Like I said in my last post, it’s been so long since I’ve been blogging that I almost feel the need to introduce myself to everyone again, haha. So, while many of you know who I am and where I’ve been in my blogging hiatus, here’s a maybe brief (maybe not so much?) update/introduction......
(One of my 2016 graduation photos... with the boys, of course :) )
The last time most of you really heard a lot from me was back in 2016. I was just finishing up my Bachelors and getting ready to graduate from university. Bob and I had recently accomplished the unthinkable - competing in Fourth Level dressage at a rated competition, including earning a few blue ribbons. Fizz was bouncing back from an extended break from riding due to different medical issues. I was feeling great about where I was with my riding.. but I also knew real life was just around the corner.
As it turned out, “real life” meant landing my dream job (internship) directly out of college and, because I never do anything halfway, that dream job was located 4000 miles away, on the other side of the country, far from anything and everyone I knew and loved... including my horses.
I enjoyed my last few months at school and continued my riding and training as usual, knowing that when July rolled around, it would be time to send my horses home to my parents’ house to live on pasture while I chased my dreams in Washington, D.C. Since the internship was only for six months, taking them with my was definitely not an option. The plan was to go do my internship, and re-evaluate wherever my next gig landed me.
(Trail riding in Rock Creek Park, D.C.)
I had an absolutely incredible experience in D.C. I was very homesick at first and of course I missed my horses (and you know... my family...) constantly, but it wasn’t long before I realized just how lucky I was to be in this new place, meeting new people who could show me so much about the career path I was interested in. I made lifelong friends and amazing memories that I will never forget.
I also got to keep riding!! Just a little. Rock Creek Park Horse Center in D.C. proved to be my home away from home during my internship. I volunteered doing barn chores and during weekend trail ride tours through the park, eventually being able to ride back up on trails. I also met a woman with three Arabian horses who was looking for someone to help ride and exercise them. I was able to take weekly dressage lessons during the last few months of my internship on the beautiful purebred mare Piper, pictured above out on the trail. It was a really great opportunity and I felt so blessed to have something familiar in my life after packing up and moving somewhere so new and foreign. It brought me a lot of peace on the tough days.
My D.C. internship ended December 2016 and I was very fortunate to get a job directly after that was also a “dream job” of sorts for me, and is the job I have held ever since. I accepted a position working in public relations with a natural resource management agency in north-central Idaho.
(Fizz grazing at my friend’s house shortly after I moved the boys to Idaho.)
Moving to Idaho was almost as much as an adventure as moving to D.C. had been, but in almost opposite ways. In D.C., the city was terrifying to me at first, but I felt entirely in my element in my job as a wildlife policy intern. In Idaho, I felt very at home in the mountains under a wide open western sky - however, my job in public relations was a bit foreign to me, and I struggled for a while to decide if I fit in or if I was good at it.
Now in my third year at the job, I can confidently say I love my work and I LOVE the people I work with. I also love the place I live and the extraordinarily beautiful part of the world I now call home.
...so much so, that I decided to stick around a while.
Once I realized I was going to stay in Idaho, I realized I wanted to be with my horses again. However, that was going to prove challenging as the rental I was living in was a 700 square foot trailer in a mobile home park, and the nearest boarding barn was at least two hours away. Fortunately, not long after I started my job, I was introduced to a colleague who owned horse property, but no horses. He offered to let me board my horses at his house just minutes from where I lived, and of course, I excitedly accepted.
(Riding Fizz while I was boarding at my friend’s house.)
I brought my horses to Idaho about eight months ago and it was incredible having them in my life on a daily basis again. I was also so fortunate to have friends willing to house my horses for me while I didn’t have property of my own. However, despite those blessings I quickly found myself considering something I hadn’t expected..... I started thinking about getting a place of my own, of buying my first house.
I did not expect that to be something I wanted or could accomplish at this stage in my life, but the more I thought about it the more the pros outweighed the cons. A big factor was wanting some property of my own to keep the horses, where I could enjoy them without the hassles and expense of self-care board at someone else’s place. I had been told nothing compares to being able to look out your window in your own house and see your own horses grazing in your own pasture.... and man, having now lived in my new house for a few months, I can DEFINITELY say that that is true.
(Bob and Fizz in the pasture at my new house... it’s a bit of a “winter wonderland” currently.....)
And that, my friends, brings us to the present - February of 2019. I am living, working, and loving the little life I have made in Idaho, with my amazing boyfriend, a new house, a new kitty!, and of course, Bob and Fizz. The horses are enjoying life on the biggest pasture they’ve ever had and the only place either has ever lived that literally does not even have stalls. They are slowly learning how to be less like dressage divas and more like rough and tumble Idahoans :) And I am slowly but steadily getting used to life as a true-blue adult amateur... whatever that means.
My next post will talk about where I hope to go, now that I’ve settled into my life here in Idaho - what my goals and hopes are for myself and my riding career, and what y’all can expect from this blog moving forward. For now, thanks for coming along on my summary of the past three years :) !
(Fizz admiring his new home on the day I moved the boys to my new house!)