Birthday, pony, and future ramblings.
So I turned 26 yesterday (thanks for the well wishes, my dears) and my mom called and basically game me the LOL IT ALL GOES DOWNHERE FROM THERE speech. Thanks, mom. :P
I took the day of fwork (bonus!) and then went to frolic at the therapy barn...because when you don't have your own horse, you borrow other people's for fun, right? Right! Equestrian Connection is out of it's normal session right now, and doing a Spring Break type "camp" instead. I confused everyone by showing up during the week!
It was nice to groom ponies and have Shiloh hugs. Funny thing about that mare-she has a LOT of fans! I don't always realize how many until something gathers us all together. "Oh I see," I said to her sweet Saddlebred face. "You get spoiled a LOT, don't you. You just like to pretend that you don't have treats coming out your ears." And then she turned her head towards me and I hugged her and awwww how can you not love Shiloh? I don't even LIKE mares, generally.
It was a nice-ish day out, so several horses got to go out and...acutally work, aside from therapy rides. A lot of the green horses not yet in the program also got put through their paces. The newest, Baylo, is DEFINITLEY more Araby that our other Morab, Nova. Nicer personality, but a bit more...ah, wired. By 'nicer' I mean "sticks his head over his stall door for attention and not in a sly attempt to lure you close enough to bite".
I also got to ride Eclipse, my newest favorite (aside from Shiloh...of course). Of course by the time I got to him he was all PFFT I HAVE ALREADY WORKED TODAY WOMAN FUCK THIS NOISE. Ever try to get a ginormus Hungarian Warmblood to move when he's planted his feet? Yeeeeah. He's a nice ride-I'm sure, with more time together and with him less tired he'd be QUITE lovely. I'm also now OFFICIALLY cleared to ride by the barn manager. Not the greenies, but the calmer (though naughty in their own ways) horses-which is fine, as I prefer those anyway. I would like to get another go at Eclipse when he's not so tired, and when I'm not being watched by the barn manager, so that I can relax some more and see what I can really get out of him.
In the middle of all the pony time I took off and had lunch with Josh-wee! The official birthday dinner will be this Saturday. Omnomnom snow crab.
I've also been pondering future goals. I'd like to tackle equestrian massage starting next year-I know we can afford the $800 for the certification and stuff if we plan a bit ahead for it, but the idea is...daunting. I mean, I'd be running my own business, even if only on the side for awhile. That's...terrifying! Strangely enough I think my dabbling in WoW blogging will actually help me. Becoming even a semi-successful blog, as I must consider myself to be, takes work, a certain amount of writing talent, and networking. The way I started blogging is the way to start my business. With I Like Bubbles, first I posted several posts so that people coming by would have more than a lame intro to look at. Then, I did a guest blog at a Big Fish blog that would share some of my audience. That netted me some views and a tiny audience. From there I started commenting wherever I read...people followed...and then I got on Twitter...and people found me THERE...and boom, I have a blog with 1,000 page views a day, roughly. Not huge, but I'm a known entitiy! People LIKE me! This is nonsense.
So, I can start the business the same way. I already have the beginings of a plan. First, my website will...not suck, like some of the websites of my "competition". Second, I'm going to start off volunteering my services to the therapy barn. This will mean I have 20 horses of varying ages, temperments, and issues to work with. Practice-and, a good refence! I'll probably have to do just that for awhile, until I'm sure I can do a couple of full sessions in a day and until I have more confidence! Eeek! I can also donate gift certificates for sessions whenever they do funraisers, thus getting my name out a bit and netting some potential clients. The instructors are also a source of potential clients...more refrences!
It's just...well, terrifying, because aside from all that there's all the business stuff I am clueless about. OMG. But damn, I'd enjoy that so much more.