What's Up Wednesday

Phew. It's that time of year again where you're pulled in 75 different directions and all the things you procrastinated doing are very much needing to be done NOW! Ah! Anyway, it's also a really fun time of year with lots of events going on. Good with the bad, right?

Before I recap the past week, I have a few things I need from you guys! First, I received part two of my gift for Rio which is a drawing of my choice. I can't wait to pick a photo and get that done. I want to thank you all so much for sending me these wonderful things to remember Rio (and Jampy). I'm not sure who all contributed this last time, but I do want to send a note of thanks. If anyone has a list, could you please forward to me? 
ALSO, my holiday cards are pretty hilarious this year so if anyone is wanting one, send your address to me! I can be reached via Instagram (@stacieseidman), Facebook (Stacie Seidman or Amateur At Large), or email (seseidman@gmail.com).

Just a little teaser for the card...

Ok, back to recapping.
I had my lesson on Shiny last week, but we're still a little bit in the "please stop nearly falling down again" phase. I have her on the list to have her neck checked out again just to make sure we're not dealing with something neurological. I don't really think we are. But better safe. We jumped a few crossrails again, and she was very good for that.
Eros had a lesson too during the week. You guys, he was so fresh! I always get a kick out of fresh Eros since he's generally such a calm dude. But even when he's "wild" all he does is get strong. No bucking or anything naughty like that. Just epic, drag mom around the corner after the fences strong. I can live with that. We let him have a free lunge Saturday morning before the clinic so he could be more focused for that. But I'm getting ahead of us!

Friday we had our annual Ugly Sweater contest at work. It's hard to believe that I didn't win...

I mean, there were flashing lights and leg lamp slippers! Also boxers over leggings cause leggings aren't pants! But alas, a pretty hideous homemade sweater took the top price. And I will say, it was worthy. I'll have to start working on next years I guess... I'm thinking it's time to return to a Chanukah theme.

fourth from the right, red sweater was the winner.

I took a half day from work Friday so I could ride because my company also had our holiday party that evening. (BUSY DAY!) The horses were kind of lit at the barn. Nona was already there, and the ring was set for the clinic, and they just seemed to know things were a little different that day. Of course, Eros being lit just meant he was staring at the jump trailer he could see through the window. He's really the best boy. OH! But we did spook everyone else in the ring when his staring at said trailer caused us to bump into a standard and knock a jump down. Oops. Lol.
Sadly, I have zero media from the clinic. Not sure where all the children ran off to, but no one was around to video for me. Womp womp. Our lesson went great though. It started of with some flat work which was mostly the same as the trainer does with us in our regular lessons. She was a working student for Nona, so her lessons are very similar generally. Apple/tree.
After flatting, we moved on to jumping. I like how Nona builds things up slowly. We started just trotting a small crossrail with a trot pole set to guide us. Eros is an old pro at trot jumps, so that was easy for us. After we all did that a few times, she had us add a single jump on the diagonal after the X. She continued just adding elements until we were doing a full course. The course was a fairly straightforward hunter course, but with some bending lines. Pretty simple really. Finally, for the last round we did a course with some roll backs in it. Eros is desperate to see his body worker, so we struggled a bit with the right hand roll back, but we got it done well enough. For sure could have done it BETTER, but it wasn't bad.

Pretty much going to use the same three screen shots forever until I get more media...

 My main takeaways were kind of the same things I already know and hear from all my trainers. I need to help less through the turns. All they really need is some support from my leg, but instead I like to try and package them up and create a distance. When I do that, it often doesn't work out. Shocking! Once I can soften my elbows through the turn and keep my leg on, things tend to flow much more smoothly.
Shiny wound up with a weekend vacation. The weather was awful Saturday, pouring rain and wind all day, so riding outside wasn't an option. And by Sunday everything had frozen over, so still not an option. I think it was fine for her to have some time off. Kind of hit reset on our angst, and start afresh this week.
Saturday evening was the holiday party at the barn. I didn't get photos there either. I totally suck. It was fun though. They do a yankee swap gift exchange which is always entertaining. And the barn manager made a spiked cider that was DELICIOUS! Also, head trainer and assistant trainer had a bet going for the last month. Whoever had the most people fall off in that time had to do something embarrassing at the holiday party. Head trainer was the loser and she had to wear the bunny outfit from A Christmas Story. Hilarious!
Sunday was kind of a day off for me, since I wasn't doing day two of the clinic. I used my time wisely though! (Seriously!) I was up bright and early to finish my holiday shopping including getting toys for our company toy drive. (Pats self on back.)

Not sure why my face is distorted... hopefully it's a weird camera trick and I don't actually look like that.

It felt pretty good to be done with the shopping part! Now I have to wrap it all. That's less good. Anyway, after shopping, I headed to the barn. It was around 1pm which was perfect. I gave Eros a good grooming and then watched the last lesson of the clinic. (Shiny was enjoying some outside time, so I waited to groom her, but fear not, she got some loving too!) And then it was home to organize the holiday chaos and straighten up the house.
Monday was back to work, errands after work, and I forget what else I did, but it took the rest of the evening. Tuesday was similar but also brought a lovely ice storm. Everything is ice now. Everything.

Fortunately, they stayed on top of the roads really well, so I was able to ride both horses last night. Schools were closed so everyone was gone when I got to the barn. I'm usually the last one there at night, but normally there are people there for my first horse. It was kind of lonely! Horses were good though, despite the ice sliding off the roof. We have sun today finally! I don't think we've seen sun since before I got back from Florida. It's going to be absolutely arctic here (like single digits with wind chill) for the next few days so I'm not thrilled about that... I'm debating canceling my Thursday evening lesson and just waiting for the weekend. We'll see. I don't mind flatting in the 10 degrees, but I don't like to stress the lungs too much with the harder work a lesson would bring. Also, I hate the cold. Let's not pretend otherwise.
This week is actually less nuts than last so hopefully I can get everything ready for the holidays. We are doing our family Chanukah party on Sunday, so I have lots of wrapping to do before then. Plus the cards need to go out... If only my return address labels would get here!
Are you all ready for the holiday season? Been to lots of parties lately? Do anything fun with the horses? Clinics or funny outfits or whatever?