Happy Tears

I'm going to share a little story with you all because it's about something that I hold very dear to my heart. I debated about whether I wanted to write about this on my blog, but I love a feel good story, so I thought I would share.

Last summer, I had to retire my horse, Bam Bam. It was a very emotional thing for me and I really had a difficult time letting go. It's hard to explain the relationship I had with him. Maybe it was the fact that I raised him or maybe it was because he's the most unique animal I have ever met. Maybe it was believing in him so hard that I couldn't let myself give up on him despite all of the signs that he couldn't do his job anymore.

Eventually, though, it became very clear that Bam Bam was no longer able to compete. He was miserable and I was miserable and I had to let go of him in order to give him the life he deserved. Letting him go was one of the hardest decisions I've ever made. As cheesy as it sounds, I had promised him when he was young and recovering from one of the many surgeries that would ultimately lead to his retirement, that I would always take care of him.

I couldn't just sell him because then I might never know how or where he was. What if something terrible happened to him? He not an easy horse to ride or deal with and I couldn't bear thinking that someday he might end up on a slaughter truck. (I'm not over reacting on this. Non horse people would be shocked if they knew how many show or race horses end up going to slaughter if they are no longer useful.)

An opportunity came up for Bam Bam to go to a ranch to help kids suffering from emotional trauma. The kids work with the horses and the horses teach them about love and understanding.

I follow the ranch's Facebook page and would always be on the look out for pictures of Bam. They post all sorts of pictures of the kids playing with the horses and Bam was never in any of them. As months went by, I had convinced myself that maybe he wasn't useful to them or that he wasn't good with the kids.

I never doubted that he was well cared for, they're very good people. I also have a contract with them that if he doesn't work out, I get to take him back. But as months went by and I never saw pictures of him, I worried more and more that maybe he didn't fit into their program.

Finally, finally, last week I saw a picture of Bam in my Facebook news feed and immediately burst into tears. At work, of course. (Not that I'm on FB at work if my boss is reading this.)

Bam is a total attention whore, so this job is perfect for him.

I could have saved myself months of worrying and heartache if I had just had the guts to contact the woman that runs the ranch. I was so worried that they weren't happy with him, that I couldn't bring myself to ask if they liked him. I sent them a message on FB after they posted his picture and this was the response that I got:

I seriously can't read this without crying and I've read it like a hundred times. My special little horse is helping kids and apparently he's a rock star at it. I knew he'd be great if they gave him a chance, but he can be a little weird at times and needs understanding himself.

I'm so happy that he's made a difference in this little girl's life. He's a special guy and I can't express how relieved I am that he's appreciated and loved for who he is.

Visitation Rights and The Friends We Have

As you all know, (and by "you all", I mean the 3 people that read my blog *wave*) I made the difficult decision to retire my show horse, Bam Bam Rubble. It's been a rough few weeks getting used to Bam not being at the barn.

I went to visit him today and he looks damn happy! I'm so lucky that his new owners said I could come see him any time. I get visitation rights!

It's really helped me be able to let go just knowing that he's somewhere nearby and I can see him. I found him a home where he would be happy and if they ever do have to get rid of him, I get first right of refusal.

My usual Sunday Breakfast Club (another group for whom I am truly thankful - more on my thankfulness in a minute...) decided we should take a little road trip after breakfast to go see him.

Sunday Breakfast Club - not pictured is me
cuz I'm the photographer

He's finally out with the rest of the herd and looks really happy. In fact, he looks so happy that he barely gave us the time of day. Sheesh, Bam Bam, nice to see you, too!

He's already found a new BFF. His name his Parker and apparently, BBR is attached to him like glue. It's pretty cute. And he looks really happy having an entire herd of horses to play with.

Parker with BBR

Could they be any cuter?

It was bitter sweet going to see him today. I'm thrilled that he seems very relaxed and happy but a little sad that he didn't really seem to care that we came to visit. I suppose that's a little like what moms feel when they send their kids off to college and they would rather hang out with their friends than see their parents.

I miss him, but I know I found the right place for him.

In other news, I need to take a minute to really appreciate some of the people in my life. I'm currently trying to scrounge up enough money to buy my possible new show horse. I don't want to jinx anything, so I don't want to blog about him until it's a done deal, but I was telling my friend, JS (I'm not sure how people feel about being named in a blog so I will go with initials), about him and just mentioned that my source of funds was a little rocky and that I wasn't going to get excited about anything until everything was a done deal. She flat out, without any hesitation, offered to loan me the money.

Now, that certainly wasn't my intent when I told her, I just get really leery of counting chickens before they hatch, so I mentioned that until the funds were raised and I had a set of clean x-rays from a pre-purchase exam, I won't let myself get too excited (much to the dismay of my trainer who is jumping out of her skin with excitement at the idea of me owning this horse.)

And I would be really remiss if I didn't mention my friend, DP, who has listened to me whine and cry about various things in my life for the last few months - including some serious heartbreak.

She's also been a huge supporter of my running. Not only fiscally, but I couldn't ask for a better cheer leader. She's donated a huge sum of money to my fund raising for Chances For Children and she loves being signed up for runner tracking. I know if I ever needed anything, she would be there- no questions asked. I really don't think she has any idea how wonderful she is and how much I've gained just by having her in my life (even if she does live on the other side of the country!)

Yeah, yeah, I know I'm slow and shouldn't have felt
 like I was dying, but baby steps, right?

In my defense, I had barely run for the
 3 weeks prior to this race...

I'm really lucky to have such amazing friends. Sometimes, things seem so hard. We get hurt or get our hearts broken and other bad things and we forget to be thankful for the great things that we do have. A lot of sad things have happened in the last year and a half and I'm so grateful to have people in my life that love and support me.

I think I should blog about that stuff more. I'm luckier than most when it comes to friends and family, and I should recognize them more. Maybe I should make that a regular blogging topic...

Happy Sunday. :)

Until Later, It's Not Good Bye

Two weeks ago, I made a very difficult decision to retire my show horse, Bam Bam Rubble.

I never thought I would be in this position. I always thought he would be mine forever. When I brought him home ten years ago, I had so many dreams for him. Those dreams changed and evolved, but I never stopped believing that we could overcome any obstacle in our way.

In a lot of ways, that was true. Bam Bam played with the big boys, and while he wasn't always a rockstar, a lot of times he beat the horses that were bigger, fancier and more suitable for the sport than he was. And he tried harder than any horse I've ever had.

Last night, we took Bam to his new home about a half an hour away. He settled right in like he was meant to be there. I couldn't bear the thought of selling him because the idea of never seeing him again was unbearable. Not to mention, he's a nice horse and I didn't want someone down the road to think they could make him a show horse.

Bam Bam in his new home

I've cried more tears in the last two weeks than I can remember crying in the last several years. It feels like I'm going through a break up. I've never dealt well with good byes because once someone is in my heart, I can't seem to let go. Luckily, I will be able to see him whenever I want and they even told me that I could ride him if I wanted to. While it breaks my heart to let him go, it's not good bye. If there ever comes a time when they a forced to rehome him, I have first right of refusal and I can take him home.

This horse is a special guy and I wanted so much to prove to the world that he had a big enough heart to overcome any of his shortcomings. I wanted him to shine and I don't doubt that if he didn't have some physical issues, he would have gone farther than anyone would have imagined. He may not have been able to win, but I bet he could have done the job. Deep down I really believed in him.

But part of being a good  horseman is recognizing when a horse is no longer capable of performing. I didn't call it quits because either of us wanted to. I made the decision because he's been trying to let me know for awhile now that he can no longer physically handle the stress of this level of work. It's not because he doesn't have the heart to try.

When I got home last night, Amanda, the founder of the ranch, had sent me two pictures.

BBR after a bath with the girls

Getting a kiss

That's when I knew that I had found the right place for him. His new job is getting love and in return, he'll help kids heal from whatever emotional trauma they have. I can't think of a more perfect horse for the job nor a more perfect life for such a social little horse.

I've never loved a horse more than I love Bam Bam Rubble, nor has any horse made me laugh like he does.

I hope the kids at the ranch love you as much as I do, BBR. I will miss you terribly.

Thanks for the ride, Bam Bam. You've always been a special guy.

But it's not good bye, I will see you soon.

Because I'm A Honey Badger...

...and honey badgers don't give a shit.

And honey badgers don't care about eating GU for dinner.

That's right. I ate vanilla GU for dinner.

Well, I did have a late lunch at Blu Burger. My dad and I went to see Bam Bam's new home. (More on that later, I don't want to jinx my and Bam's good fortune by talking about it until everything is a done deal. But let's just say that despite the gallons of tears that I have cried in the last two weeks, an opportunity for him came about that would be the best situation for both of us.)

After spending quite awhile touring the ranch, I was starving. On our way back into town, we stopped at Blu Burger and I snarfed a giant hamburger.

Not this burger, because this one is chock full of gluten,
but you get the idea.

Anyway, we ate lunch around 3, and I figured I would be set for dinner. I was out of town last weekend and I haven't had time to catch up, so I have no food in my house. So I ate some GU.

Yes, I know that's weird. But you runners know how delicious vanilla GU is, right? It tastes like frosting!

Anyway, in the last couple of weeks, I have cried more tears than I have cried in years over having to retire Bam Bam. I've been a complete wreck. I haven't done any running and I have the Disneyland Half Marathon next weekend. I'm hoping that my consistent training for the last several months (which is a huge improvement over my usual routine) will help carry me and I will still be able to pull off a decent time. Well, a decent time for me considering how slow I happen to be.

I really wanted to PR at this race, and you never know, maybe the rest will do my body good and my legs will fell rested, but I have my doubts.

I'm still riding BBR, but mostly at a walk so that he relaxes and gets his brain out of horse show mode.

Hopefully, I will be back on track soon. I'm sure the next couple of days will require some wine consumption. Cross your fingers for Bam... I think he's going to love his new life. It's me that needs help coping...

Barn mascot

The Agony of Making Tough Decisions

It's been awhile since I blogged. Life has been...busy.

You're probably asking yourself why I'm blogging in the middle of the day instead of working. Well, I'm taking a much needed vacation/relaxation day. I'm also catching up on Rizzoli and Isles. I have priorities.

Love this show...

Things have been very emotional for me for the last week. I've made the very difficult decision to retire my show horse, Bam Bam Rubble.

My first horse show with Bam in 2008

I have a habit of hanging on to the people I love way longer than is healthy, even when the relationship has gone downhill. When I love someone, I can't let go of them. The same goes for horses.

The difficult thing is that horses are not pets. If non-horsey people knew how much money I spend on just housing and feeding Bam, they would fall over in shock. Let's just say I could drive a really, really nice car. Really nice. Bam Bam is the reason I never have any money.

He's even gotten to be a model for a tack store.

Bam is a little worker bee and loves having a job. Unfortunately, as we're going up the levels in dressage, it's getting way too hard for him. And he's been letting me know in not so subtle ways.

It's gotten to the point where, as much as I love him, I have begun to dread riding him. He's struggling and I'm struggling and I can't keep asking him to do a job he no longer enjoys.

My favorite picture of us.

Last Monday, a few days before we were supposed to leave for a horses show, I made the difficult decision to retire him. I literally cried for 3 days. I knew I was making the right decision when not a single person that knows him said I should keep trying. At least 15 different people have told me that it was time to move on.

BBR in his own private jungle.

I truly never meant to get so attached to this horse. Show horses are not pets like dogs and cats, but I fell in love with him anyway. I still remember the first moment I saw him when he was a baby and I said, "if that horse moves well, I'm going to buy him." That was in 2001.

I've had him for over 10 years and until now, never gave up hope that we could do it. In all honesty, we got him farther along than most people thought that we could. I even managed to get some decent scores.

But he's no longer happy. I'm not happy. Not only that, but pushing and pushing him is going to lead to one of us getting hurt. And it's most likely going to be me.

There's a reason Tara sent this to me for my birthday...

I'm hoping to find him a home working with kids with disabilities. I think that he would love doing that. He would still have a job, but it would be low pressure. I'm also told he would get non-stop attention and treats.

 There are two places near my house. They both have open door policies where I could come visit him whenever I want.

I truly never thought that things would spiral downward so far that we would have to quit, but he's had some physical issues in the past and this work is becoming too hard for him. And like the people I love, I hung on to this horse much longer than I probably should have.

This is the first time in 10 years that I stopped believing I could make him a show horse. And I cried like I was going through a break up... in fact, just writing this is making me cry all over again.

I truly love this horse. Dealing with all of his surgeries and issues over the years has changed who I am as a person. He's taught me on more than one occasion the meaning of being selfless. I have to do what's right for him, and that means finding my little worker bee a job that would actually make him happy.

So yeah, marathon training has taken the back seat for a week.

Trail Mix...it's what's for dinner.

Wait. I think beef is what's supposed to be for dinner, according to the Beef Council. Whatever.

A lot of running bloggers post pictures of their pre-race fuel, usually consisting of toast or a bagel with peanut butter and a banana. I was never a fan of bananas until I started running, but then I got on the band wagon with all of the cool kids.

Anyway, now that our team group runs are getting longer and longer, I have to remember to fuel on Fridays as if I were racing in the morning. On my way home, I stopped and got a bag of my favorite trail mix that I often bring with me for my pre-race breakfast.

The chocolate adds extra energy, right?

I can't eat bread - unless I want to get really, really sick - so last year I tried trail mix, and I've been hooked ever since. I'm also eating it for dinner tonight. We have an 11 mile run scheduled for tomorrow, so now I have breakfast.

I'm also getting better about gathering all of my stuff together the night before so I'm not struggling to find everything in the morning. The group runs are at 5:00 AM SHARP! Unfortunately, I live 45 minutes away at least depending on the location, so I have to leave my house at 4:15. Ugh.

Speaking of athletic endeavors, the super pony, Bam Bam Rubble, got a sports massage the other day. Now before you laugh your ass off at the idea of a horse getting a massage, a horse's muscles are just like a human's muscles. Show horses are athletes, just like a runner (although, I can't afford to get a message for myself.)

Anyway, BBR has a lot of issues and getting a sports massage for him seems to really help. If you've ever had one, you know how unpleasant they can be.

Hurts so good!

Getting the knots out

Lucky little horse. He gets way better care than I do. Go figure. I should probably consider getting one as our Saturday long runs increase in mileage.

My friend, Amber, sent me this text this morning:

I am not the person on the left.


It's 7:30, and I already need to think about going to bed so I can get up at 3:45. What a party animal!!

This is how I look until my second cup of coffee... (source)

Side note: Does anyone else think it's ironic the the spell checker on Blogger doesn't recognize the word "blogger"?

Weekend Recap!

Whew! This weekend was jam packed full of stuff.

First, we got actual rain on Friday. Now that may not seem like a big deal to the rest of the world, but here in the desert, we get excited about rain like the rest of the world gets excited about sunshine.

View from my desk.

Friday night, I went over to Tara's house for a get together and all around tomfoolery.

Tara and her boyfriend have a chalkboard wall and after multiple glasses of booze, we decided to play our own version of Taboo which was something a lot like Pictionary.

I love my new phone apps...

I did not partake of any alcohol because we had to be up at 4AM to be at South Mountain Park for a 10 mile run at 5. It was brutal. We stayed up too late and the rain made for very humid weather.

Okay, so not my most flattering picture...

I definitely learned the importance of running hills this weekend. I've shown up for half marathons with little training and have not been as sore afterward as I was yesterday. My body was aching all day. My hips hurt and my calves were on fire. But we did it! We ran 10 miles up some ridiculous inclines.

I asked our coach, Susan, how I could get in a good hill work out on a treadmill, and she said to do 90 second repeats at a 6% incline with a 2 minute recovery period. I guess I have my work cut out for me...

Sunday, I went to the barn to see this handsome gentleman:

Don't let his sweet and innocent look fool you...

I rode him this morning and he seems mostly recovered from his little accident on Monday. I still need to medicate him for another week, but he's doing pretty well. I'm pretty happy about that.

I helped Kristy take care of the horses this evening and then sat around drinking wine and eating gluten free pizza. All in all, I'd say it was a pretty productive weekend!

WTF Week

Last week was a crazy, crazy week, so I'm pretty behind with blogging and basically everything else in my world.

Last Friday, I went with a few friends to a new restaurant called Brat Haus in Old Town Scottsdale.

This little van makes me look tall...which I am not.

It's not gluten free friendly, but I just ate my brat without the bun. I also had wine instead of beer. But Tabatha had this:

Now, that is a beer.

I certainly didn't want to drink too much or stay out too late because I was meeting Tara for an early morning 7 mile run, that actually turned into a 7.4 mile run. Man, was it hot, hot, hot and humid. Blech.

My first few picture attempts were of me grimacing
because it was so gross outside.

That night, my mom had a belated 4th of July party, which was pretty fun. My sister, the baker, make a cake that looked like a hamburger. I'm pretty sure we're not actually related because I never bake anything.

How cute is this?

And because she is the awesomest sister ever, she also made some gluten free cupcakes for me.

Ah-maaaay-zing

Sunday, my sister, her husband, and my mother took me to see Grease at the Arizona Broadway Theatre Company. They serve dinner before the show and our table was literally right up front against the stage. It was really fun. I definitely want to go back and see something else there.

Monday, my horse tried to kill me. Seriously. He's got some issues, and every so often, he goes off the deep end because something hurts. I've always assumed it was in his jaw, since he's had surgery on his TMJ joint, but one of my clients told me that when they have severe reactions to things, she finds it's usually in their neck. Great. Like this horse doesn't cost me a zillion dollars to fix on a regular basis. He almost flipped over on me, so after he attempted to launch himself to the moon, I bailed and landed HARD on my side and arm. Then he made matters worse by limping around afterward, so I'm a little concerned that his his foot is re-injured. Last year, he was off for 6 months and I finally had to have an MRI done on his feet to fix him. That shit ain't cheap, in case you were wondering...

Of course, this was sent from Tara...

I thought about taking pictures of my bruised, ripped up arm, but never did. Instead, I made multiple attempts with my crappy phone to get a picture of the two of us while I iced his foot.

Bam Bam was not cooperative at all during this process.

On Tuesday, it was my actual birthday, and I got a Starbucks from my work BFF, Tiana, which is always a great way to start my day. My outside rep, Kim, Sent me flowers:

One of my accounts sent me an Edible Bouquet, which was not only delicious, but super cool of them!

So, that's what's been up in my world. I didn't run much because my body was really sore after Bam threw my ass in the dirt. What a monster. I made up for it this weekend, though, by doing an incredibly difficult 10 mile run this morning with ridiculous hills. More on that soon.

Oh! And I finally joined the iPhone cool club.

I. Love. It. I'm not sure how I was able to convince myself that my Android was good enough. Because it definitely was mediocre compared to the iPhone.

(source)

There's no I in Team!

Wow, what a night! We had a meeting for the NYC Marathon team for Team Chances. I had no idea what to expect or what kind of people would be part of the group, but I was certainly not disappointed. And I got my official team tech shirt. Woot!

There are 30 people on the team, so I didn't get to talk to everyone, but the group at my table was awesome. Everyone was not only friendly and nice, but also seemed like a lot of fun, which is important. I also met a follow blogger, Ari, who invited be to be part of an AZ blogger group, which is pretty cool!

I'm so excited about all of this. I truly think this entire experience will be life changing. Not only running my first full marathon - and the NYC marathon is considered to be the best marathon in the world - but also the process of training with a team and being part of a group that helps others better their lives. My first run with the group is Saturday morning and I'm actually looking forward to it!

Completely off topiic, but did anyone else watch the season finale of Criminal Minds last night? Holy...

That had to be the absolute best season finale I have ever seen.

(source)

I'm really bummed that Paget Brewster won't be on the show anymore. I loved her character. I numbed the pain by having this for dinner:

Yes, I will have another...

To top it all off, Bam Bam The Wonder Pony was an absolute angel this morning when I rode him. He's come so far. I'm a proud mommy.

Besides being a show horse, he's pretty good at entertaining himself.

So yeah, life is pretty wonderful these days.