Internship, 30 Day Shred, yoga and ponies

Well yesterday after class I came back to the house and decided to do some yoga.  I had given myself Power Yoga as a Christmas present which is an 65 minute DVD of intense yoga led by some guy who is an ex ballet dancer.  Let me just say that this is not yoga for beginners.  But y'all know me - go big or go home!  I'd rather just do it and do it and do it til I get it right than do beginner yoga then get a little harder each time.  Maybe its not the smartest thing in the world, but it certainly keeps things interesting!  Anyway I finished about half of the DVD and called it quits.  It moved forward into some movements I had never done before so I decided to just quit while I was ahead.

Things are moving forward on the horse I was tell y'all about before, but still nothing has been signed so no details.  Hopefully within a week I will have a horse of my very own though!

Today was my first day at my practicum (basically an internship til the end of January), and I can already tell that I'm going to struggle for the next month.  The organization that I'm working with definitely does great work, but I'm not sure I will survive cubicle life for 9 hours a day Monday-Friday.  Just gotta put my head down and get through it though I suppose.  Today I made about 75 phone calls to families to survey them about one of the reading programs offered, and of those calls I completed 6 surveys.  Tomorrow I'm going to tackle the spanish speaking clients... Should be interesting!  Hopefully I will be able to go out on home visits though and really get to know the program, and hopefully they don't keep me cooped up too long - I may go crazy!  

On a brighter note I have been playing with the yellow pony each day, and have begun lunging her because she is SO out of shape.  Right now I trot and canter her in each direction for a total of 15 minutes and the poor girl is panting and sweating.  Time to burn some calories dear!  By middle of next week I think I will reintroduce side reins, and maybe each weekend I will get on her for a few minutes for Saturday/Sunday.  This way when February rolls around (and I have some free time when it isn't dark outside) we will be ready to start working.

I also picked up another spring project which I'm looking forward to, which is getting David's western pleasure mare Emma back into shape.  I'm really excited about it because I don't have much experience riding western, especially western pleasure where the horses barely go forward!  It should definitely be fun though, I will ride her with a more dressage frame of mind, engaging the hind end and using that energy to loosen her shoulders and stretch forward in her movement.  She has to be able to go forward before she can collect.  Maybe David will get back to competing this year!  

Tonight after hanging out at the barn for a while Christine and I went out to dinner.  We both decided it was too cold to work our horses, so instead we hung out with Grayson and then treated ourselves to Vesuvios, a wonderful italian restaurant.  I had a grilled chicken salad, and only a bit of the appetizer.  I'm still working on cutting the calories, but hopefully by introducing some good exercise I will get going on my goals.  

After Vesuvios Christine came over for a while and we did a few workouts.  Its nice that my room is big enough for the two of us to work out comfortably, and I'm glad she wants to join me!  She is already in much better shape than me (and naturally thin) so its good incentive for me to catch up.  We both have the same goals of wanting to become better riders.  We managed to finish the whole Power Yoga DVD and then the P90X Ab Ripper DVD.  We started the 30 Day Shred one too but both decided we were a bit tired (I had already done that one once today anyway).  Eventually I will start going to the gym with her and running, but for now I just need to start the process.  I'll probably be sore all month but it will be worth it.  

At one point Christine and I even started talking about summer and NJ and life in general and we started playing with the idea of taking our horses north for two weeks to work with some of the trainers in NJ and develop more contacts.  I have a few ideas in mind of where we would go and where we would keep the horses.   I guess I have to get to work!  She also wants to go to a few jumper shows and dressage shows this spring, and I'm looking to try my hand at my first Beginner Novice event, so hopefully we will be able to have some fun!  I decided if my horse has any eventing potential Christine will have to be the one to take it up the levels, I want the horse to have a good resume!