I have slowed down...some

I have slowed down. I seem to want to take my time. I feel more relaxed.

I don’t rush as much when I drive. That is when I first noticed it. I drive at the speed limit. I started not pushing the limit by going 5 over. As I watch cars fly by me, I wonder why they are in such a hurry. I wondered why I was always in such a hurry.

I just feel like I want to take my time. I’m tired of doing so much at one time. I’m tired of rushing. I’m tired of trying to do 1 more thing before I leave. I’m tired of being late. And I’m really tired of what is happening recently - waking up at night, feeling very, very warm!

I was so dead tired 2 nights ago that I finally slept through the night! I don’t know if my body warmed up or not, because I was too tired to wake up to find out! I felt like a new mother with a young child who didn’t wake her up for the first time!

I think that, since I haven’t slept well lately, this is the start of me not rushing - because I’m tired! I sit and relax more. I want to sit and relax! I want to take the time to sit and relax! I enjoy sitting down and relaxing! What a treat to take a cup of coffee to the lunge chair and just sit there, sipping. Listening to the birds. Watching the horses. Not thinking about anything!

We all need to re-energize ourselves. When the kids were home, and we were showing, my down times have always been mid-late August, after coming back from AQHYA World in Ft Worth, Texas. The other time has been January, after the busy holidays and before we really started back to riding. When the kids were really showing and preparing for qualifying classes for Youth World, we would ride all year long. All those cold, dark afternoons in January and February. The barn was ½ full in those days, so I kept busy with stalls, and riding, and training. I didn’t seem to notice the short daylight days. Then! I sure notice them now. And I really don’t want to be in the barn with chores when it is 0 degrees out! Brrr. You can’t ride then anyways, so why have chores? The horses are outside during these months.

Now, I’m re-energizing myself by taking time for me. Especially when the days and weeks are busy. I find a time to sit and enjoy that cup or coffee or glass of wine. It may only be for 10 minutes when I get home from the store and have that cup of coffee, or ice tea, before going to do chores. But I’ve sat down and just regrouped. Or it could be after the shower and have that glass of wine while watching a mindless show. I really do enjoy sitting and doing nothing!

But I enjoy the horses and the training and competitiveness of CTR’s. Now I just make sure I have the time for myself to enjoy doing what I want to do. I got to the point where I didn’t want to ride for pleasure and I didn’t like that. I want to enjoy my horses. I just needed the time to re-energize.

It has been a year now since I started the re-energizing process. Looking back over the last year, I see that now. I still give lessons, but not as many. I stopped being a 4-H instructor after 15 years, plus. That was a hard decision, and one that I had been thinking about and talking about for more than a year. Finally, the time seemed right. I’m doing more riding for the sport that I am enjoying. I have taken my rides back to the fields, but only in the spring before planting and in the fall after harvest.

I have slowed down…some! I’m enjoying smelling the roses! Literally. I planted some and they are starting to bloom. I hear how quiet it is when I am quiet! I’m taking time to lay on the lounge chair! I love that!

Maybe this process made sense to me, and I realize that it is happening, since I started the Centered Riding Instructor’s Course in May and June. I seem like this summer has been a more relaxed summer for me. And more on the CR course, as I am in Colorado this week, completing the 2nd half of the Level 1 certification.

I have re-energized and I am ready to go! TAKE SOME TIME FOR YOURSELF. Get revived and come along on the ride with me! I’m looking forward to riding when I get home!

Finding Free Time

Everyone needs a vacation time. We get so wrapped up in the everyday rush of getting everything done. Kids off to school, parents off to work, meals, wash, after school activities, sports, nightly meetings. When is there time to slow down and relax? Do we even take the time to relax in the evenings or are we always doing something until we drop into bed at night?
Is your mind always busy, thinking of things that we need to get done? If I keep everything inside me, then I’m always trying to remember what is on my list. I end up forgetting what I wanted to do until the end of the day and it’s then too late to get it done that day. Or I end up laying awake longer when I go to bed, with all the days events and the next days events swirling around in my head. Have you ever been so dead tired, thinking that you would fall instantly to sleep, and lay there wide awake, thinking about what needs to get done?

I like to write things down, otherwise my mind is on overload. I like lists, and I like to cross off what gets done. It makes me feel that I have accomplished something! I have started slowing down in the evenings. I have realized that I need time for myself, or maybe it’s my age telling me I can’t keep going 24/7 all the time. I’ve went all out when the kids were home, keeping up with their activities, riding at night, giving lessons and in the barn until 9 some nights. Spring time was a busy time of the year, and for a few years, I enjoyed it. I thrived on the spring horse training season. But mixed with lessons, activities and late nights, I was dragged down by June. By then, summer lessons and horse shows were in full swing, and some nights were even later.
For awhile, our vacations centered around horse activities. State 4-H for 5 days during the middle of July was usually the hottest week of the year. The first week of August to Texas for Youth Worlds. The first few years, this seemed like a vacation, doing some sight seeing on the off days that we didn’t show. We definitely enjoyed the pool time on the afternoons that we could go back to the hotel. We enjoyed the years we went to Texas. We went as a family and we showed as a family. Even as the kids left their youth years and were in college, they still came to Texas to watch their younger brother/s show. But this was a working vacation. It had been quite a few years since we had gone to the Jersey shore with Tom’s family or had gone hiking to the Colorado or Montana mountains.

Now, the two of the kids are married and the third is in college. Now, it’s time to enjoy life and slow down. No evening activities to rush to. The schedule is work related, with a few meetings tossed in. With the kids gone, there is more work around the place that needs to get done. Sometimes, well, all the time, this past year, I felt like all my husband and I did was to maintain around our place. How do we get all the work done, yet take time to relax? We haven’t accomplished that too well, as I can’t remember many times that we sat outside with a glass of ice tea or a cup of coffee. During the summer, the humidity or bugs bother you too much to do that. Then there may be 1 week each spring and fall that is pleasant enough where you could actually sit outside and enjoy that coffee. July and August are very hot, and we actually have some down times during those months. We enjoy our pool, at least a few hours Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Work is so busy that, by the time we get home, finish chores, we don’t have the desire to lounge in the pool, even for a short time before showers. Maybe see a sunrise like we saw on vacation!

What works for us is to plan a week and go away. We can’t take a week off and stay at home and get things done. It doesn’t work well for us as someone is always calling. Or my husband goes to work anyways, saying he is going in for the morning, and ends up staying until 3. As far as I am concerned, that was a whole day at work and no time at home!

We are on vacation now. On a much needed week’s time in the sun at the beach.
Everyone needs to be revived each year. You need to take time for yourself. If a week away in not possible, then take that week and do something for yourself. Sleep in every day, sight see locally, start a hobby. What ever your sport of hobby is, do it every day one week. Enjoy and relax. Get rested. Get ready to start the next week with a renewed vigor!

Whatever you do, make it seem like you have been on a vacation!

Where do you start? Help those who want your help!

I have had some friends start writing their blog. I have started reading Pioneer Woman and mugwump recently. Maybe that is what started me on this soul searching. Their writings gave me the desire to start writing, and to put my thoughts and feelings down on paper. Pioneer Woman makes me want to be a nicer person. I love her love of life and for her husband and family. Her picture stories are fabulous! I love her humor, and her recipes, even though it has been ages since I have had the time to cook. But putting some meat in a crock pot to cook is cooking, right? Oh, the writings of mugwump have me laughing. I have had so many of the same thoughts as mugwump. She understands her horse so well! I love reading how she deals with her mare, lol! Yes, the best way is to start by what you know, to do a clinic, and who comes, comes! Maybe it isn't the number of people that you help, but just helping those that want the help. Maybe that will be my next blog! And it has!

I’m at a different place in my life, being an empty nester, getting older, with a husband who is terribly busy at work, and I’m not wanting to, or willing to, work in 0 degree and 100 degree weather full time. I’ll soon be a grandmother to 2 babies! (Not twins, but 2 of our children are each expecting their first baby this December). Where do I want to be in life? Should I continue with the tack store, should I continue with giving riding lessons, or should I build my training business back up? All at once, it seems like there are many middle age woman who are having, or making, the time for horses, who want to start riding lessons, and/or are wanting training put on their horse. I could help them. Would they want my help?

Burn out came a few years ago! I know now that was what it was. I was getting discouraged. I wasn’t excited about what I was doing. I didn’t even want to do what I was doing. And the worst was that I didn’t even want to ride. Riding was work and I was tired of working all the time. Working from 7 in the morning to 9 at night. Morning chores, hay, grain and water 8-10 horses and cleaning stalls. Feeding outside horses. Grooming 8-10 horses then cleaning those 8-10 stalls again. Filling waters again, saddling and training on 8-10 horses, and cleaning those 8-10 stalls again. Evening chores. Feeding outside horses again, feeding training horses again, cleaning those 8-10 stalls again. Then maybe 3-4 lessons. And finally, cleaning those 8-10 stalls again before going in to the house for what is left of the evening. Can you tell that I never like to have a dirty stall? Weekends had horse shows, helping my own kids show and coaching other kids. Every now and then, we were home to go to church Sunday mornings. It seems like those 3 or 4 months in the spring when I was the busiest felt like it would never get to be summer. Summer time brought less training horses, but then I started and rode my young horses when it was 90 degrees out! How tiring is that? And still coached youth at evening lessons and at shows, when it was 100 degree days! I wanted to quit. One morning, I woke up, dreading going to the show to coach that day. I didn’t want to go to the show. I didn‘t want to help people anymore.
Then recently I had a group of little kids. They brought me flowers, and cookies, and smiles, and hugs. Lessons went by fast. Kids loved their riding time! And I loved helping them. When I was selling my son’s youth horses, these little kids looked up at me, and, with big open eyes, they asked who they would ride when Misty and Chick were sold? They didn’t realize that there would be less lessons if I sold these horses. They just assumed that there would be another horse. I realized that I couldn’t stop helping them. How could I not help someone who had a love for horses so great that they wanted to come for lessons, no matter what the weather was like or what horse they rode? As long as there were horses, even to brush, they would come! They wanted my help and I wanted to help them. They were good for my soul. They made me realize why I started doing what I did, lessons, training, helping others learn how to ride and about horses!

Now, a few years later, I’m at another turning point. I want some free time. I don’t want to be on everyone else’s schedule any more. I started trail riding more. I started doing some Competitive Trail rides. After 15 years, I just told my 4-H group that I am done coaching 4-H! I had made that decision a few years ago, but it didn’t feel right then. I couldn’t leave a few great kids hanging. Today, it feels right, and I am content with that decision. My families that mean so much to me are so supportive and they have helped to make that decision easier. I will still do spring and summer lessons.

I wasn’t doing enough with my own horses. They weren’t being ridden. In today’s market, they were worth pennies on the dollar! So I did less with them, they stood in the horse lot, eating hay. I started downsizing a few years ago. Selling a few at an auction, selling a few privately for, what I thought then was ½ their value. Now, 3 or 4 years later, I wished I had sold more at that previous auction. Now these horses, broke but who need an experienced rider, are only bring about 30% of what they did a few years ago. I took what money I got because I’m feeding less horses, therefore my winter hay bill is down. I know that next spring I wouldn’t get any more money for my horses if they had another season of rides on them. The market is down! Who knows if it will ever go up since they took away the kill plants. But that is another issue. I need to ride the horses that I have, make them better horses for all levels of riders, and then they will sell at a fair price. I need to have the time for me, my goals, and for my own horses.
Getting back to why this blog originated…it’s not the number of people that you help, but help those who want your help. Someone once told me that you can only help the people who want your help. I started out wanting to help everyone. Some people just don’t appreciate what is handed to them, imagine that! When the kids do, their parents don’t. When the parents do, the kids don’t. Not everyone, just a few, but what do they say about a bad apple in a bushel of apples? I learned over the years to keep my mouth shut, and, for those who know me, imagine that! Ha!

Now, I see the wisdom in only helping the people who come to me. I will keep the people away who pull me down. If I concentrate on a few, the few will excel and will learn as much as I am capable of teaching them. Don’t we all want that? To teach someone something so well that they go on and achieve more than they thought they could? Others will see their achievements and ask about what was different. My actions will speak for themselves, and through the actions of others. But…you can’t make them want “it” as much as you want “it”. You can’t make them strive to learn more, to get “it”, if they don‘t want to. It has to come from within them. I had to learn to only give them as much as they wanted or could comprehend. I had to learn not to give them all that I could if that is not what they wanted. A hard lesson for me to swallow, and to learn how to do. I now have fun watching people have fun while they learn. I have more energy, I enjoy these lesson times, and I have a rewarding feeling.

But it is also about limiting the number of people that you help so you have time for what matters most to you. It's amazing when you see clinicians doing something that you do, and making money, you wonder why you don't do the same things? But, by doing more, you develop a bigger business, then you start doing even more work, ride more horses, do more lessons, and be even busier. Well, maybe I’ll stay at this point in my life because I can’t imagine being busier! Something would have to give, and it would probably be my wits! Why on earth would someone want to be any busier? I have no time to breathe right now. I want to find something that gives me some time to do the things that I want to do, find some time to relax at the end of each day and drink a cup of coffee or glass of ice tea, plant some flowers and a vegetable garden, and maybe cook a meal or 2 a week. I want to wake up some morning and wonder what I will do to keep me busy that day. That is not even an option today! I don’t even have time to clean my toilets! I could make the time, but I can’t be doing something every minute of the day. I need some down time in the evenings. I manage to keep the house picked up. Clutter is in organized piles, and the office door stays shut. Meals are cooked in the crock pot. Sometimes, the dishes are washed in the dishwasher, then remain there until they are used, or I get tired of the dirty dishes in the sink so I empty the half-emptied dishwasher. Clothes are washed, then hung to dry so there is no ironing. I try to keep the mail caught up. And my toilets get cleaned when I have company.

Now I have more time for more rides on my young horses. More trail rides. More CTR rides. I’m exciting to see what next year brings. I’ll have 2 grandbabies to cuddle. I have 2 young horses to make better. I have 3 coming yearlings to teach ground manners and learn how to round pen. I have Finny to continue working on maneuvers and logs together. And I have a husband to share my love of horses with. I need to plan a trail ride with him!

Time to reflect, restructure life, regroup, relax, and enjoy these horses! Come along on my next ride with me. Brenda