Thursday's Threads

OUTFIT DAY! Finally! It's also Friday eve, so that's always a bonus. I only have one outfit today because I took last night off from riding. I was feeling under the weather, it was cold, damp and super windy. Not a recipe for success. But in lieu of a riding outfit today, I wore unicorns. Fair compromise? I think yes.

Maybe some day I'll be a real adult. Today, however is not that day. Funny story, I have random toys all over my office. Sometimes I get McDonalds for lunch, and to try and minimize the damage I get a kids meal, because the portions are small. And then I get a toy. So they're on my credenza. I also have a stuffed turtle sporting some of our products. A couple weeks ago our CEO flew in and he said he liked me office mate, referring to the turtle... I said, "yeah... I'm not very mature." He laughed. Thankfully. No pink slip yet ;) Anyway, back to outfit day!

Cardigan: Asos

I'm quite sure I have this same sweater in a pull over, but it is temporarily in an undisclosed location... Hopefully it discloses itself soon, as I really have no idea what I did with it. Asos gets the cutest stuff, and unicorn elbow patches are impossible not to add to cart.

T-shirt: Worn By

This company is pretty neat. They recreate items worn by rock stars. I'm not sure who wore this unicorn print before me, but they have great taste... Hopefully it wasn't Hannah Montana. Ha.

Belt: Mane Jane

Do you guys believe I don't have a unicorn belt buckle? I may have to work on that. Mane Jane is always a good choice though, so here she is!

Jeans: Seven

Just your basic denim. I've had these forever, and you've seen them many, many times. And before you even ask, of COURSE I have Unicorn print jeans. But I thought maybe it was too much. See, I do have some restraint!

Shoes: Asos

Well... only some restraint. But these are shiny and sparkly and have a unicorn on them so how could I not? I got these along with the cardigan. I mean if you're going to have Unicorns on your elbows, you should also have them on your feet. Fact.

Bag: Sleepyville Critters

Heehee... Had to.

Arm party!
Lefty:

Lefty took a somewhat mature approach today. First up is a vintage snakeskin bangle I found on Ebay. The middle bracelet is one I found on Zulily. It is reminiscent of those super pricey Hermes bangles, but it was only $20. And of course by now you recognize my apple watch.

Righty:

Righty has a bracelet I made up first. SnapFish had a big sale and the custom slider beads were 60% off. I thought the photos I altered with the Prisma app would make awesome slider charms, and I was totally right... You can't see them all, but all four horses and both Pugs are on there. I found the leather bracelet on Etsy, and love the purple with the filter I chose. Next up is a spike bracelet from BaubleBar. I think the spikes look like baby unicorn horns. And lastly is my Kate Spade carousel horse bracelet that I had to have once Lauren from She Moved To Texas made me aware of its existence. I won't tell you how much I spent on it... That's more of a story for Truthful Tuesday...

That's what I'm wearing today! What do you have on?

What's Up Wednesday

We already discussed all some of the annoying things from the last few days... So that doesn't leave a whole lot to talk about for What's Up Wednesday! Ha! My life isn't terribly exciting most of the time. But we can chat about the ponies.
I'll preface said discussion with the disclaimer that I have called my vet and am waiting to hear when he can come out to see everyone... Point number 2: if any of you see me mention anything about getting a young horse, please stop me. Please.

Not to sound conceited, but how good does Romey look?! I might be a mediocre rider, but I can fatten up a horse! For reference, the photo below was the weekend he arrived back in November:

As for the rest of him, he's still off. I can't tell if it's up front or behind, so I'm not sure if it's the same injury we've been nursing or if it's something new. He's not horribly lame, but I know he's not 100%. So until doc makes it out, it's light walk-trot work for us still. He also has a patch of hives on his neck that he's had since spring. My vets suggested a supplement and adding local honey to his diet, both of which he's getting, but the hives are still there. They don't seem to bother him, but they're really bothering me. I mean that's a long time to have hives! He's been a good boy this week though, with no whirly birds under saddle! Good pony!

Jampy had a tough weekend. Sometimes he's so perfect, and other times his brain comes loose from his skull and he just. can't. even. This weekend was mostly him not being able to even. He's such a good boy deep down though, he does everything you ask of him while giving you only about 3% of his attention. It's a real skill. Needless to say, we stuck to flat work. I mean, even the jumps weren't into it:

I'm really going to have to buy new jumps in the spring.

The most handsome man in all the land was HILARIOUS this weekend. It was cool and a bit windy, and he was feeling sassy. And by that I mean he pricked his ears and wiggled his butt a little.  He's the best ever. As a side note, I thought we were doing really well with his diet, but this photo suggests otherwise. It's ok Rio, mommy's chubby too. We're just well prepared for winter.
A few weeks ago, at his last shoeing, my farrier moved Rio into a regular shoe on his left front. He's been wearing a z-bar for several months now and his hoof capsule is getting all wonky from it. He needs the z-bar because his foot is sinking from old age. It's nothing like founder or anything horrible like that, but he gets foot sore very easily in one part of his hoof. You might remember last summer when he wound up with proud flesh in that spot.The z-bar keeps all pressure off that section of his hoof, but unfortunately it's changing the shape of his foot and making his heels really uneven. He seemed to be doing ok in the regular shoe until a few days ago. My farrier, unfortunately is away until tomorrow and Rio is getting pretty uncomfortable. Fingers crossed he gets patched up tomorrow when our farrier gets back!

This guy... I love that face! I want to see it more! Anyway, I already mentioned my complete inability to ride this little trouble maker, but I didn't tell you the funniest story... So my trainer's mare Cara has been out on a lease since the winter, but she's just returned. As a result, Mr Badger now has a neighbor immediately next to him in the barn. My trainer's stalls just have bars between the horses so they can see each other. Badger finds it 100% necessary that his neighbor be paying attention to him at all times. ALL TIMES! His neighbor however, could really care less about him. The result?

He now has a padded stall. Apparently, when Artie is ignoring him, Badger will kick the wall repeatedly to get attention. I'm not really sure if the padding is for Badger's sake so he doesn't get hurt, for Artie so he doesn't have to listen to it, or for the wall for obvious reasons.  I didn't ask.
Other than playing with ponies, I really didn't do anything else this weekend. The Pugs and I did a lot of this:

And this pretty much sums up What's Up Wednesday:

Truthful Tuesday, or #firstworldproblems

Today's confession: I'm feeling SUPER WHINEY about the past week and a half or so. It was one of those stretches that was just going to be blah from the get-go. And then the universe was like, well if you're going to have a crappy time, let's just throw a few little extra annoyances in there, shall we? Thanks Universe. You really know how to cheer a girl up!

1.Let's start with Sunday, September 18th. There is a new tack company that I discovered through some fellow bloggers who are testing product. I was pretty excited about the new line as it's made with Sedgewick leather and the hype is that it will be moderately priced. The brand even asked on their Facebook page about customers' experiences with bridles priced in the $160 range. As you well know, I'm pretty frugal. I also love Sedgewick leather. LOVE IT. It's so soft and takes oil well, and it's just so pretty. I've gone on at length about my love for the Joseph Sterling Bridle, priced at around $140 (give or take depending on the model) WITH reins. Based on this question, I was expecting the bridles to be priced around $160 and hoped they would come with reins. (Note, one should never make assumptions.) I was really interested in getting one to see how they compared to my beloved JS. It's nice to try new things! The brand posted some for sale on ebay (priced a little higher than the JS), but did not state whether or not reins were included. I posted on the FB page to find out and had the following exchange (note: I've crossed out the name involved to avoid any type of slander. I'm not trying to ruin this brand, I'm sure their product is lovely. I'm just whining about being treated poorly here. I hope they find someone else to take over their PR.)

My favorite part is when he tells me that he thought he was being vague about calling me a liar. Yes, sir, your passive aggressiveness is entirely hard to read... Eye roll.
Ok, so it's not a big deal. But for some reason it really got under my skin. Probably just because of what was coming on Monday.

2.Monday my dad had surgery. Thankfully all went well, and we are just awaiting some test results to feel 100% about the whole thing. This is probably the only negative this week that actually matters at all. The rest are just annoyances. Since things went well for my dad though, I'm letting the other annoyances get their due attention.

3.Tuesday carried on more or less as normal. Phew. So we can jump ahead to Wednesday. When I got home from work Wednesday, I went to the hay and shavings stall to get hay for the boys. I found a delivery in there that I hadn't ordered. Shavings and some pelleted bedding which I don't use. Odd I thought. So I went ahead and hayed the boys, then opened the feed room to find more stuff delivered that I don't use. So I call the feed store to let them know I got a delivery meant for someone with the last name Foote. The poor woman on the other end of the phone could NOT get the name right.
 "Alfonse?"
"No Foote. F like Frank- O-O-T like Tom-E like elephant."
"Oh Silt?"
"No. Foote. Like the body part, but with an E at the end."
"Root?"
"No. Foote. Like the thing you put in a shoe."
"Rice?"
"No...."
You guys. It went on for like 20 minutes. 20 minutes of valuable riding time! Thankfully, she eventually got it, and they came and picked up the order the next day.

4.Thursday now right? Thursday was a gorgeous day. About 85 and sunny. My kind of weather. I get home at lunch time to hay and water the horses and let the dogs out. I throw hay. I start watering with Romey because he's the closest to the hay stall. And I hear Jamp banging an empty bucket around. This is especially weird because he eats from a rubber pan on the ground. So he shouldn't have an empty bucket to throw around. So what does that mean you ask? HE HAD NO WATER! Not a drop in either of his two water buckets. My helper had dumped his buckets in the morning and never refilled them. On an 85 degree day! My horse had no water for several hours. And this my friends is why I have to drive 25 minutes home (and back) every day for lunch. Because I can't trust that my horses will have water. Ugh. And while yes, this is pretty unacceptable, I have to state that my helper is generally a good guy. And he shows up every single day on time to work. He can be a little lazy. He requires a lot of reminders about what he's supposed to be doing and for how long. But he comes to work every day. Which is a lot more than I can say for a few other people I've hired. So it's a tough situation. He got a little speaking to on Friday and hopefully it won't happen again. At least for awhile.

unrelated photo of Jampy because too much text.

5. Ah Friday. Finally. I need to preface Friday's annoyances by saying these were 99% my own fault. My car has had a weird light on saying something about battery discharge for a few days. I called my dealership three times to try and get an appointment with zero luck. On Friday I drove home at lunch to feed the tall kids and let out the short ones. When I got in the car to go back to work, it wouldn't start. No juice. Not the biggest problem since I have my truck. I was like alright, I'll just take the truck back to work. I recently moved it so the dumpster guy could get in the driveway, so I knew it was running. About halfway back to work a warning light comes on saying I need to empty the water separator. I've had this happen before and one of the guys at work helped me with it last time. I wasn't worried. I made it back and asked for help from my co-worker. He said no problem and took care of it. Except it didn't work. Which I didn't know until I tried to get on the highway to go home and couldn't get the truck to go faster than 40. I got off the next exit and drove back to work. Got a ride home from my brother luckily! Since I now have zero functioning vehicles, I called triple A to replace my car battery. They sent a guy with just a jump starter. No worries, he'll call the other guy. Ok, great. The other guy was out pretty quickly and my car was back to her old self in no time. Sadly though, it meant I didn't get on the first horse until 7:30. Late night. But the ponies were great, so there's that at least!

6. The last of my silly woes. BOTH my rides on Badger this weekend were an exercise in how badly can we make Stacie feel about herself as a rider. He wasn't bad at all. But I'm not grasping any of the concepts my trainer wants me to be working on. We've been doing courses of poles on the ground at the canter, and working on getting the correct number of strides no matter how you come in. Sounds simple enough. Well... It's not. When I really ride him, I can do it just fine. But then I get yelled at for micro managing and not letting him figure it out. But then if I do less, then I get yelled at for not telling him anything. I have no idea where that happy middle is (obviously) and it's super frustrating. I really wish I could ride him more than twice a week. Probably some time on our own to just figure each other out would be really helpful. Unfortunately, the clock isn't adding any hours to the day, so we're going to just have to keep soldiering on with our weekend rides.

Well that's the end of my tale of hashtag first world problems. Thanks for sticking it out! I'll be back tomorrow with a less whiney post for What's Up Wednesday!

Thursday's Threads

Outfit Day! It's officially fall today, boooo. BUT it is in the 80's so I have no complaints. With the change of season comes a change a in color scheme though...

Boom! Fall colors! Sort of. I think if you pair mint green carefully, you can make it work in any season. I may be wrong. But I do it anyway!

Top: Ralph Lauren

Confession: I found this in my drawer with all the tags still on. I'm pretty sure I've had it for awhile now. Oops. It's a fairly basic tee with a nice boat neck trimmed in brown kind of lacey type something. It's a little different without being to crazy.

Pants: Blue Spice

These are a recent addition. I'm regularly wishing I had a good light brown pair of pants, so when I saw these in Marshall's for 16.99 I couldn't pass them by. They claim to be high waisted, but they're more of a mid rise which I like just fine.

Shoes: Sperry

These are from the kids department and are pretty old. I'm sure they've been on here before. I love that they're metallic!

Arm Party!
Lefty:

Left is sporting a couple of stretch bracelets that I made. They are mostly wooden beads, with some stone and metal square beads to mix things up. I'm also wearing my apple watch.

Right:

Righty kept it simple today with two equestrian themed cuff bracelets from Swanky Saddle. I was worried these were going to break in no time, but so far they're holding up great. I've been wearing them most days, and even have showered in them a couple times (oops).

And of course I have a riding outfit to share too!

I may have gone a little too far with all the green... I could have at least not stood next to all the covered trunks! Ha! Oh well.

Top: J. Crew

I had actually worn this to work the other day and was too lazy to change when it was time to ride. It's a cute top, very light weight, so it's great for almost any season.

Breeches: Horze Crescendo

You've definitely seen these before. When they first arrived I thought I might hate them as they appeared to have a very high rise. But they don't actually, and are super comfortable. I sized up needlessly though, and if I decide to get them again, will just get my usual size.

Belt: No Brand

I found this green leather belt strap on Ebay awhile back. I love that it fits my H buckle!

Boots: TuffRider

I think the time has come to retire the Sport Boot, so I've been wearing this pair of Regals more and more. The Sport Boot has zippers that no longer stay up and they're starting to get a little dry rot. I can't complain, I've had them a couple of years now and taken pretty much zero care of them. The Regals aren't quite as comfy as the Sport Boot, but they're also not nearly as broken in, so hopefully they'll get there. Seriously, anyone looking for a comfy pair of knock around boots, that you could also get away with in the show ring, give these a try!

Spurs: No brand
Spur Straps: Ovation

Yep, those are indeed green spurs. This my friends is what happens when I have a slow day at the desk job. I find things like green spurs on ebay and buy them. They're kind of awesome though, no? Obviously if you have ridiculous green spurs, then you need to pair them with equally ridiculous rainbow glitter straps. Rules,  ya know?

So that's what I'm wearing today! Any favorites? What do you have on?

What's Up Wednesday

Thankfully What's Up Wednesday is slightly more exciting this week! Only slightly though, don't get too excited.
Badger was back from horse showing this week, and I was SO EXCITED to go ride him over the weekend! It felt like it had been months. (Two weeks = many months, yes?) He had a good horse show at HITS and even won some ribbons. Sadly my trainer is not satin obsessed like me so she didn't bring any of it home. Booo. I have to work on that with her!
I had such a great ride on him Saturday. Trainer had a whole course of just poles on the ground set up, and we spent the entire time trotting and cantering over poles. Lines, singles, roll backs, you name it. And it went so much better than when we attempted the same exercise in Florida last year! He really has grown up so much. Sunday wasn't quite as good since the temperature had dropped and it was pretty windy. Baby horse couldn't help but to throw in some spooking and scooting. Thankfully his antics are much like Jamp's and I can deal with them. Unlike someone else's.... (pointing at you Romey!)
Also I had told trainer's groom about the grooming gloves I love, and he got a pair for Badger. He loves them as much as the other boys!

It's lovely having someone else get your pony ready for you and keep him trimmed and looking gorgeous... But I really can't wait for the day when he finally moves home and I can curry him myself! Not that I can't there, but it's not the same.
I had a great weekend of riding with all the bay boys too! Friday night was the full harvest moon. Jampy was done working while it was still light out, but the other boys got to enjoy the show:

Romey was a little annoyed that the trees blocked his view

By Rio's turn it was up above the trees

We were all a little sad that it was our first night of wearing sheets though:

Romes was especially annoyed about wearing clothes.

As mentioned yesterday on Thursday's Threads, Jampy had a great jump school on Sunday. He was so good, with only one little melt down at the end of the ring. That's pretty good for him! Check out my instagram for a clip of his moment. So silly. Other than that, he jumped great!

Rio had even more fun though. My friend was around to help me set jumps and video Jampy, so Rio put him to work too...

He enjoys directing his buddy to the best grass.

Romey worked too, but I gotta be honest, he's not as sound as I would like him to be. We're sticking with walk/trot until we get the vet out again.

I'd like to explain the draw reins a bit too. I am NOT a fan of strapping draw reins on young or inexperienced horses. Especially those that are reluctant to move off my leg as Romey can be. However, I'm also not a fan of rapid 180 degree turns that come out of nowhere, and thus I've put them on to keep ol' naughty pants on the straight and narrow. (Pretty literally.) I try to keep them long enough that they're not forcing his head down, but short enough that should he try and spin on me, they create a bit of a road block. Judge if you will, but this ammy's gotta do what she's gotta do.
The Puggers had a fun filled weekend too! We went for a lovely walk on Sunday evening. They even made it a full mile this time since it's cooled off some.

From our little job as sub box reviewer over at beeju boxes, we got a new box of treats and toys to review. Obviously we had to fully test the products:

That review will be up on beejuboxes.com in a few days, definitely check it out, everything was so cute!
All of that walking and playing really wore us all out though.

I even got to have a little non pet inclusive fun this weekend! It's fair season here in New England, so I checked out the fair in the town my office is in. It was super fun! I got to see some horse pulls, and the highlight was seeing American Idol winner Nick Fradiani perform. This fair is actually in his home town.

And that's everything that's up with me this Wednesday! What's up with you?