I spent New Year's Eve watching "Julie & Julia" and was inspired to start blogging again. But what to blog about? Certainly not cooking...I am not going to be working my way through ANYBODY's cookbook. But since the horse blog was already set up, why not blog about the horses again? I did feel the need for some sort of theme, though, and since it is New Year's and all and we are all hopefully making resolutions, why not blog about resolutions where the horse is concerned? What made Julie's blog so effective in the movie was that she set a goal with a deadline, and then made it public which put some pressure on her to achieve, and just look what happened! So, this is about A Year of Beauty and Health for Cowboy and me. Since Dexter doesn't really belong to me, he gets to hang out in the background and snicker while all this is going on.
Cowboy and I can both use some work in the Beauty and Health arena. Maybe "fitness" would be a better word. Cowboy needs to gain weight. I need to lose weight. We could both use some body work. Cowboy's topline needs improvement--he has a slightly roached back, followed by a dip, then a jumper's bump, and a raised tailhead. Collection is but a dream. So I plan to develop a physical therapy plan for Cowboy to turn him into a Superhorse. As for me, I want to improve not only my appearance but work on strength training and flexibility, and hopefully lessen chronic leg and hip pain in the process.
We have already started on Cowboy's journey. I finally broke down a few weeks ago and bought the Parelli saddle and pad which promise to improve his back and topline. His shoes were pulled a month ago and he is now going barefoot (except for the hideous "barefoot boots" that he wears in rocky terrain. I don't think I have ever developed a passionate dislike for anything so fast in my life).
Being a Left Brain Introvert (in Parelli terminology), I can't just leap into a program by, say, eating less and exercising more. No, I must research and plan this out. To that end, I went online and checked Amazon out for books on the topic. I found a pair of books by a renowned equine physical therapist who wrote THE book on equine massage, and he also has 2 other books on body conditioning, one for the horse and one for the rider. Perfect! One book was about $19 and the other was available from a linked source for less than $3, which was great but it put me below the limit for free super saver shipping. I never pass this up so I needed another item in the shopping cart. Then it dawned on me that I have an Amazon Rewards Visa card with accumulated points. Turns out that, thanks to buying that saddle, I have enough points for $125 in Amazon shopping (enough to get that very expensive equine anatomy book on my Wish List), which I redeemed online, thinking I could get the rewards online. Wrong. They will ship the certificate to me. Estimated arrival date Jan 19. What a dilemma--do I go ahead and order without the certificates, or wait for them and just muddle through on my plan without guidance, or just postpone the plan until the books arrive? I haven't decided yet (the Procrastinator's Club would be proud) and have consumed the rest of the Christmas cookies while mulling it over.
Maybe it would be better to wait a bit anyway, until all the Christmas stuff is gone. And my plan for today is to meet with my cake decorating friends, Mary and Kathy, and practice our cake decorating skills in hopes that someday we will make our fortune selling cake. So there will be some cake to dispose of as well.
Hmm....I see some roadblocks in this plan.....
Meanwhile, here are Dexter and Cowboy dressed up for Christmas.
Happy New Year!
Joan, I have laughed out loud at least three times reading your posts.
ReplyDeleteThe Parelli string rant WAS my favorite.. until I saw this picture of the boys in their hats. Bar would let me do this, but Lena would have no part of hat-wearing.
Cheers!
Jess