Last Sunday I lost my grandmother. This Sunday the visitations and funeral are over and I am left slightly discombobulated. Forgive me if this post is slightly discombobulated too.
My beautiful grandparents
Yep, that's me with the big mouth.
Me again...oh how she loved the grand babies.
Just a few years ago, still beautiful.
My mother's parents were really the only grandparents I ever knew. My father's mother died before I was born and his father died when I was very little. I spent a LOT of time with my mother's parents. For for the majority of my life my grandmother was the center of my grandparent universe.
On February 7, 2016, just a few days short of the anniversary of my grandfather's death, my grandmother died. Never again would I wipe her lipstick from my cheek after a kiss, hear her scold me, tell me she loved me or ask me to move over where she could see me better. I never thought the emptiness would come so quickly, but it has... the nearness I once felt is starting to fade. All I have now are photos and memories... I have no more grandparents.
When people say "you're never prepared" for the loss of a loved one, whether the death is sudden or "expected," they are 100% correct. Life will, most certainly, go back to normal and move on, but the world will be a little more empty. I miss her already.
Not too much to report from the land of Alex. We're still settling back into our previous home. This Saturday will be two weeks since the big move. Alex has been surprisingly very calm and collected during our rides, in what I consider to be quite a spooky indoor. He HAS thrown in a few little "Alex Moves" just to let me know he hasn't been a victim of an invasion of the body snatchers :) but nothing of any concern or near the shenanigans I was expecting. I have to say, I'm very impressed and encouraged.
Hoping to get out for a hack this weekend when it's 60 degrees hooray!
Last weekend has come and gone and we are moved to our new/old home. Thanks to help from friends, the hubs and a cooperative pony everything went uber smoothly. Alex seems to remember his previous home and has settled in nicely aided by a round of ulcer meds for his sensitive belly (like momma, like pony). We've had two nights of lunging and no stupidness! Hoping to sneak in a lunge and ride tomorrow before snowmagedon on Friday! Let's hope that happy cooperative trend continues :)
Although I'm not really someone who loves the holidays, there are parts I do enjoy. I always have fun putting up our Christmas tree and decorations, going to see the Nutcracker ballet and most importantly surprising people with great gifts. I also love to be surprised by the gifts people get for me.
This year I was somewhat shocked to learn that my Christmas present, from the hubs, had been purchased in October. This was very intriguing, because generally hubs waits till pretty close to Christmas before purchasing my gift. All kinds of possibilities ran through my head making it a long wait to Christmas day :)
The long awaited gift was the SOLOSHOT3 https://shop.soloshot.com/ which is basically a personal camera man.
This makes it possible for me to video all my rides in high quality video without dragging someone to the farm with me. This is an insanely cool gift... I can totally obsess about all the things... all the things I wish I could see while I'm trying to do/learn them!
Here is a video that another rider shot with the older model SOLOSHOT2. It does not have the upgrades, bells and whistles that mine is supposed to have, but this will at least give you an idea how the system works.
The only drawback is that the SOLOSHOT3 isn't officially available till this spring, so I won't be able to shoot any cool videos for at least another couple months. Rest assured that when it does arrive, I will be a video machine!
I have to say, the hubs sure knocked it out of the park with this gift!
Alex loves his second career, but misses wintering in Florida as a racehorse. Poor guy, he could do without cold temps, but was a good boy tonight anyway!
Well here it is 2016... where has the time gone? In my case, time seems to have gotten away from me while I was busy, working and riding and just basically trying to get to my holiday vacation. Now tomorrow morning I'm forced to go back to the grind... ugh.
I usually don't make any New Year's resolutions, but this year I decided to make at least one and that is to blog more / get back into blogging. My goal is 1-2 posts per week, but I would love to exceed my expectations :)
Now for those changes I mentioned...Alex and I will be making a change of location in a few short weeks. Unfortunately, the farm where Alex has resided since July of 2014 is being sold and that means that we'll be going back to our former barn. Although I'm kind of bummed and a little stressed out about the impending move, I'm glad we're going to familiar surroundings. Hopefully the move will be complete before the winter gets ugly.
I'm a little late getting this post out, but I think I'm still celebrating :) August 16th, I took Alex to another show. This was a Combined Test and Dressage show, so no cross-country this time (I think Alex was secretly bummed). In an effort to get him in the ring as many times as possible, we entered both the Cross-Rails and Greenie divisions with an additional Stadium round at Starter for schooling.
It was quite a tall order for a horse who had only been to one show, been in one Dressage arena and had one very poor Stadium round, but no better way to learn than through experience!
I'm happy to report that Alex and I made great strides this outing. He was much calmer off the trailer (not wide-eyed) which made for a better start. Despite a wet grass field full of geese for a rocky warm-up, he had two much better Dressage tests, even earning a 9 for our last halt!
Our Stadium rounds we much better, much more forward and confident. The only blemish of the day was a stop at a green and white oxer with two large bright white boxes underneath it in the Starter round. Admittedly I would have been much happier if we'd had three clear rounds, but considering I only entered for schooling experience, I probably need to let it go.
Here is a video of our Greenie Stadium round, which was our best :)
We ended the day 5th out of 9 in the Cross-Rails division and 3rd out of 7 in the Greenie division. Alex got his very first ribbons! I'm one proud momma :)
