Sunday, October 27

[gottawonder]

Today I am grateful for:

We did finally get the house moved onto the foundation on Friday. I am SO grateful for this, because now we can move ahead on many other things, like pouring the basement floor, building the addition, and being able to put things away in the house (I didn't feel like I could set things up like shelves, because moving the house might knock them all down again). We can close in the basement even if it isn't finished, and it will keep the house warmer than when it was on blocks, and as soon as the basement is closed up properly we can get the FURNACE going.

On Friday I did go see River, but didn't ride. I visited with another rider instead, and that was a nice distraction. I had gotten up very early on Friday to move the cats and turtles to the garage for safety, and spent a large part of the day sleeping in the garage (heated) in a chair I took out there. There wasn't anything for me to do to help in the house move, there is a crew that does that, but it was surreal to see the house being moved into place while resting on giant metal rails. I was very grateful that my animals made it through the move, and that things went pretty well overall.

I also went to see River on Saturday, and I did ride this time. He's doing pretty good with breathing and his foot now, though he's not terribly fit. It's been a very irregular summer and the consistency has just not been there for either of us. He's doing his best though, and so am I.

We've really seen the beginning of winter this week. It's been cold, with cutting wind and some snow.

Today was the Halloween show at the riding barn. It was a lot of fun to see everyone there all at once, and to see the costumes. I competed in the dressage classes, and did Training level one, two, and three. We did pretty well, especially considering the irregularity of our training this summer. Really I should have been doing level one work, but the barn owner who coaches us felt that his fitness wasn't there. We got third in level one and two (out of a class of only three, but it was more like a tie for second as the scores were the same on the second test. I'm not sure why I got a third, to be frank.). We got a first place in the third test, which was the hardest.

I'm not entirely pleased that in my dressage comments, it seemed like most of where I lost points was that my circles weren't round enough, so I lost points for every circle not done right, and there are a lot of circles in dressage. The scores were all close enough that if I had rounder circles, I would have placed first in each test. There was no feedback between tests, and had there been, that might have changed things. Also, I had worked with my coach on the Wednesday before the show, and she never mentioned my circles at all. She had thought most of my work was really good, so this kind of makes me wonder how valuable her input is, if at a show at her own barn I fail at something as basic as having round enough circles. We've been working together for YEARS and this wasn't mentioned?

As a plus, we got through it, and River did SO MUCH better than last year.

Then I came home, and the house is warmer even though we're still just using the electric heaters, because the house is on the basement and the underside of the house is protected from the wind. We have hot water today, and are hooked up to the permanent septic tank.

I helped my sweetie close up some of the open spaces in the basement wall that will have windows soon, but for now have to be boarded up.

Then I had a big nap that was more like a short sleep.