Thursday's Threads: Throwback edition

 

Outfit Day! And I had a little fun this week. The outfit itself isn't terribly exciting, but putting it together was incredibly entertaining for me. I recently acquired a new pair of breeches in the color "Dirt Road". Which is exactly the same shade of vomit green that all the cool kids wore back in the late 90's and early 00's to show. Most of you might not recall, but fear not, I have photos! And you'll see them in this post as we get going, because this is a very special edition of Thursday's Threads. A first of it's kind even! Today I will be recreating an outfit reminiscent of outfits of my youth. I know you're excited. Eros is our model today because he's chestnut and I had a chestnut horse named Cosmo during this outfit's era. 

Here's what E and I had on this week:

It's an ACTION SHOT! Because we were attempting to recreate this photo:

I mean... it's similar... Ish. It's not easy to get hunter Eros to look like jumper Cosmo. But we made a solid effort.

Bridle: Winner's Special

I couldn't exactly match up bridles with the era because most all of mine now are either wide or padded or both. But I figured this clincher bridle was reminiscent of the time when many people used clincher browbands in the jumpers. Cosmo actually wore a thin hunter bridle (which was cool then!) with a flash as seen below:

Back then thin bridles were the thing to have. I probably still have some in my mom's garage, but I can't imagine they're safe to use as this point after sitting around for all these years.

Saddle: Butet
Half Pad: Mattes
Baby Pad: Smartpak

My saddle is much nicer than the one I had back in the day for Cosmo (sorry old buddy), and the half pads we used were these big thick wool ones from Beval. But I used a similar baby pad, even back in the old days. Cosmo's saddle was a Pessoa Jubilee and the baby pad was probably Franconia.

Boots: Heidi

I no longer have the open front bell boots Cosmo is donning in his show photos, and while I DO have some similar leather show boots in my trailer, I thought it would be more fun to use an actual vintage pair of boots for Eros this week. These Heidi boots were for my horse Bud that I had in high school. They sure don't make things like this anymore! They are at least 28 years old, and while I haven't used then much in the last many years, they were used daily back in the day. And they still are pretty perfect.

That's what Eros was wearing for our throwback edition, and here's what I had on:

It's giving 90's meets 2010's... I felt nostalgic the whole day I had this on. 

Helmet: Current Samshield, late 90's version was a Patey

I had a tough time deciding which helmet to use today. I actually still have the Patey helmet, but it's definitely not safe to wear anymore. Honestly, it probably never was. I'm not sure if you all knew of these helmets? They were, for the times, VERY expensive, and they were custom shaped to your head. I saved all my braiding money that summer to buy one. I think they were around $700 which is what a lot of helmets cost these days. Whatever they were made of could be heated and then shaped to your head. If you left it in the hot car you'd have to get it reshaped because it would melt out of shape. I loved this helmet. Eventually it turned completely brown. I only stopped wearing it when the rule changed requiring approved helmets. (Young Stacie loved her helmet more than her brain evidently.) I have it displayed in my house next to a vintage pair of Vogel boots, some old puke green TS breeches, and a wool coat. Boy am I old. Anyway... I decided to go with this Samshield for the outfit because it's alcantra which is kind of similar to the velvet cap from my youth. 

Shirt: Ralph Lauren

I was all into striped polos for the non classic classes at shows back in the day. And I wore them pretty much all the non show days too. This one is more modern, but it's probably still 8 or 10 years old. It definitely gives early 00's vibes though. 

Belt: Brighton

This is another vintage piece, and another of the things I saved braiding money for. I thought these were the coolest belts ever when I saw them. I had a choker I wore with the same beads. (The 90's were a time, let me tell you.) I think I only had to braid two horses for this, so not nearly as big a deal as the helmet. But I was younger for this one. I got this the summer before college which was the most amazing summer of my youth. Some day I'll have to tell you guys all about it. I couldn't find a throwback photo with this belt because usually I had a hunt coat on. Most of the old photos I am wearing a silver belt, which I also still have, but couldn't dig it up for this post. I'm also not sure it would still fit. Our breeches sat ridiculously high back then, and I was MUCH thinner. This one just barely made it around me as it was! It looks a little funny here with my new breeches because back in the day the waistband and belt loops were narrow. These days we like a wide belt. 

Breeches: Tailored Sportsman Trophy Hunter in Dirt Road

I really can't get over this color... It's so close to the old pants. But like a million times better. The old TS had no stretch. NONE. They were just thick unforgiving pants. They had weird seams all over them that might wound you if your legs swelled in the heat. The patches were actual leather which were always ruined at the dry cleaner. Oh yeah, they had to be dry cleaned. And no lie, they came up to your rib cage. They were pretty awful. But we all wore them. EVERYONE. All the cool kids. The famous grand prix riders. Everyone. I'm so glad we now have tech fabrics and STRETCH! And slightly lower rises. Lol! Photo below for late 90's reference:

That rise doesn't seem as high as I recall. Perhaps my memory is skewed a little. I will admit to missing having that body though! I think I was like 110 lbs here. And also like 19. Can't expect 45 year old me to look like 19 year old me. 

Boots: currently day Parlanti, throwback boots were Vogels

My Parlantis are the definitely the most similar looking in my collection to the old Vogels, short of wearing the actual old Vogels. But the old ones didn't have zippers. You had to pull those suckers on and get two people to help you remove them. Kids these days don't know the struggle! They were custom, TIGHT, with no elastic anywhere. If your legs swelled in those forget feeling your feet for the rest of the day. And you might need three people to get them off. But the quality? Nothing compares. They were heavy duty leather that shined BEAUTIFULLY. They lasted for years, and you could get the soles replaced to extend their life. I'd say of all the boots I have now, Celeris is definitely the closest match in quality. 

Alright, that's it for today's special edition of Thursday's Threads. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did! Makes me nostalgic for my heyday of showing all summer long. But I'm so glad breeches have stretch now and boots have zippers! I guess I'm also glad helmets are safer. But I do kinda miss that helmet.

What's Up Wednesday

 

I haven't been very good about documenting our days, and honestly I can't remember a whole lot about our rides this past week. Which suggests they were fine, and mostly uneventful. It's been raining a fair amount, off and on, so we missed riding on Thursday, but managed to get saddle time all the other days. 

I did finally get the results back from everyone's Lyme titers, and the results surprised me. And the surprise went in every direction honestly. 

First the bad news is that Eros had a VERY high number in the chronic column meaning he was exposed sometime between his last titer (which oddly was in 2022, I usually test more frequently, not sure how he slipped through without one) and a year ago. So he's been dealing with Lyme for a very long time. This is particularly interesting to me because it might explain his painful back. He's gone comfortably without back pain in saddles that I found out later didn't fit him for most of the years we've had him, so it was odd that all of a sudden one with a pretty mild poor fit would cause so much discomfort for him. It might also explain that weird cold let we discovered a few months back. His antibiotics arrived this evening, so he'll start them tomorrow. I'm really hopeful they'll help him and get him feeling great soon. He's going pretty well, so this really was surprising to me. 

Al had a negative, but his F protein came back just below the range for a positive, so we're going to want to retest him at some point this summer or fall. He's been pretty spooky the last few weeks (you know, cause there's a breeze and the trees move) so I was a little bit hoping Lyme could be an explanation. I'm glad it's not, but it would have been nice to have an easy fix. It might actually be time I admit that Al's issues are behavioral and not in fact medical. Sigh. Horses are hard. 

I was also surprised by Shiny's results. She's tested as chronic in the past and didn't really respond to the meds, so I kind of assumed that would be the case forever. But this time she tested negative across the board. So that's wonderful news. Especially considering all the tick bites I've been finding on her. I think the weight loss has really done wonders for her health overall. She looks and feels like a young pony again. Which, she's only 12, so it's not like she's old, but the difference just since last summer is pretty impressive. I'm really proud of her. 

unrelated photo of the boys getting their feet done last week

I've been trying to get the horses back on more of a consistent work schedule, and for the most part it's been successful so far. Eros and Shiny are easy. They mostly just do what you ask of them. It's Al that always proves more difficult. I really need to get my poo together and find a trainer to help us. Otherwise I should consider finding him a better home for his needs. I'm not getting anywhere with him on my own. I mean not really. Yes, he's doing better than he was last year in general. But I haven't been able to successfully get him jumping around here at home. Not because of the jumps. The jumps are the easy part. But he's so distracted and spooky. He's not actively spinning like he used to do, but he's propping and breaking an awful lot. And as much as my brain wants me to just sit back and be tough, I'm having a really hard time getting it done. I don't really feel afraid, I don't think that's the problem. I think where I'm stuck is that I can't predict when he's going to be startled. Like certain things I know. When the wind picks up and the leaves really start waving next to the ring, that's a thing for him. But the biggest unknown is the neighbor. We can be cruising along and everything's going great and then BOOM! Neighbor does something loud. And it's a pretty legitimate thing to startle at most of the time because it happens out of no where and they can't see where it's coming from. All three of them can be startled by that guy. But for Al it's just different. I think because I don't truly have his attention. I have been working with the TRT method with him because that seems like it SHOULD be what we need. But it's not really doing the trick. Al can do all the things in the pattern but when he's really worried about things, it still doesn't get his mind on me. And the more I ask of him the more upset he gets. Maybe I'm doing it wrong. I dunno. I'd love to see Tristan do a video with a horse while there are completely random unknown terrifying noises happening next door that they can't see. That would help me. Lol! But also, I don't think I can use the neighbor as an excuse for bad behavior anymore. It doesn't make sense that I can't ride this horse if there's wind or the neighbor is outside. That's just silly. The other two can do their jobs despite those things.

I'm going to be completely honest here for a minute. This weekend I got really down because of how things are going with Al. I felt like a real failure and started thinking about all the horses I had that didn't work out. Badger, Pammon, Romey. That's enough horses to make me question if the problem is in fact me? Which it probably is. I mean, they had different reasons for not working. Badger was kind of in line with Al. I wasn't comfortable on him. Pammon and Romey both had physical reasons for not working, but truthfully I wasn't doing a great job with Romey either. I REALLY don't want to give up on Al. Spooking and lack of attention aside, he's so easy to ride. The flat work is all there (except counter canter, which I'd like to work on...) and he's SO simple to jump. He makes big (to me) jumps feel like nothing. But if we can't successfully do the work when we're not jumping? Well that's not going to work. 

Cute horse is cute though

But after getting a little dark and having a little pity party, I turned my attention to finding some solutions. I preach that if you're not happy, you meed to make a change. Figure it out. Life's too short to be unhappy, but we all have the power to try something different to improve the situation. Even if it's hard. ESPECIALLY if it's hard. Like asking for help. That's really hard for me. I feel often like I'll ask and not find any. And that's scary. And hurtful if I'm being honest. But we all need help sometimes. 

So the first thing I did... (Remember, I was feeling desperate and sad) was email an animal communicator. Unfortunately, I have not heard back yet. (See what I mean? I ask and get crickets!) I'll give that a few more days and then see about finding another to try. (I think some of you have used them? Molly, you had one, right? Feel free to leave recs!) And my next plan is to reach out to that trainer I started talking to last fall. He never got back to me with his availability and I didn't follow up because we all know how awful Al is in the winter in the indoor. Seemed like money not well spent. But I don't want the indoor problems to turn into my outdoor problems too. So now's the time. This particular trainer I think would be perfect to help us, but I also know he's a little like Al. Easily distracted. So I need to do my part to stay on top of getting him scheduled. If I know me (and I do!) getting a few successful training rides on Al will help me immensely. Sometimes just seeing the horse do the thing gives me the confidence to do it myself. I wish I was more confident and didn't need that. But at 45, I don't think that part of me is changing.

The other thing I did to pull myself out of the deep dive spiral into crazy was reflect on all the horses that did work. Bud, Cosmo, Rio, Jamp, Shiny. (I can't claim Eros, he arrived perfect and will forever be perfect.) And the bumps in the road along the way. There were moments with all of them where things got hard, but we worked through them every time. And came out better than ever. That's just horses. And there's nothing wrong with having help to turn things around. I've never called myself a horse trainer, because I'm not one. So I will need help sometimes. And then I'll be able to do the hard things. Hopefully with a willing equine partner who trusts me to do the hard things with him (or her, but usually it's a him). 

A hard thing I did once... Show Bud at Devon in the 3'6" juniors

And another hard thing: Showing Rio in the 1.25M Amateur jumpers

So anyway, that was my breakdown this weekend. I think I've moved on from it, but time will tell for sure. I spent Monday reorganizing my feed room which may or may not have been a metaphor for my emotions. The room came out great though, and it brings me joy every time I look in there now. So there's that at least!

I also finished washing all 33 blankets, sheets, and hoods from the winter. That's a legit chore in and of itself. I will need to get started on washing the ones we use here soon too, but I'm waiting until mother nature remembers it's supposed to be warm out now before I start that. The blankets never really get dry in the dryer so they'll need a few days to hang after washing before they can be used again if we need them or to get packed away so they don't get musty. 

And that's it from here. Sorry for all the emotions this week. Sometimes they just spill out all over the place. Now that I've gotten them released, I'll pick them up and pack them back away where they belong! I have a fun (or maybe just funny) outfit for tomorrow, so the mood shall be lighter!

OH! I keep meaning to thank you all for nominating me to be an ambassador for Celeris. They didn't pick me, but I appreciate you all for doing it!

Truthful Tuesday

 

Today's confession is that occasionally when one of the horses poos while I'm riding, I will forget to go back out and pick it up. I don't leave a muck tub and fork out there because I turnout in the ring. If you've been here for any length of time, you know my rotten animals would dump the bucket and probably stomp it to pieces. 

But, I have come up with a solution! I made myself a poop bracelet, so I can put it on when there's ring poo and then take it off once I've retrieved said poo.

Behold! The Poop Bracelet

Now, I obviously can't leave the bracelet in the ring because previously mentioned rotten animals would probably eat it. So it's not a perfect solution. I have to remember to put it on when I get back in the barn. But I got to test it out today, and it worked! So we'll see. I'll report back on future tests.

Anyone else forget these things? Have a better solution? Let me know if you do!

Thursday's Threads

 

Outfit Day! I didn't ride today because it's been raining non stop since 9pm yesterday. (That's a full 13 hours at this point.) And the high was only 51 degrees today. I'll ride in the rain... but not when it's this cold! BUT, fear not, as I planned ahead and took outfit photos yesterday. Eros was our model this week. Here's some of what we had on:

Our theme this week was brown and rose gold. I think rose gold's moment is kind of over, but I'm still here for it. So expect to still see it happening over here!

Here's what Eros was wearing this week:

He's still a work in progress, but I really think I see a summer bod starting to show up under that dad bod! 

Bridle: Winner Special

This was my super inexpensive Italian bridle that I actually love. Although, I'm generally not a fan of buckles for the big ends of things. (I like the little hidden hooks personally.) But I make an exception for this one, because the hardware matches the clinchers and that's super fun. 

Saddle: Butet
Saddle Pad: Lettia, embellished by me
Half Pad: Mattes

I really can't believe the difference in how this saddle feels with just the tiniest of shims in the back. It even looks more level. What a relief!

Polos: Catago

I loved that pair of tan Catago wraps so much, I snagged a pair in brown when they were on sale. I'd like to get a black pair soon too. They're on sale at Tack of the Day this weekend, so it could happen!

So that's what Eros was wearing, and here's what I had on:

Yeah. It was cold out yesterday too. I had on this sweater and two layers under it and I kinda wished I'd had a vest too. Funny how quickly we get used to the warm weather!

Helmet: One K

I still long for a premium Samshield in brown. But until that happens, I'm pretty happy with this helmet. 

Sweater: Rock and Roll Cowgirl

I bought this sweater in a different lifetime when I had an office to go to everyday. And then I stopped having that and I never wore it. So instead of letting it sit around, it is now a barn sweater! Maybe not exclusively, but for this week anyway.

Belt: I forget the brand...

I cannot recall the brand on this belt, though I think a few different companies offered something similar. I got this one in a Forelock and Fringe box. Love the rose gold bling!

Breeches: Equiline

I think it was last year that I went on the hunt for new brown and rose gold breeches. I was pretty set on trying to find the ones from Samshield at a better price which proved fruitless. But then I found these Equilines for a reasonable price (from Riders House) and decided they were way cuter than the Samshield ones anyway. I love the details on these!

Boots: Imperial Riding

I think I'm finally admitting defeat on these and will probably sell them. I will replace them with the correct size though! I love the boots! Just not that these are still too tall even with the heel risers in there. They're pretty though! 

And that's it for today! Are you pro or anti rose gold? What about brown? When I was a kid, my barn I grew up riding at had tan and brown as their farm colors which I really wasn't a fan of back then. (How times have changed...) I mean, it was the 80's and 90's when color was everywhere! But my trainer liked dirt colors. Eww. Now that I'm a solidly middle aged woman, I embrace the dirt colors. But I do like my green to brighten them up. 

What's Up Wednesday

 

Last week was like one appointment after the next after the next it seemed like. I had the dentist and the eye doctor, while the horses had the vet for the rest of spring shots, the saddle fitter, and then new shoes on Friday. But now that we have all of that taken care of, hopefully we can buckle down and work on fitness and fun things like jumpies! That is of course, assuming mother nature will play nice. We're definitely getting rained out tomorrow, but that's okay. 

So last week was mostly an easy week for all the horses due to mid week shots mostly. They all handled them well, but I like to take it easy on them afterwards for a couple days. I'm also finding that on the days I do chores, I have a lot less... let's call it bandwidth, to really work the horses particularly hard. I certainly have a horse type, and that type is lazy. So it takes a fair amount of energy and effort on my part to get these three in gear. And sometimes I don't have it in me for all three of them. But I was determined to turn over a new leaf this week. It helped knowing we'd have a rain day on Thursday... (Evidently I am also lazy. I guess my horse type and myself are the same.)

I'm having an interesting time with Al lately. I've been trying to put a little more pressure on him because it's really time we start getting back to some real work. I think he's emotionally a lot more stable than he was last year, and he's shown me that he can handle more now. But at the same time, he's been weaning off the omeprazole, which has me hyper-vigilant about his behavior and anxiety. He's been spooky lately, but it's pretty specifically when I'm on him and not the rest of the time. Which was important for me to realize. Because initially I thought he was reverting back to ulcer-y Al. But I realized he's not anxious in his stall. It's mostly in the ring, and I'm able to pinpoint where it's directed. (Which is at the trees. If it's windy, which we've had a lot of wind lately, or if the birdies are playing in the leaves. Birdies are terrifying you guys.) During my ride yesterday, he seemed to be spiraling off the rails, and I finally got fed up. I put myself a little bit in the back seat for when he propped and tried to spin, and I just really kicked him up into the bridle. When he tried to get distracted and spook, I used my voice or the whip to get his attention back. I hated every second of it because I felt like I was being mean. I didn't want to be that trainer we left, ya know? I don't want him to think I'm going to be unfair to him. But I did need him to know that enough was enough and it was time to focus. So when he did the right things, I made sure to praise him. Both verbally and with a pat. And when he did wrong, I made sure to tell him that too. And you know what? We had a pretty productive ride. It's EXHAUSTING having to ride him like that. But my hope is that this is what he needs now, and in a few rides time I'll be able to back off some. I repeated the ride today, and had similar results. We even popped over a few tiny jumps. And you know what was the most interesting part of the ride? Toward the end of it, he was moving forward on his own. Like I asked for trot and he gave me this lovely forward canter! Which I accepted because he never does that. I feel like I often get excited that things are improving with Al only to be let way down again. So I'm not going to assume things are all better and I've cracked the code. If I know anything about Al, it's that what works today might not work tomorrow. But for now, I'm going to celebrate any small win, and we'll see what tomorrow brings when it comes. Or I guess Friday since tomorrow the sky will be falling all day. 

But you know who's the real MVP around here lately? Shiny. She's the best pony ever. I'm starting to think she didn't feel great whilst on the Ventipulmin. Because ever since taking her off she's like a whole new pony. I mean, we still start out with the ridiculous Shiny Shuffle, but who am I to change that? It's her signature. She's done the most jumping of any of them since we got home, and she feels GREAT to the fences. She's really jumping across nicely, and her stride is open without having to gallop. It does still take some work on my part to get the right forward canter, but once we achieve that, the jumps just flow along one after the next. Last year 2' really felt like as big as she wanted to pop over and I don't think I jumped anything bigger than that on her. (Her kiddo did a few times though.) But now? The 2' feels so easy. I imagine we'll pop around 2'3" again very soon, and maybe if I lose a few lbs we could try some 2'6". No worries if we don't though. I just want her to have fun and feel good. 

The newly shimmed half pad is working out great for Eros and his saddle. I should have tried that myself months ago, but his track record with shimming has always been so bad I was afraid. Lesson learned. Try things. He's been a little sassy lately, but I think that's on me and all those easy days he had last week. This week he's been putting in the work. Tuesday he did his first full ride in the Equibands. We've been using them once a week for awhile now, and slowly building up to a full ride. I worry so much about overdoing anything with him since he's pretty delicate. But he handled them fine! And today he came out ready to go, so obviously, he wasn't feeling overworked. Something we've been having a hard time with for the last many, many months, is right bend. And last week I realized that I think I've been the problem all along. Over the weekend, I made a real effort to focus on what my body parts were doing. And you know what? They weren't doing what I thought they were. My upper body is behaving for the most part. Hands are okay. (As okay as my hands can ever be anyway.) But my hips and legs? All sorts of pointing the wrong way. When I made a real conscious effort to push him out with right thigh and turn my hips toward the right, all of a sudden Eros was bending right. Like easily. Evidently I just haven't actually asked him to all these months. If any of you have any good exercises to straighten my hips out, send them my way. I very clearly have a permanent left bend. I think my other horses just ignore that. Props to them! Haha. 

In other news, I got to braid my little gray friend at the winter barn again on Saturday. 

His owner likes fancy braids, so both times I've done this same thing for them. I'll have to see what else is out there that's allowed for dressage so we can mix it up a little. She doesn't mind the regular rolled up braids either, but I think it might be fun to try something different. In hunter world we don't get to do that. 

That's about it from here. If the weather stops being rainy and or windy, I'll try and get Pivo up and running again. Then maybe I'll have some fun media to share and break up this giant wall of text. 

Truthful Tuesday

 

Welp, I made a whoopsie. It was bound to happen eventually. My stepmom and I share a Smartpak account, so I do need to pay attention to addresses when placing orders. And I DIDN'T. In my defense, my farm has always been the default, but for some reason it isn't anymore. 

My horses are mostly on meds not supplements (Al excluded...he's on all kinds of stuff) so I have to do a fair amount of scooping powders into grain, despite them all also having Smartpaks for their vitamin E, electrolytes, and their joint supplement. (Listen, I said mostly meds, not entirely!) Since I'm spending a fair amount of time scooping things not available in Smartpaks, I decided to see if it would save money to just go back to ordering individual supplements and stopping the Smartpaks. Looks like I'll be saving about $80 per month doing that, so it was a no brainer. So I did all the math to see how often I'd need the supplements auto shipped (there is a savings for that) and placed my order. It didn't ship for a few days so I went to check on it, and realized I had the wrong address on that order. It was going to go to my stepmom's Florida barn. Ugh. Of course, I noticed this at night and Smartpak no longer has their late night customer service. (The service there is definitely not what it used to be!) So I had to wait until morning to try and get it fixed. 

Now, I checked on the order first thing, and it still wasn't showing as shipped. I waited like a million years to get connected to a human, and then she told me it was already shipped and asked if I could just get someone from the barn to ship it to me. Which... how is that a solution? The cost for someone without a shipping account to send this box which was probably quite large and heavy, from Florida back to CT would be ridiculous. Not to mention, it would be like two weeks before I ever saw it by the time it delivers there, then reships up here. Plus, it's not that barn's problem. The customer service rep didn't want to offer me any other solutions, but thank goodness, I used to work in shipping, so I had a few suggestions. First, they could have it rerouted back to my correct address. So she said she'd call  me back about that. So awhile later she calls me back and says it will be almost $100 to reroute it. I'm very confused by this because the tracking shows the package sitting in Rhode Island. Very close to my address and not at all close to Florida. So I ask, well what's the charge if you just have it returned to you, refund me, and I'll re-place the order. (Honestly, she should have considered all of these options before calling me back the first time, but I'm more than happy to do her job for her since it was in fact my error.) That was only $21. So I said, okay let's do that. Now I assume she'd take the money out of my refund, but no, instead she does a separate order for that charge. Which okay, whatever. But meanwhile, I'm still waiting for this stuff to get back and refunded. What a mess! 

Listen, I know I screwed up. But I also know from working in a similar field that the customer service side of this was terrible. What if I didn't have experience in this area? Maybe my standards are too high based on previous interactions with Smartpak Customer Service. They've always been so great. I'm not mad about being charged for the mistake or anything like that, it was my error and I own it. But the lack of willingness to actually solve the problem... that's frustrating. I'm not sure if the agent was lazy, or just not trained? I dunno. But man. It was like pulling teeth, and it's not fully resolved yet. Has me contemplating switching my business to Farmvet. 

So that's today's confession. I made a booboo and then the universe punished me for it by making me do my own customer service. Ha! Hopefully it will get back to Smartpak tomorrow, and my refund will process quickly. Fingers crossed! Anyone else done something this silly? 

Thursday's Threads

 

Outfit Day! And I made it fun! Not over the top fun, just the right amount of fun. Shiny is our model today and here's what she had on:

Also enjoy these photos with her fuzzy ears, because I finished clipping her head tonight. She's finally ditched that fur hat she's been sporting!

Bridle: Nunn Finer
Browband: Dark Jewel Designs

Bit: Punk Ponies cheeks and Sweet Billie's mouth

I need to go through my tack again, because I think I have extra bridles that I like more than this one. It looks nice enough, but the leather is meh. 

Saddle: Butet
Saddle Pad: Mattes

I did a second trial ride with Eros' saddle on Shiny today with a different pad set up than I used yesterday. I don't think this saddle will work for her even temporarily. It slides way back as we ride and I feel like I'm getting bounced all over the place in it on her. So she'll be back in her old saddle until I find something that works for her. But hey, it was worth a shot! 

Boots: Punk Ponies

I couldn't get my camera to pick up the colors in these boots. They're color shifting so depending on how the light hits them they're either purple or blue. So fun! 

That's what Shiny was wearing, and here's what I had on:

Bright pants!!! And rainbow boots! See? FUN!

Helmet: Samshield

This helmet officially turns five in December and thus I'm getting all the wears out of it before it's time to retire it. But also, since it's purple now it matches my outfit nicely!

Shirt: Luyaa

I love these shirts from Amazon. They're exactly the same as the TKEQ ones. I imagine they come from the same factory. But these are like $20 or less so I like them better. 

Belt: Handmade by me

I made this belt during the dark times of Covid and I love it so much. Like Shiny's boots, I couldn't get the camera to pick up the colors in the fabric. It's similar to the boot fabric but this one is purple or green depending on which way the light hits it. And the hardware matches Shiny's bit. 

Breeches: Equiline

I don't really wear my fun Equiline's in the winter because they're not warm at all. But now that it's spring time, they're back in rotation! They fit better than they did last year, so that feels nice. Not so stuffed sausage like. Not sure why because I've gained some weight, but whatever, I'll take it!

Boots: Celeris UK

I love these boots so much. They're ridiculously comfortable and so fun! I still can't decide where the rank, but they're definitely near the top. I think the cow ones are still my favorites though.

That's it for today! A little more fun than the last few weeks! Hope you enjoyed!