off radar

I realized my last post was at the beginning of November! Yikes!

Well, quick update about where I have been over the last few weeks. I've had a handful of lessons on Arizona. Some good, some bad. Our jumping lesson a few weeks ago was a complete disaster. For one thing, I am out of practice and he's a handful over fences. I was nervous and lost focus throughout the lesson which afforded some dangerous riding displays on my part. I finally got it together towards the end of the lesson, but not until B nearly pulled me off of him. Yes, it was that bad. I mean, they can't all be winners -- right? Sometimes I really need a lesson where B has to raise her voice and get after me. I can be my own worst enemy in the saddle and it helps to have someone point out that I am getting in my own way. Once I broke the task down into smaller parts I was able to ride much better and give Arizona back his job of getting over the fences. I was simply doing too much. Since that day I've only ridden him once and we had a really nice flat lesson. We worked on stretchy trot exercises and we decided that since it takes him a good 20 minutes to warm up, it might be best for me to only have hour lessons on him. We had some crappy canter work (my fault) but I was really happy with the trot work in the end. We're starting to figure each other out. I finished pulling his mane (without being stepped on this time) and only had to use the "cheater" for the last 4 inches near his ears. Hooray! I was scolded for making him look like an event pony, but I think it looks great! HA!

This is the busiest time of year for me at work (for those of you who don't know I am a photographer for a rare book company) and I've been swamped here, staying late and working some weekend hours. I hired a new assistant last month and although it was a little tough at first to acclimate her into the work flow she is proving to be quite an asset. We just finished up our lats Christmas catalog and so I am back to photographing less expensive stuff for our website and working on production projects. I can breathe a sigh of relief until the end of January when things will pick back up.

Tomorrow I have a lesson at 12, a semi-private with another girl who is silly and neurotic and we have fun together, so we'll see how I do after nearly 2 weeks off. I'll try to get some video!