She's back!

I had a dressage lesson Sunday night, after the infamous Saturday night ride full of the previously described capriole-crowhop combination. I was steeling myself for the mare to pull out her bag of tricks for the lesson, since when we ended the ride on Saturday (on a good note), she still had plenty of energy left to offer, despite the 97 degree heat at 7pm! Being the show-off that she is sometimes however, she put her dressage panties on and we had a great lesson, given that this was only my third ride since her three week vacay to get over the beginnings of ulcers (that we originally thought was back/hip pain) and her allergy season. Since this is only my second spring with her, I have now learned my lesson the hard way that she is very sensitive to the weather changes between winter and spring- hindsight is 20/20, but next year I will be watching her like a hawk for the first sign of any discomfort! It's hard to explain how she can be stoic and dramatic all at once- but now I know what to look for with her body language and attitude so that we never have to have a May like this again!

Sometimes it's really hard to explain to people that don't ride, or that don't ride your horse, how good it feels to feel them moving freely and swinging underneath you. The way YOU know they move when they are feeling good and working correctly. Mare has a fabo walk, big and swinging, we even got an 8 on it in our very first dressage test ever, so I am not messing with that gait at all, besides to make her slightly more adjustable in it. Her trot has gone from "track trot" to much more correct, with the steps being larger and more rythmic, but the last time I rode her before her weeks off, I could feel it was NQR! I could feel a shortness in her hind end and she was trying, but didn't want to accept consistent contact, she was just defensive to my aids. It scared me that she was hurting somewhere, and I almost dreaded getting back on her this week and finding that all the work we had done in the trot was going to be gone. But Voila, Jazz had not forgotten how to use her body, even though she lost a ton of weight so quickly and her topline disappeared faster than a plate of bacon left unattended with Doodle! There was a week or so where she looked absolutely ghastly to me- like a rescue horse. It's amazing how these elegant, athletic and seemingly strong animals are at the same time so incredibly sensitive physically. For about three days, I would pull her out of her stall or the pasture and groom her and she would just hang her head and stand there with a leg propped, accentuating her thinness with a hip bone sticking out. This was NOT my horse, she didn't even take the chance to make mean faces at me while I brushed her, or try nudge me off balance with her nose while I picked her feet, or turn around and stare at me waiting expectantly for a cookie, and she just stood there- still- not something she has ever been guilty of doing. After a year and a half of trying to teach her the command "stand", I wanted my dancing in the crossties, lip-pursing, face making horse back. I spent about three days that week just leaking tears and little prayers for her to feel better and start gaining weight back.

After talking to a friend about my ride on Saturday, she laughed and said, well it sounds like she far more well behaved WITH ulcers than without. That may be true, but for some well-behaved = boring and there's nothing less fun to me than a boring horse! I love that mare for her personality, even her uncanny ability to find new ways to launch herself into the air. So Sunday's short lesson was such a relief, it felt like the first time I had breathed out in a few weeks. She felt great and I know the fitness and her topline will come back with regular work. As we cooled out, I whispered a "thank you" prayer in the wind and gave her a quick grooming. I painted on her hoof dressing and she knocked me in the back of the head with her nose; I just smiled. She's back.

my mare behaves much better WITH ulcers

                 clearly she's feeling much better and took her three weeks off to perfect this move:

         

this, immediately followed by crowhop = Jazz

yay?

monsters under the bed

[first of all: diet update- i've lost 6.8 pounds in 9 days, even with the popcorn and one bowl of cereal eaten when jazz was colicking. shes fine now but im treating her for ulcers.]


now for the monsters and ultimately, a life lesson...

yesterday i was making the bed and i spotted this creepy little creature that had a bunch of legs and a split tail- about .5 inches long and like a scary combination of a centipede and a scorpion. i kilt it- ded.

this morning i was sort of in that half asleep/half awake state because invariably i wake up about 6 minutes before my alarm goes off wondering what time it is and how much longer i can sleep and it was THEN, that i felt something crawling on my arm. i brushed it away and tried to see what it was but it was still kind of dark and i am SO blind without my glasses/contacts. ryan turned the light on and i looked for it, couldn't find it, and decided to change the sheets today. later when i was changing the sheets i found its little carcass- same offender as yesterday- creepy leggy split tailed thing. ewww. after changing the sheets i e-mailed ryan about pest control and he emailed our pest control guy who described the monsters under and in my bed as "silverfish" and said they feed on paper and sometimes fabric. well GREAT. do you know whats under my bed? i keep boxes of old cards and letters and important newspaper and magazine clippings in a big ole Coach purse box under my bed called the 'special box'- i mean, dating all the way back to early high school. all PAPER.

i immediately began to have a little panic attack about opening the box and visions of tons of those bugs crawling everywhere. i shot off up the stairs armed with OFF (it was all i could find in the way of bug killing weapons), a dust rag and "the cone"- the little handheld vacuum. i tucked the dust ruffle up and began pulling out the various boxes full of memories. the first one i came to was a crane stationary box with all of the proofs of our wedding pics- looked through those and didn't find any bugs. opened the BIG 'special box' and began to dig through all that stuff. tons of memories there- mostly fond ones and some hard to think about. some of those cards and notes seemed like they were simply from a different lifetime. i didn't find any bugs, thank goodness, but man did i begin to remember some things i had totally forgotten about. people that used to be such integral parts of my life, some still are, some i've lost touch with, some i grew apart from, and some i just don't even know anymore at all. its strange to think though, that at one time, they were important enough to me that i kept little notes or relics to remember how our lives were intertwined. sad, in a way, that so many of those little memories are so distant now. but also peaceful, because i love to see how the people that are/were important to me are happy and have great lives with people that they love. i mean, facebook really does have benefits! i felt sort of honored that i got to be a part of their lives too and i hope whatever small part i played in it was a good one.

the last box i came across was a small shoe box, it originally held the shoes i wore on my wedding day,  and inside was every single card or note that we got from the guests at our showers and wedding. so many of them held great advice, or funny sayings, or were just simple expressions of love. i wish i had thought to read these every year on our anniversary or something- the words in those cards were/are important and wise, and i wish i had listened more to what they had to say.

the monsters under the bed didn't turn out to be monsters at all, but a poignant reminder of what is really important in life, the love of family and friends and memories of those that leave an indelible mark on your heart, one way or another.

Day 5

Woke up feeling much better this morning! Yesterday was sort of a bust. I never gave in to the cereal, but I did eat popcorn at the movies with friends, no butter or anything, but it's def. NOT on the list of approved foods. Sometimes though, I think if you deprive yourself of everything you enjoy, you will just go nuts. So even though i felt guilty for eating it, I now feel even more motivated today to do well and I started off the day with Kefir and green tea. I decided to add two days to the diet to make up for my popcorn trangressions- so now its the 19 day diet!

I have celery sticks and salmon on stand-by for lunch and oranges for a snack and I'm not sure about dinner yet, but we will see! I'm a little worried about this weekend since I will be at a horse show and staying in a hotel, but I am planning on taking some groceries with me and stocking up the mini fridge and cooler with plenty of choices so I don't end up not eating all day and then destroying my diet at night when we are finished up at the show. I am working the show as the chief XC fence judge and we usually relax after a long day with lots of beer- but I think beer will be easy to resist. I might look a little weird sipping my green tea while everyone else is chugging beers and chatting about which ULR's acted totally pretentious, but it's a small price to pay in exchange for being healthier and thinner!

Days 3 and 4

Day 4- I woke up on the wrong side of the bed I think. I didn't drink the warm water with lemon because the thought of it just seemed disgusting and I was running late for work and sleepy- even though I went to bed at 11:00- which is pretty early for me. When I got to work, I made some green tea and it was good, then I had some yogurt and strawberries- the texture of the yogurt seemed slimy and it bothered me- but I chalked it up to being in a "mood". I've realized that food choices for me are primarily texture based.  All I want today is cereal. That box of multi-grain cheerios has never looked so delicious. I decided to distract myself from cereal by pretending to shop on the internet- that worked for a while and I am not giving in to my cereal obsession! I'm not really all that hungry today- just nothing really looks good and I don't want to fall into my old habit of not eating all day because nothing looks good and then at like 4:45pm I am ravenous and dizzy and all of the sudden Zaxby's sounds like the most delicious and convenient choice on the planet! I am breaking habits slowly and forever hopefully- so I am making myself eat little meals but often- I just had some turkey- and it was gross and slimy. Everything is yucky today.

Day 3- this was a great day. i felt great and drank lots of water. I even found this handy website called eateggs.org that has tons of 17 day diet recipes for all cycles! Last night for dinner I made baked cauliflower with some spicy garlic seasoning and it was super yummy, along with cajun marinated tilapia and then.....
I made ZUCCHINI, which was delicious, and as I ate it, I sat there thinking to myself how yummy and healthy this dinner was, and how zucchini is my favorite food, second only to okra, and sometimes oreos. BUT THEN... I was reading in my book and found out that you can't have zucchini until the 3rd cycle!!! I SO messed up- and I was doing great! The only other slip-up I had was eating a peppermint by accident when Ryan handed it to me. So now I am all worried that the zucchini will have destroyed my two days of only certain carbs progress- and i LOVE zucchini- can I really go without it for 17 whole days? I'm not so sure- but I will try!

please pardon the 16 day interruption

yesterday i started the "seventeen day diet", which at first i assumed was just another fad diet that will come and go, but then, i started hearing that literally everyone that did it lost a good bit of weight in the first 17 days. so i was interested, however still assuming i would have to exist off of carrot broth and orange peels, or something terrifying like that, but when i talked ryan into buying me the book at barnes and noble the other night, it actually seems really reasonable and workable for my habits and lifestyle. and, i can do anything for 17 days- right?

the diet has three 17 day cycles, and the first cycle is much more strict about what you can and can't eat than the others, but the overall premise is to shock your metabolism a little bit, and destroy your addictions to sugar and "white, refined" carbs- while increasing your veggie and fruit intake along with lean poultry. this works great for my eating "style" because i love veggies and fruits, and after the first 17 days, i can add some starches back in, but hopefully will have broken my bread addiction. i also cannot handle diets that make you eat tons of meat- it disgusts me to eat meat/eggs every meal, so if i want to just have broccoli and brussels sprouts for dinner- i can. and....i can have as much as i want and i don't have to measure anything or count anything., yee haw for that!

so it's day two and i am actually feeling really good and energized, and i don't even want to murder anyone yet for a piece of bread, so lets hope this keeps up. the fructose is keeping my blood sugar steady which is great because i am not at all dizzy or headache-y like i was when i did atkins once, and the taste of something sweet really keeps the cravings for sugar at bay. i have had eggs for breakfast for the last two days and am already sick of them, but i can do yogurt and fruit or something tomorrow instead. those dang chickens just keep laying them, and i hate to let them go to waste!

you drink two glasses of green tea a day on this diet and they suggested truvia as a sweetener so i got some. i have to say i am very impressed by it. i am usually a splenda girl, but the truvia doesnt have the cloying sweetness or the bitter aftertaste that splenda does. yay.

most people lose about 20 pounds in the first 17 days, which is a lot! my body REALLY holds onto the pounds thanks to my less than healthy relationship with food for part of high school and college, so i am hoping for about a 12 pound loss to jump start myself on the way to my overall goal of losing about 50 pounds. i am hoping to be surprised by the scale, but am not going to be disappointed if its less than 20 pounds, since my body really enjoys disappointing me usually. even though some say a "fad" diet isn't really the best way to go long term, i know myself and my impatience. i need to see some results to have the motivation to stay with it, and 12 pounds would def. motivate me. i am going to check back in often and will weigh myself after the first seven days and report back.  

day 2 overall feeling: excited

while mom is away- we will play...

rolex recap and horse shopping details soon, but on to more pressing matters. i came home from kentucky and it seems like each of the four legged children had a surprise for me. doodle, the big black dog, broke a pottery vase with her weapon of mass destruction tail, rylie boo decided not to eat for three days and instead, just throw up on the couch intermittently, hannah, of hannah and montana the goldfish pair, passed away after 2.5 years, and then when i went to ride jazz, she was off in her back end. it looks and feels like her back, although we originally thought stifle. i looked at the video my trainer took, which is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pezbvSWq2k

i can see myself riding her much differently, trying to keep her in front of my leg and driving her with my seat- which is not usually a problem we have. she was also "diving" into transitions and not wanting to keep the contact- like she was protecting herself a bit. poor boo boo.

so we will have the chiroporactor/vet assess. she must have played hard while i was gone! grrr/sigh.

before i left for kentucky, we were preparing for our first real outing of the season, a beginner novice event with a novice derby round after. i still went to the show this weekend to watch a few rides, and was so bummed that i had to scratch her, because she would have LOVED that course! just her style! most of all, i want her to feel better- so she gets this week off and i will try to find a few other rides so that i don't get even more out of shape!

in order to start the week off on a good note however, i was reading something online that really hit home and it's going to be my thought for the week. the background is that this person has just gone through a rough time and decided to persue her dreams even when everyone in her life told her "you can't"- which we all know is one of my LEAST favorite phrases. she had this to say about it, and hopefully she won't mind me borrowing her wisdom to remind us all what is really important:

"Despite this, I am so happy. I have my life back. I have freedom, I have friends, and I've found who I am. I'm positive again, I've abandoned my anger and anxiety, and I'm content. I've figured out what's really important, and it's not things money can buy. It's how we live, the choices we make, the people, places, and animals we surround ourselves with."