Big Changes

Where do I begin??? Well, addressing where I left off...Sophie had a total of three Bowen treatments and they did wonders for her. I highly, highly, highly recommend Bowen. Jilly, my Papillon also had three treatments for her stifles and she hasn't lifted a hindleg in pain since then. Logan, my son, was born February 12th, 2010 after a month of bedrest. I rode a handful of times while on maternity leave and realized that while my husband was deployed there was no way I'd be able to ride regularly. So I made the difficult decision to sell Sophie. I put her in consignment training with Lisa Smit at Brevard Equestrian Center in Grant, FL and it was one of my smarter decisions. I highly recommend Lisa if you are looking for a trainer or instructor in Brevard County, or if you are looking for help in buying or selling a horse.


Soon after Sophie sold my husband, Craig, was offered a great job at a different Air Force base, the only catch being that we would move in July 2011, not July 2012 like we previously expected. However, the icing on the cake was that I would be able to get out of the Air Force early. So he accepted the job and I am a civilian after 8 years in the Air Force. We also live in San Antonio, TX now. So it ended up being a blessing that we had already sold Sophie.


After moving to San Antonio we had a garge sale and I sold some horse items on the garage sale. One of the shoppers was Jennifer, who keeps her three horses at a facility less than 2 miles from our house. I traded a baby swing for a lesson and had my first ever hunter/jumper lesson two weeks later. I told Jennifer that I was really interested in riding, so if she knew anyone that wasn't able to ride or needed help keeping their horse ridden to pass along my info.


Well, as fate would have it, just one week later it was Jennifer that needed help with keeping her lesson horse exercised, as she'd been rear ended in a pretty bad car accident and couldn't ride. So I am currently exercising her American Warmblood mare, Lady, until she is able to ride again. Jennifer has given me permission to teach Lady dressage. As a result I've decided to resurrect my old blog to record my new adventures. I've renamed it Dressage Nomad since we move a lot and I'm not sure when I'll have a dressage horse of my own again, so I'll be basically riding whatever horse I can get my hands on in the future.


This blog will serve as a training record and a place to keep notes about riding, especially since I'll be auditing an Eddo Hoekstra clinic in a couple of weeks and plan to audit other clinics in the future. I miss Sophie a lot, she was so much fun to ride and taught me more than I ever thought possible. And while I wish I still had her, I am excited about the opportunities the future holds as well.

Settling In...

We made the trip to Florida in 18 or 19 hours. We left at 3:00 in the afternoon Monday and arrived at 10:00 in the morning Tuesday! Sophie travelled like a champ. We stopped every 3-4 hours for gas and I checked Sophie at every stop and she never sweated once. It was in the mid-30's until we got to Georgia, then the temperature started rising.

I drove from 2 am to 7 am and Craig did all of the other driving. I like driving in the middle of the night because there are hardly any cars on the road. Once we got in we unloaded Sophie and she looked around a bit before stretching her legs in the arena. She trotted a few laps and then started looking for grass so we put her in a paddock where she trotted over to make friends with her neighbors. She drank some water and ate some hay after greeting the other horses.

Craig and I went home to nap so that we would be awake for the Spacecoast Arabian Horse Club meeting that night, so we weren't there when Sophie was brought in for dinner. Apparently she got a little upset when they started taking the other horses in, but she calmed down and was fine by the time we stopped back at the barn before going to the meeting.

Yesterday I went out and turned her loose in the round pen, she trotted around a bit and I worked on just having her move a bit and turn in response to my body language. She was nervous about being out in the round pen while the other horses were inside. After a bit of work I just led her around the round pen, stopping and backing a couple of steps every now and then to get her focusing on me. I also worked on asking her to lower her head when I applied pressure to her poll with one hand while pulling gently downward on the halter.

Today we went for a walk in the big arena, doing lots of walking, stopping, and backing to get her focusing on me and ensure she was walking on a loose lead. We did a little jogging too, but I just can't handle much physical activity right now, which leads me to doubt what I'll be able to do as far as long lining until after the baby is born!

She does have some kind of issue with her neck, so I have a Bowen practitioner coming out next Friday to work on her. I'm really excited, I hadn't heard of the Bowen Technique before, but after doing more research on it I think it will help her a lot and can't wait to see the results! I may longe Sophie tomorrow, just using the cavesson and letting her stretch out, no side reins or anything.

Sophie's Last Ohio Ride...

Yesterday Craig and I drove down to Dayton to see Sophie and watch Kim ride her one last time. She did really well and is soooooo pretty!

First she was longed to get loosened up...


And then came the ride. I didn't take many pictures as we spent a lot of time talking about Sophie and her progress.



We're leaving today for Florida and will arrive Tuesday morning. Then Sophie will officially be a Florida horse. She does have some wither soreness that we haven't been able to "fix" so she'll get some time off and a chiro visit among other things to see if we can make things more comfortable for her. I hope she handles the trip well...I guess we'll see though!

Hopefully we have time for a nap Tuesday afternoon because there's a Spacecoast Arabian Horse Club meeting that night that we plan to attend too.

200 Posts!

I noticed today as I was signing in that I have 199 posts in this blog...so this will be post number 200! We are now in Ohio, with the truck and trailer. We made the drive in 18 or 19 hours, because we stopped for 20-30 minutes every 3 hours. We left around 4 Tuesday afternoon and arrived around 11 Wednesday morning. I drove the truck and the trailer for the first time ever, doing two 3 hour sessions starting around midnight. I don't mind driving on the highway since you really can't even tell the trailer is back there. I know it will be different when there is a horse on the trailer, but we'll probably do the same thing going back. Craig will drive until it's later and then I'll take over, when there are practically zero cars on the road to need to manuever around. As long as I don't have to drive through West Virginia...I *hated* driving through West Virginia! Too hilly and curvy.

We'll be picking Sophie up Monday around noon and pulling into the barn around 9 hopefully...the next day. Then Sophie will be a Florida horse and I'll be a Florida horse owner. I can't wait to see her. She was supposed to get body clipped yesterday, but we'll see if they had a chance to clip her yet. Jessie (my retired gelding) is a woolball...he would definitely need a body clip if he were going to Florida.

Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I've been participating in a photography challenge and have been keeping my photography blog updated with pictures if you'd like to check them out, just click this link...Stephanie Mills Photography blog!

One week...

One week from today Sophie will be a Florida horse! The trailer is ready and we're heading up to Ohio today. We'll leave next Monday and hopefully arrive on Tuesday, settling Sophie into her stall in Florida!

How crazy is this?

I've been thinking a lot about Sophie and what I'm going to do with her once she's in Florida. Well, not what *I'm* going to do with her...what I'm going to have someone *else* do with her. I'd been thinking I would put her in some kind of partial training before starting to rider her myself. But I'm starting to think I may be better off just longeing her and doing in hand work while I can...then restarting her myself. It's what we did after I bought her and things turned out really well...maybe I should do it again. Decisions, decisions. Regardless, Sophie gets a month or two off from riding while we focus on longeing/in hand work and then I'll decide. It's going to be *really* hard to not ride when she gets here though! I've been watching lessons at the barn and it's making me want to ride...a lot!

Sophie's New Digs...

Preparations for the Big Move...

While Sophie is in training with Kim I'll be leaving my saddle, bridle, and dressage sport boots for her. As well as a hefty supply of Raspberry leaves and fly spray (oh, and tail conditioner!).

I ordered this saddle bag from Smartpak (and had it monogrammed too, lol) to help protect my saddle while it's in Ohio without me. It's huge (big enough for two saddles), but awesome. It has ventilated pockets on the sides of the saddle flaps and a big zippered pocket on the top to store saddle pads.


I also got this bridle bag. It's ginormous as well, good for me, not so good for my saddle staying in Ohio, but I wanted them to match...so, it's what I got.


Also, click here if you want to see pictures of our new house! (You might need to scroll down just a bit though) Click me to see Stephanie's new house!!!

I Don't Know If Anyone Still Reads This...

I've had a really hard time going to the barn since the miscarriage. Well, more than just a hard time...I haven't...at all. Part of it's the weather, but it's mostly the emotions that well up inside of me when I think about it. So instead Craig goes. I know Sophie is in good hands, happy and healthy, and doesn't care if I come out anyway.

Sophie is going to be staying in Ohio when Craig and I move to Florida. She'll remain in full training with Kim, and when Kim moves to Florida for the winter next year she'll move to my new instructor's barn to be in training, because hopefully I'll be pregnant by then. Kim is going to send me a DVD of her progress every month, plus I'll call and ask for weekly updates, lol. Kim has also offered to show her for me, not just show, but take her to Sport Horse Nationals, which would be awesome.

So, in the meant time I'm going to get out to the barn, at some point. While in Florida I plan on going to all of the shows I can and working on my photography. I also want to do agility training with Jilly. So I'll keep updating this blog, with my experiences, they just won't be lesson recaps like before. Well, maybe, I might take lessons in Florida on a lesson horse for a while, we'll see.

I just noticed that this post is exactly 2 months after my last post...that wasn't planned at all, in case you were wondering, just a coincidence.

The Way of the Air Force...

I realized that I probably haven't explained my job very well. I try to keep this blog solely to horse related events because my life isn't interesting enough for a blog about it, but in this case, my job is having an effect on my horse life, and through my thesis I have discovered that the outside world in general, doesn't have much of an idea as to what the Air Force is really like.

My Job

Normally I am a Civil Engineer in the Air Force, which really means I supervise people or projects (or both). However, the Air Force has a program where they pay people to go to grad school to get technical degrees. Most of the degrees are in things like Nuclear Physics or Rocket Science, but my husband and I are majoring Engineering Management. As a part of the degree we are required to conduct research and write a thesis, otherwise, we don't get a degree. Graduation is supposed to be in March, and it is *bad* *bad* *bad* if you don't get your degree!

Air Force Life

I have lived in NJ, Korea, and now Ohio since graduating from college in May, 2003. Generally Air Force officers stay put for 3-4 years, and aren't eligible to ask to move until they've been in one spot for 2 years. When I first started my career it was 3 years in one spot, but due to the budget they have extended that by a year. Some things, like short tours (Korea, Turkey, Iraq, etc) without your family are only 1 year, then you must move, unless you elect to stay longer. Grad school is another example, we started school in September of last year, and once we graduate we have to report to our next base within a week or two, depending on how far away from Ohio it is.

New Base

My husband and I are in a unique situation because we are the same rank and work in the same career field. This makes it harder for us to find a base because they need to have enough room for both of us. Plus, we needed the base to have something other than regular civil engineering, either what's called a MAJCOM (Major Command) that oversees a group of bases or a special interest group that goes out and builds bases in new locations. Our options were in Virginia, Illinois, California, Florida, or Nevada. Neither of us really want to go west of the Mississippi if we can help it. And Illinois and Virginia had no room for two more officers. So, that left Florida.

Technicalities

In order to get a new base we have to submit a development plan, outlining our potential career and listing the bases we desire. We did that and were told that we've been penciled in for Florida and orders should "drop" or be "cut" by the end of the month. So, until we have orders we are tentatively going to Florida, but it looks very, very good. Once we have orders we will have a RNLTD, which is a Report No Later Than Date, or, when we need to show up at the new base, in uniform, and sign in.

Moving

Moving sucks, but it's not too bad, because the Air Force takes car of just about everything. They send movers around the time we ask for them (provided we give them plenty of notice). The movers pack everything up and take it away. When I moved to NJ the movers arrived with my stuff the day after I arrived (they picked it up 2 weeks earlier). Moving back from Korea was another matter because we had to get our stuff out of storage too. There are some things they don't move, cleaning supplies, cats, horses, candles, the usual stuff. We're still working on the logistics of moving our 2 cars and the truck/trailer but we'll worry about that more when it's closer to time to go.

So, that about sums it up. It hasn't completely sunk in yet, because we don't have orders yet. And even then it probably won't sink in until a month or two before moving! I also wanted to add, normally it doesn't work out this well! (And it still might not). There are lots of bases in places where not enough people volunteer to go so some people get sent there despite their wishes. And, we could still get sent somewhere where we don't want to go, so knock on wood for us that it doesn't happen, because I am looking forward to the idea of moving to horse country, even if it is a bit unnerving.