On a Whim

I set up another day to go foxhunting! This time on a weekday so it will be cheaper.

So excited. I have a day off work I need to use and so I emailed my connection with Old Dominion Hounds to see if we could go trail riding...you know, to kick off getting my butt in gear for spring riding again without spending much money? Schedules changed and I ended up having to take off on a day the hunt is supposed to meet...and wellll...she didn't exactly have to twist my arm. Almost without thinking about it, I said sure, I'll go hunting in the dead of winter! Hopefully there will be NO MORE SNOW!

[Wikimedia Commons]

So many of my riding exploits seem to happen that way--a barely thought-out email or call, and all of a sudden things kick into motion. This blog actually would not exist, and I might not even have picked up riding regularly again, if I hadn't been procrastinating on some paper my junior year of college. I honestly don't know what sparked the idea to call up the nearest farm to campus to ask if I could take lessons as I could afford them and work off practice rides. But I did, and this blog was born not long after.

Midnight--same thing. I was sort of in a rut with riding, and had some extra cash burning a hole in my pocket, so I started cruising DreamHorse. There was seriously no plan or anything--and somehow I ended up learning the basics of dressage and eventing.

Now, a $55 pair of tan windproof breeches is in the mail from Amazon for hunting (the Romfh Scandias--because for some reason, I still insist on buying breeches online even though it only works out half of the time). Just like last year, I'm in a riding rut and while there is no real plan, I do know that I had a BLAST in October and I can't get foxhunting off the brain. I'm reading about it like crazy (currently on Siegfried Sassoon's Memoirs of a Foxhunting Man). It's always something I've dreamed of, so why not work in that direction?

Byron is also a big fan of me foxhunting. He did not like the dressage days when I would come home basically unenthused and wrapped up in a vicious cycle of what I could have done wrong, could have done better, why do I suck, blah blah blah. Dressage definitely scratches the same obsessive itch that editing does for me--but it's not necessarily a positive one all the time!

Recently I have gotten SERIOUSLY out of riding shape though, what with work, winter blahs, Midnight injuries/my issues with him, and the freezing cold and snow. When I have ridden I definitely feel it the next day! This weekend is supposed to stay above freezing though so I'm optimistic that maybe the snow will finally be gone and I can ride outside. And I may contact the hunt near me to see if they're going out Sunday and if I can go car following--something I've wanted to do for a long time, but weather and work have not cooperated.

So...stay tuned on that front!

And although I had some extreme grump-i-tude going on about wedding planning, Byron, my mom and I are going to visit what will (hopefully) be THE venue in a few days. Originally I thought it was WAY out of reach financially but my mom gets a discount through work and is practically begging for me to go with this place. Here's a hint: I would use something like this for save-the-date cards.

Any guesses?

[Etsy]