Another HorseShowLand weekend! This time ER free!

Well it was another hot and steamy weekend here with temps in the 90’s and HUMID! When is it ever going to be just pleasant, why can’t it be like 78 and partly sunny and a light breeze? Is that really too much to ask for Mother Nature? Apparently that is way too much to ask from her.  And from the weather forecast it is looking like at least the beginning of the week is going to be just as steamy, with the temp tomorrow with the heat index is supposed to reach 106 degrees! I have about had enough of this weather and so have the horses not that Harley is complaining he gets to stand in his deeply bedded stall in front of a fan on high. Oh the life he leads! Some days I want to be my horse! Or at least me taken care of like he is! Spoiled rotten boy!

Making sure Buzz knows the pattern

So this steamy weekend I managed not to get heat stroke at a paint show! Way to go me! I went up to the MPHA Summer Sizzler show in Winona. It was a fun time all in all for the weekend. Went up on Friday and hung out with friends and banded some manes (which I LOVE doing) call me weird that I love banding, but I just find it fun. And as a added bonus we had some good raspberry slush to end the night with!

Minnie and one of her new friends

Saturday came with getting up to the show just in time to put a tail in for a friend. I have to admit I enjoy everything involved with getting horses all pretty to go show! So I hung out all day and watched the show and had a good time with good friends. And of course little miss Minnie had to come with. Because she LOVES horseshowland just as much as I do! The day went well for my friends that showed and it’s always fun discussing the patterns for the day. I have gotten into doing Showmanship more so getting into the patterns is a good thing. And I am happy to have some great friends that are great with patterns that are always a text away from a question on a pattern to get some clarification on certain elements. So I enjoyed the day watching the show and Minnie enjoyed meeting new friends. We had a little “herding dog” roundup at one point with Minnie (Mini Aussie) a corgi, and a Border collie puppy. Needless to say have them all on leashes they were getting all tangled up. So knowing Minnie wouldn’t go anywhere I let her loose and then the real Minnie comes out. Circling around everyone and jumping around playing with the other dogs. She is such an endless way of entertainment.  After that excitement, we went down to the barn to take care of Harley and Romeo and Uffda and Izzy. Yes as you can tell I had more than just mine to take care of. By the time I got home Minnie went right to the couch and fell asleep, she wouldn’t even get down to eat her dinner. So what does the spoiled dog get, her food on the couch so she can eat it. And she slept the rest of the night. She was one tired dog!

So tired after a day of HorseShowLand

Today, I go up to the show. This time Minnie stays home, it was going to be just too hot today. And hot it was at the show, and there was no breeze coming through the barn like there was yesterday. Good thing Dave set me up with my own chair with a fan blowing on it. It was the talk of the weekend about keeping me cool and hydrated so I didn’t have to take a trip to another ER for heat stroke. Thanks guys! I did make it through the weekend without any accidents or getting sick! WOO HOO! First one in a few weeks where that has happened! Lets keep that good luck going! 

This week I am hoping it cools off a bit and Harley isn’t sore anymore. Yes the only negative thing about the weekend is Harley being the smarty pants he is, on Friday decided to go run and run in the arena with his buddy “Gunner” and now he has been lame the last few days. That will teach him….NOT! So let’s hope he gets better in the next few days and we can get to practicing for our show next Sunday! 

Here are a few more quotes to read:

“The talent for being happy is appreciating and liking what you have, instead of what you don’t have.” –Woody Allen

“I’d rather be a failure at something I enjoy than a success at something I hate.” –George Burns

“Once you say you’re going to settle for second, that’s what happens to you in life, I find.” –John F. Kennedy

“Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is.” –Vince Lombardi

Until next time…. M

Happy Hump Day!

Mandy and Harley enjoying some fresh water!

Happy hump day! Hooray for the middle of the week! This week has for sure been much better than last week so I can be happy for that! 

Yesterday we had the equine chiropractor come down to the barn and work on some horses. I always find it really interesting to watch and see what is “out of whack” on them. No one had any serious issues so that was a good thing. Harley just had a little in his back and his sacrum was out of whack. No wonder he didn’t want to take the correct lead in the hind end when I lunge him. So he got a few days off and going to go back into Showmanship practice tomorrow! Have to get ready for our show Sunday! And this time we are going to show, granted nothing happens to me. Speaking of things happening to me, my foot is a little better today, still a beautiful shade of purple.  If it’s not one thing it’s another it seems to be.

I am starting to get myself prepared for a busy week next week. Lots of people gone at the barn, so lots of ponies for me to take care of! I will for sure be getting my exercise! But it’s all fun! I wouldn’t have it any other way! And let’s hope that the weather doesn’t get way hot and humid again so I cannot sweat gallons in the process. So keep fingers crossed!

And since I LOVE quotes! Here are a few of my favorites! ENJOY!

"Be more concerned with your character than with your reputation. Your character is what you really are while your reputation is merely what others think you are." - Dale Carnegie

"I'm not telling you it is going to be easy - I'm telling you it's going to be worth it" - Art Williams

"Life is not the amount of breaths you take. It's the moments that take your breath away."

“Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity.”

 – Louis Pasteur

“One cannot get through life without pain … What we can do is choose how to use the pain life presents to us.” –Bernie S. Siegel

Until next time!    M

Do I have a case of the Mondays?

you can't see all the wonderful colors in this pic

                                Well what a happy Monday it was today! Ok I may be a bit sarcastic on that one. The day started out good, for once I didn’t oversleep! YIPPIE! I had to take Minnie to the vet’s to get boarded for the day since we were getting new flooring and I knew she would just bark at them all day. I must say it is a bit anxiety filled to drop her off. Gosh I better not have children if I have anxiety leaving my dog for 9 hours. My lovely foot from Harley stepping on it is a nice shade of purple and swollen today. Could be worse, but makes wearing shoes a little painful. But I made it through the day with taking my shoe off most the day. 

                I was quite excited to see a few pictures of Harley that my friend took when I was at the show yesterday. They are so cute! But how could a picture of Harley NOT be cute! Almost as much as a picture of Minnie couldn’t be cute. 

                So today wasn’t a horrible Monday, but could have been better. Got some sad news from a friend and feel so bad for her. Thoughts are with you girl! 

                I love quotes, and figured I might as well share some of my favorites.. so will end this short post today with one of my favorites.

“If you have passion to follow your dreams, there is no such word as can’t”

Can I ever NOT get hurt at a horse show?

My friend's horse "Murray"

                 I am beginning to believe that I cannot do anything horse related without getting hurt in some fashion! Let’s break it down for today, so I decided to go to an open show and do Showmanship today. Although I gave it a half effort getting Harley ready yesterday I was still prepared to go show. I should have known things weren’t going to go well when I went to hook up the trailer and had issues with it. Got it figured out quickly good thing there was a cinder block handy. Other than being a little later than I wanted to get on the road things were going alright. So we wrap up Harley and my friend took her gelding with for his first show experience! I go to put Harley in the trailer and Harley is well Harley and he must “jump” into the trailer. There is no stepping one foot at a time into it for this guy, he must hesitate for a second then JUMP. Well he is used to going in a different slot in the trailer and he short shot his Jump and then stumbled and landed right on my foot. PERFECT! And of course it’s my right foot, because everything must happen to my right side. (My right side being the side that my back/hip has all the issues) So we get all loaded up and on the road we go. 

                We get to the show about a half hour later than what I would have liked to. So we just go and lunge the horses in the arena for about 5 minutes and they kick us out. At this point my foot is killing me and I decided Showmanship is just not in the cards for the day. And to add to it there was a lot of trotting in the pattern and it was a bit hot and I was already sweating and figured I didn’t need to get heat stroke again. So back to the trailer Harley goes for his day to hang out at the horse show. Which for his ADD self is good for him to look around anyways. And he was good moral support for my friends gelding for his first time at a show. So it was no biggie that I didn’t show, I like the social aspect anyways. 

                While at the show it’s always fun to see old friends and watch them show. And fun to be a bit of the “peanut gallery” while watching. What can I say… I can’t help it. Got to see my friend Laura and her new baby (who is just adorable) and some of her family. Horse shows are just so much fun! And while I joke with others that I am not showing and just watching, I ensure that I will be at the show next weekend and we will be showing. And who knows, maybe my back will be ok and we will be riding. But I am not going to press my luck, better just focus on the Showmanship. 

                Well it is Sunday night time for Real Housewives of New Jersey and some Kardashian’s… gotta love the guilty pleasures! 

                Till next time…. M

Glad this week is over...

                                Well one could say I have had quite the week. This time last week I was sitting in the ER with heat stroke. So things are looking up since I am not lying in a hospital bed at the moment. However, it has been a tough week for me between feeling lousy from the heat stroke, to getting another back injection. And with the heat we have had the past week it has just been awful. Today was the first day I actually felt somewhat “normal”. 

        I have to admit yesterday I had a little fun. After work I drove to the barn to find that someone had done my chores already for me. Which was SO nice of them, I am normally the one that does chores for other people and it is a nice surprise to have it happen the other way around. Karma! :-) Since I was out of the barn early I decided to go see a movie. I checked my handy Movie Phone app on my phone and decided to go see “Friends with Benefits” which is AWESOME! I highly recommend seeing it! Then I decided to do something I have always wanted to try and do…sneak into another movie. Being the daring person I am and how the times matched up I just went and saw “Horrible Bosses” too. And that movie was AWESOME as well! I know it’s wrong to go and sneak into another movie. Guess I was living life on the wild side! For some that isn’t to wild, but for me that is pretty wild. Oh the crazy life I live!

      

  So today I just hung out at home for a while, and played with Minnie. Then since I had decided the other day that I was going to go down to an open show in Preston, MN I should head to the barn and get Harley ready. Going to a show when I haven’t worked Harley for a few weeks is a good idea right?!?! We are just doing showmanship and he needs to get out so figured why the heck not! And I convinced a friend from the barn to bring her young horse with for the experience so it should be a good time. And while I am normally so particular on how I get my horse ready and clipping/banding, etc. I just sort of did a half way job of it, well to me a half way job. As I was getting hot and starting not to feel real well and didn’t want to get sick. So Harley is all ready for his second ever showmanship class tomorrow! Wish us luck!

        Let’s hope I can get to bed early tonight so I can wake up early and get the trailer all ready and get on the road by 6am. We will see how that goes! I will report how we do tomorrow!

      

  Have a good night! :-) M

Oh how I love organizing!

                What is it about the time of year when all the school supplies come out in the store? I just LOVE school supplies! Keep in mind I don’t like the school part, but give me pens, markers, paper, etc. I LOVE IT! I always seem to find something I could be doing to justify getting some new things.

                So today I go into good ole Target to get Minnie some dog food and some other random things. And the first thing I see when I go into the store is the “One Spot” where they have all kinds of neat things. There always seem to be something in the little section that I think I need, and it’s only a dollar so why not! With this time of year they have some organizers, pens and note paper. Right up MY alley! So I think to myself, what silly little project I can do that I can buy some cute new things. And I think of my “Operation Skinny Bitch”. And along with that is teaching Harley showmanship, and with doing showmanship one needs to have a lot of patterns to practice. While I do have a folder at the barn with some patterns that are printed out in it, I think to myself it would be much easier if they weren’t so big and easier to carry around with me when I am practicing. All of a sudden an idea is born! I decide to get some bigger index cards and some markers and I am going to make the patterns on them. And because I am so particular about things I will have every gait, etc. color coded. Sounds like a good plan to me! So here I sit working on making out my new “showmanship cards”. With making my new system if anyone has any good showmanship patterns to share please let me know! I need all the practice I can get! And hopefully it will be cooling off a little bit so I can actually get some practice in!

                On another fun note, I FINALLY got to the barn today! I haven’t been there in almost a week! How I missed my Harley! My back is still a bit sore, but felt good enough to clean my stall and play with him a little. The spoiled brat that he is he got a hose-down and a nice liniment bath. The bugs are so awful down there he appreciated it. At least I hope he did, silly spoiled boy. And don’t worry Minnie is not getting ignored while I work on my showmanship cards…. As you can see from the picture she is keeping herself occupied between flinging her zebra around and chewing on bones and bouncing around like the little Mexican jumping bean that she is.

Until next time…………….M

"Operation Skinny Bitch"

                 Struggling with weight is something I think a very good share of people do. I have always struggled with my weight from day 1. I have never been skinny or thin my whole life. I can’t remember the last time I wore something in the single digits. And I am not finally at a point in my life where I know I need to do something about it. With my back problems especially, losing some weight would only help the pain not be so bad. So, a few months ago I came up with a fun title to my weight loss plan, “Operation Skinny Bitch”.  I mean one always needs a funny title for anything they do right? And what better than that! 

                While I have been working on it little by little over the past months, I had some good months and some bad months. I got really motivated around last fall/winter when I took in a horse of my friends that got an injury and needed to be hand walked. I figured hey it is the best of both worlds, he needs to walk and so do I! While the extra activity helped, it didn’t do anything drastic. For Christmas I asked for a Wii Fit and the Jillian Michaels game. Figured hey, maybe that would be a good thing, I can do it at home and don’t have to go to a gym and spend money that way. Granted it took me a while to get into the swing of using it. Did really start using it regularly until I was house-sitting for my aunt and uncle for a month and then I used it a good 5 days a week. I added to my “games” Zumba Fitness and Just Dance 2.  I had fun doing them and the pounds started to come off! YEA ME! Well once I got back home, the motivation didn’t continue. I don’t think I have used it since then. And with my back always being a problem it has been an excuse not to do things. Once the weather did start getting better I did some walking back into the valley pastures at the barn. I don’t care much for walking in the city, prefer more to go out and walk in the country. As then I can multi-task and take Minnie with and take pictures. Since this last injection I am promising myself to really get into gear with the “Operation” and get going. And this time I mean it… 

My motivation!

                What is having a goal without have some sort of motivation to go with it? I asked myself what I could use as a reward that would actually make me stick to this. And since most everything in my life revolves around horses and showing I said to myself, maybe a new show jacket? And just as the thought had come into my head I saw on a friend’s facebook page that she was selling her old showmanship jacket. Coincidence I think not. As I have always loved this jacket and have wanted it in the worst way. So I contacted my friend and now it’s hanging in my room so I can see it daily and use that as my motivation, along with the motivation of being in my brother’s wedding next August. So I have plenty of time to reach my goal. And I use my wonderful mother as some inspiration; she has lost 100 pounds in the past 2 years! She is so amazing! While I don’t know if I can do her walking of 10 miles a day, we are going to get my own routine going. 

                So as the planner I am and organizational person as well I am going to start putting together my “Operation Skinny Bitch” plan and get going (that is as soon as my back heals from this injection). And I hope riding can be put into the routine of exercise that I have. So be prepared for more fun and exciting posts on my adventure. And if anyone has any other tips on the good ole weight loss trail please let me know! I need all the help that I can get! 

And everyone needs some celebrity motivation.. mine is Marissa Miller... I will never look like her, but she gives me some motivation.... 

Until next time…. M