Sunday

I've always been a strange duck. Today this is exhibited by my enthusiastic pleasure at discovering that I have sunburn on my shoulders. I don't even care that it will hurt tomorrow and probably peel. I'm just so glad that I was in the sun long enough to create the sunburn. It was a very long winter and I? I am a summer girl. And I have lots of summer lotion on my shoulders.

My blouse is done, but I am not satisfied with it. It's fine. I think it's good enough for the level I'm showing but I had some difficulties with embellishments. The construction of the blouse went together very easily and the pattern fit with only one adjustment to the sleeve length. I did learn a lot by doing this one so the next one will be easier and more successful. The problem is within the Ultrasuede work and with the crystals. It just makes me feel like it looks a little more homemade than professionally made. Again, it's probably not noticeable to anyone but me and I'm not really worried about it. We'll see what it looks like in the ring.

I got the sunburn by sitting on a blanket on the grass for about an hour and a half oiling my English tack (finally) and my new curb strap. Junior and Max enjoyed the time on the grass.

Then I did a nice ride. I thought about riding English but he was so calm and sluggish that I knew English would be a lot of work on my part to keep him moving forward. He was very lazy since it was 86 degrees but he seemed to be in a good working mood and did everything I asked him reasonably well. His jog was nice and slow and I had to spend very little time keeping him in frame. He got strung out at the lope a bit at one point and took a bad step, but he was easy to correct and we didn't have any real fights, but a few times on his bad lead when I was trying to push him back to the rail he broke down and switched leads. I'll have to ask KAT how to make sure I'm using different cues for "pick up your shoulder and get back to the rail" and "lead change." Then we went for a nice walk around the farm with Max and his girl.

This is the most inconvenient week for a show to follow but here goes. Worst case scenario is that I won't get out there until Friday. That is unlikely, but still possible. BEST case scenario is that possibly Wednesday and Thursday during the day I could ride. KAT knows my plight and I know she'll ride him when she can.

I'm trying to mentally prepare this week since I can't do much physical prep. All of my material needs are in place, just need to be packed up and organized. Because I tend to get pretty bent out of shape at shows, I'm trying to find a mantra to recite if I start to get overanxious. Something about why this is fun and why this is something I love to do. I'm also trying to put a playlist on my iPod of songs that make me feel good that i can try to play between classes. Luckily KAT will be there and I know all my barn friends will help me if I need anything at the show.