September 25, 2010

A lovely box of surprises...

Sometimes life takes you by surprise, and sometimes the surprise is in a card board box presented by LSEGH's caring hands. After working a long day yesterday he came home looking tired, but disappeared into the spare bedroom and walked out with a box and told me it was for me. I'm always a little "afraid" of surprises, mostly afraid of not appearing grateful for the gift bestowed. Doug has been very supportive of my horse craziness even though it costs money, and requires much of him in the way of lifting and throwing things that I cannot manage to lift and throw. He has also supplied the vast majority of my needful things in the way of heart rate monitors, GPS, Crestridge saddle, stop watch, and a myriad of little things that come up while I chase the trail towards endurance (or whatever endurance happens to mean to me). So the box...

*Neon green (so I can be seen) rain slicker with saddle pleat and hood. The rain will no longer completely hinder by ride camp setting. The fit was pretty good, but since I am height impaired I'll have to take the scissors to the hem and remove about six inches (yeah, I'm that short). It has cool outer pockets for my phone, and then a slit to reach inside if I'm carrying something in my fanny pack so that I can get too it. I'd only ride wearing a rain slicker as a last resort in really cold drenching rain, but really good to know that if the forecast is questionable I can roll it up and stow it in my cantle pack. In camp it will be awesome, as I've had the downpour happen and got drenched trying to blanket Phebes. Rain gear is good.

*Little S Hackamore. I really needed to have a spare bridle set up so that if I encountered a tack issue on a ride, I could just slip on a spare bridle. I only had the one stainless hackamore, so now I have a back up ready to roll.

* AAA Batteries. Lots of them. I go through batteries like no tomorrow when I'm tracking speed/time/distance using the GPS. Don't believe what they tell you about battery life being 12 hours...more like 4 hours. We are stocked up good for the rest of the year.

*Car charger for my cell phone. How many times have I picked up my phone and it is DEAD. Usually in the middle of the day at work. I just switched phone company and phone, so my old one was out of the picture. So maybe if you try to reach me, the phone will actually ring and get answered instead of rolling into voice mail.

*A cool blue/tan/plaid organizer for my horse trailer. I'm actually not going to use it for horse stuff, but hang it at the head of my bunk for flash lights, reading book, glasses, all the little misc. stuff that gets scattered about my tack room when camping.

*Vitamin E and B vitamins for Phebes. She is good to go throughout the winter. The vitamin E can be expensive. Her muscle tone has been much better since the addition of vitamin E.

Do I have an awesomely good man or what? ~E.G.

5 comments:

  1. What a guy! We're putting LSH over here through a test next weekend when we do the ride for Fiesta del Rancho - not an endurance ride per se, but a 15 mile ride in South Texas.

    Should be an adventure.

    Do you have a LQ trailer or do you camp?

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  2. I have a low end 2 horse slant that has a decent sized dressing room. I have a cot in there, no amenities, so I guess I camp! Most places we go don't have electric hook up anyway. The only time I wish for living quarters is when I'm feeling sweltering hot, and I'm learning to just skip those adventures *lol*. I use a little gas heater when it is crisp with my door cracked open for extra ventilation. I have been dreaming about "decorating" my quarters some day and have some simple ideas to make things more organized, but not going to panel, or electrify.

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  3. EG, you forgot the most important feature of your trailer - it's paid for!

    Your husband sounds amazing. What a lovely box of presents! He's really paying attention to you :)

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  4. What a lovely husband :)

    That's interesting the comment you made about the Vitamin E. I added Selenium and Vit E at the same time, so I'm not sure what's responsible for the improvement in muscle tone (just verified that her selenium levels are at the "ideal" .3ppm after 6 weeks of supplementing) but I have a feeling it's a combination of both. What levels are you supplementing for Vit E? I'm doing just over 3000 units routinely and ~4-5K the week before and after rides.

    Just curiuos :)

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  5. We were giving a higher dose around 3000 IU daily but have dropped back to about 2500 daily. when she performing we will increase it somewhat pre-ride, and the week post ride. We aren't supplement selenium other than what is in her fats and multivitamin. The next time she's sedated for any reason (probably teeth floating) maybe I can ask again for a selenium level. My vet is uncooperative on this issue. No endurance vets anywhere close at all. I would like to get a baseline though. You are lucky to have a vet that will "listen".

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