I'M BACK!

It's January 4, 2010. Somehow I let this sit for more than two years without posting a thing. Guess I just didn't have that much to say.

Since my last posting, all those years ago, Lucky has completely recovered! My big red four legged "boy" is as 100% as he's ever going to be. And that's HUGE! I came so close to loosing him to repeated laminitis, white line disease and abscesses that I was nearly ready to give up. He wasn't. He made it clear that he could get better if I was willing to hang in there. I couldn't say no to that. And he made it! I learned the hard way how to make a poultice with a paper baby diaper and duct tape, how to drain a hoof abscess, how to read an xray and how to believe in Lucky when everyone else said to give up. I wouldn't wish that on anyone as a learning process, but it is the light inside the dark cloud (my preferable way of viewing the world).

Several changes to my life : I have a round pen! What a difference it makes to have a good piece of equipment. I'd been getting along for quite a while on imagination. Not a bad thing. It made me more independent with my horses...and better at improvisation with a focus. So I'm glad I waited to buy one. But just the same...WAHOO! I love having one and so do my four leggeds! Oh yeah...and an arena too! John built it. double WAHOO!

I have two students who are working with me! I'm not a certified instructor, but I'm sure working to get there. And in the meantime I'm working with two extraordinary women and their horses.

It's a bit intimidating and over the top fun at the same time. It forces me to really hone my skills with horses and in communication at the same time. Winter has us stopped for now, so I send email stories ever so often and snail mail copies of some of my favorite articles on Fear and Learning.

Even if our status changes and I'm no longer teaching them, it's given me real incentive to finish the process and to get myself certified. I'd forgotten how much fun it is to teach something that I'm so enthusiastic about, so in love with! Age is just a number and I've always been good with numbers! (My age is 58 at this posting.) So look out! I'm coming through!

This year I've decided to try something new. Instead of starting the year with the usual resolutions that I forget about in two weeks, setting myself up to feel like I can't follow through (ie. failure), I chose one word to focus on for the year. My word is "SIMPLIFY". I'm going to write here, ever so often, about the things I'm doing to SIMPLIFY my life.

And this is my first project on the road to SIMPLIFY. I'm going to try to write here every day. I love a good story and love, even more, telling it well. I think I might try addressing it to different people too, at least part of the time. I do better with an "audience". Then I'll send the link to whomever that is (first names only, I promise) and maybe have one reader a day that I know will check in. Savvy, don't you think?

It's fardling cold here, only up to 7 degrees and it's after 3PM! It was - 3 degrees this morning when I went out to do morning chores. OUCH! Once I got moving it wasn't so bad. Funny chore today (and there's always something unexpected when you work with horses) : They had icicles on their noses and forelocks. They wanted them off and I obliged . So I spent part of the morning knocking frozen horse snot off their noses! Now ask me if that isn't love?!

Nancy, laughing at the way things go!