Winter Ennui

Oh. Hey there.

Somehow it's been two weeks since my last post!

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and New Year's and isn't doing too poorly in this recent run of ridiculously cold temperatures. Right now I'm home on a snow day from work after getting up super early and driving ALMOST ALL THE WAY TO THE OFFICE, it's blizzarding outside, and I've got some serious nasal congestion going on.

Winter. It's the worst.

Do not care about your woes give me snax. 

Here on Pony Island, things have not been very exciting. A couple weeks ago we DID venture to a nearby indoor arena to ride, Dino and I had a very enjoyable time actually being able to move faster than a slow shuffle, and we jumped a wee bitty 2' bounce a few times and no one died. YAY!

It was pouring that day...

He was pretty pooped after doing a real workout for the first time in a while!

I tried my best to fill the rest of our days with short rides where I could fit them in, and put to use an absolute GAME-CHANGER piece of equipment: my new Petzl Headlamp that my awesome husband got me for Christmas.

Having a literal headlight on night rides is such an incredible improvement, and it's made evening barn chores and dog walks so, SO much easier. I honestly don't know how I ever lived without this thing!

But of course, right after Christmas the weather got stupid cold, and with temperatures in the teens and "real feel" numbers in the negatives and single digits, I opted out of even a short ride on most days. Without my daily dose of pony'tude, I started feeling pretty down in the dumps. Too cold. Too dark. Too little riding.

We did, however, make it out for a lovely snowy hack last weekend, and I was super excited to discover that my quarter sheet fits very nicely under the fenders of my western saddle. This means that not only can Dino's butt stay warm, but so can my feet since my heavy snow boots fit perfectly in my western stirrups!

The last pictures I took of Dino's healing wound are also from about a week or so ago, and most of the scab has fallen off since then to reveal new, healthy skin:

Since I've been stuck inside battling my yearly case of SAD, there's been a lot of work done on the house in the past week or so, too. My living room is just about painted, we bought a new TV and got the mounts installed on the wall, and built the framing structure for the "media box" that will house all of my husband's electronic stuff in a hidden and classy way. This weekend we'll be couch shopping and one step closer to having a finished, functional living room. THANK GOODNESS.

I'll also need to find a place to hang my other favorite present, this phenomenal shadow box that my husband built for me:

I'm not crying, you're crying

The empty space on the top left corner is reserved for one of Dino's shoes. Be still my heart.

Here's hoping that next week will be a better one for riding!