Today I am happy...

1. It's not raining. Finally.

2. I'm going to spend the afternoon finishing up some paperwork and then reading a book (and getting paid for it).

3. Fall TV. Even if my new guilty pleasure has already been cancelled, I'm a little too excited about all the TV I'm going to be watching this year. And yes, I just admitted to watching Playboy Club.

4. I survived coaching at Capital Challenge. Brushes with fame included Frank Madden and Steven Spielberg. Non-horsey types, you should at least get the second name. ;)

5. There's no horse show this weekend, so I have Sunday off.

Going back to number 3, let me introduce to everyone what their January should involve:

SO EXCITED. Christian Borle, Megan Hilty, Brian d'Arcy James (and his eyebrows), Annaleigh Ashford... pardon me while I go have a massive Broadway freakout.

End lame-ish post. I hadn't updated in a while, and I promised my mother I'd stop writing posts that made her cry. Although knowing I watched Playboy Club might still fall under things that would do that.

End of the year

Natalie and Chico

Some people track their year by the calendar.

Some people track their year by school sessions.

Some people track their year by the seasons.

I track mine by the horse show schedule. The year begins December 1 and ends November 30, with the height of the season from April through September when the HCHSA shows are running. Sunday ended the regular shows for us, with a weekend off this week before Medal Finals and the official end of HCHSA for the year.
I live, breathe, eat, and (don't) sleep horse shows for those 6 months. I love hanging out with my kids and their ponies. I love watching them learn something every single time we leave the farm. I love figuring out what we need to work harder on at home, and what we've finally mastered. I love watching them smile their faces off when they get a ribbon, and how well they handle themselves when they don't. I love that they always want to be perfect, but that they understand sometimes we have to settle for the best we can do that day. I love that they love their horses/ponies no matter how perfect or how naughty they were on a given day.

I also love that I have the most fantastic, supportive, and hilarious group of parents to work with, most of whom have no idea how they ended up involved, but who are game for whatever I want to do and can put together a mean lunch spread! (And that my own parents, who no longer have to get up at 4am on Sundays themselves, are willing to dogsit as often as I need them to.)

The next couple weeks will be spent prepping child and pony for their first medal finals, and then we have 3 or 4 weeks before the fall schooling shows start. I plan on doing an excessive amount of sleeping on the weekend, finally finishing Storm of Swords, and possibly even sitting around drinking wine and catching up with all my wonderful friends who understand that I all but disappear from reality during the regular season.

And then shortly it will be time to dig the North Face out of the closet, buy another carton of toe warmers, and dream of April and the start of another year.

Vacation/Staycation

First things first, the top things I learned while driving to the beach (Littlestown, PA to Nags Head, 7+ hours)

1. There are a few hard-and-fast rules regarding radio airplay: (a) there is never normal country music on Sunday nights, just twangy religious stuff, (b) the second you find the awesomest station ever, you will go over a mountain and lose the signal, (c) People play way too much Sting. Like, WAAAAY too much Sting.

2. When in doubt, stop to get gas before you really think you'll need to. Especially if you're alone and it's raining like crazy. As much as you may want to tell yourself that you're fine and you'll wait until it stops raining, it will not stop raining before you run out of gas. (Thankfully, this rule is unbroken in my world.)

3. Washington, DC traffic makes me want to kill someone. Seriously, how do people deal with that traffic day in and day out without going completely postal?

All in all, it wasn't a bad drive down. I left PA around 2:30 (after Ashley freaking ROCKED her first 3'3" medal. I might have cried a little after the show was over since she was heading off to college, but don't tell her that), got to Nags Head just before 10. Spent the next few days baking in the sun (I will never learn that I can't play that game without wanting to die later from the sunburn), learned how to fly a kite, and then was evacuated Thursday morning because of that bitch Irene. We even felt the earthquake, although by "we" I mean, my dad and I. No one else noticed it.

So vacation turned into staycation, which thankfully only involved a loss of Verizon and not the electricity in general. I am heavily into the Game of Thrones books at this point, so I spent a lot of the weekend lying on the couch with the puppy, my Nook, and a glass of wine.

The pony welcomed me home by trotting sound on all 4 legs for the first time in weeks (it was an abscess, but Dundy was fairly certain it was reason for amputation). So I got to ride and teach lessons all day yesterday in the gorgeous weather, and am now safely stuck behind my desk staring out my windows with a pile of subpeonas that need writing up. So back to reality I go!

GLEEEEEEEE

I can't watch 3D movies (or IMAX). I end up with the whole headache/nausea deal, and it tends to linger into the next day. This puts me in a little bit of a tight spot since EVERYTHING is 3D/IMAX these days. Usually there's a "regular" option to the movie as well, so I just force friends to go see that version with me.

Clearly though, someone involved with Glee hates me. They only have the 3D version of their concert/movie deal that's out right now. I didn't end up going to the actual concert because Laura and I decided tickets were too expensive (which they were), so I sucked it up and we went to the movie last night.

First of all, the movie requires you to suspend reality. Go with the idea that this high school glee club went on a world tour, and just ignore the voice in your head going "wait, really?" Also, get over the fact that it's just the kids (and Gwyneth Paltrow as a surprise guest). Don't be like Laura, who kept asking where Sue was the entire movie. The only thing that I found frustrating was that they obviously changed the song order, so people's outfits (and the amount of confetti on the stage) kept changing around bizarrely. Also, Lea Michele disappeared for like half the movie.

That said, it was SO MUCH FUN. Singing was awesome, the dancing was amazing, it was everything one would expect from Glee. Sure, there was some lip synching going on, but whatever. I can't wait to get a copy of it (in not 3D) so I can play it until my neighbors all know all the words as well. ;)

And yes, I feel like crap this morning. I even busted out my linen pants that look/feel like I'm in my pajamas so I could spend the morning curled up on my office couch since my boss is in court. Have I ever mentioned that I have the best job(s) ever?

P.S. Mom, I'm assuming this satisfies your need for me to stop writing things that make you cry?

Crazy animal rights wackos (is that PC enough?)

I'm not going to use my blog as a political soapbox, mostly because when I don't have all the facts, I tend not to want to say anything at all. I started writing about the animal rights activists demonstrating at the American Girl store in NYC this week (which, facts or no, horrifies me on about 10 levels), but don't have the numbers/facts to back up what I'm saying. I know, it's a shocking idea in this day and age to not write about something if you don't know enough to be sure of it, but that's how I roll.

That said, I don't need facts or numbers to say this: PETA, Humane Society of the United States, Friends of Animals.... if you give money to any of these organizations thinking that you're doing something good in honor of your furry friends, think again. They're not interested in long-term animal welfare, they're interested in the big "hot button" issues (like the carriage horses in NYC or hunting in any format), and have no problem traumatizing small children on their way to what they consider to be the right result. I also have yet to find anyone involved with any of these groups who can tell me what would happen to the animals in question if the animal rights groups were able to "liberate" them.

I leave you all with this fabulous statement: "We have no ethical obligation to preserve the different breeds of livestock produced through selective breeding...One generation and out. We have no problem with the extinction of domestic animals. They are creations of human selective breeding." Wayne Pacelle, Senior VP of Humane Society of the US, formerly of Friends of Animals and Fund for Animals, Animal People, May, 1993  (Ah yes, that just screams "wants to do what's best for the animals in question," doesn't it?)

The gray pony thing..

Somewhere along the line, the universe decided my life was not complete unless there was a gray pony in it. Unfortunately for all the gray ponies in my life, they have big shoes to fill.

Not literal big shoes, as Nylar was about the closest thing to an actual pony that a 5'6" teenage girl was going to get. If he was 15.2, it was a really good day for him, and I was forever having to put knots in halters and punch holes in nosebands in order for them to fit his head properly.

But there was never a more perfect first horse. Everyone knows that quote from Corinthians - "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." Nylar was pretty much that definition of love. Except for the delighting in evil part, which he did on a fairly regular basis. Especially if there were dogs around that needed to be given a knockdown. But patient, protecting, keeping no record of wrongs? That was my gray pony to a "T."

He was the first horse I ever showed through an entire season, the first horse I ever took into the 3' ring, the first horse I won a year-end award with. I learned to clip and braid properly on him, and he's the reason I can turn out my current gray horses as well as I do.


We parted ways when I went off to college, he moved on to one of my friends, I moved on to other (not-gray) horses. When he came back into my life 3 years later, it was supposed to be so that my parents, aunt, and I could retire him the way that he deserved. He never did retire though, after a winter of good grain, all the hay he could want, and some careful maintenance of his arthritis, he went back to work full-time. He was the cornerstone of my lesson program when it started in 2003, horse showed until 2006, and was on his way into the barn for a lesson the day that the EPM symptoms appeared in 2009.


And right until the last moment, he was patient and kind (but still delighting in evil). He pushed through for 6 weeks while I said my goodbyes, ground-driving around the farm on his good days and just hanging out in his stall on the bad ones. He had a stall guard instead of a door and would pretend to attack anyone who happened by at the wrong moment. He even took one last gallop the day before the vet came, sans halter and with people chasing after him.


So Dundy, Nobu, and all the other gray ponies in my future, there's what you have to work for. Although, you know, if you wanted to skip the delighting in evil part, we'd probably all be okay with that. ;)

Let's be brief, but with a video!

I only have one thought today: I'm going to Culpeper, VA to horse show on Friday and there is no rain forecasted. This will be the first time in like 10 years that I haven't gone to that place and been knee-deep in mud.

Also, Google+ is my new favorite time waster. This week.

And finally, this. I'd actually gone looking for Anyone Can Whistle videos, but this is way funnier:

The Pony.

Enter the Dundysaurus Rex. Also known as "Dundy," "Dunda-roo" (said in the same fashion as "Figarooooo"), and when we're fancy, "Maybe This Time." The current equine love of my life, who appeared one day in our barn about 3 years ago. I say appeared because Shelly forgot to tell me that there was a new boarder coming in, so I walked in one day and there was this huge freak-show of a horse spinning circles in his stall. It was not love at first sight. I honestly found him annoying, as his stall was located right next to the ring entrance and he'd pin his ears at everyone who went by and enjoyed running his teeth along the wall. The only redeeming qualities were that he was big and grey (I'm a sucker).

The following spring I lost Dunn in a pasture accident, which pretty much sent me into an emotional freakout. I Then Nylar contracted EPM in early June, and I spent 6 weeks on a roller coaster before finally having to make the decision to euthanize him. At that point I was exhausted, an emotional trainwreck, and contemplating life without horses for a while. But I still had to work, so one day that August I was standing next to Shelly watching Madison walk Dundy in circles. And then he picked up a trot and I looked at Shelly and told her that I was booting the kids off him, he was mine. And I will be forever grateful that I had a camera the first time I got to canter him, that video makes me smile every time I see it. (Trotting Dundy, not so fun. Cantering Dundy - best thing EVER)

And so for almost 2 years, he's been mine (the best sort - the farm actually owns him). I have learned to attach my butt to my saddle on the approach to a fence and "ride like a German" so that I don't get launched (Dundy does not suffer fools over fences, or a half-seat position). Dundy has learned that perhaps SOMETIMES he can help a girl out when the distance isn't perfect, even if the jump is big. And we both have mellowed ourselves out emotionally - he still pins his ears at the horses in the barn, but he also hangs his head over the stall door when he hears me talking in the aisle. I've managed to keep breathing every time he comes in a little lame from being too rowdy with his boys in the field, and just roll my eyes when he stresses himself into a frenzy over something.

And now Dundy is teaching me dressage. Which will be documented via photos on Facebook thanks to one of my teenagers and her really nice camera. Once I've sorted it all in my head I'll blog about the struggle to switch from 21 years of hunters into something that passes as not embarrassing at dressage, but right now it's mostly Shelly yelling at me to shorten my reins so it's not particularly entertaining to the non-horsey set.

In honor of Father's Day

Things my father learned to do because of my crazy hobby:

1. Drive a truck and trailer with 2 large horses, neither of whom is particularly interested in standing up properly. Bonus points for knowing how to remove divider in trailer so that particularly fussy horse can be turned around and walked out head-first instead of backing up.

2. Muck a stall. Bonus points for mucking Dunn's stall every day (except when Shelly and Cindy beat him to it) when he was on stall rest and I was recovering from carpal tunnel surgery. Extra bonus points for all the days he didn't go home and change first, and mucked the stall in his shirt and suit pants (usually with tie still on).

3. Tack up a horse. Despite the fact that my dad does in fact know how to ride, he learned how to saddle and bridle long before he started taking lessons. My early instructor was barely 5' tall, and therefore thought nothing of putting her 10 and 11 year old students on horses over 16 hands. Dad learned how to stick his arm up and bring an evading horse's head down in the very early days of my riding career (anyone remember Billy?).

4. Ride a horse. After years of driving the carpool and helping me get ready for lessons, he signed up at a barn closer to our house "just to see what the big deal was." Sadly, after a couple falls and a couple broken bones, I don't think he ever really saw what I did. And then he took up tennis and never sat on a horse again.

5. Proper use of bungee cords, duct tape, and extension cords to set up horse show stalls. Bonus points for knowing what height to hang buckets at in the stalls, and always remembering extra screw-eyes and double-end snaps.

6. Smile when Saturdays and Sundays (including Father's Day, every year) meant heat stroke (literally on one occasion), 16 hour days, and a daughter who probably didn't say thank you as often as she should have!

Hi, I work a lot.

I think I need to start writing down ideas for this thing as they come. I know I thought of at least 3 topics as I was running around this weekend (and an idea for a completely separate blog based solely on stories Mehdi tells me, like how he helped do a c-section on a cow last week), but in the chaos I've forgotten them all.

And chaos would be the appropriate word. I'm flying solo in the office, plus my lesson schedule, which is like 60-70 hours a week right there. Then I decided that despite the fact that I was attending a wedding for one of my longtime barn friends, I should take the teenagers to a horse show on Saturday. Which ended up being a great idea, as the pile of ribbons that came home will attest. And you know, why not bookend the week by hitting a horse show this weekend with my regular quartet of children?

I'm thinking by the end of the summer I'll be like an actress and be in the hospital for exhaustion. Except in my case it won't be a code word for "drugs."

Things they don't teach you.

Every kid in my barn wants to turn pro when they grow up. Far be it for me to tell them they shouldn't, although they have no idea what they're in for. I knew I'd be okay when I decided to go for it because at that point I'd been teaching since junior year of high school. Which is a good thing, since going to college for an equine degree did not prepare me for the reality of working in this industry. Teaching classes, lots of barn time, not at all what you need to know. Here's the reality:

1. Liking horses is not going to make you good at this job. Everyone likes horses (except for a few of my weirdo friends who are afraid of them.) Do you ride well? Can you teach well? Can you deal with overstressed, overscheduled parents who don't understand that although they're paying for a half hour of your time, the child needs to be in the barn for at least an hour if they want to actually RIDE that half hour? Can you deal with children who are angry because they didn't get the pony they wanted to ride, afraid of a jump they cleared beautifully 5 minutes earlier, or insane from the field trip they went on at school and oh by the way had like 12 pixie sticks on the way to the farm?

2. Do you have a degree in adolescent psychology? No? Learn fast. You're dealing with hormones that you will NOT remember from your own teen years, plus adding in the equine brain just for an extra dose of crazy. Ever seen a teenage girl have a meltdown over something that happened 2 weeks prior at school while her horse is in heat and acting like an enormous freak show? It requires a VERY careful hand because someone very well could die, and it might be you if you say the wrong thing.

3. Don't worry about lesson plans. I did lesson plans for the first 6 months I taught. The crazy detailed ones that I was taught to do in college. Then I realized that 90% of the time I ended up changing the plan once I got there and realized that either the child, the horse, or a combination of both plus the wind, moon cycle, and tide changes were going to make that lesson inappropriate that day. Have a baseline for what you'd like to accomplish, but learn to improvise well.

4. This is supposed to be fun. Parents pay you to teach the child how to ride, but if that child isn't having a good time, it's all over. It doesn't matter how burnt out you are, how exhausted the 5 lessons prior made you, whether you're bummed because you were too busy to get your own riding in, you better learn how to suck it up and at least ACT like you're having a good time. I feel like a professional cheerleader in a lot of lessons, but if the kid leaves smiling, it's all good.

So there you go. Take acting, take psychology, go out for cheerleading. Maybe a few business classes, you'll be ahead of most of the industry if you can run a successful, profitable barn. Regardless of what you do, you're going to work harder than you ever thought possible, you're going to learn to love your days off (they happen approximately 4 times a year, or if it thunderstorms, snows, or is above 100 degrees/below 30), and you'll come up with a million other things you should've taken in college besides riding.

My Favorite Things, Part 1

I've been procrastinating on the blog primarily because I didn't have anything entertaining to say. The funniest thing to happen to me in the last couple weeks was when I sent one of my short stirrup kids into the show ring with her pants on backwards. Trainer fail, and now the child will have to hear that story for the rest of her life (she still was reserve champion in the division, clearly wearing your clothes properly is not mandatory). In my defense, her mom didn't notice either.

So in lieu of funny things, and prompted by last night's entertainment, here are a few things that I love a lot right now:

1. StageIt. Usually for about $5, you can watch concerts from the comfort of your own home. Generally the artist is also chilling at home, or on a tour bus, or wherever. I came across it because I'm obsessed with Jaron and the Long Road to Love, and his brother Evan started StageIt (yes, Evan and Jaron. Yes, you will sing Crazy for this Girl all day. You're welcome.). They both do shows fairly regularly, and there are some other "names" that use it as well, mostly country music at this point. I saw Jessica Andrews last night, and Debbie Gibson a couple months ago.

2. Angry Birds. I have a Droid, but it's kind of the baby of the Droid family and games freeze up pretty readily unless the stars have aligned. But now Angry Birds is on Google Chrome, and I spent like 3 days last week playing it. It's more fun than Words With Friends, which is pretty much the only game I can use on my phone.

3. My super-cool intak water bottle. We do a Secret Santa type thing at the farm every year and last Christmas brought me a really nice water bottle, which is currently sitting on my desk. I'm trying to cut back on the Diet Coke, so having this to carry around is helping a LOT.

4. Air conditioning. I have a window unit in my living room which I spent most of yesterday evening practically lying on top of. Second floor apartments in old rowhomes get pretty toasty, and I like my heat to come with sunshine and a tan, not just sweating and grossness.

5. Sutton Foster. Yes, I have a thing about musical theater. Yes, I like to post umpteen million youtube videos and articles about the shows I've seen/am about to see. I also know that pretty much the only people who enjoy this are my mother and my trainer's partner, who is not actually my Facebook friend but checks my page out regularly anyway. But let me clue you in: Sutton Foster is a little bit brilliant. I go to NYC to see shows I know nothing about just because she's in them.

Okay, done playing Oprah for today. Tune in next time...

I'm not actually a farmer, I swear.

"Miss Ellen, you have a funny tan line!"

Two things: 1. My Wednesday night barn kids are hilarious and far too precocious for their own good. 2. I have a farmer's tan and it's not even June.

By August, when the farmer's tan is in full effect, I will have a tan line from the polo shirts I wear at horse shows, the wide-strap tank tops I wear at the farm, and one where my gloves stop (and in really bad summers, where my wrist brace ends). The pièce de résistance, however, are my legs. Legs that wear jeans and breeches all summer long and therefore never actually see the sun. Legs that are pasty white reflections of my Irish heritage.

This never bothered me before, but now I'm at an age where summers mean at least one wedding to attend, along with the prerequisite showers/parties involved with a wedding. Which means dresses that show said tan lines to their best advantage.

The best example of the farmer's tan. Note polo shirt AND glove lines.

Thankfully I have not actually ruined anyone's wedding photos with these tan lines - the weddings I've been in at this point were for friends who either had equally hilarious lines (yay horsey friends)or didn't do a lot of posed photos.

Every year I swear up and down that this will be the year that I'll even the tan out or not get one at all. And by Memorial Day, I'm off shopping for aloe, SPF 9000 (not a typo), and sunless tanner to try to cover the damages.

How I got here

I never thought about doing anything other than horses professionally. I knew at 18 that I could ride and teach lessons, so I skipped over the whole concept that college is where you find yourself and what you want to be when you grow up. (It turned out well in that regard seeing as how college was the low point of my life and quite easily could have killed my love of horses entirely. We'll save those stories for another time.)

However there is one thing that teenage Ellen didn't really understand: the horse industry will not make you rich. Starting a program from scratch will in fact qualify you for welfare for many years, unless you have amazing parents (thankfully I do). However, unless you're a trust fund baby or something of that nature, becoming a financially responsible adult eventually has to become a priority. So about this time 2 years ago, I realized that it was time to grow up, move out of my parents' house, and get a job that would pay the bills.

It's hard to convince someone that you're qualified to do anything when your resume pretty much says "been mucking stalls and riding since college" especially in a crappy job market. So after much stress on my part, a friend called and said she was leaving her job and she'd told her boss (her uncle) that he needed to hire me. So here I am, 18 months later, reasonably fluent in lawyer and marveling daily at how much fun I think it is to sit in an office. I mean, a flush toilet AND air conditioning/heat? Plus great bosses and an amazing new collection of stories. Dealing with the public can be so very entertaining.

We won't get into exactly how I make everything work schedule-wise and still have time to have a life.

Just refer to the title of this blog to understand how I get it all done.

Starting Up

Over the last few months, more than a few of my Facebook friends have started spamming my NewsFeed with blog posts. Of course, by "spamming" I actually mean "giving me something to do at work that's not actually work."

This of course got me thinking about starting my own blog. See, once upon a time I used to write A LOT. Like, binders and notebooks full of stories since I was about 10 years old. Then I got out of college, started hanging out in the barn 60 hours a week, and the writing brain slowly fizzled out. Last year, at the age of 29, I decided it was time to become an adult, which meant less* time at the farm and an office that pays me really well to write letters and answer the phone. So I'm thinking that means that it's also time to pick the writing back up. It's probably not too late to pick up that idea of writing the Great American Novel and being able to go back to playing in the barn all day...




*by less, I of course mean the same amount of work crammed into 3 days instead of 7.