New Years Resolutions & Contemplations

So, it occurred to me today as I was making up the new schedule for work for the month of January, 2011 is going to be over in 4 days!  Looking back on the entire year I can't say I really have too many regrets.  Some different things I've learned this year and the resolutions to go along with them (equestrian and otherwise):



1.  There comes a time when you get tired of trying to make everyone happy and you need to make yourself happy.  A time when you're done with the drama and find that the people who are important to you are the ones who you are important to.
There is definitely no reason to put up with drama.  I guess maybe it's because I'm older than the girls I go to school with (I'm 27) but I have found several times this year that I am really over drama.  I don't want to listen to it, I don't want to deal with it, and I certainly don't want to be around people who cause it.  Between working 3 jobs and a full load of classes, my horse, and my family I do NOT have time for friends with drama issues.  This year I vow to cut as much of that out of my life as I can... I don't want friends like that.


2.  Don't bother reserving a space in your heart for people who do not make an effort to stay.
Again, I have joined a couple of different groups over the last year with people in them who claim to be my friends but when it comes down to it I don't feel like I can really count on them for anything.  So one of my resolutions this year is to cut out the people in my life who aren't really friends at all and who cause more drama than they help


3.  If you want to fly, you have to give up things that weigh you down and doing something wrong ten times is more productive than doing nothing at all.  Every success has a path of failures behind it and every failure is one step closer on the path to success.
I'm sure by now this is starting to sound like some sappy life lessons sort of post but I would like this next year to be the year I really do something with Buck.  I think he deserves it for me to take him on to shows and really make something out of him, whether I keep him and continue to progress or sell him to someone who can really make something out of him.


4.  While you're busy looking for the perfect person, you will probably miss the imperfect person who can make you perfectly happy.... Relationships must be chosen wisely, it is better to be alone than in bad company.
I have found (I guess this goes along with 1 and 2) I do not have the time or the energy anymore to put up with drama and bad friends.  Also, my husband is my best friend and we were just married in March of 2011 and I can't imagine my life without him.  No resolution here except to keep a good thing going lol!


5.  Someone will always be better looking, smarter, or charming, but they will never be you.  Be proud of who you are, your knowledge, and your skills, it's what makes you an individual.
I have a hard time with this and I have learned this year more than years in the past to just be excepting of who I am.  The people who really matter in my life do not have to be impressed all the time and those that I feel need to be impressed, are not worth having around.  I am who I am and if people can't be happy with that then there is no reason for them to be in my life.


6.  Making progress involves taking risk.  Step up to that next level test, push yourself, push your horse.  You will not know how far you and your partner can go until you make that one bold move.
2012 I am hoping will be the year Buck and I really accomplish something.  I want to start riding more with Cheryl when she gets back from Florida.  I want to start going to more events, and I want to really move him along and see what he's got.  I think there's a lot of untapped potential in him and it would be a waste for me to leave him sitting around again for another year.


7.  It is alright to fall apart for a little while.  You don't always have to pretend to be strong.  It is healthy to shed a tear and as soon as you do, the sooner you can smile again (R.I.P Dolly and Casino).
I try to be the tough one all the time but this year more than most has shown me it's alright to cry, it's even beneficial.  With the death of Casino and then Dolly last month, I have learned that getting it out helps you grieve and recover faster than if you bottle your feelings up instead.


8.  You can't take things too personally.  Rarely do people do things because of you, they usually do things because of them.
I want to stop worrying about what people think so much.  I want to stop ruminating over the mistakes I make at work or in my personal life and for goodness sakes stop taking things so personal.  I am not too bad about it anymore, but I need to realize that just because my supervisor at works tells me I messed something up, it does not mean he's going to fire me the next time I mess up.... mistakes happen and it's ok.


9.  You end up regretting the things you did not do much more than the things you did do (please see #6).
I don't know if I've learned this in the last year but definitely over my life time.  I regret not joining the Air Force, I regret not going to one University and sticking to it from the beginning... blah blah blah.   In 2012 I want to stop questioning everything all the time and be more spontaneous.  I don't mean I want to make a bunch of stupid mistakes but I want to be able to look back at my life in another 30 or 40 years and not see a bunch of things I wish I had gotten to do when I was younger.


10.  Regardless of how messy your past has been, your future is still clean.  Don't start every day with the broken pieces of yesterday.  Every day is a fresh start.  Each day is a new beginning.  Every morning you wake up is the first day of the rest of your life.  Live like you're invincible, but love like there's no tomorrow.
I think this is just a general good rule to live by.  You never know when your last day will be, but you can't live your life waiting for the other shoe to drop either.  Get on with it!  Live your life vicariously through yourself and make it exactly the way you want it to be because no one is holding you back but you.  You want to ride at Rolex some day?  Get yourself in gear and run for it!  You are only waiting on yourself...

Survival of the Fittest

I think when Herbert Spencer coined the phrase "survival of the fittest" they were talking about college finals week!!

I had 5 finals this week, 1 Monday, 1 Tuesday, 2 Wednesday and 1 yesterday!  2 of them had nothing but short answer and essay questions and the essay answers I gave were at least 2 pages long and I actually had to take the entire time left open for the tests (2 hours!).  2 of them weren't exactly the worst things in the world and were pretty much what I expected lol!

Finally, I am an Equestrian Science minor (when I went into college I went in as an Equestrian Science-Pre-Veterinary Medicine major and switched to Psychology with the equestrian minor).  I had to take a class called Stable Management this semester for my minor and found we did not turn in any homework all semester, did not take any tests all semester, and really we didn't even take any notes all semester.  When it came to finals week the teacher decided to give us a "common sense" final....

Not so much!  There were things on there I don't remember ever talking about in class like load weights and ply on tires that are needed to pull a trailer.... I'm sure it's probably common sense, all I know is I put tires that are meant for a truck instead of passenger tires and I usually get the ones that are 10 ply...

So maybe it's just me but I don't feel like it's very fair she didn't give us an idea what to study on a test that was the only graded thing in our class all semester...

Thus, survival of the fittest... Those with common sense are going to survive the class and live to see another semester... those of us without it are going to fail the class and live to take it over again next semester... epic failure.

On a lighter note, finals are now over for me and I can relax over winter break because there's nothing I can do about that grade now should I not pass the test...

I Promise I Have Not Died...

Just in case, in a few days if you start to get worried about me, have no fear it is only finals week and I promise you I have not gone M.I.A or died.  The simple fact is, I have 5 finals this week over 4 days so come Thursday evening you will probably find a post on here with a GIANT sigh of relief (given that I actually PASS all 5 finals).

So no worries all, I will be back I promise, just have a little patience with me this week, even Porkchop is getting annoyed with my lack of attention on him and I believe in his mind (and really mine as well) way too much attention on the textbooks and laptop.

Hopefully, after this $@L* week is over I can go back to finishing Christmas shopping, riding my horse and having a normal (lazy) life style, at least until next semester.  Good news is, after this week I have ONE semester left in my undergraduate career FINALLY!!!

Doesn't Porkchop look like he feels completely neglected right now?  I think I saw him putting an adopt me ad on Craigslist earlier this evening....

Virtual Reality?

Here's an interesting little thing I came across on Facebook this morning thanks to The Chronicle of the Horse.  Apparently you no longer have to even leave the comfort of your own facilities to enter a horse show.


HorseShow.com has now made it where all you have to do is enter your information, video yourself and your horse performing say the movements of a First Level dressage test, upload it and voila, instant show entry.  You can compete and win prizes including money and ribbons.  One show in particular, the Fall Harvest Dressage Festival gives you 21+ days to enter at this point (Entries actually opened November 7th), the classes are judged from December 31st until January 9th and the results are posted on the 9th.  1st place wins $250, 2nd wins $100, and 3rd place wins $50, plus the classes only cost $15 to enter!  All the classes are still judged by legitimate USEF judges by USEF standards.  Generally you can wear whatever you want, with the exception of a helmet which is required, but if you want to have a chance to win the money obviously you would treat it the same as any other horse show.


Some of the advantages to showing like this is obviously that it is CHEAP and you can enter over and over again without having to worry about transportation costs, stalling fees, office fees, etc.  You can compete against all kinds of people all over the world.  The ribbons and trophies are virtual but the money is for real and you can also win other things depending on the shows you are entering (I wonder if they are going to give away saddles???).  You still get the judging cards like you do from all the classes (even the ones that are not dressage shows) with all the judges comments which could greatly help with training and learning in general. 


So here's my question?  What do you guys think about this??  Do you think this is going to become the future of horse shows?  At some point are we all just going to get so paranoid (from the scare of Equine Herpes earlier this year) and are things going to be so expensive we can't afford to or want to travel anymore?  

Oh The Weather Outside Is...

So here's what we woke up to this morning...

I'm pretty sure this is Bentley's first encounter with snow at about 9:30 this morning when I got up to take him outside (my 9:30 class had been canceled this morning due to "inclement" weather).

 Bentley and Porkchop both were a little thrown off by this new development outside.  It's been pretty warm for most of the fall here with temperatures ranging anywhere from 70 degrees to 50 degrees during the day.  Then yesterday we woke up and it was only about 25 to 30 out all day and then here is what we found this morning....  It's still only about 32 degrees out right now and as far as I can tell it is still snowing a little bit.

Finally, this is what I can see right now looking out the library window at school (I came up here because I thought I was going to have a class at 3... it was canceled too!  Drove for an hour in the snow for no classes today... Awesome!).

Now my husband says there will only be 6 more snows this year because the first snow (today) happened on the 6th day of the month... I think he read it in the Farmer's Almanac or something.  Anyone else actually believe that or are you kinda like me in thinking that this winter is probably not going to be so nice since we had such nice weather for most of the other seasons (we had a particularly mild summer with temperatures not really getting too bad until right before school started)?  I don't know how this can actually be since there were some places in the states that received snow back in November...