Thursday's Threads

It's starting to get chilly here in New England! Yesterday it was a balmy 75 degrees, but this morning was barely 50 when I left for work. I decided to keep it casual (and warm!) today after having to dress nicely for an open house at work yesterday. (In other words, I wore heels all day and my feet hurt.)

Comfy, yet respectable. You really can never go wrong with a cable knit sweater and dark jeans.

Top: Ralph Lauren

I love this sweater. I have LOTS of Ralph Lauren cable knit sweaters (I live near the outlet!), but this one is my favorite. It's the prettiest mossy colored green, and the stripes make it feel more on trend than the traditional solid colors.

Jeans: American Eagle (via Marshalls)

It's possible you've seen these before. I can't remember. They have a slight boot cut to them, which was perfect for pairing with my cowgirl boots! I like the dark denim and that they have a tiny bit of stretch to them... They did seem a touch tighter than I recalled them being last time I wore them... Probably not the jeans fault though... Oops.

Cowgirl Boots: John Deere

These boots! They're actually from the kids collection. I love having small feet! Truth is, I bought these for riding Ducky with his western spurs. Only I didn't think that through all the way. Since I ride in an English saddle, cowgirl boots and jeans will not work! Ooops. But they are the cutest boots ever, so I don't mind just wearing them for everyday life. The green in them matches so well with my sweater today! And I love pink. So despite the poor planning in purchasing them, I'm confident they'll get a ton of use.

Belt:

I'm not sure of the brand on this one. I've had it a long time, and figured it was the perfect complement to my cowgirl boots today!

Jewels:

I figured it was time to dig out some oldies but goodies for today's arm candy. On Lefty is Jules Smith cuff bracelet that I got from Little Black Bag back in the day. (Yep, still miss that site.) Next is a custom bracelet with my name on it I got from Etsy. It's super delicate, so I try not to wear it too much. I don't want to break it! And you all recognize my watch by now.
Righty has another Etsy find up first. That stirrup is brass with a leather bracelet attached. So cute! Next is a horseshoe cuff from Sloane Ranger, and then a bit cuff from Baublebar.

So that's it for today! What are you wearing? Is it getting cold where you are?

Truthful Tuesday

My first confession is that I had a great idea for Truthful Tuesday this week, but I can't remember what it was. I can remember where I was when I thought of it. I can even remember thinking, "I need to write this down so I don't forget." And yet, I can't remember what it was. No idea, what-so-ever. Sorry folks. Maybe next week!

My other one is two fold. First, I hate being cold. Second, I hate being wrong. And here is how that pertains to Truthful Tuesday today. Ever since we moved to our new office, I've been miserably cold in the mornings. My GM insists that it's not cold in my office. Yet, I'm certain I am freezing. I'm pretty sure I can tell when I'm cold! So I ordered myself a thermometer to keep in the office. My intent was to spam my GM's inbox with photos of my freezing cold readings on the temperature gauge. Well my friends... joke's on me. As I sit here with my fleece jacket on and cold hands, here's what the temp is in my office:

(As an aside, it's an indoor/outdoor one, but I do not have the outdoor one outside. Why the readings are slightly off I don't know!) So it's about 73 in here. Not exactly cold. I can't really whine about that. I did notice that in the afternoon when it's warm, it was 78 degrees. Apparently that's my comfort zone.... I think I've lost this argument.

What's your comfort zone? Do you prefer to be chilly or warm?

Middlesex Community College 11th Annual $cholarship Road Race

Somehow I let my friend talk me into running a 10K this past weekend. I figured that even though I've been running only once a week (at best) it would be fine. I managed to run 6.2 a few weekends ago, with lots of walking, and it worked out great! So why not? I knew since I wasn't fit there was no pressure for setting a new PR. No pressure at all, other than to enjoy the day and make sure I cross that finish line! Seemed like a great idea! Plus there was a large group of us (all horse people too as it turns out).
So we arrive there early to register and of course get a pre-race photo:

I was running amongst a group of actual committed runners. Or at least committed to this race. They hadn't forgotten about it like I had. (Oops.) That's ok though, as I said, nothing to prove! My friend and I had also scoped out previous results. Only 23 people had run the 10K last year. VERY little pressure!
We figured out pretty quickly why so few people run this race. It's basically mislabeled as a road race. What it really is paved mountain climbing. Seriously. About a quarter mile in, we climbed our first mountain. I ran half of it, walked the rest. Then we had some downhill. That was lovely! And then it was mountain after mountain after mountain! With very little downhill... how does that even happen? What goes up, must come down... right?! Well yes. And down it went! All at once! Another turtle paced runner  walker commented it might be faster to tuck and roll at this spot. She had a valid point. But we trotted on. It went up again, but not as much thankfully. The best part? We got to finish downhill so I could pretend like I was running all strong at the end. Also great? Everyone from my group had long since finished and were all there to cheer me in! Yay for support at the end!
This was literally the hardest race I've run. And not just because I'm not fit. The rest of the group all agreed. It was torture! I'm pretty sure none of us will be back. But you know what? I'm still glad I did it! I wasn't fast:

But considering how much walking I did, I'm not disappointed with that time.
I think my group was happy to have completed it as well. Everyone placed in the top three in their age group! (except me, I was 5th. Potentially out of five... I'll have to look that up!)

Did you run a race this weekend? Was it mountainous? Run happy friends!

Long awaited New England Finals Post

In all honesty, I pretty much forgot I hadn't written this post. Sorry about that! Obviously it wasn't such an exciting event that I couldn't wait to tell you about it... Ha!
Anyway, the New England Equitation Championships are always held in the middle of October. Us older folk show during the week, and the weekend is dedicated to the junior riders. On the one hand it's annoying to have to take so much time off from work, on the other hand... TIME OFF WORK! Woohoo!

Jampy all ready to head to the show!

My classes were held on Wednesday, but Tuesday they allow you to jump a simple course in the ring to practice. So Jampy and I headed up there Tuesday morning to get settled and take our turn in the arena.
It was a little stressful upon our arrival as the office was confused about who I wanted to stable near. Thus, they didn't give me stalls. Ugh. Jampy needs his hotel! That was worked out fairly quickly though, and I was able to get everything unloaded and set up. I was clearly a bit out of sorts as this is how I put the chair together:

Oops

My trainer arrived around 12:30 and at 1 we were able to get in the ring to practice. It's a very simple course with none of the "fill" in the jumps. Fill is the flowers and decorations that make the horses think they're scary.

Warmups went well, and it was almost like a vacation having only one horse to take care of! All my tack was cleaned and Jampy was bathed, fed, and tucked in by 5.

I had a nice relaxing evening. It consisted of checking into the hotel, dinner at Panera, night check, and an early bed time!

I was spoiled this year with the oldest group scheduled to show first. That meant I could get to the barn around 7:30 to feed, watch some horses show, and still have plenty of time to lunge and braid Jamp.

My trainer got on him first to make sure he was listening and give him a little tune-up before my open class. He seemed a little excited, but not terrible.
This was my course (sorry it's a little blurry!)

The course was pretty simple, the toughest part being the bending line early on. You couldn't really see the second jump of the line until after landing from the first, so you have to guess a little at how far away it is. Otherwise though, I felt pretty confident about this practice class. Until I actually started riding it. Jamp decided he was WILD! Or maybe that he was showing in a very important jumper class... Regardless, his plan was to go AS FAST AS HE COULD around the course. That my friends, is NOT the objective of this class. Not at all. Ugh. But really it was ok, because this class was meant to get the kinks out.
We let Jamp go back in his stall for a little while so I could learn the next course and walk it.

The finals course really looked straight forward to me. I was feeling pretty confident about working this one out, as long as Jamp changed his mind about traveling at the speed of light. To assist him in that, my trainer rode him around a bit and gave him a little bit of a physical pep talk. When I got on to school, he felt SO MUCH BETTER! Phew! I couldn't wait for my turn in the ring to redeem myself. Well my friends. This was not my finals. Nope. I walked in the ring, picked up my canter, thought "this feels so much better!", and headed to the first jump. Jamp looked at it from 5 strides away and decided the flowers next to it were definitely of the horse eating variety. He declined to jump it. Grrr. As I felt this happening, I had two choices: Cowgirl him over it, or accept the denial, and try again. Either way, my chances were done. I chose to circle back to it and try again. He jumped it with a little extra coaxing. The rest of the round was ok. He was still pretty strong, but he jumped everything willingly at least. We did manage to get some cute pictures from Reflections Photography, so all was not lost!

So sadly, that's my unsuccessful recap of finals this year. It was rather similar to CT finals this year. Hopefully next year will be our year! (Hey, you can't win them all!)

Quickest Getaway Ever

I never did a weekend recap this week, since you had already read about my 5K Saturday morning. Saturday afternoon was my usual horsing around (haha, see what I did there!?). But Sunday, my family and I went to visit my little brother in Vermont.
He purchased a chunk of land last year but didn't officially move until this Spring. I hadn't seen the place yet, and my dad and step mom hadn't been up there in quite some time either. So we were long overdue for a visit with my little bro! He's pretty far north, so visiting by car takes planning and a lot of time. About 5 hours or so each way. Fortunately, when traveling with my dad, sometime we get to fly. This was one of those times!
The flight is less than an hour, and the scenery was beautiful with the fall colors:

I gotta tell you... VT was cold! And damp. But we dressed accordingly. My brother lives very simply up there in VT, and my dad had warned us there probably was no heat. He was right. Though there is a wood stove which I imagine will warm that little house up in seconds, my brother wasn't willing to light it just yet. I can't argue. I'm trying not to turn my heat on yet either. Life is getting cold my friends.
My brother is very interested in living as off-grid as possible. He also hopes to learn to be mostly self-sustaining. As such, he doesn't have a real bathroom. No really. (I just don't get this part.) So when we landed at Stowe airport, we were sure to use the restroom before our journey to Josh's house.
Despite the lack of modern conveniences (and bathrooms) the property is gorgeous. We did a little exploring, but not much as it was raining and my niece's tiny legs aren't met for rigorous hiking just yet.

some outbuildings and the propane tank

Josh's House

garden, greenhouse, and chickens

Chester in the front, Juno behind him

My brother build this wood shed himself, and split all that wood too!

Appetizers

wine

Beautiful view!

My older brother learning to split wood

He actually did it!

Checking out the tractor

Hiking. Everyone hikes with a Gucci bag right? no? Just me?

Me and Juno keeping warm

Josh even made us lunch (sorry if you're not a meat eater, look away):

grilled veggies and venison

Everything was delicious. The water, though it hasn't killed my brother yet, was questionable at best, so we opted for a bit of wine instead. But not too much since, you know... No bathroom. By around 2:30 we all were in need of one of those, so we said our goodbyes and headed back to the airport. Ahhhh! Restrooms, coffee makers, and electricity!
It was great seeing my brother. I'm in awe of his ability and preference to live as he does, though really, it's not a lifestyle for me. Maybe next trip, we'll rent ourselves a port-o-potty and stay a bit longer!

Thursday's Threads

Happy Thursday everyone! I'm pretty excited because I'm only working a half day today. Woohoo! Also, I got to see the sun for a few seconds this morning. It's been elusive the last few days. As I'm sure you are aware, Autumn is in full swing around here, and that can mean only one thing: Boot Season! I've already had some boots on Thursday's Threads, but figured I should warn you to expect them for awhile.

Autumn at the Farm, featuring my best friend Rio

So here's what I'm wearing today:

Simple, comfortable, equestrian chic! (My go-to style, duh!)

Top: Ralph Lauren

The actual color is more hunter green as seen in the full length photo above, but I wanted to show you the cute button detail on the shoulders. I like the boat neck on this sweater a lot. It takes a very simple, classic cable knit sweater and gives it a little update. But I really love that it can be machine washed and dried!

Pants: Vigold

These are the strangest colored pants I've ever seen. Kind of a mustard. I don't really like the color all that much on its own. Oddly though, once part of an outfit, they seem to work great with lots of different tops. Strange.

Boots: Lucky Brand

Those that know me personally, are aware that I can't stand fake riding boots. Probably because I have VERY EXPENSIVE real riding boots. But apparently I make exceptions if they're brown. And these boots. The craziest thing? These actually fit me a lot better than my real riding boots, which were supposed to be custom made. Go figure.If only they didn't have a zipper on the inside of the leg, I'd probably just ride in them! They also have an adorable lining:

Belt: Ralph Lauren

This belt is adorable with it's little Kimberwick bit. But two things bother me about it. First, the bit is actually upside down. But it's monogrammed so it would look even more silly if I wore it the other way. The second thing is the chain hanging above my crotch... Not sure how I feel about that. Probably would mind it less if the bit was going the right direction! But I do think the belt is cute which is why I bought it in the first place. Plus it was super on sale.

Jewels:
Left:

Nothing you haven't seen before, but they sure do look nice together don't they? My Gucci ebay bracelet, a Shashi bracelet, my trusty watch, and a stretchy bangle that I can't seem to remember where I got it... But I do love it!

Right:

This was a FIND! When I was vacationing on Nantucket a few weeks ago, this pretty bracelet caught my eye on a shelf labeled $10.00. WHAT?! This is a Rebecca Ray leather cuff. They retail for $78.00! Probably not my first pick for color, but for $10? Yes please. The color in the photo is a little off, it's actually nearly the same shade as my pants.

So that's today's outfit! What are you wearing? Have you taken out the tall boots yet?