It’s been a bit quiet on the home front lately, but a few things have really been winning for me this week…

Duolingo

I decided that if we’re going to Germany, I should probably learn some German. Like… aside from the little bit of German that I already know, because I’m pretty sure that sattel and springpferd are not particularly useful when it comes to conversation, travel, or food. I researched all the free language learning tools before deciding on Duolingo and I was immediately hooked. If nothing else at least I now know a lot of food items (esp the important ones like kartoffel, käse, brot, and schokolade), how to greet people or answer basic questions, how to say “that horse is cute!”, ask for directions, and say please/thank you/sorry. We’ll see how much more I can learn in the next few months but so far it’s really fun!

RICE

No not rice, but RICE – rest, ice, compression, elevation. Because remember on Monday when I said I thought I’d done some soft tissue damage on my ankle? Yeah well I have a little tear in a tendon by my ankle. Doesn’t hurt that much anymore unless I try to lift my toes off the ground, or if I do a long ride, mostly thanks to RICE and NSAIDs. Lesson learned: do not be so eager to get to pie. Or just don’t put stairs in my path when I’m trying to get to pie. Let’s go with the second one, it’s more realistic.

Fat Buckskin

New blogger (long time friend) Michele of Fat Buckskin in a Little Suit found out that she’ll be in Austin for a work thing in a couple weeks and she’s made plans to come visit while she’s here! She’s short on time but I’m going to try to drag her out to see Presto (don’t think there will be much dragging involved really) and I have a secret plan to toss her up on Henry. It’ll work, I’m pretty sure. Plus it’ll give her good blog fodder, ranting about how crazy I am for a while.

RPSI

Some of you might have heard that RPSI and Westfalen are combining their registries, which is really really interesting and has been the buzz of the breeding world this week. But that news aside, I finally got a certified copy of Sadie’s upgraded papers with all the dam side information filled in from RPSI. I paid for a new copy of her passport too, but that will probably take a while to get here. Either way, many thanks to RPSI (and the Jockey Club) for being so easy to work with on this and helping me get it done with minimal headache and expense. It’s very exciting to finally see Sadie’s entire pedigree verified in their official database. And it means she and Presto are good to go for the sBs inspection in September!

Riding Warehouse Sale

Yay, Memorial Day sale! Time to stock up on fly spray and salt blocks from my faves at Riding Warehouse. Plus RW is carrying Kask helmets now (lord help me), my most favorite Ovation Aqua-X breeches are available in new colors, the ECP all-in-one XC pad that I posted about a couple weeks ago is only $43, and they have those very-budget-friendly-yet-still-cute $12 fly bonnets that will hopefully save lots of horses from bad DIY attempts. Don’t forget the sale section gets an additional 20% off when you add it to your cart, too… I saw some good stuff in there: RJ Classics breeches for only $87, Kastel polo shirts for $15, Majyk Equipe dressage boots for $51, fly masks for $8, Roeckl summer gloves for $27, etc. It’s worth a look!

I’m also pretty excited about this 3 1/2 day long weekend. Definitely planning on going to see Presto (you have a few days to brace yourselves for picture overload) and fitting lots of rides in on Henry! In the blazing heat. It was 92 yesterday and is supposed to be 95 today. Welcome to summer in Texas.