Saturday

Sunday - TOO EFFING MUCH

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

Friday

I took the day off work.  I'm such a slacker.

I set my alarm for eight because I had about a million things that I wanted to get done.  After taking care of the kids and starting a load of laundry, I headed out to the track.  I did six miles in an okay time.  I'm getting bored with the local track - around and around and around - so instead of doing laps, I did partials.  The lap is about a mile and a half (1.47, to be exact).  So, instead, I ran a mile of it and turned around.  Did that three times and called it a day.

I went home and vegged out for about half an hour - drank some soda and ate some chips to get my energy back up - and then headed to the barn.

I set up the low cross rail and cleaned up the track around some of the recent fallen trees, so you see where my mind was.  About half way through tacking up, the other boarder showed up.  This has never happened before, but it was late morning on a weekday and I certainly wasn't supposed to be there.

She asked me if I was going to hit the trails and I told her that I was going to work him in the "ring" first.  So she hung around.

The Kid was excellent!  Nice trot work, forward, super-attentive, even though I know he was keen on watching the other horse.  Previously, he'd lose his shit if another horse cantered around us or came up behind us too quickly, but he seems to have grown out of that (to some degree).  We did the crossrail twice in both directions at two different heights, trotting in and cantering out.  He was seriously excellent.  Then did a couple of the fallen trees in a tight rollback at a trot.  I know the other boarder had to think that I was crazy.

BO's skinny geriatric.

Archie following.

We went out on the trail ride and she made a comment about me opening the gate which I appreciated - that Archie and I were better at it.  We left the gate open because the BO's geriatric has permission to come out of the pasture and graze.  We thought that he would hang out and eat on the lush grass immediately outside of the pasture, but a few minutes into the ride, he was trotting down the road, screaming, to catch up with us.  Poor guy is so disgustingly skinny.

Overall, not a bad experience.  Chick talks way too much.  But, thankfully, part of that conversation was BO bashing and her bashing on her own skills (like, she can't handle her OTTB, knows she needs more training, knows she shouldn't have bought a horse like that).  It made her more human to me and I appreciate it.

I met the husband at the Green Truck Pub.  It's the Craft Brew Festival, so they were giving away swank that I wanted.  We each had two beers and went home, tipsy and sleepy and slept on the couch together for an hour and a half.  Another thing that never happens.  Then we headed out to the World of Beer to meet the chick who works for him and who used to be one of my besties, but who dropped me when I stopped drinking as much.  It was a good night.  (Except I met one of D's coworkers who is younger and more attractive than I anticipated and she grabbed his arm while telling a story and I wanted to punch her in the nose.  This my blog.  I can say things like that.  Bitch seriously missed my daggers after that.)

Saturday

We got up early and went to the local airforce base to get our cycling in.  To date, we've been averaging about 16 - 17 mph.  Today, my asshole husband (who read this and got his feeling hurt) (he only has one) decided to peddle off at 19 mph into a headwind, after we did a lower-body Arnold workout on Thursday.  For about half an hour, I hated the man.  We didn't slow our pace until the last mile, which was mile number 12.  I had nothing left in my legs.  I had nothing, at all.  I was peddling on pure desperation.

Smarmy.

After the cycle and the recovery shower, we went and got Japanese.  I love my carbs.  My yaki soba.  And then we ran errands, part of which involved spending my father's Christmas gift to my husband: $150 gift card to Joseph A. Banks.  With all the weight loss, the husband needs new professional clothes.  They were having a sale and he ended up getting three shirts and a nice pair of pants and only went out of pocket twenty bucks.  After running a few more errands, we headed home to watch the Hunger Games.

And I went back out to ride the pony.  He was pretty freaking awesome again.  We had some issues picking up the left lead, but didn't have the lurching start to the right lead.  We worked primarily on downward transitions. I had a sweaty horse after the end of it all.

Sweaty pony!

Here's a weird thing I'm thinking about: building little jumps.  I'm not super interested in height, but something I can build up on.  I was thinking about getting two 8-foot boards cut in half and another cut into half-foot segments and then building jumps from that.  Like skinnies that I could stack or set on their sides.  I just think about the width.  Most of the jumps that I've seen are the full eight feet and I'm not sure exactly why - safety? I think we could hand some skinny grids.  And I want them super bright - one blue, one yellow and one purple.  With "Burke" on the underside.  Sounds like a good Labor Day project, right?

Tonight, I'm putting partial ombre highlights and face-framing highlights in my hair.  Later, I'm going to take one of D's razors and slice my bangs in half.  And then the husband (assuming I can trust him with scissors after this post) is going to trim my ends.  I'm the daughter of a master cosmetologist.  I got skills.

This could be really, really long.

Thursday
Husband met me downtown and we went to the Rail Pub to get our cups for the Humane Society Pup Crawl.  For some reason, getting-drunk me decided to record everything.  I have the order of appearances, the drinks, pictures of the drinks and pictures of us holding drinks.  I remember telling one bartender, at the last bar, that I intended on blogging about it.

Chicken scratch.

Nachos at Moon River

Um.  There were drinks.  We drank them.  One place, instead of giving a free drink, wanted to give a ''discounted'' drink.  We walked away.  We ate nachos at Moon River.  We came home and ate cupcakes.  At about nine-thirty, I loaded the girls up in the back of my Subie and headed back downtown.  They were doing a raffle for a gift basket with a whole lot of crap (like free vet visits, shirts, toys, leashes, etc).  The girls were a little anxious, but they were incredibly well-behaved.  And I never realized that dogs were such major dude magnets!  Hello, wedding band!

Alcohol.

Lizard on my previously thrown-away outside chair.  It has character.

Kisses from the Kid.

TONGUES!

Congress Street Social Club with their Social Sweet Tea (it was amazing).

I promise his ears were up.

Is also a semi-failure?

So, I got the vast majority of the things I wanted to do actually done.  Is it defeatist and self-fullfilling prophecy if I say that, while I didn't finish everything, I got more than I anticipated actually done?

My husband, my dear, sweet husband and dictator of all things miserable in my life, declared that if we were going to be cycling, we could skip the Shaun T torture.  T is for Torturer, of course.  So I had three blissful days of no screaming, no ladder, no jumping or any of that other stupidness.

New fallen tree.

Friday, I rode.  Oh!  And he was excellent.  We popped over the little crossrail a couple times and he cantered on both leads.  And another fallen tree.  I feel like the BO has poor karma - as soon as she got one tree cut up, another fell.  So we did a little bending line from my ghetto stack of limbs to a recently fallen tree, complete with branches.

Old ghetto branches.

There's a corner of the back pasture that he's been an idiot around, so I took him to it so we could work on it.  I wish that I had approached that at the beginning of the day, rather than at the very end.  It was great that he didn't have an attitude on his mind throughout the ride, but two spooks and a correction wasn't necessarily how I wanted to end the ride. But we worked through it.

Middle left is new, middle right is old.

Me.

Saturday, the hubs went to round at the hospital and I got up and did the normal chores.  Walking dogs, feeding the kids, etc.  By the time he got home, I had everything set up for us to leave to go cycle.  We drove over to a nearby base that boasts a ten-mile loop.  It was sort of stressful, to be honest.  Not the actual ride, but the crossing of an intersection, the stopping at a guard station while surrounded by vehicles, all that.  We ended up biking over fifteen miles, but our time and MPH were inaccurate, because the hubs had to stop three times to answer calls.  Oh, and crossing that same intersection, I went left and the hubs went straight.  And when he turned his head to search for me, he fell.  :(

Him, taking call.

After that, we went home and showered and relaxed for a minute.  Then it was off to lunch (Japanese) and cupcakes and home to watch Underworld Evolution.  Perfect movie to sleep through because I have no fucking clue what it's about.  He got called in for an emergency surgery (open fracture of a leg from playing rugby), so I went and rode Archie again.

Scenic as fuck.

I thought a change of pace would do him some good, so I headed out to the dirt road to just work on straight and pace and transitions.  Fucker was an idiot.  He spooked twice at the same clump of trees and again while munching on some grass.  We did get a beautiful right lead canter after the first spook, but after that it was all I could do to get him thinking about forward instead of high-as-a-kite.

Ginger's base farmer tan.

After the ride, I immediately changed and went to the track.  Pumped out 4.5 miles at a decent, albeit slow, pace.  Came home and cleaned up and we went to get pizza and beer.  I love pizza and beer.

Sunday, we immediately went on another ride.  Ten miles, close to home.  It was supposed to rain all afternoon, so we hustled to get it in.  Let me just say, I need some padded bike shorts because my Stubben is eight hundred times more comfortable than my Viper, and the Stubben sort of blows.  We held a pace of about 14 mph and then had to clean mud off the bikes. And no one fell.

Pony gets a spa day.

We were supposed to meet a friend for lunch, but I had enough time to play with the Kid before the storms were planned to arrive.  I started by pulling his mane and then had that wonderful pre-storm temperature drop, so I rode.  At noon.  In August.  It was amazing.  We didn't do much other than walk/trot.  No jumps. One perfect right lead canter that he got praised profusely for, even though I didn't ask for it, and that he had to transition into a trot from.  It was a quick and neat twenty minutes.

Short mane.

We met my friend for lunch, took Archie's dirty stuff to the laundromat (where a strange man possibly with Parkinson's gave us a card for $6 because he felt that place was too expensive), and saw the latest Batman movie.

So. Worth. Seeing.

And we ended the night with True Blood.  All in all?  One of my best weekends.

Bliss.

I need a vacation.  Hubs and I were comparing our vacation hours (and the fact that I accrue at a faster rate) today.  So far, he's got 113 hours just sitting there and I've got 59.

From the saddle.

We survived!

Damn.

66% through with the year.  Let's take stalk:

• Husband and I have been married for one year and ten months (tomorrow).
• Husband and I have been together for six years and four months (ish).
• Archie has legally been my best bud for six years and one month.
• On the 20th of this month, D and I will have been in this city for two years. 
• Since January, the hubs has lost 87 pounds.  Yeah, you can clap.
• As of today, I've been with my job for a whopping nine months.

The last time I sat in the saddle of my horse was Friday.

Three days doesn't feel like a long time, but it really is.  I wonder how he's going to be when I'm able to ride again.  Tonight?  Tomorrow?  Thursday?

The weather.  The weather.  Saturday, Sunday and Monday nights have all had thunderstorms roll through.  I'm actually an evil person and laughed maniacally when I went to the barn last night and saw that the other boarder was starting her ride.  I knew it was about to rain.  She didn't clue in.  She was going on a trail ride and left all the windows to her vehicle down.

Husband took my bike back to the shop to have them fix it from when they fixed it.  Realigned the brake pad and ran it through the gears - evidently, nothing I do should pop off the chain.  I just thought I was special.  And gave me a free water bottle, which is a nice gesture.

What else?  Oh, didn't end up eating with the barn friend because they didn't go out until too late for me and my grandpa husband.  We got pizza and beer instead.  :)

Tonight, it's a hopeful ride on the kid.  A hopeful short bike ride.  Asylum "Strength" and, maybe, just maybe, a couple miles run around the neighborhood.  It'll be damn near impossible to do all four, but here's to hoping.

Oh, and I'm officially registered for the Savannah Rock-n-Roll Half Marathon.  Squee!

Except Saturday.  Saturday was just weird.

I worked at the vet clinic - they suckered me in to one last day - and then met my husband for lunch and went to a baby shower.

The vet's office was fine.  I broke a few rules and told the clients why I was breaking them.  MY LAST DAY IS YOUR LUCKY DAY, BITCHES!  Overall, though, it was a very nice way to end the career.  I worked with someone I like, we talked shit the entire time, and no emergencies came in.  I also got to flaunt my knowledge by quizzing her on random things that a receptionist doesn't need to know, while not once having to talk about fleas.



Hubs and I ate at Five Guys.  It was greasy and thick and absolutely delightful.  My little cheesy veggie sandwich oozed mayo and cheese and onions.  I was in absolute heaven.  And.. we're both addicted to Diet Vanilla Coke, which isn't made or bottled any more.  The Five Guys had installed one of those uber fancy Coke dispensers, so we got to have the vanilla with our fries.

And the baby shower.  I really like the girls from my soccer team, but I don't know them that well.  I tried very hard to be on my best behavior and I was given the task of taking photos.  I didn't get any super amazing candids because.. well, that's awkward.  Hi, I'm the chick in scrubs with a dSLR pointing at you.  When the subject got to child support and court systems, I changed it.  Fucking baby shower, guys.

I went home after that and ate a cupcake that possibly made me sick.  I know, I was horrified, too.  Or it was the Five Guys.  Either way, the day was shot.  Oh, and it thundered and when I wasn't feeling like crap, I had a black furball whimpering in my lap.

That's me.

Sunday, we got up bright and early (or not.  We rolled out of bed at ten) and got things ready to go bike riding.  D had to go through a twenty-step pre-ride mental checklist.  And then he got all sorts of pissed off because the back brake on my bike was rubbing the rim.  Evidently, this is a big deal.  I said, whatever, a little bit of friction will help build my speed.  Then he started spouting off about how the rim would have to be replaced if it rubbed too much, blah blah blah.  A little bike ride!  Just a little bike ride!

Forever later, after he made some adjustments and whatnot, we headed out.  We ended up doing six and a half miles with very few mishaps.  I somehow popped the chain off and almost got hit by a couple cars.  No biggie.  :)  But.. did anyone else not know that the sound of the wind from a nice canter could be recreated on a bike?

MUST FIX BICYCLE, DAMMIT!

It's Blue Midge!

As soon as the ride was done, we headed down town to eat brunch at Paula Deen's Lady and Sons.  I talked to tourists for a few minutes and made friends.  I don't know what was up with this weekend, but I think the theme was gorging.  We go to Paula's every six months or so, specifically on a Sunday, and just pig out on the buffet.  There are some fried dead things and some dead things tossed in with some green things, but what I particularly enjoy:  macaroni and cheese, sweet potato, creamed corn and the salad bar.  And the cheddar biscuits.  And the flapjack.  And the peach cobbler.  I think we waddled out of there.

OCD Mental Checklist 2.0.

And went directly to the beach.

Gingers need a lot of sunblock.

Husband is a ginger with very sensitive skin, so we bought one of those half-tent things that you sit inside of.  I swear to god, the entire beach watched and laughed as we tried to assemble that damn thing.  We finally did it, without blowing away, and sat the chairs in.  We hung out, drinking beer and sunning, for a couple of hours.  And then the wind changed and we both immediately had some warning bell go off and skedaddled.  I ripped in to some tourist who cut me in line for the shower.  Good times!

We drove home in a storm.

So, pretty much no riding this weekend.  I rode Friday and popped him over a couple of crossrails.  I'm getting a feel for how his back works.  He can't do jumping consistently yet.  And I can ask for the canter more often, so long as I stay off his back.  It was hilarious, though.  He's been trotting in and cantering out and taking the jump as an actual jump, until the last time.  Then he did that little lesson pony big step thing, where he just lifted each leg as though it were a trot pole and kept trotting out.

Tonight, we're supposed to meet the leaser and her SO for pizza and beer.  They're moving back to PA tomorrow.  I'm pretty sad to see her go because she was awesome to talk to and fun to ride with.

Hiding in the tent.

I like the reflection.

Oh, yeah.  So.. we found a nest outside our front door of brown widows, the fugly cousin of the black widow.  Equally as toxic, but less of a biter. We killed them all.  This is the sole survivor (at least, she was).