Writer's Block and Shortened Manes

So last week made it clear that for now, two straight weeks is as long as I can come up with content for at a time without hitting a mental block -- good to know, haha. When I started I could only manage 2-3x/week, so I guess that’s improving! Hopefully as time goes on I’ll continue to improve in everything -- not just the riding, but the writing, so by default the writing of the riding!

While the heat is definitely playing a factor in my apathy towards everything at the moment (including blogging), another major factor is just sheer exhaustion. I am burning the candle at both ends with a lot of projects and not enough sleep and it’s definitely catching up to me. I do this to myself several times a year and there is usually a “crash point” where I have to take some time to do nothing but nap and read and Netflix and do the bare minimum horse-wise. These “crash points” have increased in frequency the last two years as DH takes online classes (meaning he has much less time to help around the house/farm), but as he grows ever closer to graduation, I’m hoping that once we pass that milestone I can reduce my stress level a little. 

And yes I say “we”, because it’s definitely a joint effort. I spend lots of time reviewing and editing his papers as well as picking up the slack while he devotes hours to his schoolwork. That’s not a complaint -- I am VERY proud of how he has buckled down to his studies and how hard he works. He is maintaining a near perfect GPA while balancing both a full-time job (plus overtime), work on our farm, and additional part-time work for a farmer on top of his classes. And he still manages his creative projects around the farm (which might be a good topic to break my writer’s block actually) in additional to being my main media man to provide fun images for this blog! However, I am VERY ready for him to be done with school -- hopefully just a few more classes to go! 

Last week's heat wave was hell on my desire to get rides in, but we did some work in hand and managed two late evening trail rides -- on Friday night we flushed a deer and Ruby very kindly didn't put me in the dirt. It cooled off substantially this morning when some storms rolled through, so hopefully I can get at least one decent schooling ride in before my lesson Tuesday. 

The only other interesting update is that Ruby finally looks like a real dressage horse! My friend Hanna joined me at the barn Saturday evening for Ruby's makeover (she's a miracle worker!). Afterwards, we went out for Mexican and margaritas with some girls from the barn -- perfect Saturday evening!

The Quesadilla Girls!

Jack is holding steady -- he's still breathing a little harder than I'd like some times, but he is doing well in front of multiple fans in his stall during the day, and begrudgingly taking his Guiness twice a day. I have to reorder Ruby's supplement next week, so I'm going to add something for Jack to hopefully help increase the sweating. 

First sweat in like 4 days!