Blog
January 2007
Not all warnings are irrelevant. Who knew?
You know those labels that say to test [product] on a small area and watch for reactions, even if you’ve used the product before? I always laughed at them, because who develops allergies out of the blue?
Me, that’s who. To a certain brand of laundry detergent. I’ve never been allergic to anything before, and… ouch. Couldn’t I have learned this by just putting on a pair of socks? Oh no… socks, jeans, sweater, gloves… all itchified and ugly. Ow. Ow. Ow.
I didn’t, obviously, ride today. I was supposed to… but no.
There was some good news, though. One of the trainers headed down to Thermal today, and we moved all the horses from the smaller barn into the main barn. I do think it’s very cool for everyone who is going down to show or who sent their horses down to show. And for the barn as a whole. And all of that. But, selfishly, right now I’m excited because it will make feeding so much easier. No more carts up and down the hill! No more hauling the hose out to fill the stock tank! No more hauling buckets of water that I (invariably) spill!
I’m so excited I could dance, but I think I’ll hold off on that until this allergic reaction disappears.
Yikes. Who knew laundry detergent could be so evil?
How do you increase entries at a Dressage show?
Personally, I’d offer an unmounted class. Participants would do a modified test at the walk and “trot” and would be judged on accuracy and turnout. I think it would be a riot.
But in more practical terms, one of the problems in this region is that entries are way, way down. I’m not sure why–I’ve been away for a while–but it’s sad to see.
How would you go about trying to spark interest for Dressage amoung the hunter/jumper riders? In my area, just about any of the hunter/jumper riders showing 2′6″ or above could put in a decent Training Level test. The 14-17 eq kids could do a strong First Level test–some of them could do a Second Level test, although it wouldn’t be as strong as someone specifically training Dressage.
My point: they have the abilities. The horses are suitable enough. But you don’t see riders crossing over at all.
I’m afraid Dressage is going to die out.
What would happen if there were an Individual Cross-Disciplinary medal? Over the course of the season, riders would have to show in, say, one Dressage class, one Hunter class, and one Jumper class. Would it encourage H/J riders to at least try out Dressage? Maybe. And who knows–they might like it and want to try more of it. Imagine!
Or maybe a team cup? One Dressage rider, one hunter rider, one jumper rider. And/or a Western rider. Each rider declares a division at the beginning of the summer, and all the points they earn in that division go toward the team cup. It all gets magically mathed out at the end of the summer, and the team with the highest points wins. At the very least, maybe it would get people out to the Dressage shows, to cheer on their team members. And if they’re going out anyway… maybe they’d bring their horses? Try a class or two on their own?
If all that’s too much work, though, I stand by what I said the first time: a horseless Dressage class would be a lot of fun. I’d lose points because I toe out at the walk, but I bet I could make them up by doing accurate figures.
The Year in Review
I’m fascinated by site statistics, even though they tend to be as accurate as my twenty-meter circles. Which is to say: they try hard, but…. Still–you learn all sorts of interesting but not very useful information when you look at site statistics.
For example, since I started this blog, 1300 people have visited nearly 3600 times with over 5000 page views (not counting my own visits here, because they needlessly inflate the numbers, or spiders/crawlers, because they aren’t really visits). My stats program estimates nearly 900 added me to their favorites. Wow. I feel very popular. And humbled.
Tuesday is apparently the most popular day to visit this site. Why? Please: if you’re a Tuesday visitor, enlighten me! What’s so cool about Tuesdays?!
Three people tried to get into forbidden directories. Bad people! A girl likes to keep some things private. On the other hand, apparently 11 documents were “not acceptable to client.” Well, I can’t blame you there. I don’t find myself acceptable sometimes.
Visitors have come from 35 different countries, with the U.S., Canada, and the Netherlands leading the way. The Netherlands? Really? Y’all have good beer there. Send me some?
The most popular search topics for this site are related to ribbon quilts, but unexpected search topics include: “highwaywoman fancy dress” (Halloween, I supose), “what is fashionable attire” (if I knew that, I wouldn’t be wearing grandma pants and a hoodie right now, would I?), “old lady x” (Hey! I’m twenty-something! That’s not old!), “i need a dressage sponsor!!!” (me too!!!), and possibly my favorite WTH search: “kitty humpback.” Uh… did I write about humpbacked kitties at some point?
And, just for fun, the top ten posts:
- How To Make a Ribbon Quilt
- Ribbon Quilts–The Finished Products
- So, the whole riding thing
- Typical Dressage Test
- After a year, I lead a horse ten steps
- Per Request: Books on Dressage
- Sponsor a Dressage Rider
- I need some crafty help
- Bottoms Up!
- The Anti-One Person Horse
I honestly don’t know what sort of traffic other blogs get, but I will say that in the past five months this blog has already reached about the same traffic level as my other blog, which has been around for over two years. I’m not sure what that says about the quality of my other blog, but I’m thrilled this one has taken off so well.
So thank you, to all my readers. I feel all warm and fuzzy every time I look at my stats and realize I’m not blogging in a void.
December 2006
The Twelve Month Plan: Nov-Jan
I should have made the goals for the past two months, but for one reason and another my clients and my checks seemed to disappear. So this hasn’t been a good season, financially.
I’ve decided that I don’t want to be self-employed anymore. I can make my bills on this schedule, but I don’t think I’m going to get ahead enough to be able to afford a horse. Clearly. How many months have I missed my goals already?
I’m officially job hunting. I have clients back in touch, so, theoretically, I’ll make my January goals this time (although, that’s what I said in Nov and Dec, when they all decided to delay things until after the holidays). And by February I hope to be working somewhere else, where the paychecks will come in every two weeks.
Being self-employed is great, but owning a horse is more important to me. Once I have a job, I’ll have to reevaluate the whole twelve-month plan.
We’ll see. I’m frustrated, of course. I really liked working for myself. But maybe this will work out better in the end. New Year, New Plan. Let’s hope it’s better than the old.
Small Steps. Baby Steps. Almost Non-Steps.
Hi, my name is Halt Near X and I think fire-breathing dragons live under jumps. What I think of gymnastic exercises isn’t really printable–it’s only in the last week or two that I’ve been able to watch other riders go through them without cringing.
So I’m as shocked as anyone that I walked through part of a gymnastics exercise today. Just the first part–raised cavalleties. We were using the impulsion generated by the cavalleties to help me rate the walk through the rest of the arena.
Unfortunately for me, this meant walking towards a jump and only turning away from it at the last minute.
I survived, obviously. I won’t pretend I wasn’t tense, but I did survive. I can walk towards a jump and not have a panic attack. Isn’t that nice?