Cranky!! I need a snickers bar

Someone needs to redo the Snickers "Hangry" commercials into a cranky horse back rider who hasn't been able to ride for too many days. I was CRANKY!!! Seriously.. it rained all day Friday.... and I didn't get home til about 5:15 anyways (Well, I would have but I went grocery shopping instead because it was raining). And then... Saturday it rained all day too. Although, in all honesty, I probably could have ridden but it was just gross and nasty and rained most of the day. So I spent it doing paperwork and then going shopping for last minute stuff for the barn Christmas party. Then I went to the barn Christmas party which was fun! Everyone loved the Jurassic Eventing belts and stickers. :) And Beth loved her bike and belt and stickers. So then... it was supposed to be raining in the morning on Sunday still and since we had stayed up fairly late, I slept in. Well, turns out it had stopped raining but we had to get to Mom's for the Christmas Tree decorating party. So I should have gotten up early to ride, but alas. Anyways I was hoping to make it home in time to ride, but it didn't happen because while we were at Mom's... the marina called. Apparently the dock broke and Mike needed to move his boat. So... we rushed over there. Holy moly!! The dock basically broke at his slip and wedged his boat in between both slip fingers. And they had flipped on their side so he couldn't even get his boat out. It was a mess. So yeah... by the time we got home, it was dark. And cold and wet still. And then Monday I worked all day. So... luckily Tuesday was dry and I had the indoor so yay! I was able to get uncranky finally!!! It felt SOOOOOOO good to be back in the saddle!!! I think Dan agreed. 

We started out lesson warming up and I was doing my turn on the haunches and Cindy told me that I needed to pay attention to the purpose of the turn on the haunches. It wasn't just a circus trick, but the goal is to load the haunches and get the horse rocked back. I should be able to go right into a canter from the turn on the haunches. Oh........ yeah, that's not what I was doing. So we worked on it some and it took doing that but also backing up. But not just backing up, backing up with a lifted back and arched neck. I also had to think of canter pirouettes. But.. it worked. Because we were able to pick up the canter from the walk coming out of the walk turn on the haunches. After that we carried on and did some leg yields, which actually felt really good. He almost got too sideways. Then we did some canter work and Cindy helped me figure out (yet again) where I was blocking him. I think it was my left hand, but not quite as obvious. It was fixed by my left shoulder. I wasn't turning left with him. For some reason I tend to not turn my shoulders left when tracking left. I turn my head too far, but not my body. So.. once I brought my left hip and more importantly my left shoulder back.... ahhhhh... And of course that improved the canter depart too. We got some really nice work!!

So yep.. it was a tough lesson and Danny and I were working very hard, but we got some really nice work!! Our trot got quite nice there too!! Yay!!! I'm feeling much less angsty about the show now and life in general.