Nicker

Oh I forgot to add: Last night when I arrived at the barn and was walking down the aisle, Lulu actually nickered at me! She recognized me and was happy to see me. This had happened once before out in the pasture, but at the time I thought it might have been because she was alone out there, was a little lonely and missing her pasture buddies and was looking for some company. Anyway, it warmed my little heart -- it's the simple things in life.

Another Jumping Night

Last night was my first (riding) training session since Alison left for her hiatus. Ann is basically Alison’s 2nd in command and I’ve known her pretty much since the day I started at Apple Tree, however she had never trained me before. In the early Fall when I was still riding late Friday afternoons, I had a couple (Steve & Jennifer) in my lesson. Over the course of the months I’ve become pretty friendly with them. Since the schedule has been changed up for Winter, Steve has ended up in my Tuesday night lesson, but Jennifer rides on another day. Anyway, last night before our session I was asking Steve what Ann is like to ride with and he said, “She’s tough. She made Jennifer cry once.” ACCCCCCKKKKKKKK! Of course you have to understand that this is coming from the guy who once told me that he imagined my life is much like a “Mary Tyler Moore” episode, so there it is.

Anyway, the reality of the lesson was that I found Ann very insightful and very effective. I also have the added benefit with her that she knows Lulu really, REALLY well as she did a lot of the initial schooling and training on her when she was first acquired by the barn. So it was a jumping night. The last jumping night I had had, I had almost fallen off. Seriously, I was hanging by a thread, but managed to stay on by sheer will mostly. Luckily Lulu had stood still enough that I was able to hoist myself back into the saddle somehow, the alternative would have been falling on top of a jump, which probably would have hurt somewhat. Anyway so, even though that night I had continued on to jump a bunch, I was slightly nervous last night. Not scared really, just a little edgy. So, last night ended up going very well. Lulu has this thing of getting very speedy and strung-out while jumping, we’ve had many a jumping round that I have felt was slightly out of control. I mean, not flat-out, bit-in-the-teeth out of control, but much faster than necessary and fast enough where I have become a little bit more of a passenger than anyone ever should be on a horse around a jump course. So I’ve been working on keeping Lulu slow and balanced and quiet over fences. Sometimes I am successful and sometimes not so much, but it’s always in my mind while jumping her and is something very specific that I’m trying to improve.

So Ann was pretty committed last night to working on this with me. Constantly reminding me to balance Lulu, slow her down, quiet my body, lift her up and get her off her forehand (as she tends to get very heavy on the forehand, particularly in corners and on landing over fences). She was very active in keeping a conversation with me as I performed each jump course, and with immediate feedback directly after and I found it pretty helpful. By the end of the session I really felt that we were getting somewhere. And now tonight I have another lesson (with a different trainer) so I’ll get to try it all out again and see if some of the stuff Ann helped me with has stuck with me. If not, there will always be more lessons, it’s always going to be a work in progress, after all. Still, I feel pretty good about our experience overall, I feel like I am making progress. Sometimes pretty slow progress, but progress nonetheless.

"What a Cluster!!!"

ARGH! This is so frustrating. So, I have a really, really common name. It really has become the bane of my existence, I swear. So there was another person at my company who shared my exact, same name. So, from the very beginning, and I'm talking before I was even actually hired, this has been a huge pain in the ASS. In order to submit my application so that I could be hired, I had to open an online account with the company career center. Only the application wouldn't allow me to open the account because it said that I already worked there. Only I didn't, SHE did. ARGH! So I knew from the very beginning that this was going to be a problem. My email address had to be qualified with my middle initial, which meant that I was forever getting her emails, IMs, meeting invites, mail, BlackBerry invoices, phone calls, you name it (and she was forever receiving mine).

This was all enough of a big pain in the ass, but then she left the company in November. Well. Three days after that, my BlackBerry was turned off. After calling tech support the following week and sorting it out, turns out that they thought MY BlackBerry was HERS. So mine got shut off. Got that turned back on. And then over the months I've received emails and demands with spreadsheets asking for information about applications or databases I had never heard of, with my name designated as the application "expert". Each time I've been like, "WTF???" And of course most of these applications sounded just familiar enough that I wasn't 100% sure at first that it wasn't something of mine, which meant each time it was something that I had to spend time investigating a bit. But each and every time it was something for the former employee. Someone searching for info on something and looking for someone with my name (who also used to work for IT) and just assuming I must be the right person.

And now the latest kicker was this past Thursday. Suddenly my BlackBerry stopped loading email. Again. Dead all weekend, I tested the IM service and the phone this morning and everything was gone. W. T. F. So I called tech support again and they told me that I seemed to no longer have a BB account and that I was going to have to call the service provider. Called Sprint/Nextel and ended up on the phone with them for about an hour with the end result that they couldn't help me either. Although, they WERE able to tell me the "new" account name associated with my phone number (someone in Retirement and Investment Services, not even remotely related to my group). So, finally I found an internal "Mobile Support Group", called them and it turns out they WERE the right people to talk to. Even still, they had me on the phone for a half an hour or so while they unsnarled the problem. And of course they also had to go back to Sprint/Nextel to get the account sorted out. So basically, what they figured happened is that the old account got deleted, the other person's BB was even with a different service provider (Verizon), but then someone eye-balling the list of people who should have been cut off, saw my name and deleted it in a panic. Or something. SHEESH!!! As Julia would say, "WHAT A CLUSTER!!!" GAH! What next?

ACK ACK ACK

So, I was at my Jenny Craig appointment this afternoon and my phone started ringing. I went running for it, managed to get it in time and it was Rowena from the other barn I was riding at back in the Fall. Yikes! I told her that I would have to call her back and so I started to freak out about what I was going to say. In case you didn't read about it, or don't remember my posts, I had started with Rowena's barn when I first started riding again back in September. I rode with her for a couple of weeks and then decided to give another barn a try. For a while I rode at both places. Typically I would ride with Ro on Saturdays where, more often than not, we would do something fun like a trail ride and I rode with Alison on Fridays where we would do real dressage or jumping work. Then I decided to do the half lease on Lulu with the second barn, I started getting more serious about my riding goals and so I pretty much committed myself to Apple Tree (the second barn). In the meantime, I kind of fell off the face of the Earth for Ro. I never told her that I was riding at the other barn (I had told Alison about the first barn however) I just stopped coming by without saying anything, which was kind of crappy on my part really.

Anyway, so I really felt terrible about it, but chicken too. Ro and her husband Elliot were so wonderfully nice to me. I mean, Ro even let me ride a time or two without my having to pay her anything. She was very complementary about my supposed skills and felt that I was going to be very good for their barn. So I called her back once I was back on the road. She was so sweet, wanted to know how I was, if I was okay, did I still have my job (she had heard about the layoffs, I'm sure). She didn't ask if I was riding anywhere else or question me about why I had disappeared (which I was grateful for) but just went on to say that I should come by sometime, that I should come see the "girls" (her other adult riders who are a very friendly and social group). She also said that the next party they have, that I should think about coming. She is so freaking NICE!

I made the decision about where I was going to ride because I truly think that Apple Tree is going to make me a much better rider. They are immersed in the discipline of riding that I most want to follow and they have horses that are appropriate for my abilities and my goals. Ro's place was a blast. More casual, there is the opportunity for fun and for lots of trail riding, but I didn't feel in the end that I was going to be able to pursue my goals nearly as well there. I think if I wanted to have a horse and go out on a trail and just screw around on the weekends, it would be the perfect place. But I'm right now a little more ambitious than that, even if I never, ever end up competing. So I made my decision and I feel good about it, haven't regretted it for a second. Apple Tree has turned out to be everything I had hoped that it would be and then some, but I still do feel badly about blowing off Ro. I wish I had unlimited time and funds so that I could ride at both places, but that, of course, really isn't very realistic in real life (at least in my real life). Still, I am very glad that she reached out and called me. I feel a little better (although still guilty and a little shitty) about everything.

I Feel MUCH Better Now

I just had a really lazy weekend that I spent mostly lying around doing a whole lot of nothing (which is sometimes the nicest break you can give yourself) but I was feeling like quite a slug and mad at myself for ignoring some of my more important and immediate goals. So, I just ran on the treadmill for about thirty minutes. It was nothing very impressive, in fact, for some reason I found it harder on my treadmill than I've been finding similar runs on the treadmill at the gym at work. I wonder why that is? Anyway, at least I got something done, so I really do feel much better now. I always know that I'm going to feel this way after a workout, one would think I would be more motivated to actually feel it (and thus more motivated to work out), but it just doesn't seem to work out that way. Unfortunately.

3-Year Anniversary

This weekend represents the anniversary of my move up to New Hampshire. Three years ago I left my office at my former company, where I had worked for 16 years. I said goodbye to NYC and moved into a corporate apartment up here in New Hampshire. I started work at New Company on Tuesday, just three days after leaving NYC and Old Company. January is a rough time of year to transition to living here and my transition was made even tougher because I didn't have a car, or even a license at the time! I was also right away thrown into a high-pressure project for a difficult customer at New Company, where a lot of responsibility and weight of the work was immediately on my shoulders. The first half year here was pretty stressful and tough, but I came through it all okay and never, even for a second, regretted my decision.

I'd say that my first two years here were really transitional for me. In many ways I felt pretty settled in immediately, and in others, well, I think sub-consciously it was a little harder on me than I was willing to admit. It translated to my gaining a bunch of weight during the first two years, weight that I really couldn't afford to gain. But after those two transitional years, I really felt like things started to settle more comfortably for me. I finally came off that first, high-pressure project and my job has been allowed to move forward. I took control and lost the weight that I had gained, and then some and started putting down roots that make me truly feel like this is where I belong.

In many ways these past three years have flown by, but I also sort of feel like I've been here forever. I look back on my NYC years very fondly, and sometimes a little wistfully. I'll never, ever regret living there, that experience is so much a part of who I am now. But I can never see myself going back to live there either. I am so happy that I was able to have that experience and now I have been so, SO happy that I was given such an excellent opportunity to move on whole-heartedly to a place that I love.

Two Weeks In

I’ve been working my 2009 renewed plan for about two weeks now and am making some progress, I think. I’ve lost about 2.5 lbs, have not had any alcohol (since no social occasions have come up), have been working out with the trainer again, running, riding and sticking to Jenny Craig. I feel like things are generally going pretty well, but I think that I could be doing better with the working out/running. I am committed to two workouts with the trainer per week and so far I’ve stuck with that, but I feel like I should be doing more cardio-wise (preferably running) during the week. I’m much better than I was during the month of December though, so it is definitely an improvement. Riding has been going well in general, but with the extreme cold we’ve been experiencing lately, I’m having a lot of trouble motivating myself to go down to the barn for my free-ride times. It’s just not all that appealing when it’s this cold. Additionally, I want to look into maybe joining the “Y” or something, but wanted to wait until the first rush of the resolution people had fallen off the wagon and the gyms aren’t so crazy & busy.

Work has been a little busier than expected, but not the crazy-busy that I was experiencing for the latter part of 2008. So actually it’s been the perfect scenario for re-introducing working out into my routine. I’m busy enough that I have to plan for my workouts and add it to my schedule, but not so crazy busy that a workout is impossible. Actually, I find that I do a little better getting my workout in when my day is somewhat structured.

Anyway, in general I feel relatively pleased with how it’s going so far. I think I can improve a lot (and I’ll work on that), but I am moving forward and keeping very mindful of my goals everyday. Most importantly, I am feeling very positive and enthusiastic, which is a big turn-around from the way I was feeling in November and December.

Brother Stuff

Surprisingly, I had an email back from my brother last night. Totally unexpected. Anyway, it was very nice note where he thanked my for my offer, but stated that he was going to pass, at least for now. So, basically thanks, but no thanks. I think he's expecting one flooring job to come through (I guess it's not a done deal yet) that will carry him for a few weeks and has a hope that perhaps he'll be able to squeak by if he and his business partner can get the odd flooring job here & there every month. He doesn't sound too confident that it'll happen, but he hopes for it anyway. Ideally, I believe that he wants to remain in Charlotte, but is considering that he may end up having to relocate eventually, if things don't improve where he is. But he says that if he does leave, that he will probably be headed farther south. I knew that his coming up the New Hampshire was a big long-shot, so I can't say that I'm too surprised. Still, it might have been a good experience for both of us. Oh well, at least I offered and at least he responded -- just that alone is HUGE for him! We had a nice email exchange and it feels good to at least have communicated some. I hope he reaches out to me if he needs anything.

A Dressage Night

It's nights like these that I am thankful that I've signed on for two riding training sessions a week, because if I was scheduled for a "free" ride (no training, just a ride on my own) I'm sure that there is no way on Earth that I would have gone tonight. It was about ten degrees and dropping fast, no way I wanted to schlepp down to the cold barn, drag the poor horse out of her stall, go through everything to groom and tack up and then ride in an ice cold arena if I didn't have to. No way, no how. But I did have a training session scheduled (and paid for) so I did manage to drag myself down to the cold barn and deal with all the frigidness. And I was glad that I did (as I knew I would be). Of course the irony is that we each had to complete a dressage test -- I thought that I had dodged the dressage bullet by not attending the dressage clinic and critic ride hosted by the barn this past weekend. But no, Alison had other plans. Curses. Well, Lulu and I did okay, I think. Not fantastic, but not terrible. Most importantly, we got the left lead canter on the first try (something that we struggle with). Most of our transitions were pretty good, except that we did break one canter too early. We probably didn't bend into our corners or around the circles enough, I'm sure our circles were misshapen and wobbly and I know that our diagonals weren't very straight, but she was listening to me, listening to my aids and was mostly on the bit and pretty much as round as she gets. And I'm very, very happy about her trot to canter transitions (we've been working on that).

Anyway, I have to stop being such a baby about the stuff that I'm so afraid that I'm going to suck at. I mean, what am I so afraid of, that someone is going to laugh at me? Actually, I think what I'm most worried about is my own disappointment with myself. I can be so hard on myself, I have to learn to relax a little bit, go with the flow, live a little and not be so afraid to make mistakes.

Alison leaves for South Carolina on Friday. I'll see her in March when I go down for the Adult Camp. But otherwise I won't be riding with her until she comes back to New Hampshire sometime in April. In the meantime I'll be riding with a couple of the other trainers at the barn. I'm going to miss Alison, but now I have motivation to work really hard and improve (as well as improving my overall fitness and, hopefully, losing weight) so that she can be really impressed with my progress when she comes back.

Random Thought ...

I'm wondering if it was perhaps a mistake to be linked to my personal trainer through facebook. Oh well, it's too late now!

Home & Family

I'm trying to decide whether to put my house on the market. I mentioned in a previous post about a cottage I went to see in a neighboring town. I really, really loved the house and I especially love the location and so have been thinking very hard about whether it may be possible to buy it. Of course the biggest variable is whether I can sell MY house. It's such a crummy market (which of course is a big reason why buying the house is even a possibility) that I really have had no confidence in whether it's even worth trying. I had the realtor out anyway. She looked around and then did a market analysis, checked out the comps and came back last night to go over everything with me. So, apparently some places nearby have sold over the past four months or so for some pretty decent amounts. It surprised me a bit. Of course it's all a crap-shoot, but I honestly wasn't expecting the news to be that good. I just assumed that the expected sale price would be so low that I wouldn't even want to consider it. So now I have some hard decisions to make. Do I really want to go through all this and so soon again (I only just moved about two years ago). It's a lovely little cottage. I just love the town and the specific location, the house is charming and it would be so wonderful to have some extra property! Being down the road from wooded trails for running would be unbelievably fantastic and being so close to the riding barn would be a dream come true. But ... GAH! I am exhausted and overwhelmed just thinking about it all. Anyway, so the realtor left her research with me. Now it's time to think about it and decide what I want to do.

I was speaking to my father on the phone last night and he was telling me that my brother is experiencing some pretty hard times. My brother basically went off to college in South Carolina years ago, flunked out after a semester or two and never came back. At this stage he might as well have been born somewhere in the South, forget that we all grew up in New Jersey! Anyway, I don't talk to my brother at all really, mostly because he is pretty much the World's worst communicator. I can email him, send him birthday cards & checks, Christmas presents, whatever 'til I'm blue in the face and I'll never get any kind of a response from him. I don't dislike him. I don't hate him. In person we get along fine, he just doesn't do email or phone calls or whatever. I think he's also a bit like me, just sort of adrift from having a family. Really has made his friends more his family than his biological one.

Anyway, so he lives in Charlotte, NC where the economy is apparently particularly bad. Charlotte is one of those places that grew up very quickly, real estate sky-rocketed over the course of a few years, companies & banks have big corporate centers there that did a lot of growing and hiring over a short period of time. Anyway, I guess it's all crashing now. My brother had a floor refinishing business with a friend and the business has completely dried up. He's scrambling to get a job, but apparently McDonald's isn't even hiring (well, I guess he interviewed at McD's, but hasn't heard yet). Things are pretty bad. So I thought overnight about it and it occurred to me that maybe he would come up here, at least for a couple of weeks. I have some stuff (painting some rooms, fixing some stuff, hanging some stuff, whatever) that I need to have done around the house and I would rather pay him than some stranger, if he's willing. It also might give him the opportunity to check out New Hampshire, who knows? Maybe he wouldn't mind relocating here, if he could find a job. It's got to be better than what he's experiencing where he is anyway. Well, it's just a thought. I'm going to email him about it tomorrow. Of course, being the World's Worst Communicator, I'm sure he'll never respond, but it's worth a shot anyway.

Braving the Scale

Well, I did it, I braved the scale this morning (which was one of my immediate goals for 2009). I was frankly terrified because I hadn’t stepped on since, oh, about the beginning of November. I had been depressed then because the scale was not budging at all, even though I was sticking to the Jenny Craig eating plan and was exercising a lot. And then my birthday hit, not to mention big layoffs at my company (which happened ON my birthday) and then the usual holiday doldrums and festivities. The longer I went without getting on the scale, the more scared of it I became. Well, I had a Jenny Craig appointment scheduled for today and I knew that I couldn’t put off weighing in there any longer (already my counselor was lying for me), so I stepped on it this morning. I just didn’t want there to be any huge, unpleasant surprises at JC later in the day.

The results are … up 5 lbs (since the beginning of November).

I am actually pretty happy (not to mention, surprised) with that. All this kvetching about it and the dreading of the big weigh-in and it really isn’t all that bad. Now at least I feel like I can move forward from here.

I have such mixed feelings about the scale. On the one hand, it makes me crazy and depressed and it causes me to really hate myself to watch the numbers so vigilantly. On the other hand, if I stay away from it, it is so, so easy for me to put myself in denial, do the whole, “I’ll worry about it tomorrow, I’ll start tomorrow” thing. So, it’s a necessary evil for me, I think. It’s just too easy for me to fall apart otherwise. But it sure is a fine-line between obsessing with numbers and completely hating myself and keeping myself in reasonable check. Ugh.

(New) Things I Love

• Mario Badescu’s “Olive Eye Cream”. I’ve tried a bunch of their eye creams, both through samples I’ve gotten or ordered and products that I’ve purchased and this is the winner out of all the ones I’ve tried. My skin is quite sensitive and I seem to have this chronic allergic issue with the skin around my eyes. From time to time it gets very irritated, red, puffy, flakey and itchy. When that happens it is a real struggle to get the flare-up to calm down. I’ve had it take MONTHS. I find, however, if I do stick to wholesome products and am diligent about using them, that this helps quite a bit. I had a flare-up in December and nothing helped and soothed my irritated skin like the Olive Eye Cream did. I am now a big fan.
• LLBean Weather Finder. I finally broke down and bought one of these things. I don’t know why I resisted for so many years, it’s not as if they’re expensive or anything. Now I know exactly what the temperature is both outside and in at every moment. Additionally I know if the pressure is rising or falling and there is a little icon that indicates whether it’s clear or raining/snowing. Awesome.
• Eddie Bauer flannel pajama bottoms. Usually I'm a yoga pant kind of girl, but I decided to buy a pair of these pajama bottoms a few weeks ago because they were on sale. Well. Ever since they arrived, when I’m hanging around at home, you won’t catch me out of them!
• Mossimo sweaters from Target. These are thin, soft acrylic-blend sweaters that I found at Target. They’re pretty cheap (about $15) and very comfortable. Because they’re so cheap, I think nothing of wearing them for riding, they’re perfect for that. They’re also washable. So on a chilly night for riding, I can wear a long-sleeve t-shirt, a Mossimo sweater and a fleece zip-up vest and it’s PERFECT. And because the sweaters are pretty cheap and also washable, I don’t mind too much if they get dirty or a little wrecked at the barn. The Mossimo long-sleeve t-shirts are great in this regard too. They’re thin, so perfect for layering, they’re nice and long, so they come down over my butt and they’re cheap (like $4 or $5) so it’s easy to have a bunch of them and I don’t get too upset if one gets ruined.
• Trader Joe’s Salsa Verde. I bought a jar of this about a month ago and loved it so much, I had been rationing it out to try and make it last. It’s light, not too spicy (but perfect when combined with a spicier salsa) and has a nice tangy lime-y flavor. I finally made it back to TJ’s and stocked up on four more jars.

Massage is Good

Boy, do I love a good massage. Is there anything that seems like more of a decadent, pampering indulgence? I can’t think of one off-hand. It feels like such an indulgence to me that I almost feel guilty when I have one (and I’ve been scheduling one a month for the past few months or so). I am struggling with this feeling of worth, trying to allow myself to think and feel that I am worth stuff like massages. Intellectually I tell myself that it is a “wellness” issue. It helps to keep the blood flowing, works through the stiffness and the kinks and any scar tissue, etc. This becomes especially important as one gets older and things don’t bounce back and recover as quickly. It’s also very important as one tries to be physically active, or become more active. I can tell myself all this and I do believe it, but that emotional thing, truly feeling like I deserve this, well that is a big hurdle for me and one that I still have trouble getting over.

I had a wonderful massage this morning and it was especially satisfying because I had had two tough workouts with my trainer this week and had also done some interval running sessions on my own (not to mention having ridden three times, including one almost fall from my horse). So, there were many parts of my body that were quite sore & tight. My massage therapist commented that my neck was particularly bad -- as were my hamstrings, and (I think) quads. So I was very happy to have had the massage to loosen up all these areas, aid in recovery from the week’s activity and ready everything for more work for the coming week. I just wish that I didn’t feel so guilty about it, I really need to believe in my heart that I deserve this. I guess it comes down to that whole “self-love” thing, everything seems to come back to that.

Observations from a Day

• Walking from the garage to work in a blowy snow flurry, woman ahead of me is attempting to use an umbrella, even though the little bit of snow that is actually in the air is flying sideways.
• Coming into the building at work, another woman ahead of me in tippy-tappy heels stops at the card reader and just looks behind at me expectantly. After a beat, I swipe MY card and she goes waltzing in without having said one word to me. (I mutter under my breath, “You’re welcome”.)
• People who like to make you feel self-conscious about not arriving to work at 7 AM like they do must be stopped.
• After a disagreement yesterday with an engineer over what was REALLY wrong with a customer’s application, it turns out that I was RIGHT. (Gotta love that).
• Blow hard, self-congratulatory, meeting hijack guy makes me feel surly and defensive in every meeting I attend with him.
• Again there is a string of unoccupied treadmills at the gym, yet someone decides that the one right next to the one that I’m currently using is the perfect choice.
• 2 PM is a great time to go to the company gym, especially in January.
• Running 2 miles of intervals right before my personal training session makes the workout tougher, but I feel great about it afterwards anyway.
• It amazes me how many women stop in the Ladies Room on their way out the door for the day for extensive make-up touching up.
• Dogs are crazed lunatics when left for 10 hours and will drive you insane when you get home and want to try and relax. (Luckily that doesn’t happen too often).
• I'm starting to wish that I hadn't made the "no alcohol" rule, goal, resolution, whatever because a nice, big, cold glass of chardonnay sure would hit the spot right about now.
• Thankful for being able to work from home on Friday!

Scared to Dressage

I mentioned the other day about the adult camp my riding trainer hosts down in South Carolina in March. Today I bought the airline tickets, so I am now committed to going. I am both excited and a little nervous, but I think overall it should be a really good time and I should get a lot out of it, hopefully coming home a better rider. As I wrote the other day, I really want to also use the scheduled trip as a target date for some initial fitness goals. I think it's just close enough to keep me motivated and far enough away that I should be able to make some progress by then.

This weekend the barn is hosting a dressage clinic with some fancy, impressive dressage rider, trainer, whatever. The clinic is on Saturday and then it will be followed by a critique ride on Sunday. Alison was asking me today if I was going to do the clinic and I said, "no, I really don't feel ready for that". I still feel somewhat self-conscious and not yet up to intense dressage scrutiny. I know that I've made a lot of progress, I'm doing much better, but still, I feel ... not ready. Or probably it's more the self-conscious thing. I want to feel like I'm further along so that I can benefit more from the fine-tuning that I would hopefully get out of a clinic like that. Rather, right now I feel like I'm still a little bit all over the place and flailing to just get smooth-ish transitions and a decent frame and true bending and, uh, the left lead canter consistently. Alison insisted that I am more than ready for this clinic and that there will be less experienced riders attending. I guess you can call it my own insecurities, but I'm still going to pass. I don't know why I'm feeling so fragile about it, but I do. Weird.

Your Best Life

Okay, so I was watching Oprah yesterday. The show on Monday was the kick-off for her “Your Best Life” week that had been advertised for the last few weeks or so and also was meant to tie into the theme subject for the January issue of her “O” Magazine. So the show was mostly confession time for Oprah, about how she has fallen off of the weight-loss, fitness, eating right (whatever) wagon. She owned up to it and discussed how she got to where she is and what she is going to do about it. Her fitness & eating plan was interesting enough to me, but what was far more interesting and more cathartic, was the discussion of why she overeats and what this issue really says about her life. For someone who has fought a life-long battle with weight and with food, I can completely relate. Food really IS a drug of choice and people who chronically struggle with significant weight really ARE compensating for something in their lives that is out of whack. In its essence, it comes down to loving yourself, but what is that really? I’ve heard that phrase bandied about my whole life and I STILL to this day do not really know what that feels like, what it really is, or how one goes about actually accomplishing true self-love. I can say that I have self-respect. I think that I can appreciate some of my abilities and stronger points, as well as recognize my short-comings, but I think self-love is far deeper than these things, something that I don’t really have a true concept of, something that I suspect many other people perhaps struggle with as well.

Oprah talked yesterday about taking the time to take care of yourself and about finding the right balance in your life. I have known this and talked about this for years. I wholly agree that this is essential for having a fulfilled life. But, unlike Oprah, I generally have no trouble finding time for myself. Childfree by choice, I am not a workaholic and manage to fit in massages, pedicures, facials, hair appointments and plenty of reading and movie or TV time. I really have no problem pampering myself consistently. I usually work a respectable 40-45 hours a week, so that’s not the issue. Things like horseback riding, which is something that I love that I am doing for myself, is a good example of how I treat myself to things that inspire me and that feed my soul. No, I don’t think these are my issues. I think my issues come more from troubles with finding intimacy in life (and I’m not necessarily talking about romance here) and from varying degrees of self-loathing, both of which I feel are related.

Certainly growing up in an non-affectionate, undemonstrative family and being the introvert that I am, I tend to be very introspective and don’t know a lot about how to achieve intimacy on most levels. The fact that my sister has had such successful intimate relationships (in particular, with her husband and children, of course) amazes me. But the differences here, I think, is because she is more of an extroverted type. She always knew how to get what she needed from external sources, I never had that ability. Anyway, I don’t really know what the answer or the solution is. I can be aware of this general lack in my life, but I don’t really know how to “fix” it. I know that I am missing some necessary element to achieve balance and self-love, but I don’t really know how to change what is at this stage really a part of my character and personality. I guess I’m just defective then, I don’t know. I DO know, however, as I struggle with my issues of self-loathing, with the lack of real intimacy in my life, that my weight will continue to reflect that. I see it as a life-long struggle with no real or easy solution. I suppose some awareness is part of the formula for addressing these “broken” parts of my life. So maybe that’s all it will ever be, I will recognize what it is and continue to struggle with it on a daily basis. Kind of like an alcoholic (and I really don’t think there is much difference there).

One thing I DO know however, is that once I move beyond thinking about how I look or how much I actually weigh and think of my body more in terms of health and fitness and even from the point of view of athletic training, that I tend to do better, get less hung up on the self-loathing thing, feel better and ultimately tend to end up more successful and overall happier with my efforts and myself, as well as just happier in general.

So, I liked the show, it made me think about a lot of things. It’s going to keep me thinking about a lot of things. Like .. oh I don’t know, that maybe I need therapy or something.

Some statements that jumped out at me from the show:

• It’s about what you are REALLY hungry for.
• A doctor told Oprah that, with a thyroid condition, you have to learn to “embrace hunger”. (uh, no).
• Bob Geene (said): He has a theory that Oprah never really learned how to be happy, she just learned “survival tools”. (That rung a bell for me).
• Are you meeting all your needs? If you’re not, food becomes more attractive as a way of comforting yourself.
• Harmony with your life, loving yourself is a life-long journey.
• Your overweight self is not craving food, it’s craving love.

Three Confused Pugs (courtesy of Yahoo!)

Three Confused Pugs @ Yahoo! Video

More about Goals

So, I'm thinking that I am going to go to the "Adult Camp" that my riding barn hosts in Aiken, South Carolina at the end of March. The camp is a great opportunity to ride everyday, they'll go to various cross-country courses in the area for jumping sessions, there will be some intense instruction and the opportunity to really dig deeper into the eventing world overall. Additionally, it's also a great opportunity to get to know some of the other adults at the barn and generally have fun doing something active, something I love. Anyway, so I'm thinking that this trip might be a great target for the first phase of my 2009 fitness plan. It gives me a good two and a half months, so if I work hard, I could show up at camp weighing 10-15 lbs less and being much more fit. It sure would be great to be able to gallop around a cross-country course without having to gasp for breath the entire way. It kind of takes some of the fun out of it, and you also have to wonder how effective you really are as a rider, if you can't even make it around without feeling like you're going to pass out. So, I think that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to concentrate on that target date. It gives me something really concrete to work towards, something that will be of immediate benefit, beyond just looking better or fitting better into my riding pants. Yes, I think this is a good goal, I'm a little excited now.

2009: Goals

I’ve been thinking about goals for 2009. I don’t always clearly define these each year, nor do I always publish them, but I feel like 2008 was a pretty good year for me and so I would like to try and exploit that momentum somewhat, nail down some specific objectives and concentrate on actually making them happen.

It seems like every year I have this vague sort of idea: lose weight and try harder at work. Sometimes I have a little bit of success at this, sometimes I don’t, but it all feels so hit or miss by this method. I’m going to try to be more concrete and specific and so I want to come up with a plan for how these objectives can be hit.

Work

As I wrote in my 2008 Year Review, last year was a successful and pivotal year for me at work. It would be tempting to relax a little bit and enjoy that, but I really do think that I am somewhat at a critical turning point in my career. As my role and path becomes defined, I have to be an active participant in who I am going to be as a professional. I need to be more proactive, more organized, more committed and more enthusiastic. I need to be more involved in strategic work and more integral to the over-all direction of my group. Now how to accomplish all that, I haven’t really figured out yet, but I’m working on it.

Finances

I’m pretty good about saving some money every month, but for 2009 I want to be a little more aggressive about that. I’m still trying to figure out what the specific goal is going to be and I probably won’t publish the specific monthly or annual number, but just suffice to say, it’ll be more than it’s been.

Social

I admit it, I’m an introvert and can be a bit of a social hermit. I am never more comfortable and at peace than when I’m home with the dogs and a bunch of good books and maybe some movies on the TV. I enjoy socializing, but I also find it very draining and I can be a little socially awkward, so I really tend to dread the effort. Still, I usually end most parties or social encounters happy that I went, taking away good memories. So in 2009 I want to make more of an effort socially. Come out of my cocoon more often, accept more invitations, be willing to move out of my comfort zone a little bit.

Health, Fitness & Weight

Ugh. Here I need to get back on that wagon. I’ve had a bit of a vacation with my little birthday/holiday pity party. But now that is all over and it’s time to get back to work. I never stopped going to Jenny Craig, and that has probably been a huge element to my not completely falling apart in this area, but it’s time to get serious again. So, here are my plans (I may need to fine-tune as I move forward, but this is what I’m thinking for right now):

• Re-commit to Jenny Craig. Be more careful with lunch (I don’t eat JC for lunch). Continue to use JC meals for breakfast & dinner.
• Get back on the scale (both at home and at JC).
• Start eating fruit mid-morning at work again.
• Alcohol for social occasions only.
• Continue 2x/week personal training sessions.
• Pick up the running again – run a minimum of 3x a week through March.
• Plan to bump up mileage and/or the number of running sessions per week after March (hopefully the snow will start to be on the wane by then and I’ll be able to use some trails).
• Weather, snow & salt permitting, walk dogs on significant walk (or run) – minimum 2 miles, 2-3x per week.
• Look into a “Y” membership, or re-up with the Spinning studio.
• Ride 4x a week (includes 2 training sessions/lessons per week).

I think if I can do all that and be consistent and steady about it, my weight should more or less take care of itself, at least to a certain point. I may not be a size 4 and the perfect weight for my height, but I should be in a reasonable place, I think. If I decide that I want to go further, then some fine-tuning will most likely have to happen, but I’ll worry about that and decide when I get there. I’d say from where I’m sitting now, I would like to lose probably another 40 lbs. I think I would be happy and healthy there, I might not be over the moon with happiness with my size, but that’s where the fine-tuning would maybe come in.

Riding

I’m still trying to figure out my riding goals. This is very important to me, but as I am still in the mode of learning to ride again and don’t know where my skills and abilities are really going to put me down the road, it’s hard to have too specific goals because I don’t really know what I’m going to be capable of. Additionally, with riding, since it is a partnership with a horse, some of my goals at some point would have to be reliant on having a suitable horse for attaining them, so there is a whole other financial (not to mention time) component there that may or may not be doable.

With all that said, for this year, I would like to continue to work hard through the Winter and Spring, and feel that I could possibly compete in an entry level (Beginner Novice level) event/horse trial. Whether or not I actually DO compete at this stage is less important, but I would like to feel like I COULD, that I am ready to start. So, basically that comes down to schooling BN level. I think that’s pretty doable. I think right now I could handle the jumping portion without being at all afraid or too overwhelmed. I don’t think that I would feel comfortable competing today, just because I wouldn’t want to embarrass myself, but I feel like I could get around okay at least. So by late Spring I would like to feel much more competent and confident, that I could easily compete at that level and feel proud to do so. I think that’s reasonable.

By Fall, I think I would like to feel like I’m ready to school Novice (the next level up). Once I feel that I’m schooling that level, I think I’ll be pretty close to where I was ability-wise when I was riding twenty-two years ago. I think I was schooling Training a bit, but never competed above Novice in eventing (in those days it was called, “Pre-Training”). I think I was jumping 3’6” hunters and equitation, but I’m concentrating on eventing now. Once I get to a point where I’m schooling pretty consistently Novice, and am thinking of competition, it may be time to consider buying a horse. I don’t know what the economy, the state of my job or my financial situation will be then, so I don’t know if that will be possible, or if it will be possible to buy a horse suitable for competition. But at least I should have a better idea by then of what I’m going to be capable of and can work towards positioning myself for horse ownership.

Anyway, all that is a long time off at this stage. Right now I’m concentrating on riding 4x a week and having my two lessons during the week. Additionally, I want to be more fit for riding! This ties into the “Health, Fitness & Weight” section, but I should not be all out of breath after cantering around the ring a bunch of times, or after doing a 1-minute jump course. I need to improve my cardio as well as reduce my weight, in order to be a better rider.

So these are the goals that are the most important to me right now in my life and so will be what I’m concentrating on for the year. They should remain pretty fluid and adjustable as I move forward, so I want to always think I’m keeping my expectations realistic.