The off season

It’s obviously holiday season (if you missed that, you might want to consider exiting your cave because good food) and with that comes travel. All the travel.

Unrelated photo of my tack trunk aka my car

I’m currently home in New Mexico for Thanksgiving until the 27th, quickly followed by a trip December 1st-4th and back home December 20th-28th. Leaving very little time for other things… like riding. On one hand, it’s the off season, there’s nothing big on the calendar looming and it’s nice to have time with my family (I am apparently a weird person who loves nothing more than hanging out with her parents). It’s beautiful weather here, the dog is overjoyed to have my parents’ big property to run free on and I reallyreallyreally love having someone else responsible for my meals. Like, really. Like, I got home Saturday night, but my parents were actually out of town until Sunday afternoon, so instead of going to get food or something to feed myself Sunday, I just waited for them to get home to get dinner. As my mother put it, I was lazy-hungry – too lazy to be seriously hungry. Truth.

Second unrelated photo of showing at CAF – trying saddles meant I had four saddles for one horse. Obnoxious AF.

The flip side is that the off season is the time to get good. It’s always been the time of year of torture – this is our chance to fix stuff, improve, put the work in that will pay off come springtime. So being gone 23 days in fiveish weeks? Puts a bit of a dent in that plan.

Current dog situation at my parents house… only minor chaos

Instead of coming up with fun ways of trying to die on horseback, I’m just trying to keep up some semblance of fitness amongst all the pie and potatoes and birthday cake (five weeks = three immediate family birthdays). Instead of spending all my spare time at the barn, my life looks something like work, pack, airport, fly, airport, unpack, laundry, work, pack…

It’s not like these couple weeks are going to torpedo my goals for 2018 or set me back months and months, but they have a little bit of a sting. I want to be at the barn, working hard, putting in the blood, sweat and tears (k maybe not the blood). I want to come out at BN in 2018, ready to kill it. I want lower dressage scores and clean jump rounds and to meet the goals I set for myself.

Goalz (um not the rail down)

But while 17 year old me would have focused entirely single mindedly on these things and let that little sting become something more, there’s a great thing about age – you grow up. And 25 year old me? Yeah, I can’t wait to get back. But I’m also not going to rush through the holidays and cease to enjoy the time with my family. There’s no expiration date on my goals, I’m not Cinderella, the clock isn’t going to strike midnight and turn Doc into a pumpkin.

Lab vs JRT/Corgi = Fin gets dragged around. Despite this, the lab is hilarious afraid of him.

So if it’s a little quiet around here, there’s your why. I’m probably at about 30,000 feet, on my parents’ couch or otherwise somehow entertaining myself. I’m going to enjoy these 23 days, feel lucky that I have a family to spend the holidays with and after they’re over? Well then the real work starts.

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4 Comments

  1. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned that there are more important things in my life than horses… like family. Sometimes it’s hard to not go to the barn everyday, but it’s so, so worth it to spend time with loved ones.

  2. A) I also love hanging out at my parents. Lucky for me they only live 30 mins away though!
    B) what saddles are you trying? Please forgive me if you have already said- I’ve had a lot of saddle advice in the last could weeks- it’s hard to keep it all straight.

    After my show next week I will totally be taking it easy in the horse department and enjoying the holidays!

    1. No prob! I haven’t talked about it since it’s been such a rollercoaster. Mostly County, it seems like no other reps want my money… Like, call me back people?!

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