The good, the bad, the in between

Well I let the blogging duties slide again, so a lot has happened since my last post! To make the recap easier, I'm going to categorize events.

The FANTASTIC:
-WE JUMPED!!!! It was just a teeny crossrail, probably about a foot in the middle (my friend J had put it up to jump for her first time jumping for 6 months!) . I started just goofing off and walking her over it, since it was tiny enough for her to step over, and then decided to trot over it, thinking she'd just step over it at the trot. Nope! Good thing I was in my light seat because she LAUNCHED over that sucker, like it was about 2 feet! And then she landed on the correct lead and acted like nothing happened! I kind of caught her in the mouth on the other side because I expected some excitement or naughtiness afterwards, but she was fine! We did it two more times with the same great results! SO proud.

The good:
-"Hacking," or hand walking the pony up the hill behind the barn, down the neighbor's driveway and up the barn driveway. I've never taken her that far because she gets antsy just on the barn driveway. But she was very good and listened to me, though she jigged the entire way, but didn't pull on me, so I let her figure herself out. We've done this loop three times now, both with another horse and alone, and she's been great! I'll be ready to ride her around the loop soon!
- Riding outside more often! She get's spooky outside and for my own comfort level, I tend to just ride inside so I don't have to deal with the sillies. But I need to get over it and ride her out there more to get her used to focusing in varying environments. So I rode with my friends J and H the other day and we rode outside in the evening (it was so hot that day, so we rode later to avoid the heat). Beauty was silly and spooky for a while, including a 0 to 60 mph spook at a bird flying out of the bushes, but settled in and was GREAT! Love the brain on this mare, once she gets something figured out, she's over it.
-MY NEW SADDLE IS COMING TOMORROW OR MONDAY! No more sore backs!!!!
-Gorgeous new dressage bridle from Smartpak!
-I sent in my entry for Beauty's first show! It is a dressage schooling show at a nearby barn and I will be doing Into A and B. Hopefully it will be a good first show experience, and I don't care if we don't get amazing scores, this is just for her experience and anything else is icing on the cake.

The bad:
-Due to several frustrating non-horse related life events, I haven't been able to get to the barn much in the last week. As a result, our lesson today was AWFUL. She would absolutely NOT calm down and spent the entire lesson racing around at the trot with her head in my lap and her back hollow. Any contact I took was SO OFFENSIVE and anytime I asked for bend, she took it as an excuse to SHOOT ACROSS THE RING WITH HEAD IN AIR! Ugh. I know everyone has bad days, but even her bad days are never this bad..

Ugh, I've just been so burnt out by working 30 hours per week and finding time to ride. Guess I should get used to it if I plan to go to med school and be a doctor ;)