The gimp gets back in the saddle

Between wedding planning, physical therapy, job searching, volunteer work, band things and potential horse leasing my days have been jammed packed. I have been a budget-crunching, brain-storming, calf-raising, horn-blowing, attic-searching, phone-conferencing fiend! Days slip by so fast and my to-do lists seem to grow overnight (huge and frightening, like these giant spiders are to this poor damsel we set up for Halloween!)

Wedding Update
Wedding planning is going well. I'll be up front with you all: our budget is tight. There is no way we can invite everyone we want to invite to the reception. But, our ceremony will have no limit! Everyone is welcome to that part of things! We are even more limited for our humble rehearsal dinner. We would love to have an event that would make Martha Stewart jealous - wait! No we wouldn't - that's just not our style! Please allow me to rephrase: we would love to make everyone happy, but we can't. Truth is, it's already going to be non-traditional, so we are going to have to ask our guests to indulge us as we cannot provide every amenity Miss Manners reports is a wedding must-have (that's right, we may not even have wedding favors - the horror!). Once we (and our guests) get over those traditional wedding expectations, the whole thing is pretty liberating. So... what do we know about our wedding so far (guest list aside)? We know where we are having the reception (and the cake is included - woot!). It will be a dry wedding (enough alcoholics in both sides of our families to make that an easy choice). We know where we want the ceremony but can't book it until January so will have to hold our horses until then. We know we want a low-key, inexpensive (read: small), informal rehearsal diner. And, above all, we know we want our favorite band, RCB Marching Band, to march us down the aisle. We also know we want our good friend to be our photographer and make us some purty memories to look at afterwards. Everything after that is just icing.
The Gimp
On the physical side of things, turns out my leg injury was indeed a pretty big bummer. Here I am 12 weeks out and still not normal. Haven't run or jogged yet, but my PT has me "briskly walking" on flat surfaces for 1-2 minutes at a time. Still hoping to lightly jog a 5K by December 12th. I have started in with a massage therapist which rocks and I am so very grateful my health insurance covers most of the visit! I have about 40 minutes of PT exercises to do a day so it keeps me out of trouble. Between that and practicing trumpet I am sore from lips to toe at the end of a productive day.

Job search update: Well, I haven't much to inform you, dear masses, but I have started interviews with one large, local group. I had lost my stethoscope and after much searching, giving up, and searching again I finally found it. A sure sign that using it may be in my not so distant future. I had my first interview this week and was surprisingly pleased with the available position. We shall see... My goal is to work part time, which, in layspeak, means "not all the freaking time", or, in doctor-time means less than 90 hours a week. Ideally. I would like to not have to commute too far as well. Other than that, I am feeling rather flexible because work will be a means to the next update topic...

The four-legged beastie part: A horse? A horse! OMG OMG OMG! Can you just see a 9-year-old Liz galloping around the house in her riding clothes dreaming of having a horse one day? That little girl may not be able to gallop around the house, jumping over ottomans and pretending each sidewalk crack is a cavaletti, but she is still in full-fledged horse-love-euphoria. (And who knows, if it weren't for my bum leg I just might be galloping around. Just a little). For some girls it's a phase. For others, it's the real deal .

For those who only know older-Liz, I had a horse, a ways back. Technically, I had three, just never at the same time. "CC" (show name: Second Nature) was a grouchy off-the-track mare who was a joy to ride in fields and streams but a bit of a bear on the jump course (she liked to stop dead, half way over a fence, no warning). She was the first horse I could call my own, and therefore still holds a very special place in my heart. She wasn't the safest horse for a skinny 4'11" tween as she did really did hate to jump (even though when she did it, she did it gorgeously!). With great sadness she was sold to an educational facility where she'd get to play in fields and go on endurance rides in the woods and not have to jump anything, ever again. My fondest memory was playing with her at a horse-themed summer camp and beating the pants off of every other horse and rider in the relay games. No one was faster or braver than her (as long as it didn't involve any obstacles). I still have yet to know a thrill comparable to riding CC at a full gallop, the wind blowing so fast by my ears I couldn't hear the screams of the camp counselors telling me to slow down! Second there was "Buck" (show name: Up Front) a really handsome show stopper for the National Medal Classes but a big burly boy who did not like to work at all. At the risk of sounding sexist, he was a boys' horse, shunning any attempts to cuddle and preferring to play rough. I started competitively jumping higher than he could clear, so I had to sell him, too. I sold him to a lanky teenage boy who loved every bit of his rough-and-tumble attitude and got a smaller more athletic and more affectionate gelding, Sprout (show name: Mister Natural), who, to this day, is the SuperAwesome Horse to which all other horses are compared. (Photo to right from our championship hey-day - yes that's me. I was 15 I think.) Sprout was pleasant, happy, loving, and loved his job. I could stumble into a show ring, half alert and he would perk up enough for the both of us, winning more blue ribbons than I could count. But it wasn't just the show presence, he was a real friend in the barn. Sometimes I would sit with him (me in a chair, and he, standing) and he would just smoosh his face into my lap and take a nap. I sold him with much sadness in gloomy Michigan February, knowing that owning a horse and paying for a good college education weren't going to jive, but also knowing that one day my college education would allow me the means to another horse like him. God, I still miss that horse something fierce! *sigh

Cut to almost 15 years later and I found a true hooved friend in Shilo. She was an old lady, not quite with the athleticism of the horses of my youth, but I wasn't in tip-top shape myself either. I rode and competed a lot in college and intermittently in grad school, but never much on any single beast. It was usually a different horse nearly every time I went to the barn. So in the time span between Sprout (mid-90's) and Shilo (2008-2010) I got to know oodles of horses at oodles of barns from coast to coast. And, channeling that horse-crazy 9-year-old, I fell in love with nearly every one of them, but Shilo, unlike the horses I briefly got to ride while they were in between owners, got to love me back. I do miss that mare. And I could gush all day, but I'll spare you the torture. It is with great excitement that I launch into the next phase of horsiedom. I believe I have made a full-lease of a great horse work for my budget! I know, I know, it's hard to make a reliable budget without any income. But I have figured out the minimum I'd need to make this work and I am sure I can do it! It's not the same as owning my own horse, but it's the next best thing. I pay for the horse's care as if it were my own with some exceptions that will be the owner's responsibilities (like vet bills) and get to play with him to my heart's delight. He's a big boy (am afraid none of my things from the Sprout-days will fit him) and young. His name is King and he's from Ireland (I've been practicing saying "whoa" with an Irish lilt) and is a more awesome horse than I ever thought I'd get to play with on a regular basis. Here is a picture of him getting some love from a friend of his - he's the huge gray horse with the sweet expression!

So, now I just need to get this job thing in order! It's time for me to get back in both the proverbial and literal saddle, my readers. Until the next update...