I'm not telling you it's going to be easy; I'm telling you it's going to be worth it.

So Facebook informs me this was my status from one year ago today: "Lauren Cude finally finished V1 of her business plan (a whole 2 days early!). And with reasonable numbers. That don't necessarily require winning the lottery. @ least, not the big one :)"

Reading that made me smile. Sometimes it feels like I've been doing this forever and it takes something like that to remind me that no, it's still reasonably new :) And then I feel less frazzled about the things that aren't done yet because I realize how far it's really come.

It was a good lightbulb moment.

And conversely, apparently in 2009 I was "wishing I was still at the cottage" -- so clearly some things stay the same! hahaha

So on a completely different note, last Friday I had an entertaining lesson with two Athena-moments. The first was when we were warming up to jump - first fence of the day. Tiny oxer (I'd say 2'3 first rail, 2'6 back rail, very small spread 2'ish) and a placing pole out front at about 10'. Trot approach. She trots in oh so casually, no speed, no real impulsion. And oh so quietly takes off before the placing pole and clears the oxer and canters away on an 18' stride. And came back to me quietly as can be within about 2 strides. Ummmm seriously?!?!?! Now I realize that she defaults to about a 14' stride so jumping a tiny fence that happens to be 13 or 14' wide is not actually all that challenging for her, but who *does* that???? And out of a trot. With no anxiety or tension or power or any sign whatsoever that she might be considering that as an option. Sheesh.

Then later we're cantering off a tight turn to a fence. Now A's #1 escape is to drop behind the bit. We're working on it. Frustrating in dressage. Terrifying over fences. So tight turn means I instinctively asked her to bring her hind legs pretty deep underneath her and sit -- and we made said turn beautifully. Best balanced, light, floaty beach-ball canter ever. Very exciting. Except that she's not strong enough to hold that yet so she dropped behind the bit to escape. And we're ONE stride out from the fence. And I know she hasn't seen it yet. And I can't get her back up in front. Yeah, suffice to say it wasn't pretty :( Possibly the scariest situation I've been in in a long time -- to be one stride out of a jump and KNOW the horse hasn't even seen it yet. Pick up the phone to call her and find I have no signal. Not. Good. *sigh* So no more engaging (at least with fences involved) till I fix some basic buttons. Guess this is what happens when you ride a horse somebody else trained. hahaha haven't done that in several years. Somedays it's good. Other days you just want to go back and ask what they were thinking...

8h of lessons today and lollipops tomorrow. It's going to be an interesting week...