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.

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.