My Daily Routine

I had so much fun reading this unofficial blog hop as it made it's way around some of the blogs I follow -- half of the fun for me in blogging is learning about everyone's different routines, styles, boarding barns, etc, so it's really no surprise that the responses totally fascinated me. So many of you seem to have fairly set routines, which makes me so jealous! Also fun to see who is a morning person, who is a night owl, and all that jazz. So I was super excited to sit down and write about my daily routine... until I realized a very important fact -- very rarely are two days of my life even remotely the same, so forming any kind of actual "routine" is mostly just wishful thinking... Hmmmmm.

Photos taken by the Pony Clubbers at the horse show last week! This seems like as good a place as any to post them, lol.

I know there are a handful of exceptions, but most of the bloggers I currently follow board their horses. While Ruby is boarded out, the rest of my guys are at my house -- why is this important? Well, my barn has lights, but my arena doesn't. So any kind of working with the horses at the house is dependent on daylight hours. So my barn routine changes drastically as the daylight hours wax and wane. Working horses at the house is also very weather dependent! That's less of a concern with Ruby, since we have access to an indoor at the barn -- unless of course the weather is a foot of snow or excessive rain leading to water over the road to the barn.

Legit the CUTEST PONY EVER.

My work schedule is the most constant thing in my life. Two thirds of the year, I work a fairly normal schedule, plus a two hour round trip commute. During "summer hours", I can change my schedule to basically anything I want, as long as I work 40 hours. This past summer, I tweaked my hours to 7 to 3:30, because there was some pretty gnarly traffic due to bridge construction on my commute. The previous summer, I worked 7 to 5:30 Mon/Tues/Thurs/Fri and gave myself Wednesday as an extra "barn day". I really appreciate my office for offering the option to work a modified work schedule -- although I'd really love it if they let me telecommute, since 90% of my work could easily be done from home now that I have reliable high speed internet. My job also comes with perks in the form of 12-13 paid holidays a year, plus three weeks paid vacation and three weeks paid sick leave each year. This gives me lots of time to take off for horse shows, trips, or most frequently, because the weather is nice and I want to ride.

These kids got artistic!!

I've also been making it a point to try to work out at least four days a week. We have a membership to our local Y -- not fancy, but it's cheap! I frequently spend my time walking or jogging on the track, or on the elliptical. Mad respect to those of you who love working out -- I loathe it. I hate it with the fire of a thousand suns. The only way I can force myself to do it is with my Kindle and my iPod. It's basically on my way to work, so the easiest way for me to fit it in my schedule is on my way to or from work.

I was so ashamed of my slovenliness and Ruby's non-braided, non-gleaming coat next to this guy!

My life is further complicated by DH's work schedule. He works in corrections, meaning strange hours and even stranger days off. Right now he is assigned four days of 10-hour shifts and then three days off. Currently, he's working in the afternoon/evening and gets home after midnight -- if there are any "incidents" at the prison, sometimes he gets home WAY after midnight. While this does make barn chores at the house much easier (he takes mornings, I do evenings), it complicates things in the respect that since we see each other so infrequently, I try to curtail my "barn time" as much as possible on his days off, because otherwise I'd never see him. On the plus side, it means our dogs don't have to spend much time in crates, because there is almost always someone home. It can also be handy having him around the farm in the morning for random vet or farrier visits I can't fit into my schedule.

Me hanging with the cute pony and his equally adorable rider.

 If you've been following along lately, you've probably figured out that I am not the most motivated rider. When I have a goal (lessons, a particular show, whatever), I can be really on and ride 4-5 days a week. But other times I will go months at a time riding much less. For me, horses are my stress relief. They're a hobby. I'm the adult amateuriest of adult amateurs. I do this because it's fun. When it stops being fun, I back off until it becomes fun again. This also really blows any chance of a routine out of the water.... haha.

So where am I going with this rambling mess of a post? Basically, I have no schedule. My life is a complete and utter crap shoot... haha. So I guess what I can do is lay out what an average day might look like for me. To make it more interesting, this average day is in the summer, so I have lots of daylight. I'll also make it a day DH is working, that way he isn't around to mess with my plans ;)

 

Average day (let's say mid-June): Wake up at 5:40. Shower, get dressed, leave for work by 6. Arrive at work by 7. Take a half hour lunch around noon to eat leftovers and read my Kindle. Leave work at 3:30. Arrive at gym around 4, change into gym clothes. Spend 25 minutes on the elliptical. Head home. Arrive home around 5, let the dogs out. Change my clothes. The horses are on night turnout during the summer, so it's easy to grab Cinna from her stall and tack up for a work session. Spend an hour working her (lunging, riding, groundwork, walking on the trail, whatever), then hose her off and cool her down. Mix up grain, feed the horses, dress them in their fly sheets/masks/whatever, and turn them out. Let's say at this point it's 6:45. Head back inside to feed the dogs, then head out to ACS (arrive around 7:15). Work Ruby (school in the indoor or outdoor, or more likely, a trail ride with trot sets in the hay field, because I was obsessed with trail riding this summer lol). Head home around 8:30, arrive home when it's getting close to dark. Make a final walk through of the farm, check on the horses in the pasture, clean stalls (if I didn't clean them when I fed), prep them for morning (refill hay and water so DH doesn't have to), lock up the chickens. By this point its probably around 9 pm (or later!), so head inside to shower, throw something together for dinner, and watch an episode off the DVR before I crawl into bed around 10. Play pet Jenga in the bed as all 6 dogs vie for my attention for a little bit before we all (hypothetically) pass out. Wake, rinse, repeat. 

Whew. Just writing that made me tired. I feel like I'm perpetually overbooked and trying to squeeze about 30 hours worth of activities into a 24 hour day -- does anyone else feel like that? Obviously we all have things that keep us busy.... am I just that bad at time management?? Wait, don't answer that.... 

Your reward for making it to the end of this nonsensical post is a silly GIF. Thanks EventingSaddlebredStyle for creating it for me, since I'm GIF-illiterate. Here is a good example of what NOT to do on a reactive green four-year old with less than 10 rides. And yes, I do know better, I was just being an idiot. God bless her for putting up with my crap, haha.