Revising the Resume(s)

Howdy Blogland! I'm back to share with you an interesting week.

Sadly, last week was lacking in horse time! Monday and Tuesday evenings rained. Its ok though because I got to spend Monday night getting excited about the MNF Redskins game. Sadly, it was a beat down and I had to turn it off before 1/2 time as to not loose my sanity. I had gotten tickets but had to turn them down for work and budgetary reasons, it was a blessing in disguise! Tuesday, TK's band had a 'gig' but things were crazy and we showed up completely underdressed! I pitched a fit and ended up wandering around in the middle of small town NC waiting for him to finish playing!

Wednesday was a blast:
I heard that Granite's brother was for sale and I was nosey, so I found him on DreamHorse. His ad described Granite to a T. Being the nosey kid I am, I emailed his owner explaining who I was and that I would love to hear about Guiness and maybe see pictures. He is 2 years older than Granite and has started over fences and began showing. Kristen sent me some photos and the similarity is striking. Check it out.

The similarity is incredible. Same eyes and nose!

BIG jump! Lets hope Granite takes to jumping too!

Before leaving work for the day I got some more good news. I was called for an interview for a great job about 40 minutes out of town. This is actually a position that I wouldn't mind retiring from. I interview on Tuesday (23rd) before heading home for the holidays. Everyone keep your fingers crossed. This would be an amazing professional opportunity and would come with a raise just big enough to ease some financial worries! I'm not getting my hopes  up too high, but its exciting. Time to dust off that resume!

Wednesday evening, I forfeited time with Granite, but for good cause. Blogger, Marissa, of Tucker the Wunderkid blog was in NC on business! She was about 1.5 hours from my house but happened to be staying in the same city where my bff Eva lives! So, I skipped out of work early and drove down to meet the ladies for dinner. Dinner turned in to 3.5 hours of horsey talk! This was the first time that we had met Marissa and it felt like we had all been friends for years! It was worth the drive and the 5:15am wake up call to get back to work on Thursday :)

Thursday brought good news to me! The folks at my apartment complex were bestowed with some sense (or realized that I was not paying for entire carpet replacement with out fight) and called to tell me that they "May have Found" some carpet that would match in order to allow them to only replace MY room! The carpet they may have found and associated installation will cost me $250.52. I like how exact that is considering the term "may" was used. Verbiage aside, this was an incredible relief and brightened my ENTIRE outlook on this moving experience! Quitting my part-time job a month before I am actually moving and realizing associated savings has been extremely difficult and scary, but knowing that I can afford the carpet replacement and it wont be some 4 digit amount is wonderful!

Friday was FABULOUS! It was my first friday night off in months! I think I counted 3 friday nights that I had previously had off since May! I rode Granite with my free time-- obviously! I was tacking him up and taking with Becky and Kansas and Becky mentioned how surprised she was that I hadn't tried him out over some cross-rails yet. In my mind, I want to have transitions smooth and quick and many more on-the-flat issues corrected before I even contemplated jumping. But, I have been going over trotting poles for some time now and I've noticed a drastic improvement in him not clipping them and being able to adjust his stride to clear them. I had a great evening ride alone in the arena and I thought "what the heck, lets set up an itty bitty cross-rail". So I put up two trotting poles and a very tiny crossrail. I steered Granite over it and he did the trotting poles then hesitated then walked over the "jump". The next go round he hesitated briefly then trotted over the "jump". The third time he wasn't very straight in our approach but he picked both front feet up and JUMPED the little crossrail! No hesitation, like he had been doing it his whole life! I was sooooo proud! I fist pumped the air! It was a great moment. If I could bottle that feeling for any time in the future when I thought it would be easier to sell him, it may not be worth it, or he wouldn't become the horse I hoped he would. Granite will be upgrading his resume to include "started over fences"!!!

Saturday was a blast as well. I got up early and went to ride. I brought TK and he took some photos for you. I felt like the ride was great, despite the photographic evidence displaying otherwise. Granite jumped 3 more times on Saturday. I was really proud. After the barn we got cleaned up and headed to the Wake Forest football game. My friend JB joined us! A great time was had by all (except for the Wake Football players who went home after quite a defeat).

Sunday was non-horsey but nice. It was TK's mom's birthday. So we spent all day eating and celebrating with a slight break to watch the Redskins pull out a close victory over the TN Titans. Go skins!

I'm heading home for the holidays tomorrow (after my interview). Tonight will be my last ride/Granite time until next Monday! Thank god for great barn owners who I can trust with my man while I'm away. I hope you all have a great holiday filled with family, food, fun and football. Until next week, enjoy some photos from last week and this week's rides :)

 Daphne and her brother

 Baby Cross-Rail

 Trot Poles!

 TK's first time on Granite... They both look confused!

Pretty boy!