Truthful Tuesday: the one with the boots

Alternate title: The One You've All Been Waiting For

Ok, first, I have to point out that despite everything going on, I haven't bought any new boots during lockdown! I mean... I do have a pair reserved from holiday time that I haven't actually ordered yet (waiting for new leather options). But that was before. Anyway... Today's confession is that I own 23, yes, TWENTY THREE pairs of boots. I tried to get photos of them all this weekend, but some are over at the barn still. Fear not though! I photoshopped them in. It's super amateur. Obviously.

Yeah. I forgot to leave room for them when I took the photo. So they're just haphazardly stuck in there.
Now I know that's an unsatisfactory photo, so let's just look at all of them shall we? I photographed them by brand but also individually. So... this could get long. They will appear in alphabetical order by brand (not model).

Ariat: Off the shelf

 Ariat boots don't actually fit me all that well... My calves are a little too fat for them. These two used to fit... not sure if they still do, it's been awhile since I've worn either of them.

Bromont winter lined boots:

These are my second pair of Bromonts. They are wonderful winter boots, very warm. But I think they've officially been replaced by the Tredsteps down at the end.
Heritage:

Got these on sale from Mary's Tack awhile ago. They're kinda small at the moment...

Caldene: Off the Shelf

These are kinda snug these days too... But I absolutely love them, so hopefully they'll fit well again soon.

Cavallo: Semi-Custom
Linus

These fit great. I've only ridden in them once or twice but they were pretty comfy despite not yet being broken in. The glitter top is fab!

Celeris: Full Custom

Black with Rose Gold

The rose gold on here doesn't photograph well, it's actually pinker and more beautiful than it looks in photos. This was my first pair from Celeris.

Gray with teal

This was my second pair. Clearly getting more adventurous as I went...

Pink with purple

I got these to wear on Shiny. Seriously. They look terrible on the chestnuts... But AMAZING on the palomino. I ordered these and the next pair together.

Moo Cow Print with green

Only the best boots ever imagined. Until my next pair probably... And maybe equal to that one pair of Fama's coming up soon...

De Niro Salentino: Semi Custom
Black

These are SO COMFY! Highly recommend or comfort. They do however have a broken zipper that I'm on hold with getting fixed.

Navy:

Yeah... I photoshopped a stock photo. These are at the barn currently. But I love them, they're the most comfortable boots, and they are beautiful too! Wish they came in hunter green.

Fama-4-All: Full custom

I actually sold my first pair of these because they made the foot way too big and they didn't fit at all. But they gave me a replacement pair at half price, so it all worked out for me in the end.

Green with tan crocodile

This was my replacement pair, and I love them. They don't fit as tall as the Celeris since the spanish top is less exaggerated. But they aren't too short thankfully.

Black with green croc accents

I think these are fun, but not too crazy. I like that the green is fairly subtle on the accents.

Green with gold accents

I LOVE these!!! They are up there with the cow boots. Definitely. I still can't believe these came out as well as they did.

Horka: Off the Shelf

It's possible these are HKM... but I THINK they are Horka. Either way, they're a great pair of boots for the price. They are a little slippery, so I usually use some Guter Sitz when I ride in them.

Imperial Riding: Off the Shelf

No really though. Look at them! They're actually quite comfortable. And also ridiculous. If they made them in gold (or rose gold) I'd totally buy those too.

JPC Brands: Off the Shelf
The Baker Boot

Also kinda tight... I haven't ever ridden in these. I really ought to. I kind of wish they were brown.

La Mundial: Full custom

I know L has had good luck with this brand, but I can't recommend them. Yes the boots are beautiful and the leather is lovely. But it's a small miracle if they fit. And the snaps don't seem to ever work.

Green with gold

These boots really are beautiful and after having them stretched twice they fit quite perfectly. But I find it super annoying that snaps don't stay closed on the zipper tab by the ankle. SUPER ANNOYING!

Black with navy

The color is weird in this photo, I promise the boots are normal black color. The top has a patent blue stripe which is quite pretty. These were actually orphan boots, so were not made to my measurements but they fit well.

Mountain Horse:
Serengeti

Another pair I haven't ridden in. These are also pretty snug, but probably if I wore them a few times they would stretch nicely. I think they're really pretty.

Pioneer: Semi Custom

I kind of forgot I had these. They are both patent which I don't hate, but the side that goes against your horse is also patent which is pretty awful. SO slippery! The Guter Sitz helps, but I don't really like riding in them. I will probably sell them at some point. Or maybe see about getting smooth leather patches added to the insides.

Black with Gold

I mean... what's more fun than gold glitter?

Blue Patent

What's confusing about this boot, is that the center panel on the OUTSIDE is not patent. But it is on the inner panel. WHY THOUGH?

Secchiari: Full Custom

This was the first pair of customs I ever measured for myself. It didn't go all that well... While they are gorgeous and fit my calf well, they are WAY too short. So I only ride in them here at home. The boots are gorgeous though, and the leather is super soft and lovely.

Tredstep: Off the Shelf
Legacy

These are at the barn too, so enjoy this terrible photo shop version of them. These are the best winter boots I've ever owned and think anything who rides were the air hurts your face would love them.

So that's it my friends. All of my boots in one blog post. Any questions? Comments? Don't judge my addiction. It's better than drugs!


Addendum: I FORGOT A PAIR! I have 24 pairs of boots guys. I forgot all about my Parlantis. They live in the house in my show boot bag and thus, I forgot all about them. No photos, cause you all know what Parlantis look like. They are fine. Probably wouldn't buy again. They're not worth the money when you can get full custom from Celeris for less and get a higher quality boot.

What's Up Wednesday

We're riding some kind of crazy weather roller coast here in the northeast. One minute it's raining, the next it's snowing, and very rarely, the sun might pop out. This weekend was pretty much all of the above.
But before we get into the weekend, enjoy these photos from my braiding job Thursday night. I hadn't done any braiding in quite awhile, so was really happy these turned out so nicely. Helps to have a great horse with a nice mane to work on.

 Also, check out this crazy piece of wonderful I found at the craft store this weekend:

It's a folding seam ripper! No more losing the cap and stabbing myself! Any of you that have to take out braids should definitely consider getting one of these. So smart!
Ok, now on to the weekend...
Saturday morning I got all the errands run early so I could do something with the horses and clean out the trailer. The ring was a sloppy mess, so riding wasn't really likely. But the one corner that gets the most sun was usable for lunging. It was still pretty wet, but it wasn't frozen at all, and the footing wasn't slippery or sticky. I think the horses were channeling their inner four year old splashing around in the puddles.

Flying Jampy!

Rio... definitely not flying.

They were WILD. Like bronco wild. Glad I opted to lunge and didn't decide to do a tack walk instead. Spring fever has arrived... in February. Maybe by April they'll be civilized?!

After lunging ponies, it was time to tackle the trailer tack room project. I already bored you all with those details yesterday so we'll just gloss over that... I did find this gem though:

This was my junior hunter's cooler. It has an interesting story. I saved up my money for a long while to buy this custom cooler (well not this exact one... you'll see why keep reading) when I got to Harrisburg for the first time. Back then these cost around $200. Well, I got this beauty at Harrisburg and sent it along with my horse and trainer to Washington while I went back home to go to school for a few days. Bud showed in the pro divisions as well as in my junior classes, so he always got to go ahead of me. Anyway, trainer was flatting Bud in the ring one night and someone grabbed the cooler from the rail. We never saw it again. I owned it for a grand total of a week and a half. All that hard saved money for nothing! (Listen, when you're 14 with no job, that's a lot of money!) I saved all year to get a new one at Harrisburg the next year. Only they had gone up in price to $350. I only had $200. I was telling the story to the nice owner at Personalized Products (where I'd bought it) and she felt so badly, she offered to sell me the new cooler at the old price. I thought that was really nice of her. Years later, this cooler got caught by the tractor and dragged through the mud. Thankfully it didn't rip or anything, but I had to have it dry cleaned. It shrunk from a size 80 to a 76. Womp womp. I keep it around because it's fit some of the little horses like Ducky and even Romey. I mean, this cooler and I have so much history, I could never get rid of it! Plus I lost Bud in college so his stuff is all pretty special to me. (Such a sap.)
Sorry for the tangent... back to the weekend! I was pretty pooped by the time I finished the trailer stuff. So I spent the rest of the evening hanging with the Pugs and watching the Olympics.

They were clearly excited about the games!

And then Sunday looked like this:

Gross. Fortunately it was pretty warm during the day, so the melting started immediately. Not fast enough to be able to do fun horsey things in the ring, but I'll take what I can get. Plus that actually left me the entire day to finish up the great closet purge of 2018. I tried on so many pairs of pants, I actually got chaffed. (Maybe they're all a little snug. shut up.) So many pants. It took the whole day. But it's DONE! I still have a dresser to go through, but the closet part is over at least. Thank goodness! I have the Veterans coming Tuesday to take all of the old stuff away. It feels so good to get stuff out of the house and support a great charity.
Monday it rained. Which was gross, but it helps get rid of the snow, so that part is nice. Of course it leaves mud. So much mud. Thankfully? It was super windy over night which helped dry things up. And yesterday? We had this:

Yep. 62 degrees! It took everything in me to go back to work after lunch. I wanted to stay home and work ponies. The ring was still pretty gross though, so I decided to adult responsibly and go back to work. When I got home it was still really sloppy, but I lunged them each a little in the one corner. Jampy was great, and not overly nuts. Rio looked pretty lame but I kind of think he was trying to avoid the puddles. He's so awkward that it's hard to tell when he's actually lame and when he's just confused as to where his feet should land. He also may still be a bit sore from his weekend antics. At 21, that stuff takes a toll!
Know what else happened last night? My Fama boots arrived! I wasn't expecting them because the tracking hasn't worked. I was in touch with them about it, and she was working on tracking them down. And then they just arrived! Woohoo!

The fit is a lot better this time. They're a bit snug, but they'll stretch, so I'm not worried about that. I think they could have been a smidge taller, but they're just fine. My only real complaint is that they did the toe wrong. I realized when they sent me pics that they hadn't put the tan crocodile leather on them, but I overlooked it because they're gorgeous. What I couldn't tell from the photos was that they made the toe pointy instead of square. I don't really like the pointy toe.

But seeing as to how they made these half price after the not fitting debacle, I'm not going to complain about it. They're gorgeous despite the toe, and the fit is so much better than last time. Plus, that green! Ah! SO PRETTY! They even started to soften up just in the few minutes I wore them around the house. I think they'll break in pretty quickly.

That's about it from here. What's up with  you this week? Did you get to ride? Show? Something else? Did you get new boots?! (I can't be the only one, can I?)

La Mundial: The good and the bad

Back in November I stopped by Equine Affair and made a really irresponsible decision to order some green tall boots. Against my better judgement, I chose to get them through La Mundial. I wanted to give them another chance since I had heard great things about how they had turned the company around. I'm all about second chances. And third sometimes... I'm slow to learn a lesson apparently.
My boots took a little longer than expected because the first pair they made had a defect in the leather and they didn't want to send them to me. Instead, they made a brand new pair and they were almost perfect! To make up for the long time waiting, they sent me both pairs of boots. I thought that was so awesome and they really didn't have to do that. They do sell unwanted boots in their store in Wellington, so they could easily have made some money back on the defective pair.

Since the boots came during my non riding season, I wore them around the house some to try and get started with breaking them in. But they really were a bit snug. The bonus pair so much so I couldn't actually get them zipped. The good pair fit pretty well, but the snap on the right boot came undone as soon as I took a step. While they were a little tight back then, I lost some weight and they're perfect now.
I figured I would bring the boots down on my next trip to Florida and have them fixed up. So on April 26th I dropped them off at La Mundial. They said they would be ready on April 29th. Perfect. April 29th I went in, and the bonus pair still didn't fit. They re-took my measurements and realized that the actual measurements around the OUTSIDE of the boots were my leg measurements. Obviously, that's not quite right. So they said to leave them and they will stretch them more. I paid to have them shipped back. They also kept the good pair, both to use as a guide and because they had replaced the wrong snap so that still needed to be fixed. (They replaced the one on the bonus pair by mistake instead of the good pair.)

I was told I would have the boots back in two weeks or less. Awesome! I offered to pay for the snaps and/or the stretching but was told just to pay the shipping. Also awesome! Thanks La Mundial! Now fast forward... I contacted them after three weeks when I still hadn't seen my boots. I was told they weren't ready yet, but they would be in another two weeks. Ok. Two more weeks go by. I get told they will ship that Friday and was even give tracking. Yay! Only, the tracking never activated. So I contacted them again. I had been conversing via text initially, but then my texts went unanswered. For several days and multiple attempts on my part. I tried the contact form on their website, also unanswered. So finally I called, and got a live person. They said the boots were not quite ready yet, but would be soon. She said she would call me in a day or two once they've shipped. This part went smoothly finally. The boots shipped and arrived yesterday. But nothing actually got done. NOTHING. My right boot still doesn't stay snapped:

The spurs kind of keep it closed, but not really. Other than that though, the good pair is actually great and fits well. I can ride in them and they're definitely useful.

The bonus pair wasn't stretched at all:

I can't even zip them. And the snap is actually missing on the right boot:

So obviously, that one doesn't stay snapped either ;)

But here's where I don't know how to proceed. I'm not comfortable returning the good boots again, because who knows if I'll get them back. Maybe I can just have a shoemaker or someone at Beval replace the snap. But the bonus pair? I mean I didn't actually pay for them, so I don't want to make a big deal/fight about them. But on the other hand, they're of no use to me. I guess I can just give them back to La Mundial when I'm in Florida and say thanks but no thanks? Or just let them sit around my house in case I lypo my legs? I just don't really know what to do.
What do you guys think? Should I try again to get them to fit me and have a snap installed? Should I just let them collect dust? Do I even bother contacting La Mundial about any of this? I don't want to be an ass. And as far as the free boots, they were free, so I don't really have much right to keep working on them. But what about the good pair with the bad snap? Ugh. I just am not sure how to proceed. What are your thoughts?