Cob Jockey

Finally time to share my big news! 

Gratuitous pony spam from a recent late night blanket change

I put my notice in on Monday!  I'm going to work for a big Silicon Valley employer that starts with a V that writes the software I'm an expert in. :-)  Basically my lifetime dream job.

What this means for my horsey life:
- I'm still going to be working from home with some travel, but hopefully less than before which means less of my trainer riding my horse and more of me riding my horse

- I'm going to have "unlimited" PTO which will mean no more carefully rationing days off for horse shows

- I'm hopefully/probably/almost certainly going to have a lot less stress in my life, which will mean more riding.  I refuse to ride Connor when I'm so anxious I can't think about anything else, and that has been happening more and more lately.  Looking forward to leaving that behind.

Can't wait!

We finally held compensation negotiations last week for those of us who were promoted into the new practice lead roles a few months ago.  I weirdly find that particular chess match enjoyable, so I wasn't stressed about it.


The reason this is horse related: after a couple of rounds of back and forth, my boss and I were essentially a week's pay apart on what my salary should be.  I said, "Okay, I'll come down to your number, but I'll need an extra week of vacation."  And he cheerfully agreed - it's way easier for them to give us time off than it is more money.


So I now have four weeks of PTO plus 7 holidays per year, which means I can be less stingy about taking time off for horse shows and clinics.  (And if I somehow manage to stay here another 8.75 years, I'll have six weeks plus holidays...oh the possibilities...now I understand how people can do a month in Florida.)

"We're doing what?  Going where?"

Game on!

Yo (northern) California people.  My work decided TODAY to send me to Palo Alto Sunday through Friday of next week.  Surprise!

I am booked pretty solid during the day, but have some free evenings, so let me know if you are interested in accompanying me through some tack stores or to some of those unreasonably delicious and somewhat shady looking California taco places that look like they're in a race to the top of the health code violations list.  Mmmmmm.

Also, expect very little blogging next week for reasons that should now be obvious.  I do hope to blog about this weekend's show, maybe from a plane.  Wish me luck.

Non-horse related photo of dog, housemate and husband having group Kindle time on the front porch.

TL;DR: My job is keeping me from my horse.

You may have noticed it's now been over a week since my last post.  Or maybe you haven't noticed, that's cool too.  I haven't been posting, because I haven't been riding.

Work is interfering with Connor time on a scale I never thought possible.  When I was hired, they told me they tried to give engineers week breaks between projects so we didn't get burnt out...but now they've scheduled me to be on the road at customer sites doing massively stressful projects for definitely six, probably seven weeks straight starting last week and going into June, with more on the horizon after that.

I have taken almost no pictures lately because I haven't been to the barn!  But here's the Thorowgood with the wide gullet plate.  Winner winner.

I am already feeling burnt out, and the salary increase is not worth this lifestyle to me.  I have to be happy with my lifestyle in order to be happy with my job, and a happy lifestyle, for me, includes Connor and CrossFit - neither one I'm able to do right now.

I'm deep into the process of, shall we say, getting my work-life balance back at this point, but I can't talk about that publicly yet.  What I can talk about is how I plan to handle this stretch, and would like to know how you guys have handled stretches like this.

Have some random photos of Connor turned out in the indoor on a rainy day a few weeks ago.

I probably won't be able to make most of my lessons next month, so they will become either in-hand work or trainer rides, and since my trainer isn't riding for a few more months, trainer rides will become my trainer giving the (really quite good) assistant trainer "lessons" on him.

(They're not lessons for the assistant trainer, they're lessons for Connor, like a tag team out-of-body riding experience for my trainer.  It's not the same as my trainer being in the saddle, but it's not bad either.  She won't put anyone else up on him except the assistant trainer under her direct supervision, because as she says, "Connor remembers and holds onto mistakes too well to put just anyone on him."  Good thing you're not a lesson horse, buddy.)




My trainer offered to let me out of the two lessons per month requirement next month, but I said no.  First of all I don't want to lower her income like that right when she needs it most.  Second, I want to know Connor is getting people time during the week, because I'm probably going to be a weekend warrior for a while.  Third, my trainer is REALLY effective with in-hand work.  In my last lesson, I had problems with the right shoulder that I couldn't fix in the saddle, so I handed him off to her, and she fixed him on the ground within minutes.

So sassy.

And on a selfish note, I'm going to be be separated from my four-legged psychiatrist when I could use his therapy the most.  Total first world problem to be separated from your horse by a good-but-demanding job...but I love this awkward animal.


Anyone else ever survived a long stretch like this?  Annoyingly, right at the beginning of our show season too...

So, that big news I have been sitting on all this time?  It's not what I thought it was going to be!

Nicole is in the white cap at the back.

Practicing sandbags with the group, famous people (and a former games champ) on the left that I won't name in interest of Google searches

Ghetto hurdle practice, thanks for the water conservation signs, California!

Interview day

Pat and Nicole pre-interview

ESPN makeup lady remembered us both from last year!

Headshots

All kinds of famous people I again won't name!  Pre-games training.  Nicole in the top center.

Nicole on the left

Friendly handstand hold competition.  I think the koala is the judge.

I have the best kind of news.

After two years and four months of a combination of un-/under-employment, my husband unexpectedly landed the job of his dreams.  The exact type of job he wanted when he signed up for that engineering college originally.

HALLELUJAH!

Pony doesn't care, as long as I can continue to pay for his treats.  That's the only skin he has in this game, or so he thinks.

This job will have him traveling to a different client site each week, flying out Monday morning and flying back Thursday evening.  On the horse front, this means:

- I get tons of guilt-free barn time - married ladies, you know what I mean.
- I can feel less guilty about spending money on Connor.  The amount of guilt I've carried these past couple of years is indescribable.
- We don't have to move.
- I can continue to derp around at the job I love (that gives me tons of barn time!) instead of pushing myself and taking a high-pressure/higher-paying job in the city that I had been interviewing for.

So happy!

Picture of what happens during fireworks season, just because.

Do you know what this is?

Yes that is Huckleberry Bey and Scat Cat in the background, for all you Breyer fans out there.

Fall at the barn!

Fall at work!

More fall at the barn!

Fog at the barn!

Fall at the barn!  (And the grand haircut reveal coming later this week...)

My lesson tonight was the kind of lesson that reaffirmed why I have a trainer and why the wheels fall off when she's not around.  He went from crazy and running through my hands in the beginning to soft, pliable and on the bit.  I can't do that on my own, and that made it all the more difficult to have the conversation I had to have with her.  My husband's best job prospect turned him down today, and starting September 1, I will have to shoulder the mortgage and his mortgage-worth of student loans every month in addition to what comes out of my check already.  Because I still have three months of car payments left, I'm going to have to leave my barn if he doesn't get a job in the next six weeks.

Where would we go?  I don't know.  There's a chance he'd have to go far enough away that I couldn't see him, like to my parents.  I do know is that if I leave this barn, I probably won't get back in, and I definitely wouldn't get the Sunday stalls back.  My trainer really likes us, but the waiting list is a mile long and this is a business with bills to pay.  If I can just make it work until I get those last three car payments paid, or until Nick gets a job, I am going to. I'll fight to stay here with everything I have, and I don't want to permanently leave because of a temporary hardship.

Not leaving my trainer (red) without a fight.

I barely held it in check emotionally during my lesson, and spent a good 15 minutes hand grazing Connor in the corner by the indoor with sunglasses on, crying.  I love this little horse, and how far we've come, and the fantastic barn family we have.  I want to move up to Beginner Novice with him this fall, go on long trail rides with the barn in Brown County, and keep him with his Lusitano BFF.  I want to keep him at this magical place with outstanding care, a trainer we both progress rapidly with, awesome fellow boarders that make the barn a better place, and wonderful facilities.  But most of all, I want to keep him.  Priorities, and that is number one.

We'll make it.  But real life sucks and student loans are evil, kids.  Just say no.

My husband is currently on the job hunt.  Mostly, he knows that I want to stay in this area, but deep in his heart he'd prefer to be in a tiny New York loft on the nth floor of some massive skyrise, so that leads to conversations like this:

Husband: "I had a great phone interview today."
Me: "Oh yeah?  Who with?"
Husband: "This awesome tech startup that needs a project manager/business developer.  They really liked me, and I'd own 10% of the company if I stayed two years."
Me: "That's great, where is it?"
Husband: "Mountain View, CA...I don't think we could afford to take the pony."
Me: "Would you leave Tucker here because we had to move?  Connor goes, that is non-negotiable.  I will move anywhere in this country as long as Connor can go."

I hate to feel like I'm bringing his dreams down, but he knew when he met me when I was an Equine Studies major in college that this is just part of me.  No surprises here.  Connor's with me for life, no matter where we move.  That said, I know I'll be comparing every barn I'm at for the rest of my life to this amazing barn, and I'm not at all motivated to move.

We also have a rule that if we move to an area that doesn't have an active eventing barn that I can afford, I'm buying a truck and trailer.  That would be awesome, but I'd still rather stay here.

My husband lost his job.  Again.  This time pseudo-voluntarily due to restructuring, merging and other business buzzwords.  End result is an indefinite amount of penny-pinching and no fun stuff...right in the middle of show season.  For the second year in a row.

Pony-eating saddle cover being blown around in the wind.  Connor does not like it.

It's selfish to be so heartbroken over not being able to show when it could be worse, but I already gave up all of 2012 when he lost his first job, and had no idea that this summer, our first real show season, would be the same.  Thankfully, financial things are better this year than last year, but still, being the sole breadwinner with his student loans, the mortgage and a horse leaves no room for anything more than keeping Connor boarded - which I am grateful that I can afford that much, for sure.  It could always be worse.

Look!  Three sets of tracked-up steps! This is new and good.

It hurts to have to give up eventing right after I found out how much fun it is, and when I'm so close to paying the car off, which should mark the beginning of me being able to show more. Thankfully, unlike last year when he lost his job before the show season ever started, this year I got to do Greater Dayton.  I'm still going to do Leg Up since I have already committed, and I want a going out party/some show jumping redemption if this really is to be my last event of 2013.  I'm also riding in a clinic on July 6, because the entry fee is a gift from my awesome mom.  But beyond that, I can't plan for or count on anything except for another 10 months of schooling in preparation for 2014.  Hopefully he gets something new quickly.