UNDA PRESSHA!

Area Championships are three - almost two - days away now, and the pressure is at a fever pitch. This week has been a complete nuclear meltdown of my life, and I am now out in the living room with Shannon, each sleeping on our respective couches because both of our rooms have been totally gutted, and we have no other place to live/sleep except right here. All our stuff is either out here or in a rental pod outside the apartment. It's a disaster.

And there is plenty to stress about concerning Areas. First, HOW tough is this course going to be? Last year's Area 8 Novice Championships at South Farm were CRAZY hard - I remember seeing a down bank to an offset coop three strides out... not sure Gogo could do something like that in three days. Secondly, Areas was where we blew it big time last year, where we were first after dressage with a 28.5 but had Gogo's first ever XC runout at fence 6 - the smallest, most boring, most pathetic log on course, where we just lost all steering and brakes and went rocketing by for no reason at all except to keep me humble. Thirdly, the people I'm up against are GOOD. I mean really, really GOOD. A lot of them have been winning and some of them have gotten better scores than I have. I mean, I do think we're right up there in top contention but seriously, wow. The cmpetition is really going to be fierce.

And the Alex drama and the apartment drama on top of all that? Yes, I think I'm giving myself ulcers. I'm not the type to get nervous-scared about events, but I do get very ants-in-my-pants sometimes, and this is definitely the time to pull out all the stops we have. And the pressure is outrageous, now that we've won things and people have been noticing what we're doing. While I had an amazingly lovely dressage lesson yesterday, complete with plenty of transitions, lengthenings, shoulder-ins, 10m circles, reinbacks, and serious moments of collection between all these things (and dare I say.. during as well?), today I was completely frazzled when I went to get on, and immeditely got up in her face for essentually no reason at all. Bless her, she was pissed but didn't do anything ridiculous to retaleate against me, even though I deserved it. Eventually, I just ended up going back to the walk, and did walk-halt-reinback-walk-halt-walk-halt-reinback etc. for a very long time. It chilled us both out, and we got some pretty relaxed work in the end, but wow, I really need to CHILL OUT. I am not riding on Saturday for sure, but tomorrow I'd still like another dressage sesson. Maybe it's not a good idea... maybe a hack is. Or maybe another day off, althogh I think she'll be spazzy on Sunday if I do that.

CHILL OUT ANDREA. JUST CHILL. You're going to be just fine because you have the Supermare and she can do anything.

Let's get ready to show everyone what we're made of.