So Much for Lofty Goals, and Happy New Year...

Don King?? Nope, it's Tonka,
First Edition Farm's miniature horse

Have you ever noticed that a week's vacation seems a heck of a lot longer at the front end than it does at the back end?  Really, I had all sorts of grand hopes and plans for this week, and all kinds of good intentions to GET THINGS DONE.   I was going to re-organize cabinets and closets, get to the Post Office to mail Christmas gifts we needed to return/exchange, change the look of the blog, and spend some time learning the @!#$!%$@# new CRM software my company has invested in.  I was also going to spend a good deal of quality time with my family and the horses. 
Good news!  I accomplished ONE of those goals.  Yep, that's me, the perennial overachiever.  Sigh. 

Let's just call this the Week of the Horse, shall we?  Not that I'm complaining, mind you.  I was pretty happy with how things turned out (my husband, probably less so).  The kids and I spent a ton of time at the barn, hanging with the girls and our barn buddies.  We had multiple lessons, which I will cover at a later date, and had the opportunity to get some additional saddle time in by riding some horses whose owners were away on vacation.  When we got home, we watched horse videos online, and the Boy and I even took my parents to see War Horse (was like taking a kindergarten class on a field trip -- more on this later as well).

James says, "Hello! Aren't you the nice lady
who brings me kids and carrots?"

The kids also had the opportunity to visit our friend and trainer/owner at First Edition Farm, Sarah Doehler, a couple of times to hack a pony she has.  This pony is basically The Supreme Deity in Pony Form, SDPF for short.  Seriously, James (aka Chesapeake) has been there, done that, and gotten the Championship cooler, thank you very much.  He's been living in semi- retirement and I'm not 100% sure it agrees with him.  I mean, he's older and probably okay with not having to work too very hard, but he certainly misses having a child and I think an easy-ish job would agree with him. 

Let me tell you, this amazing boy has personality coming out of his ears and was absolutely thrilled to bits to have my kids loving all over him.  It was also a privilege to watch a this professional pony teach my kids.  He was a complete gentleman and very clear with them, "You give me the right aids, I give you the desired response.  You give me garbage, you get garbage back."  The best part of the whole time was watching his face while he interacted with the kids -- he was just so thrilled to have a child paying attention to him that you could see the grin on his face.  Ponies need kids and kids need ponies. End of story.

So that leaves me on Sunday morning, New Year's day, the final day of our vacation.  The husband and the Child are off with friends snow tubing.  The Boy had a friend sleep over last night and was unable to rouse himself in time to go tubing, so thus I find myself at home, contemplating all kinds of things I might accomplish today.  There's a lot of vacuuming and cleaning that can be done, a ton of horse laundry, a dishwasher to be emptied, a treadmill that could be run on, and lots of food that could be made into dinners I could freeze for those nights when we need something quick yet nutritious before running off to soccer or the barn.  It's already 10:30, and I'm still on the couch. I've watched some videos of the recent show in Mechelen, caught up on some of my favorite blogs, and written this blog post.

Yup, there are about a zillion things I could and should be doing today.  Yet somehow I don't see myself getting very far away from this couch.  And you know what?  I'm not all that upset about that.