I promise I'm not schitzophrenic..

..But I have changed my g-mail address three times in the past year, so for the third (and hopefully final) time, I have a "new" blogger profile. Sort of annoying how its linked to Gmail but I suppose that saves time.. Somewhere.

I'm at the tail end of a work day with a cat in my lap which does, indeed, lead to allergies. But despite Richard's protests that I spoil him, Atticus would have only made a good-for-show barn cat as he has far too much charisma to bother with chasing mice all day. He trots out like he owns the place when a group arrives and ends up sleeping in some 7-year-old's bunk for the weekend, so its not my fault that he's now used to waking us up by screaming in the bedroom window and then coming in for a quick spot of milk. We buy too much milk anyway..

The adventure race is in a week and a half and therefore this week is supposed to be crunch time as far as fitness goes. Getting married and going on a honeymoon allotted my body an additional fifteen pounds or something of that nature (oops, guess I just got kicked out of the fat-o-sphere bloggers for mentioning my weight) and while I'm not on a diet binge, it does feel fantastic to raise your level of fitness several notches in the span of just three weeks or so. I am not in any way, shape, or form a swimmer, but Polly had us doing 500 meters in a couple of days. It wasn't pretty, but it was an accomplishment. Definitely feeling the desire to get back into yoga

Yesterday was cool, this morning zoomed up to seventy-three degrees when I walked to the barn at 8:30, and as I was getting off the tractor at 10:30 we had dropped down to sixty. It's starkly fall outside and not at all sunny, which lamely discouraged me from riding. I'm hanging on to hope that the round pen will not be dropped from the 2010 camp budget as that will make things wildly better. The arena footing is terrible (I swear there's a ten degree elevation change in any direction) and what is supposed to be a round pen strikes me as somewhat dangerous depending on the situation-- the footing is better and it's fine for long line work, but I am really crossing my fingers for a 66' pen with lots of riding space and level ground. Hope hope hope.

I think we might splurge and go see Where The Wild Things Are tonight, because as per usual, we're the last to see any movie that's any good. Richard's been doing pretty well on his own and volunteering and riding quite a bit, but it will definitely be nice to have two incomes after the green card comes through. Cross your fingers.

All in all, marriage makes me disgustingly happy. We're only two and a half months in but surviving pretty well on a single salary and a single vehicle and I can't say there has been a discernible "adjustment period." Though you probably ought to ask Richard as I would not be hard pressed to admit I'm eighty times higher than he is on the temperamental scale. It just feels natural to be together, with our dog in our little house and the big, communal back yard. I can't get over how lucky I've gotten.

And as for the future.. I have been scouring the most reputable rescue websites I can find for a young draft horse. Bringing in a PMU horse from Canada would run upwards of $1500 and I know we aren't in that spot now, but perhaps by the new year..

In my defense, I have had one (1!) crazy-pants horse for the past ten years without ever the desperate desire to have another. One more person in the family means one more horse.. right?

Catching Up

The honeymoon was beyond survivable and more like epic, tumultuous, thrilling, tiring, spur-of-the-moment, and at certain times of sundown and sunup, at least partially magical.

Tonight I finally got around to writing a few thank-you cards —postcards created from friends' wedding photos which I'm more than a little proud of — and the good memories of the day return. Frankly, I didn't really enjoy the wedding day. It was perfect in execution (or at least as close as I had dared to hope) but I was too caught up in micromanagement and trying to make sure the gathered had a good time; what I hear was that it was quite a good little party, though so much of it I missed. All that aside it was the greatest thing that's happened in my life thus far, so I suppose I can't really complain.

Married life, as I am guessing most newlyweds write, is wonderful. There's plenty to fight about but an unfair amount of those moments where we look at each other, finally together in the same country on a reasonably permanent basis, and say "Wow. We are so lucky." We've been riding together (job status changed dramatically; I'm the equestrian director at a camp just a little way up the road from La Junta and so far it's a great reason to wake up every morning) and training for a beginners' adventure race at Camp Eagle in Rocksprings, Texas, along with the two other young directors working here at camp. The only thing I'm passably good at is trail running, but the swimming (we swam our first ever 500m last week: momentous), mountain biking, high ropes and rock climbing will at least give me a kick in the face and some good stories to tell.

Bandit loves his new job with all the prissy mares in the pasture, and Hopalong has two new buddies to go chase / wallow in stuff with. My parents are well (dad's birthday was yesterday and we absolutely nailed the task of baking The Birthday Cake) and our new house is slathered in simple Ikea furniture and every color that caught my eye. Richard indulges me by keeping it pretty darn tidy, volunteers his free time (pre-green card, which may come as early as January) for our new camp, and plays copious amounts of Call of Duty on the xBox. Did I mention he's started riding with me fairly often? I love it, and he's surprisingly really good. But then he tends to be one of those annoying people that's good at any physical thing he tries.

I'll do my best to keep tabs on this blog and update frequently, though it saddens me that I have no friends who write regularly anymore! (Hint, hint.)