Happy Thanksgiving! Or, how California has ruined me

Hey all. Happy Thanksgiving! L. (quite possibly the best and most prolific equestrian blogger in the whole world) is doing 30 days of gratitude for November. I thought it was a great idea! And promptly didn’t post a thing regarding gratitude this month. 

To make up for it, here are thirty things I’m grateful for. (As a reader, you’re welcome to skip this.)

1) Los Gatos Farms. Sometimes the place makes me want to rip my hair out, and sometimes I sit up there, looking out over the mountains, wondering how on earth I got so freaking lucky. I look at the healthy, happy horses, and know that I am one of the few people in this world who can truly say I LOVE (and I mean love.) my job.
2) My boss. She lets me pretty much run rampant, do and say whatever I’d like, borrow her truck, drag jumps all over the place, and take over her farm every Saturday from 8 until like... 8.
3) My dog! Ohmygoodness I just love my dog. She’s goofy. And retarded. But I love her.
4) My family, who paid for this ticket home when I realized I couldn’t really afford it because I had to put new tires on my car.
5) My car! People break down on Hwy 17 all the time and I am super lucky to be driving a relatively new, very strong car. I do not always keep it neat (okay who am I kidding, there are people reading this who have actually been in my car) but that doesn’t mean I love it any less. It is my mobile home, my source of transportation, and I love that it starts every time I put the key in it.
6) Tangoose, because he keeps me thinking and motivated to get better in my own riding so that I can access more and more of his potential.
7) Camou, because even though he’s mysteriously half-lame right now and half-TOTALLY FINE WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM WHY ARE YOU ACTING LIKE THIS RIGHT NOW, he’s crazy fun to jump and scratch and play with. He’s super smart but he acts so dumb. Ugh. Horses. Why do I even like them.
8) Danny, who has such a propensity for collected work that it took me until I started working Tango to really ferret out our lack of true, self-contained straightness. Because even though you can do a lovely canter-walk and a pretty fun half-pass, it turns out you still have to have correct and even bend. Plus Danny’s just cute. Oh. And he gets in trailers.
9) Jimmy, who makes me laugh. Even though sometimes he thinks it’s fun to tuck his nose between this knees and crowhop after fences rather than cantering like a normal horse.
10) My students, who keep me reading, studying, and developing as a trainer. Who challenge me. Who help me laugh. Who make me sometimes cover my eyes in horror, but I always peek between my fingers out of curiosity. Who inspire me to keep trying every day to get better. Who surprise me. I love my students. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I am one lucky son-of-a-gun.
11) Laptops on long flights
12) Coffee.
13) Small, adorable children making faces at me through cracks between seats
14) The hoard at Twelve Pines, including Reggie, Dylan, and Belle who sometimes make me feel like I’ve never ridden a horse before. Here’s to spending three weeks riding a horse before figuring out that someone trained this horse (and REALLY WELL, at that) to pick up the wrong canter lead from the correct aid. I will borrow Dressage Curmudgeon’s comment and say that if a five year old can’t get on your horse and get it to do something, perhaps it just isn’t all that well trained.
15) My recent discovery of Dressage Curmudgeon’s blog! It’s the funniest thing I have ever read. Seriously.
16) I love my life and I’m super grateful for it, but I’m having a hard time coming up with 30 things in a row I’m grateful for. So I guess #16 is music, for it’s uplifting and invigorating properties
17) Alarm clocks, without which I surely would have missed this flight. Because I went to sleep at 1am and woke up at 5am. Excellent planning? Why yes, I do think so.
18) Sweaters
19) Boots
20) Breeches, which I recently rediscovered why I wear them all the time. Turns out, if you ride dressage, you will chafe badly if you ride in jeans. So that’s a pro tip. You’re welcome.
21) Rain jackets. Because they keep you dry. Magically.
22) Kindles, which carry an ENTIRE LIBRARY in my purse. They even have book on riding, teaching, and training horses. Haha! It’s wondrous.
23) Parents who ferry their kids all over kingdom come and support this heinously expensive sport and have funny anecdotes for me when I need them
24) Lacrosse balls - thank goodness for knowing something about myofascial release and managing fascial tension. Flights like this would cause me such excruciating pain if I didn’t know how to manage it.
25) Did I mention my farm, my students, and my horses?
26) My sisters!
27) Bathrooms
28) Accommodating seat neighbors who don’t appear to begrudge me my repeated trips to the bathroom
29) That I’m almost to thirty things to write down
30) My education, previous and current. 

So now that that’s out of the way, how about that snow, eh guys? SNOW. That’s right. Snow. I used to ride in snow. It didn’t bother me. Yup. I’d just slap on some layers and a hefty coat and just go for a ride.

Now I get cold at 50 degrees and and I whine about it. 

Freaking California.

I blame California.

(As an edit, I actually arrived in Michigan and I prefer the cold here. It's bitter and invigorating and amazing. I don't mind it nearly as much as drizzly and 50 degrees. Weird.)