Blog
November 2006
Sew What?
I haven’t posted in a while because nothing new is going on. It’s cold, but that’s normal. Well, twenty-below with the wind chill isn’t normal, but we’re creeping back up into the teens, so I can’t complain much anymore. At least my gloves aren’t freezing to the wheelbarrow handle this week.
I’ve been spending a lot of time inside, which means I’ve been looking for ways to distract myself. I’m thinking I should sew more.
I just can’t decide what.
I think I might make a cooler. Not that I’d be saving money by doing so, but it would keep me occupied for a bit. I think I’d want to line it in nylon or some other static-resistent material. And I’d like to make it fitted, because I’ve made square coolers before.
Or I could make a baby pad or two, but that’s also not cost effective. For some reason, the cost-effectiveness bothers me more with the baby pads than it does with the cooler.
I’d like to make a stuffed horse, actually. Hmm. Guess that means I need to go buy a pattern.
Why do I always get these ideas after the stores close?
Warm Winter?
Back in August and September I remember the weatherman saying we were going to have a warmer than normal winter.
Yeah. Tell it to the single-degree temps we’re getting.
Every conversation I have lately seems to revolve around the question of how to keep warm. I even got into a serious debate about the best way to keep faces warm while working out at the barn–one girl likes ski masks, which I hate because you can’t hear as well. I wrap a scarf around my head, which looks dorky but is warm–until the scarf falls off, anyway. Someone else has this very cool tube-like thing that she just pulls over her head/around her neck and then can pull it up over her nose when she needs to. It’s elasticated, so it stays on her face–unlike my scarf. I’m not sure where she got it, but it’s genious.
Someone else asked me how I stayed warm while working, and I said layers. “Like sweaters and shirts?” she asked. Yes, I said. “And a pair of long johns, and my riding breeches, and then my jeans.” “You’re wearing three pairs of pants?” she asked. Well, yes. It’s warmer that way.
Everything at the barn is blurry now. By the time I get home I’m too cold and tired to think about it. Fortunately, it was almost 20 degrees today, which was positively warm compared to last week. Yippee! I’m thawing out! Maybe I’ll remember something more exciting than cold-weather clothes to blog about. Surely my life is not that boring?
About the budget thing: Oct-Nov
So, I haven’t really wanted to admit this, but I will anyway. Because that’s the whole point of doing this twelve-month thing: being honest with myself about the budget situation.
I didn’t make my budget plan. Not even part of it. I only paid off the interest; the principle is right where it was a month ago.
Right now, I’m just happy I managed to pay off the normal bills. Paying off the extra? I laugh… and then I cry. It’s just so frustrating: things go really well for a couple months, and then they… don’t. At all. But that’s the point of this exercise, right? Making sure I know exactly where I stand financially.
I’m not giving up, though. I’ve given myself a year to get sorted out. The first two updates haven’t gone as well as I’d hoped, so now it’s a matter of going out and making sure the next one does. After all, no one’s going to just give me a horse and the money to keep it. If I want one, I have to find a way to make it work.
And I want a horse.
December Update: I have my eye on you. You are not going to look like this one.
Sometimes, things click
I had the shortest lesson ever this week. And one of the best in a long time.
It didn’t start out so great. Things were running late, so I was warming up a bit on my own–and warm up in winter = two point. Two point for a couple minutes so the horse’s back can warm up? Not my favorite thing, but worth doing. Two point for twenty minutes? Oy!
Once the lesson started, we were doing some work with bending and quarterlines and turns–and I was in that “I sort of get it but I’m not entirely sure I get it” place that I seem to be in so much lately. So my instructor had me leg yield from the rail to the center line and then ride into the halt.
And it clicked.
The feeling, I mean. It’s so much easier to stay centered during a leg yield if the horse is on all the aids. It’s so much easier to do a leg yield when the horse is really moving forward. And the feeling when a horse is really reaching underneath himself on the cross steps is incredible.
But the halt. Oh the halt. It’s the halt we’ve been waiting for all summer. It was a truely different thing than the park-horse halts I’ve been struggling with. It was the sort of halt where the horse is so round and underneath himself that you know he’s ready to step off into any movement you want to ask of him, and he’ll step off already on the aids. A beautiful, beautiful thing.
My instructor would have continued on with the lesson, but I was close to being done anyway. It was the perfect place to stop, and it’s a great feeling to be carrying through the week.
All your traction are belong to us
You have no chance to stay upright. Pad your bum.
Heh. Is it wrong that I still like to riff that particular ‘net fad? I can’t help it–I have a soft spot for it. That and the llama song. I like to sing the llama song while I walk the mares. Not so sure the mares like the llama song… but maybe it’s just my singing they object to.
At any rate: we have snow. And ice. And twenty degree temperatures.
Which means I had to go out and buy new boots. My tennis shoes didn’t have any traction on dry concrete, so I didn’t fancy trying to push the feed cart up the icy hill in them. Oh, ok. In the spirit of full disclosure: I pushed the feed cart up the icy hill in my tennis shoes on Monday and it was… not pretty. So now I have new boots. Never let it be said that I don’t learn from my mistakes.
I also had to buy new gloves, because my old ones disappeared. I loved those gloves. Years ago, my brother had seen me come home from the barn with three pairs of frozen wool and polar fleece gloves. (I have this habit of spilling water while I’m hauling it, you see, which soaks the gloves. Which would then freeze on my hands. Which was bad. Hence dragging several pairs back and forth to the barn.) My brother took pity on me and bought some very nice skiing gloves for me: no bulk, warmer than polar fleece, and water resistent. Plus, when I got them soaking wet, they wouldn’t freeze on my hands. I could keep working. A beautiful thing.
Unfortunately, as I said, they disappeared on me. So I went out and bought new ones. I felt all warm and fuzzy at the store. It’s rare that I really, really enjoy buying something, but I do love my skiing gloves.
(And because Murphey’s Law is what it is, I found my old gloves at the bottom of my tack locker tonight. But that’s ok: if one pair of skiing gloves are good, two pair are infinitely better.)
I just need to buy some silk long johns and a new hat and I’ll be set for the winter.
Are you ready? Because if it hasn’t hit you yet, it’s coming. [Insert dramatic Doom and Gloom music here.]