Monday, February 9, 2009

When the whole world smiles

I forgot about regular life for a bit during the weekend.

You know, bills, torrential weather, money, collapsing economy and stupid people who don't call your insurance back, the entire usual gauntlet of stuff that occupies my desk on a day-to-day basis it was forgotten for the most part and it was just me and the ponies.

I guess it was the weather that allowed me to breathe a temporary sigh of relief. It's been an unusually warm few days.

Saturday was lesson day at the barn, worked on a number of fun things, pirouettes, half pass, cleaning up transitions to and from. The mare was incredibly game, putting it all in under a thick fur coat and warm weather.

We also had an audience from the past. A couple of friends who knew Sinari when she was younger, and then saw her go for the first time in five years. It's a bit of an ego stroke to hear the compliments.

Also got to hash out some other stuff and gained new perspective.

Sunday was equally productive with mostly canter work, emphasis on the ultra-collected and throwing in lateral movements.

Today though it was drama-central between lame horses, catching up, making plans, website re-design, ect. that the little euphoric bubble I carried throughout the weekend popped into a giant sized headache. Nothing seems to be going exactly as planned.

Then car repair people came in with quotes. Overall I'm looking at a 1,000 with all the repairs ala dealership (that's without the tires). Meaning I'm going to have to become really clever with how I'm going to do this.

I was thinking the obvious first:
-Seatbelts
-Tires
-Breaks

Then the not-so-obvious:
-Bumper
-Hitch

So I'm looking into buying my own parts, and just paying for service. Seatbelts, which would normally retail for 300 total, I know I can get the entire thing for 24 via web. Breaks and pads would run around 100 for parts, and the bumper would run around 200. This is without shipping and doing an initial search.

So 624 plus labor (tack on 200) is still less than 1,000.

Go me.

With that bill coming, another bill is soon-to-be paid off. Cardi's fee is 100 shy of completing out (much to both breeder and my own excitement). This also begins another round of other payments.

Speaking of the pappa to be, he recently cliniced with Debbie McD to a lot of success. Debbie is gaining success with ponies lately and I'm trying to arrange something so we get a pony only clinic series going.

Hopefully, it can come to fruition. But for now I'm back tabling it until some things clear.

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