Champions are made in the offseason

False. 

Do you know what's actually made in the off season? Don't worry, I'm here to tell you.

Migraines. Ulcers. (For me, not even the horse.) Existential crises. Weight gain from binge eating Cadbury eggs as if they count as an incredible, edible egg. Which they should.

You may find specific results vary obviously.

neither one of us is hurting for calories to burn to keep ourselves warm.
#babyelephant

I've been battling with a negative mindset stemming from the barn and it's lead to a real disconnect with my blog. While I've always been honest about the struggle of training a horse as an often clueless amateur, and I'm very much against sugar coating things so it looks like my rides are all rainbows and butterflies and things just magically falling into place, I don't want to be the Negative Nancy of the blog world either. Because old Nance is a real bitch and nobody wants to read that--least of all me!

So it seemed best to take a step back until I was able to pull myself out of the dredges of self doubt and self pity.

As always, nothing sparks joy in me more than the promise of giant satin. (See the trend here.) Opie did fucking awesome in the TIP year end round up, and while it will be probably ten years before they mail physical rewards out and I bring you another satin post because I just can't help myself, it was a pleasant kick in the proverbial ass. 

Winter sucks. Training a young horse by yourself sucks. The results of working through it and coming out the other end with #childgenius does not suck.

perspective. even if a few minutes later he almost dumped me.

I took a giant mental deep breath and went out last week with a calmer, clearer head. Show season starts in exactly two months and the leg yields could be steeper. The trot lengthening could be bigger. The canter transitions have reached a new level of shitty. 

But for fuck's sake, that is okay. 

In two months we should have access to our bigger outdoor--provided it's not still under snow and ice. We should be able to get back on the trails to work the booty and give the brain a much needed change of scenery. And the canter transitions? Yeah, I dunno, those might still defeat us. Let's keep it real.

is just here for the cookies

A couple days ago I went back and reread my year-end wrap up posts. This time last year my horse literally could not canter at all without either bashing me in the head with what we scathingly lovingly referred to as his "Donald Duck canter" or face planting into the ground. Or both honestly. He didn't know what stretching was. He could barely hold his balance at the trot. And look where we are now!

I don't want to skip all of winter not writing about whatever issues crop up and how I worked through them. The blog is here to keep track of all of that so I can look back and realize how far we've come. It's hard remind myself that I've been here before and came out the other end perfectly alright if it's not there to go back to.

All that said, I'm going to do my best to return to a semi-regular posting schedule. We're working on a lot, and a lot of it is bad, but we are also making progress in other areas.  

Plus I really want to share that I think when it finally gets above 20* again (maybe never) and I body clip Dopie, HIS NAKED BODY IS GOING TO STAY AS DARK AS HIS WINTER COAT.

#idie