Halters and other broken things.

I gave JR the day off yesterday (Saturday) so I could try to get caught up with work stuff since classes start tomorrow. Don't get me wrong, I love my job, but the first day of school still sucks, for students AND the teachers, but the teachers have to be upbeat and give the impression that the term is going to be enlightening, stimulating, and a barrel of fun, lest the students tune out the ENTIRE quarter. Students get to sit there mopey eyed and stare at the clock hoping the prof. will let them out early and not give them homework on the first day. I WILL let them out early, but I will also give them their first homework assignment. But I digress...

Today it was a whopping 14 degrees outside, and that is without the windchill. It was 20 degrees in the barn so I needed to let my buckets thaw in the heated bathroom while I did my stuff. He still had some flowing water, but there was about an inch of ice all around the bucket and a horse nose sized hole in the top, and the other bucket was empty with just a coating of ice. I didn't feel like riding and I didn't want to spend much time in the freezer so I took him to the arena, took his blanket off, lunged him, put his blanket back on and took him back to his stall with fresh water. He took a drink right away.

I was surprised that I was not cold but I was wearing a stocking cap, Champion Baselayer top (like Underarmour but 1/3 the price), turtleneck, fleece, down vest, long underwear bottoms, fleece lined jeans, my Mountain Horse Inferno jacket, my Mountain Horse Thinsulate paddock boots, and my Thinsulate leather gloves and I was there for less than an hour. There was noone around to hang out with so I did my thing and left. His halter still looks good, but I don't think he's been turned out since he got it so time will tell. I've only had adjustable nosebands with him and I like the non-adjustable better for lunging. It didn't get all twisted around with the chain. I cut the rest of the noseband off his green halter that he broke (after investigating he broke a little piece off the chin buckle detaching it from it's nylon) and replaced it with the leather noseband of his leather halter that he broke last summer. So now it's his emergency Frankenhalter which will be in his bridle bag in case he breaks this new one. I can see he's been chewing on one of his nylon bucket straps so I'm just waiting to have to Franken-something while I take it home to fix. I also had to replace one of the clips on his legstraps that broke while I was away. It's a good thing I can sew! I had to put a plastic clip on since that was all I could find at JoAnns, so i know it won't last, but it was a $2 stop-gap until I place an order to Schneiders in the spring when he earns enough lesson credits to buy himself a new blanket, :) or I find a metal one at Rods on Friday.

I'm going to open a checking account just for horse stuff. I am terrible at budgeting and keeping track of purchases in my head. I think if I have a second checking account that I put my horse budget in each month, I will know exactly what he's costing me, and then when show season comes there will be $ in there for shows. I'm putting in there my same budget as before he was in the lesson program, so his lesson credits sort of "earn" him money. I can always transfer funds if I need to. We'll see when I find the time to get to the bank!

TJ is back from Christmas Break so we can get back to our feeding project, and she's leasing a horse at the barn so we'll get to ride together way more than once a week. Stay tuned for the details on that. What am I talking about? Go Here.

With classes starting I will be back down to Monday-Wednesday-Friday rides and one or two weekend days per week. Sometimes I'll have to skip one or more of the weekdays. At the end of the summer I was riding almost every day. Junior wasn't any skinnier but I was. I actually had lost 1/2" from my calves and 1" from my thighs since the spring. And now? Now I feel like the stay-puff marshmallow man. I never measured my waist but I can tell the definition I had in August is GONE. As soon as classes started in the fall and I cut back to 3-5 days a week instead of 5-7 days/week I lost muscle and metabolism and started gaining weight. I can still wear all my clothes and everything, but this has got to stop. So we're going to try to eat better. It sucks though because I've used food as a reward for myself for YEARS and I've yet to find something to replace it with. I tried buying things as a reward but that just makes me broke. I lost 30 lbs once, but I was living with someone who had just lost 60lbs on Weight Watchers and she was an incredibly effective tool. I simply started eating like her. If she didn't go back for seconds, I didn't. If she said no to ice cream, I said no. It worked. Hopefully this time I can do it by myself. Any ideas? Just don't tell me to exercise. That's just not going to happen. Trust me.