less than what I pay now.  And I know the lady there takes damn good care of her facilities.  I'll have to go back through my ''dressage'' posts and see what else I said about the place.

As far as the house itself goes, it's great.  Brick floors are kicking our butts, though.  How the hell do you keep that stuff clean?  D goes into a Type A/OCD mania as soon as he walks in and the house gets swept and swiffered and dusted before he can sit down.  Also:  eight million boxes still live in our garage, in lieu of our vehicles.  Annnnnd, the in-laws are coming back in town this weekend.  His grandparents will actually arrive on Friday.  I'm not excited, though D has promised that their house-warming gifts will really be for me (yard stuff!).

There's a lot of wooded areas in our neighborhood.  I wonder if anyone would notice if I fenced in an area and stuck my horse there.  D saw deer in the front yard the other day.. I could just say he's a really big buck.  :)

This is an old photo.  But, damn, I miss jumping.

Guys.  I really feel that the Archer and I had a breakthrough.

Just a wee bit sweaty.  :)

I know I've bitched enough about how he loses his shit when the Skinny Guy gets ridden out of the pasture.  Well, yesterday, I'm tacking up when BO shows up and asks if Archie will be okay if she takes a quick ride around the dirt road.  I tell her to go for it.  I'm a big fan of putting us in conflict in an effort to develop.  Occasionally, we all need a catalyst.

I think a big part of our success was that I took Archie away from the Skinny Guy before she mounted, so that by the time Archie saw him walking through the woods, I already had his brain.  I already had him marching.  When the eyes started to bulge out of his head, I squeezed, then kicked, then overflexed him to the inside so he couldn't focus on his buddy but had to work his body.

We trotted for a solid twenty minutes.  Seriously.  He's going to be sore today.  And he probably screamed for the other horse a dozen times, but I kept him trotting while he was screaming.  That made for a few pathetic screams.  :)  "Mom, Mom... I can't trot and scream and breathe!"

I'm just so proud of him.

I've mentioned that this experience in Savannah is the first time, since I've owned him, that he's been out with other horses, right?  So he's stupid married.  And, were he human, he would probably have some abandonment issues from being separated from the herd a million years ago in Augusta (he was too aggressive).

So, yeah, he did all the extra stuff that I asked him to and only had two little temper tantrums (one, I think he was bit or something because he hasn't bolted forward like that in a while).  He also tried to do the lesson pony speed and slam:  let's go really fast all of a sudden and then slam on the brakes.  But when he tried to slam, I pushed, pushed, pushed and he ended up having to hold that faster trot.  :)

So the Archer had aluminums put back on Wednesday.

I rode on Friday.  It had just stopped pouring and the ground was disgusting and little tenderfoot didn't ever fully use his stride.  I was very, very concerned that I had fucked myself by demanding the aluminums and that I'll have to go crawling back and ask for the steels.  We'll see.  Groveling tastes good.

I rode on Saturday, too, after running a million errands, working out at the gym, and doing all that madness.  He was better and I think that most of what I was feeling was his reaction to the shoes.  Like maybe he has to readjust and it's a slower process for a body that's twice as old as it was when he initially got the different shoes.  He was also high as a kite and had a hard spook at something invisible.  After pushing him through our conditioning down transition ride (I think he'll be able to count to fifteen pretty soon), I pulled him into a collected trot and worked on lateral movements.  After that, the Kid was stellar.

He looks so sleepy and sad here.  :(

He didn't intentionally have Sunday off, but I never had the time to ride.  The husband and I slept an uninterrupted eleven hours (any indication of how stressed/busy/overwhelmed we've been?) and there just weren't enough hours in the day between finishing the apartment, eating, taking Humane Society photos, dropping an Outback-load of stuff at Goodwill and playing soccer (we lost).

The plan is to ride tonight and see how he feels.  I wonder how much of it is in my mind.  We also have the in-laws coming back this weekend to do more work, so, in an effort to actually look like we've done something, we're planning on cracking into some of those boxes that have taken over the garage.  I've gotten all of about 10% complete.  :)

Between donating and soccer, hanging out with my camera at Lake Mayer.

Funny story:  it tried to fall off.

Lots of beer this weekend.

On this day, sixteen years ago, a sweet little Thoroughbred colt was born in Kentucky.

Okay, I very much doubt that he was sweet.  But he is a Thoroughbred and he was born and it did actually take place in Kentucky.  When I imagine the Bold Archer as a foal, I visualize flying hooves unencumbered by arthritis and training, I see a mischievous glint in his eye that has not dissipated, and I hear the baby version of his scream.

I've been fortunate that I've had the internet wiles and the assistance of more internet-suave people (L. Williams) to acquire his history.  I know the (many) races that he lost, the couple that he placed and the one that he won.  I know his tattoo number and his breeder and his trainer (not personally, of course).  Eventually, I'll be able to track down the photo finish of that first place.

I have a vague understanding of where he went between racing and meeting me.  I know that he spent two years in a pasture, getting fat on grass, before I started working with him.  Prior to that, he was a 4-H flunkie.

In our years together, we have jumped jumps, galloped ponds, trotted to the point that I think I would know his rhythm by feel alone, and cantered endlessly.  We have had tantrums and falls and mental fatigue and physical failings.  Our relationship strengthens every day.  I learn more on how to communicate with him and he, in turn, understands better what I'm asking.

When I purchased him and my trainer told me that I could take him to a few shows and immediately resell him for three times what I paid, I scoffed.  Since that first trot, it has never crossed my mind to actually sell him.  Archie is my "heart horse."  I'm sure there will be other horses and I'm sure that I'll love them as much, but never will another creature speak so strongly to my soul.

Here's to sixteen more, Bold Archer.

I went straight to the barn after work yesterday, as planned.  This is a new luxury that both my husband and I are seriously appreciating:  the doggy door.  Instead of hauling ass home and then to wherever we're going, we can just go straight there.  Which also means that once I'm home, I'm done for the day.  Stellar.

So I got to the barn at about 5:45 and BO was feeding.  Fortunately, she heard me pull up and just gave the Kid a handful.  I spent a few extra minutes grooming because what little winter coat he's got is blowing out.  (Also, Scarlette's winter coat is blowing out, too... all over the bedroom carpet.)

Our ride was pretty great.  I just wanted simple, but he gave me more than I asked for and before I knew it, my wunderkid was bending, round and felt like he was floating.  Until he Mack Trucked through my hands and tried to take off.  I did let him transition to a canter, but that transition was so smooth and so unexpected.  I just popped into two point and let him canter out a lap.  I didn't ask for it tracking right because my main intention was to jump a little and I wanted that to be our focus.  And, really, I just wanted to jump once and be done, but I sat in the saddle too soon after the first crossrail and caught him in the face, so I did it again to not catch him in the face and end on a good note.

After the ride, I cleaned him off and gave him all of his beet pulp and the rest of his dinner.  I wish I had some carrots cut, but the unchopped bag is still at the apartment (it's probably rotten by now).  I haven't stretched him in about a week.

On the house front, we still have eighty bajillion things to do.  Husband needs to finish hooking up the dryer, I need to finish painting the guest bathroom, and we need to get started on the boxes (as well as the furniture that's still hanging out in the garage.  I'm ready to really start living in this beautiful house.

Yesterday, my husband sent me a text in the afternoon verifying that I was going straight to the barn after work.  I restrained my urge to reply in all caps (it would have been something like:  WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!  YOU SAID I HAD TO MEET THE COMCAST GUY!!!) and instead reminded him that he told me that I needed to meet the Comcast guy.  He said that he was getting home earlier than planned and would be able to go directly to the house to meet the guy.  I was all sorts of grumpy.

Then I planned to drive us both out there, drop him off at the apartment, and go ride.  Because hooking up cable shouldn't take that long, right?

Wrong.

Comcast guy left our house at 9 pm.  He had to re-wire half the crap and someone else will be coming by today to dig a trench for the new wire.  I ended up abandoning my husband to continue discussing the crappiness of split wires in the front yard (side note:  as much as I appreciate his father, does my husband have to call him with every.single.issue?  like you can't decide for yourself if you want the cable to come through a closet or somewhere else?).  I drove to the barn (half an hour), loved on the Archman (ten minutes), drove back to the house (another half hour) and by then the Comcast guy was leaving and we were starved.  Woo for a Chinese restaurant two blocks away that stays open until 10.

While I was at the barn, I tried to make friends with a raccoon.  And then I adjusted Archie's fly boots, picked his hooves and pulled the braids out of his mane.  Oh, and left a check for the BO.

This looks really gross.  Is this what the inside of dreadlocks looks like?  Dirty?

Expectations for this ride?  I just want to get on my pony and trot some circles.  And maybe, just maybe, jump him over a cross rail a time or two.  And then I want horse hugs and that little whoosh of horse breath and whiskers on my neck/arm/face/back/general vicinity.  And then I want to go to sleep.  (Farrier comes tomorrow - guess who's getting aluminums again!)

Random, because I thought it was hilarious.