Changes in the schedule!

Oh craps! Well, our event schedule has slightly changed - the Area I Championships this year are NOT at Walkers in October like they were last year; instead, they're at ENYDCTA in mid-July. Mid-July people! That gives us like.... 1.5 seconds to qualify for them. We have two shows scheduled in May (King Oak Farms and Riga Meadow), and the qualifications for Areas are 1st-3rd at one event, so that can be easily done. However, people in Area I are... numerous. And serious about their eventing. Looking at the results from King Oak Farms from last year in May, there were six - count them, SIX - divisions of Open Novice ALONE. With about 20 people in each. That's 120 Novice riders at one show guys. That's insane.
So we'll need to really be on top of things in order to qualify for Areas that fast. Our eventing schedule has therefore changed a little bit:


2009 Eventing Show Schedule:

May:
May 9-10 King Oak Farm H.T. (MA) (Novice)
May 30 Mystic Valley Hunt Club H.T. (CT) (Novice)

June:
Nothing???

July:
July 3-5 Stoneleigh-Burnham School H.T. (MA) (MAYBE... or maybe not)
July 11-12 ENYDCTA/Old Chatham H.T. (NY) (Novice Championship)
July 19 Riga Meadow H.T. (CT) (Novice, or Training??)

August:
August 1-2 Apple Knoll Farm H.T. (MA)(MAYBE... or maybe not)
August 16 Kent School H.T. (CT) (Training)

September:
Sept 9-13 American Eventing Championships! (IL) (Novice)
Sept 26-27 Stoneleigh-Burnham School H.T. (MA) (MAYBE... or maybe not)

October:
October 4 Kent School H.T. (CT) (Training)
October 10-11 Ethel Walker School H.T. (CT) (Training)


Now, this is all very money dependant. If I can find the funds, I'll do what we're ready for. If not, well.... hmmmm. I've already got about $1000 saved for this coming show season alone, but if the AEC entry fee itself is $500, and that doesn't include travel or hotel fees.... hmmmm again. We'll have to see what I can work out. I'm clever, I can come up with something....


Today Gogo was lunged in the chambon, the first work she's had in two days due to this horrible cold snap. Ugh, I HATE the cold! And my horse was a bit on edge after all this cold weather and no turnout, so when I first asked her to trot after warming up at the walk, she exploded forward, hit the chambon really hard, reared, and shot backwards into the wall, where she proceeded to rear again and then stop to face me, snorting in confusion. I moved her back out at a trot, and off she went, totally chill from then on out. Mares.
The bad news is she was doing her weird head/mouth thingy again. She will be totally relaxed otherwise in her body, and then twitch her head, stick her tongue out and dramatically lick the right side of her lips, and mouth at the bit like she wants to spit it out. Maybe when she hit the chambon that hard whatever little irritation she had earlier was re-bothered? I don't know. I lunged her both ways to see if maybe it would go away, and she sneezed really hard a few times, but it didn't seem to totally stop ever. It sucks because the rest of her lunge work was sooooooooooooooooooooooooo good.... sigh. Tomorrow she's going to have a modified jump school - lots of cavalletti and then a hack out, because I see no need to stress out her muscles in this freezing cold weather, especially after a light end to this work week - and then Monday back to work. Shannon and I were talking about freejumping her too... that would be superfun.

Mount Holyoke college has a few schooling jumper shows coming up that I'd like to see if I can go to. They have Thursday afternoon H/J shows, and they have Saturday Sizzler Afternoon Jumper Shows as well. Their next Saturday Sizzler isn't until March, and the next Thursday afternoon show is this coming week (and next week too) so I dunno if I'll be able to get to those. The point of the Thursday afternoon shows is to start late enough to accomodate after school/work situations (3pm), and they said they'll work with your schedule, so maybe! I'd love love love to be able to get out there, so hopefully. I'll just have to ask and see. Here I can do all the gridwork I want in the world, but setting up a full course? Just don't have the space or the jumps for it. Getting her out to Mount Holyoke would be great for her, if nothing more to just get some coursework in.


The final thing I have to write about today is that we had a client get-together today in the apartment and talked about goal setting, and Vicki gave us all packets to work on. They're great! I have a lot of ideas about creating more in-depth blog posts about daily work and daily goals as well as weekly, monthly and yearly goals. Goals are GREAT for me because they give me focus and something to look forward to. I'll have to type some of this up so you can see it (and use it too! Apparently it's Lendon's, but she has said that anybody can use it, so I'll let you use it too when I get it posted!)


Wait, one final final thing: my tats. I've had some interest from people wanting to see them, especially the new Metro one, so of course I will oblige!

The new M (and the older Q that I got when I was 20 for Quincy):

They look a little funny right now because the Q was just touched up yesterday and they both have goo on them, lol. Also, my skin is very red and irritated and you can see where the tape from the bandages was... haha.

The oldest of my tatts, my tribal that I got when I turned 18:

Man I was tan here.

A kind of artsy naked shot of my top back ink and my lower tramp stamp, which is the Trakehner brand which I got at the age of 20 (although upside down in this pic):


And the second most recent ink, my favorite silver fern done on my left outside hip when I was 22 and studying abroad in NZ:

This one is amazing because I went to a place called Powerhouse, which is a very awesome almost exclusively freehand studio in Palmie. I had a design, and my guy was like well that is very cool, but how about I make it cooler? And off he went with his marker, and drew up this fancy design on my hip that made sense in his head but not in mine (hard to tell what it was going to be). I trusted him and let him just create his own personal individual artwork on my hip, and when he was finished I was just floored. This pic is a little bit red and swollen because it was about 5 minutes after it was finished, but you can tell just how awesome and well done it is. Totally freaking sweet.



Also, when I was in NZ and not around horses all that much, I actually had time to do things like not wear barn clothes all day and get to do crazy fancy things with body modification and hair:



Alas, when I said goodbye to that lip ring, I said goodbye to a huge level of my indie sweetness. I hated to take it out, but lip rings and dirty barns and sweat and filth = infections and chronic pain, so there you are.