I am one of Those People who doesn’t cope well with the holidays, so I am currently away from home and counting the hours until I can see this face again.

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate, and I hope those of you who don’t have also had lovely holiday seasons.

You guys. YOU GUYS.

Look what came in the mail for me!

Does this mean I’m one of the cool kids now?

THANK YOU SO MUCH to Kate from The Midwestern Eventer! Also: I am simultaneously creeped out and impressed that you sent me the exact belt I had picked up and sighed over at Equine Affaire a few weeks ago. How on earth?! Please share your secrets, I have some difficult people to shop for this Christmas!

I know loads of you have C4 belts already, but this is my first and I love it.

So, a couple of weeks ago we had this big huge storm. It wreaked havoc throughout northern New England; some record high number of people were without power. We lost it for about 48 hours.

It was very exciting, really. I have not that many complaints; loads of people were without power for far longer, and I had other resources to make food. The fridge and new chest freezer came through fine, and it wasn’t really cold yet so we didn’t miss the heat.

However.

We did also have two trees come down in our backyard. One was long dead. The other was mostly still alive. Both fell in nearly the perfect way so as not to cause damage, and only be frustrating.

One tree is obvious. The second is a bit tough to see in this picture, but you can see it leaning against the back fence if you follow the fenceline to about the center of the picture. Directly behind that fenceline is a steep slope, at the base of which is the tree.

Earlier this week, a friend stopped by with his chainsaw and took down the leaning tree so as to relieve pressure on the fence.

So then we had two trees in the backyard more fully than before.

Little brindle mutt for scale.

Then, yesterday, while I was at work staying warm and cozy and eating leftover Halloween candy, the husband took apart the trees.

And, you know what? We got lucky. There was no real damage. The dead tree could have come down right on our neighbor’s house, and it’s been on my mind to get rid of. Everything worked out about as well as it possibly could have.

But seriously, what a pain in the ass, and a not-insignificant chunk of time spent taking care of this that would have been better spent on other things! Sometimes houses are dumb.

The prizes are here!

I am so easily pleased, you guys. I made goofy happy faces at the box and showed it to everyone in the tack room. Then, of course, immediately put the saddle pad on Tris for a Sunday afternoon road hack. He picked up a happy big trot and maintained it without any urging. I’m declaring it a magic saddle pad!

Huge, huge thanks to PONY’TUDE and ‘Fraidy Cat Eventing for hosting the contest this year!

Finances are very much on my mind lately (I have a horse: when aren’t they?), especially after spending yesterday at Equine Affaire and seeing loads of lovely, expensive horses for sale.

I’m going to assume that if you’re a horse person you have gone into debt for something at some point. Maybe for something good, like a new truck or trailer or even a farm. Maybe for something bad, like unexpected vet bills or a new saddle that had to happen sooner rather than later. I shelled out $3k+ in vet bills this summer: I hear you.

In addition to finances, I’ve also devoted a lot of time to thinking about what my next horse will be like. Don’t worry – Tristan is doing great, and not going anywhere. But he’s 22, and I’m an obsessive planner. I have some really specific things that I want, and those things are probably not going to be cheap.

I paid $150 for Tristan. $50 of that was a Christmas gift from my family. I often joke that literally everything about him – from his bridle to one set of shoes to my helmet – has cost more than he did.

I will almost certainly not be going that route with my next horse.

So, I ask you:

Would you ever go into debt to buy a horse? Take out a personal bank loan? Pay a broker in installments? Jointly purchase with a trainer and pay back over time? HAVE you ever done this?

I’m genuinely curious. Please let me know if you would, and if so, what the circumstances would be. Or if you have done it, how did it work and did it work out?

I’m stupid pleased with myself this year, guys.

Last year I did ok; with a baseline of 47 seconds, my final time was 5:12 and I was really sweating it to get that out. I started the month off with a better general fitness but sucked hard at my riding goals by the end of the month and did not cover myself in glory at the finish line.

In my defense, according to all my Facebook memories it had started snowing by the third week in October last year, and this year I have a tomato plant trying real hard to bud out right now.

SO. This year, my baseline was worse, at 0:25. That stung. I thought I’d been doing ok with my overall riding fitness, but nope.

I attacked that goal with a vengeance. I committed to practicing every day, every ride. I practiced in my jump saddle. I practiced in my dressage saddle. I rode it in the walk and trot and canter, inside and outside, uphill and down, in all three rings at the farm.

In the last 10 days, I have had to really knuckle down to get my times in, because that early practice faded when I ran into several very long days at work and lost the will to do pretty much anything.

But this story has a happy ending!

Week 1: 0:25
Week 2: 3:32
Week 3: 5:35
Week 4: 8:12

Aaaaaand…

I am stupid pleased with my progress and really proud of sticking to it. I actually wrote most of this post before finding out that I won. I was just that happy to have improved so much. Getting Reserve Champion was the icing on the cake.

And now?

No-Stirrup November, my favorite! (Yes, really!)