Month: August 2004

Today was nearly perfect: I got up at 6:30 even though I didn’t have to and did a half hour of yoga. Recently I had been lamenting my yoga practice so this morning while I was lying in bed I thought, “Well then do yoga you big baby!” I prefer to do yoga with a teacher but often have to resort to my collection of video tapes. Since I’ve been in SoCal I haven’t found a yoga teacher I connect with. I had a great one when I lived up in NoCal several years ago. And I had a great one when I lived in SoFlo (South Florida) eight years ago. Don’t get me wrong: there are lots of great yoga teachers down here but they’re not necessarily convenient to my location nor in my price range.

After an invigorating session of yoga I dressed for my riding lesson and proceeded to have a great lesson on Goldie. I hadn’t ridden her in a lesson in quite a while because I kept falling off her. I think finally my trainer has figured out how to teach me how to ride Goldie. The problem(s) with riding Goldie all feed off each other: Goldie likes to jump long and since I only recently figured out the correct jump position, I would get jumped out of the tack and consequently into the dirt. I have gone over lots of jumps not riding in the correct jumping position and have been able to get away with it because the horses didn’t have quite the leap that Goldie has. If I asked Goldie to jump from closer to the jump, she would often refuse because that’s not how she likes to jump.

So after I fell of Goldie that last time I’ve been riding Sophie fairly regularly in lessons. Sophie is very adjustable. I can hold her back until she’s very close to the jump then we go over it. She doesn’t take a flying leap from a long way back. She and Goldie are very opposite rides. I got my confidence back riding Sophie. This morning was the test of whether I had learned my lessons well. In my last entry I had complained that I was on a plateau, making the same mistakes over and over again. Today, since I rode Goldie well and managed to stay on (at no point was I insecure in the saddle) I feel like I’m over that plateau. Yay for me.

After that gratifying lesson, I went to RideOn, the therapeutic riding place and put in a couple hours of volunteer work. I had not been there since the end of June because of my busy teaching schedule. The got a few new horses in since I had last been there. One of the new horses is an Arab/Hanoverian mare (kind of an unusual cross) and I got to ride her! She’s out of shape but very easy and smooth to ride. And she likes to go. She’s very interested in her surroundings, has great forward gaits, and she listens to easy hands and legs. I’m sure she knows more than I do, a lot more in fact. It was over 100F already but I had a great time riding her, even if it was just a short time. Apparently she jumps too. I’d like to find out about that at some point. She is very round so I’d be a little concerned about the saddle slipping sideways on her. Perhaps a breast collar is in order.

This is how I’d like to spend all day everyday: beginning with yoga then spending the rest of the day with horses. I wonder how I’ll arrange that. Must graduate first!

How did nearly a week go by before I remembered to post again? I hope time passes this quickly while I’m enduring the Quarter from Hell, which starts in October.

Megan hasn’t posted since she purchased her horse so I’m giving her a nudge today. Mostly I want to know how she can stand to wait until he is delivered to her stable! I can hardly stand the wait and I don’t even get to meet the horse let alone ride him. Also, I want to know what his barn name is to be. Right now his barn name is Slick. Like her, I think a different name will be better. I voted for Sam as his new name. She said she like that name too but hasn’t said whether a different name fits him better.

I rode Sophie in a lesson yesterday and plan to ride Goldie tonight. I seem to be making the same mistakes I aways do. Plateau city. No fun. Since I’m riding Sophie, the mistakes are only painful to my ego. If I had been riding Goldie in lessons these mistakes would be painful to my body after I hit the ground in addition to painful to my ego.

Yesterday I surfed the Internet for property (what else is new?). I had forgotten that Camano Island is actually located in Island County, WA, not Snohomish County. One listing I found struck me as The Place where we want to live. At this point Dave’s vote doesn’t really count since he doesn’t know the area. That’s fair because we bought this place in Chatsworth based on Dave’s knowledge of the area — I didn’t know a thing since I’d only visited SoCal a few times previously.

I hope The Place stays for sale long enough for us to make an offer on it, which won’t happen until oneo f us gets a job, namely Dave. No matter what happens I have to take a minimum of two blasted credits at UCLA. I could take the remaining 8 at another accredited university then write my thesis. If Ihave to stay here for one more quarter I may as well take my final 10 units. Hence, the Quarter from Hell. Granted, we all took more than 10 units as an undergrad and worked crappy jobs on top of taking too many units. As graduates we’re supposed to be smarter and have a life outside of college. Well, that’s what I’d like to think anyway.

I’ve been praying hard for both patience and that The Place stays for sale despite that I’m not enthused about the new church I mentioned before. To me, a church should, among other things, inspire prayer but I’m doing this all on my own even though I have recently re-embarked on my spiritual journey. The people in this church are very nice but the rector doesn’t inspire me. I have not figured out what I’m supposed to get out of his sermons. The church is also quite conservative, which bothers me. I think a church is a place where EVERYONE belongs no matter what our moral or other judgements may be. All Saints in Pasadena gave me that feeling. I may go back there despite feeling lost in the huge congregation. At the very least I felt inspired by the rector’s message. So next week it’s back to getting up early, which I do anyway, but instead of a liesurely morning, I’ll get ready for church. And drive about 30 miles to get there. At least the drive is nice. And I get home before I do when I attend services at the Woodland Hills church, which is only about 6 miles away.

I had to get up earlier than usual to go on a half day cruise into Santa Monica Bay to collect water samples. This was my last cruise since I will have a very full quarter when my turn comes around again to go out. This is the Quarter from Hell I’ve probably referred to before. I’ll be taking 10 units and teaching 20 hours a week. Fortunately my research is done and most of my data crunching is done as well. All I have to do is finish those 10 units and write my thesis. That’s it. It doesn’t sound like much but it’ll be occupying a tremendous amount of my time and energy.

Because I get seasick, I have to take medication that makes me feel groggy for at least 24 hours. I took the medication last night before I went to bed so I probably won’t feel normal until I get up tomorrow morning. I intend to ride Goldie in a little while but we’re not going to do anything more complicated than going forward at a posting trot. I’ll be working on my position, of course, and breaking in my show boots. I truly had no idea that breaking in show boots was going to be so painful. No wonder people used to have their servants do that for them. I’d pay someone to break in my boots!

Because it was my last cruise into Santa Monica Bay on the UCLA Sea World research vessel, I was very glad that the seas were calm, a deck of clouds shaded us from the sun, and a big pod of dolphins came out to play around the boat. The leaped out of the water toward the boat, then scooted under the boat. These are Pacific White-sided Dolphins so we could see flashes of white zipping beneath the boat. At one point, a baby dolphin, about the size of a large football, leaped out of the water and hung in the air for a fraction of an instant. It was so cute! In some ways I’ll miss going out on the boat — I’ll miss seeing the dolphins, the occasional sun fish (Mola mola), the smell of the sea, the unhurried way we collect water samples, the camraderie of the crew. I won’t miss the medication and the fear of rough seas.

This morning I attended a new church. It’s located in Woodland Hills so much closer than the church I had been attending in Pasadena. They are both Episcopal churches, however, All Saints in Pasadena is quite liberal and I’m getting the feeling that Prince of Peace in Woodland Hills is quite conservative. To my relief though, it does not seem to be following the others that are splitting from the diocese since/because of the appointment of Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire, who is openly gay. All Saints in Pasadena welcomed Bishop Robinson with open arms and invited him to speak. The congregation was nearly as full as it often is on Easter. So far I get the feeling that Prince of Peace tolerates Bishop Robinson at arm’s length.

On a positive note though, when I arrived at Prince of Peace, I immediately looked for the narthex, the gateway to the place where we worship so I could pick up a bulletin then sit quietly in the back of the church. However, the doorway is not obvious so I sort of stood there in this kind of patio area, craning my neck for a few minutes. Immediately a woman in a white robe greeted me, introduced herself as the assistant rector then took me around and introduced me to a few other members and asked them if I could sit with them during the service. I was introduced to a woman about my age, named Penny and her husband. We talked for a while then sat together near the front. I sat fairly closely to them because I’m used to sitting shoulder-to-shoulder in the crowded pews at All Saints. Prince of Peace has a much small membership so eventually I gave Penny’s husband more room.

The sermon was okay. It did not lift my heart like Father Bacon’s at All Saints. In fact, it reminded me a great deal of the guilt-inducing sermons of my Lutheran upbringing. Father Bacon had a way of inviting people to join in any way they can when they’re ready. Father Reasoner has a way of saying you should come now, right now, because you’re being called. Well, maybe he’s being called but frankly I’m only being called a little bit. Yet, I still felt a little guilty that I wasn’t doing everything I could possibly be doing, which was the same feeling I got as a Lutheran. Perhaps I am being called, called back to church since I hadn’t attended All Saints in a number of weeks. I’d like to join the 40 Days of Purpose this fall, which is a small group where I could get to know other members better. However, this program starts roughly the same time as my Quarter from Hell starts. I’d like to think that I’m being invited rather than called right now and my calling is something else at the moment. Father Reasoner is a good speaker and he inserts enough humor in his sermons to make them interesting. I am most definitely going to give him a chance and eventually (I hope) stop comparing this church with All Saints of Pasadena.

During the announcement portion of the service, newcomers were invited to stand up and introduce themselves to the congregation. I did, even though that was nerve wracking. It was kind of a big deal for me to even try to new church by myself this morning. I debated back and forth about going but obviously decided to go. The ushers stand in the back of the room waiting for newcomers to show themselves so they can be showered with literature and a mug. It turns out the carrying the mug around after the dismissal identifies newcomers to other members, who then come up and introduce themselves and chat. Very nice. There are two reasons I stopped going to All Saints in Pasadena. One was the long drive and the other was that after six months of attending, I still felt like a newcomer there. No one greeted me because we are all pretty much strangers. The way to feel at home in a big congregation like All Saints is to attend one of the smaller group sessions. I could not do that, however, because of the driving distance to Pasadena.

Several people who introduced themselves to me had told me about “church shopping” until they found Prince of Peace in Woodland Hills. They all said they returned to this church because of the people. So far my experience has been the same. My tendencies may be more liberal than the rector’s but I will return because I have been made to feel so welcome already and I am confident some people will recognize me when I return.

As I type the date for the title of this entry I remember that August 21 used to be my parents’ anniversary. It hasn’t been for over 20 years and I rarely think of it.

This morning I woke up from a terrible nightmare. I was so anxious from it, I couldn’t go back to sleep even though it was earlier than I normally get up on a weekday. I’ve written the dream out twice and described it once to my husband. An online friend suggested I write in the present tense so I will do that here:

I am in a sparsely furnished apartment or house connected to UCLA’s medical center. The apartment is furnished in 1960’s or 1970’s style furniture, carpet and colors. Think olive green or dark brown vinyl furniture with chrome arm rests, orange carpet and brown paneling. My husband and his mom are there too. They are going over to the hospital for some reason. Dave’s mom normally medicates this enormous, possibly Native American, man (long black hair and reddish, pockmarked skin) who is subject to unconscious trances. He seems like an uncle, although I don’t know whose. Since they have to go to the hospital, I am shown how to medicate him. I spoon some liquid mint-flavored medicine in his mouth. My sister, a family friend named Chuck, and a small boy is also there in the apartment. The uncle stirs but has not come out of his trance. This panics me and I move too quickly. He grabs me, like an animal playing with its prey. I am afraid that he is going to throw me down the stairs. Chuck, who seems like he might be a father figure to my sister and me, tries to get the uncle to release me. I want Chuck to tell a white lie but Chuck won’t do it because it offends his morality despite that I am clearly in danger. The uncle releases me anyway. I sit on the sofa very close to my sister. Our legs are touching. Chuck sits in an arm chair to my right. The little boy is playing very quietly on the other side of Chuck. I notice that the uncle is putting some very harsh preservative type chemicals in a large duffle bag. Then he come over to my side of the sofa even though he has to stand between Chuck and I. He moves my legs around and then my sisters. He seems to be measuring the length of our legs too. I hear him mumble something about how useful our limbs will be on the black market. I think my sister hears him too. The uncle goes into the kitchen. I put on my shoes and tell my sister she should do the same. I’m planning our escape. I imagine grabbing my sister’s hand, my purse, which is under a chair by the door, opening that door and running down the corridor to the medical center where we can get lost in the maze of hallways and people. My sister, however, is reluctant. She thinks the uncle just needs more medication. I am more afraid than ever because I am not leaving without her.

At that point I woke up, feeling terrified, and also relieved that it was just a dream. I’ve been thinking about this dream all day. Some things that come to mind: Yesterday I was walking along a corridor from the Life Sciences building to the medical center on UCLA’s campus. I was thinking about after I had graduated whether or not I would miss walking down that very familiar hall. In my dream I felt trapped, like I could not get to that corridor, which would lead to safety and possibly Dave and his mom. Also, in my dream I felt very good about finally taking some responsibility and taking care of someone other than myself: the uncle. I am not normally a very nurturing person unless it’s over cats and horses. After the uncle got up, still in a trance, I was horrified and felt guilty that I may have medicated him incorrectly and now I was going to be punished. I was a little mad at myself for stepping out of my comfort zone and actually offering to administer the medication – see, now look what you’ve done, got yourself in trouble again when you should’ve stuck to what you know, even though offering to administer the medication was very generous, abnormally generous of me.

I have no idea why the little boy was there but he didn’t seem to be in any danger at any time. I’m not sure about Chuck being a father figure. He’s a family friend and a very honest, straight up man. His role is puzzling. I was nearly shattered when he would not tell a white lie to save me because of his moral principles. Some of the gruesomeness of the dream may have come from a book I started reading: Elaine Pagel’s “Beyond Belief”, which is about the gospel of Thomas (not in the New Testament but gnostic text discovered in Egypt in 1945). As background, she discusses the fate of an early Christian, who is to be torn asunder by beasts. Also, she discusses the Christian ritual of communion, i.e., this is my body (the bread), and this is my blood (the wine) and how some people took it literally, cannibalism, while other consider it symbolic. So I went to bed with these gruesome images in my mind. I also felt like this book would change my views about Christianity, which is fine because I am very interested in the historical and scholarly aspect of religion. Still, the gruesome descriptions, a woman being torn apart by beasts while a crowd watched, and cannibalism, and blood soaked bread… Yuck. Also, I am very used to the literal/spiritual view of Christ rather than the symbolic/spiritual or symbolic/he was a really great religious leader in his time, which is the leaning of this book. My foundation is a little rattled but I feel like it needs to be in order for me to be more spiritual because I’m having trouble swallowing the literal/spiritual view any more.

Where this monster/uncle came from, I have no idea or what it is supposed to represent but I think that feeling trapped with him at UCLA is significant. Is the monster my thesis? I really struggled with working on my thesis yesterday. Another thing that came to mind was how I doubted myself about escaping when my sister hesitated. Before she hesitated I was sure we had to escape. I was certain that we had to escape or risk our lives staying there. When she doubted, I immediately doubted my own judgement and wondered if I needed to consider her point of view. I was also terrified of leaving her there and risked my own life by staying with her. The significance of this is that when my mom and dad divorced 20-some years ago, we made a pact to stay together. Even if mom and dad weren’t going to live together anymore, we would. What I find strange is that I didn’t even realize that today was their wedding anniversary date until after I typed the date for this blog entry title. I had every intention of writing about this dream but when the significance of the date popped into my head I thought I would note it, wondering if it had any connection to the dream. I still find it rather coincidental but clearly there is a connection. My first instinct is to doubt that connection.

I’m ready to leave the dream behind for now. On more positive notes, I had a great riding lesson on Sophie this morning. My trainer approves of my new show boots and she briefly mentioned going horse shopping for me soon! When I pulled into the driveway after my lesson I noticed that a large piece of cardboard was in the front window. I knew Dave had planned to replace the blinds in that window so I wondered what was going on. Apparently he had leaned his head against the window, ever so slightly he assured me, while replacing the blinds and it cracked. He’s lucky he didn’t cut his head. No damage to him but it cost $150 to get it replaced. In any event the blinds look nice. I went to Target to find a nice outfit for tonight’s garden party at Dave’s alumni and I found a cute skirt and top. Cheap. Just the way I like my clothing. Inexpensive I should say. My clothes last for years. Only my riding breeches fall apart.

If you made it this far, thanks for listening and if you have any insight to my dream, bring it on!

Yesterday my sister-in-law gave birth to a baby girl! On my husband’s birthday! My husband says he gets to name the baby now. Since his sister (the mother of the new baby girl) is a big John Denver fan, he suggests that Annie Starwood should be the new baby’s name. Annie for John Denver’s “Annie’s Song”. And Starwood for his Colorado ranch. Even if Dave’s suggestion doesn’t turn out to be the baby’s name (probably not) Annie Starwood would make a cute nickname!

After yesterday’s cleaning frenzy, I would rather be at home in my clean house than here on campus staring blankly at my data that I hope to transform into a master’s thesis next winter. So what would I do if I were home right now? I’d probably have ridden Goldie already and maybe I’d be coming back from the stable. Or I’d hang out for a while and talk to the other trainer Mel and watch some of her riders. Then I’d go home, shower, think about lunch. I’d spend the afternoon trying to make some organizational sense out of my office at home.

I have that entire room to myself, including the closet and the room is jam-packed full. Mostly of books. I have to get rid of some of them though. How did we end up with closets full of stuff? We have a three bedroom house and everything is full. Granted, we can get two cars into our 2-car garage but the shelves are full and there is stuff in the rafters. Good thing we don’t have kids — we wouldn’t have room for them and their stuff. I’m a little ashamed about all this stuff. I am not a pack-rat (well, except for books). I only shop for clothes when the ones I’m wearing are in rags. And we don’t really buy stuff. So what is all this stuff?

For ten years I moved around the country, chasing after seasonal jobs with the National Park Service. Everything I owned would fit in the back of my Toyota pickup. What happened? I bought a house. Followed by a washer and dryer. Followed by a futon, then a bed, then a dining room table, then a sofa, a dresser, bookshelves, lots of bookshelves. The house filled up fast. Having furniture is fine but what about all the stuff in the closets? Some of it is important files. The rest is winter clothes and boots that I do not wear in SoCal but will wear after we move to points north. Some of it is horse gear since I don’t have my own tackroom — that will go out in the tackroom when I have my own little barn. My boxed wedding dress. That can go in the rafters as far as I’m concerned. I’m still mad that it cost $150 to box my wedding dress. I had no idea. It’s not like I’m going to wear the darn thing again. I bought it off the rack so it wasn’t terribly expensive. I should’ve recycled it but apparently was feeling sentimental about it until I got the bill. Now I resent the expense and the space that box takes up in my closet. The rest? Probably camping gear, fishing rods and tackle. They could go out in the garage if the shelves out there weren’t full. What’s out there? I don’t even want to think abou that right now. Closet first.

While I was in the copy machine room yesterday, an older Hispanic woman cleaned one of the copy machines. She wore protective gloves, the kind you’d wear in a lab, while she scrubbed the machine with a rag and Windex. The look on her face seemed nearly serene; she hummed a tune to herself. Then she exclaims with a heavy accent “These are so dirty! Mens don’t know what clean is!”. I laughed and watched her scrub deep into the corners. She seemed happy doing this job that she knew she does so well.

I confess that I’m not a great housekeeper but I do like a clean house. I’d just rather someone else did. Fortunately my husband likes a clean house too and he doesn’t mind cleaning. He does most of the surface stuff. Today I rolled up my imaginary sleeves (too hot in SoCal for sleeves), armed myself with Windex, rags, and the vacuum cleaner then cleaned my house from top to bottom. I put stuff away, put elbow grease into the kitchen, I cleaned the window sills, vacuumed the ceiling, vacuumed under the bed, dusted picture frames, vacuumed cat hair off the furniture. It took nearly three and half hours. Some of these chores I won’t have to do again for another month or so — like vacuuming the ceiling, the ceiling fans, and under the bed. Some of these chores I could do every week — like scrubbing the window sills. Often, however, I find other things I’d rather do. Like read a novel. Maybe even mope. Really? Well sometimes I’d just about do anything than dig out my cleaning bucket. Big baby!

This morning I rode Sophie in a lesson. I’m still leasing Goldie but I don’t go over the bigger jumps with her as well. So I practice riding Goldie in between lessons — I ride her in a collected manner, going forward, we practice circles, turns on the forehand, sidepassing, posting without stirrups, two-point, and going over a small cross rail if someone is around in case Goldie trips and I end up *ss over tea kettle (where did that saying come from). I’m still learning from riding Goldie on my own but in lessons I’m much more confident riding Sophie. When I get to the stable for a lesson I feel anxious until I see that Sophie is wearing my saddle. At this point if I Goldie was wearing my saddle for a lesson, I’d be anxious for the whole lesson. I told my trainer that I’d like to show Sophie at my first show because I feel so much more confident riding her. With Sophie, I’m starting to get “heels over the jump first” more consistently. When I ride Goldie I revert back to bad old habits because I’m scared even though the right way will more likely keep me in the saddle. Reverting to bad habits doesn’t make any sense at all but everyone does it. Before I ride Goldie again, I want to have the idea of my heels going over the jump before any other part of my body a habit so that when I get scared, I’ll revert to that habit.

It’s hard to post when I don’t think I have anything to say. Me?! Not have anything to say?! Ridiculous. One of my favorite readers reminded me that she likes to read about everything. So I’ll write about Monday — yesterday.

Mondays and Wednesdays are decidedly non-horse days. I get to campus around 8:00 a.m. and don’t get to leave again until 6:00 p.m. This is my own choosing because with this schedule I get to have Tuesdays and Thursdays at home. Well, now only Thursdays. Yesterday I decided that I needed to come in on Tuesdays so I can get more work done on my thesis. Right now I’m in the throes of arranging data in spreadsheets and trying to make sense of it. I got a lot of that done, well arranging anyway, this morning. The making sense part is going to have to come later when my brain isn’t so fuzzy. Mondays and Wednesdays are almost entirely devoted to teaching: from noon until 6:00. In the morning I prep for teaching. Still, I manage to get a little work done on my thesis research in those morning hours.

Our commute is an hour, no matter what we do, so we get home around 7:00. Fortunately Dave decided to take the night off from his triathlon training so he got to do the cooking while I went out to get some exercise. As a result of some soul searching, I’ve decided to start jogging again. I was an avid runner from about 1981 until 2002, when I spoiled it all by training for a marathon. The marathon is not my distance. After I recovered from the training, my heart just wasn’t into jogging at all. I can be an all or nothing person. Of course I put on some weight after I stopped jogging. I tried everything to take off the weight, including calorie counting a la Weight Watchers. Nothing doing. I was hungry and grumpy all the time. Yet the extra weight made me feel depressed. Granted, it’s not a lot of weight but enough worry me about the weight I’d put on in the future if I didn’t do something now. Plus I was getting tired of being out of breath from climbing a couple flights of stairs. Walking doesn’t seem to be enough for me. So I started jogging again. My goals are small: jog a block, walk a block, until I cover my usual two-mile walking route. Sometimes it’s hard to run a whole block. Sometimes it’s hard to start again after I’ve walked a block. What keeps me going is that I love how I feel when I’m finished. What you read about endorphins is true. They kick in and I’m smiling all evening. Plus I have energy to do laundry, pull a few weeds. I also feel good because I know I’m doing something good for myself. And despite that I like to deny this aspect of me, I am a goal setter and having small goals like making it to the end of the block pushes me to continue.

In the bigger picture, I’m finding my way back to who I was a long time ago before I got sidetracked by several very mixed messages, which I will not go into here. Jogging is obviously part of that. It’s very good to be on my way home.

And I thought I didn’t have anything to say!

Once again I am motivated to post, mostly because my online friend KayR started this blog after a several year hiatus from online journaling. Two things have kept me from posting very frequently. One of those all important things is time. I used to have a lot more time during the day for the Internet. For a few months now my time during the day has been used up by either teaching or working on my master’s thesis research. I probably had a lot more time for blogging before I decided that I was going to go for the master’s instead of PhD. While I was in the PhD mode, I spent a lot of time thinking about ideas for research and not actually doing research. Now that I have decided on the master’s, I spend every moment I’m on campus working on that research, or supporting myself through teaching. That has been a good transition because I no longer frustrated by all the floundering I while in the PhD mode. My time in the evenings has been taken up by riding, getting some other kind of exercise, and making dinner, clean up, then winding down.

The second reason I have not posted is because the direction of this blog has changed in my mind. When I first set it up my intentions were to sound out ideas for my future to see how they looked in words and potentially to receive some feedback. Since we’ve made the decision to move up to the Pacific Northwest after I graduate, I feel like I have a very good idea of what my future is going to look like and am happy with it. I considered taking this blog down but I am rather attached to it. Then KayR put up her blog, which inspired me to talk about the daily things rather than the potential future things. Other blogs I read do this very same thing (see these blogs for examples: Megan, Elaine, Fran, Loretta, Lorianne) but I didn’t GET IT until I read KayR’s. Go figure. And thanks KayR!

This morning I did not wake up until after 8:00 a.m., which is really unusual for me. I usually wake up between 4:30 and 5:00 every morning. My husband, Dave, who got up before 6:30 so he could go bike riding with friends before it got blasted hot, tried to say goodbye to me at 7:30 but I was deep in sleep, so deep that even when he touched my face, he said I didn’t move at all. That’s kind of weird but I’m glad he assured me later that he took note of whether I was breathing. I didn’t get to the stable until after 9:00 this morning but that’s okay — it’s after Jolene finishes teaching her lesson and before it gets obnoxiously hot. Goldie seemed glad to see me when I approached her stall. She was so dirty from rolling in the sand that it took a long time to groom her. I had the arena to myself but there were a few people around so I felt comfortable going over a couple small crossrails after we warmed up.

I’ve been trying to get Goldie to respond to my leg better so we’ve been practicing side passes and turns on the forehand. She does it fine going right to left but not in the other direction. I got after her when she started backing up during a turn on the forehand; she responded with a little buck that slightly unseated me. Brat! We really got to work after that: forward posting trot, nice bends in the corners, bending 10-15 meter circles, cross the diagonal, two-point (one of my exercises, not Goldie’s), working walk, canter, circle, canter, canter, canter. Goldie likes to drag a bit and do this choppy, four-beat canter so I have to work hard to drive her forward, two-point for me again. Reverse directions, canter more, more two-point, transition to the posting trot, aim her at the crossrail, keep my legs on her but hold her front end, aim my heels so they go over the jump first (this is my visual to keep my lower leg solid, which I learned the hardway, again, a few lessons ago). I jumped her over this crossrail four times and she did it well. I felt proud of myself that I held her together, kept her going forward, and had a solid lower leg. After that I let her walk on a long rein for a while. She walks so slowly, drags her feet when I let her relax. I still needed to do a few exercises that benefit me more than her. Gather up the reins, drop my stirrups (ugh) and post once around the arena with no stirrups. Toward the end, my legs feel like they’re going to cramp, and I get sloppy but I make it. I rest a bit then do it one more time in the other direction. This exercise helps me post from my thigh when I work with stirrups. When I started posting without stirrups I could only make it around 1/4 of the arena before my legs started seizing up. I’m still pretty week but I am making progress. I’m also starting my jogging program after a several year hiatus, which will make my legs stronger ( and hopefully my butt smaller!).

I’ll post my progress here. More often. I promise.