Schedule for Nov. 23 – Nov. 29

Monday
Work @ Parkdale from 8-430pm
Ride Enrique
Go tanning

Tuesday
School from 9-3pm
Gym
Ride Enrique

Wednesday
Work @ SouthCalgary Influenza 8-1pm
Hairdresser @ 2pm
Gym
Lunge Costa
Go tanning

Thursday
Work @ SouthCalgary Influenza 8-12pm
Massage @ 12:10pm
School from 2-4pm
Personal Trainer @ 5pm

Friday
Lesson w/Costa @ 9am
School from 11-1230pm
Microderm @ 1pm
Ride Enrique

Saturday
Ride Costa
Festival of Crafts @ 11am
Twilight New Moon Movie @ 7pm

Sunday
Ride Enrique

The next two weeks look worse *hangs head*

Bhuaha, I just LOVE LOVE LOVE Christmas. My decorations are already coming out, my Christmas CDs are being burnt. Love it.
But, the other nice thing is Christmas Parties. Since I work out of so many offices, I have 7 to attend this year through my work. And for some reason, this year, everyone is going all out with their Christmas parties.

The first one- on Dec. 2nd, I am SO FREAKISHLY excited for. It's actually my mother's area of the hosptial (transition services) that is attending, and I don't really work in that division, but I begged my mother to take me :P It's actually at my college- in the Highwood Dining Area. This is a place that you have to book 3 months in advance, and its actually a unique idea. It's gourmet food that is served by the culinary students taking the program at SAIT. It's generally a 5 course meal of pure deliciousness.
Take a look at this menu and drool with me, kids
I've had lunch there once before and it was so freaking fantastic Im still dreamimg about it :P
As a funny little side note...our tuition this year? Apparently went to creating a 2 MILLION $$ herb garden for the culinary program. That better be some damn special basil ;)

The other Christmas parties involve a potluck, laser tag, a prime rib buffet at a casino, a lunch at Heritage Park and something else that I'm likely forgetting :P SO excited. Love, love, love.


In happier news, or perhaps ironically, since I'm talking about this succulent food, while I have only dropped 4lbs in 1 month (because I am a glutton for carbs!) I have dropped 4 inches. 1 around my bust, 1 around my waist, 1" around my hips and .5" around each arm. Go figure. Imagine what I could do if I concentrated ;) Another 20" to lose *le sigh* But at least its a start!

Didn't do much with the horses since Wednesday. This wind has been giving me a helluva bad headache, so I just went down to lunge the ponies today. Hoping to ride at least Rico sometime this weekend, but social butterfly that I am (*snort*), I'm out all this weekend LOL.

Well ok, I've booked one of the two. But I will be booking the second one in March. I'm so freakishly excited. I made a pact with myself that I would travel in 2010 and have a blast.
I'm finally finished school in May 2010 - I'm on my way to being "responsible" with a full time job, a car that is paid for, and likely a condo by summer.
So, the other, immature part of me, is willing to blow a considerable amount of money just to get the hell out of Dodge, reward myself for my 20-yes! 20! straight years of school and freakishly crazy schedules and have a mindless time.

So the first trip is one that I believe I mentioned - Puerto Vallarta. Booked for June 7-13. My best friend and I are going together. Her parents have a time share in one of the all-inclusive resorts-the Paradise Village Beach Resort . Food, booze, scuba diving and beach horseback rides. So, aside from the fact that I have never been to Mexico before, I'm more excited because this is my first trip outside of Canada that hasn't included my parents :P That alone is cause for celebration ;) My trip is a grad present from my parents, which is absolutely amazing of them to do :)

Next trip I'm scheduling for October-so still enough time to save up for it, thank God. This is my absolute dream trip-something that I have wanted to do for as long as I can remember. Riding and Cooking in Tuscany Combining my absolute two favorite things; riding and cooking lessons :P 7 blessed days in Italy with riding and food and a spa and castles-could it get any better? I have a friend that wants to come with me, but I'm not entirely sure that I don't want to do this by myself LOL, but we shall see! Some time to still think about it; as I can't book the tour until March.

Yes kids. I'm very, very excited. And I deserve it. Most people I know would have had a nervous breakdown with the schedule that I keep-and have kept for over 5 years. So little Kayla is going to cut loose ;)

I blame those shitty, snotty nosed kids at the clinic.
I ended up with a mild case of swine flu, started getting really ill Sunday afternoon, after dealing with a tickilish throat.

Got so bad by Sunday evening that my parents had to pick me and my truck up from work.
Fever of 103F and so freaking cold. Not a happy camper, kids, not a happy camper at all. Went to the clinic and picked up some Tamiflu that they are making available to health care workers, and people that are diagnosed with swine flu to try to cut the sickness time in half.

What a little miracle drug. I was expecting to be out for a good 4-5 days, but after yesterday being particularily brutal, I woke up this morning and my fever has gone down to 99.5F, so the lowest its been for 2 days, and I feel a lot better. I have to say though, I feel like I have fallen off my horse, my joints are so tired and sore, so I'm still home today and likely tomorrow too.

But I've a survivor! (actually, to be perfectly honest, while they diagnosed me as mild h1n1, they are diagnosing anyone with flu symptoms as h1n1 and treating accordingly. While I do have a cold and a cough, it has not been really bothering my chest like we are really seeing with the severe cases, so I'm thinking just flu)

But I live! My barnmates aren't so lucky...a good 10-12 boarders are out sick right now :\ And God knows how many at school.

Which they are trying to make mandatory for all health care workers.
I decided to ultimately take it now because if there is even a possibility that it can help reduce my getting very ill, I'm willing to take it. I also have a very shitty immune system (good times with mono, bell's palsey and many bronchitis episodes) so anything to help boost it I'm willing to try. Despite my joke on facebook about worrying about my future children having 3 arms, I'm not too concerned about side effects. It's a dead virus that they are injecting, not a live one, so we should be ok on that wavelength.

I have to say though, its been an hour since I got the shot, and my arm hurts like a son of a bitch. Like holy crap does it hurt. They say on the info sheet to expect a sore arm-more so than the regular flu shot, but that's a bit of an understatement. My arm ACHES. Now, I'm always a bit more reactive than normal people (because of the egg present in the vaccine. Wasn't until I was 18 that I could safely take the flu shot because of the way the eggs were cultivated), but its to the point that I am icing it and taking a tylenol.

I am happy though that I'm a health care worker. We (stupidly) only have 5 clinics in Calgary at the moment to vaccinate nearly 1 million people. According to the news, wait times are 6hours + and not expecting to dissipate for another 2 weeks or so. Health care worker? Went to the nearest hospital? 15 minute wait, and I'm done. Yay.

Truly glad I'm not riding today, as I don't think my arm would be up to it. Enrique was fantastic yesterday during my lesson. Were working on lengthenings. She had me do an excercise where you do a half circle at A or C, leg yield to the wall and then ask for a lengthening on the long side. Was hard for us. Enrique isn't as responsive laterally. He has to really think about where his body is going. But towards the end, I could really feel him cross under and then lift his shoulders up during the lengthening so that we weren't falling on the forehand. Finished the lesson by keeping him on a 20 meter circle and jumping over 2 caveletti on the circle, and he was super good.

I'm off to go ice my arm somemore!

Toodles!

So yesterday night I was seriously tired. Decided to cancel plans and stay at home with my parents and just veg out. So we were flipping through channels when we came across a movie called Left Behind Ah, if only I had wikipediad it first, I wouldn't have lost two very precious hours of my life.

It started off relatively interesting enough...randomly, people started disapearing, leaving their clothes behind, and the UN was striving to get world peace by rebuilding a shrine in Israel or some such thing. The acting was poor, and the dialogue was laughably bad, but hey, Saturday night, not much else on, right?

And then we delved into the religious.

Now, I'm Catholic. I'm a lax Catholic to be perfectly honest, but I do believe in God, and I do believe in Heaven. What I don't believe in is pounding my faith into other peoples heads. Nor do I believe in the adage that faith is all you need. I'm a huge believer that God helps those that help themselves.

So, we are watching this movie together (not quite getting that its actually a religious film yet) and my dad is all like "umm...this seems bizarely religious doesn't it?" I'm thinking we must have been a slow bunch...all the little side notes of "God is watching you" and the shots of the Churches obviously didn't clue us in. Randomly, 1/2 way through the movie, the protagonist is all like "aha! the reason people are disappearing is because God is calling them home to Heaven, for they are true believers and will be spared the coming of the Anti-Christ, and we have been left behind for we have forsaken God" .... ok... God obviously didn't want to beam them up with their clothes, but sure. We'll go with that.

So by now, 90minutes into the movie, its HORRIBLE. The plot sucks, the acting is shitty, but you know when you are all like "well...what happens? might as well finish the thing" The ending? Let me tell you, to spare you from ever watching this movie.
The protagonist discovers that the UN leader is the Anti-Christ and now has control over the world's food supply, and like the Bible says, there shall be 7 years of hell on Earth in which to survive, oh, you guessed it, faith is all you need
The end.

Then, as a parting shot, we were led in the Lord's Prayer, and bright spark that I am, was all like "Man...this movie was on the Christian Miracle Network. No wonder it sucked majorly. Maybe I should have checked this first?"


Words cannot explain how bad this movie was. Actually, maybe it can. It was so bad that The Simpsons have a parody on it.

'Nough said.

Good god, its come to this. I'm almost scheduling pee-breaks into my time table just to get everything to fit. I got asked how I do this schedule on a regular basis. I go hard for 2-3 weeks, and then have a week where I totally and completely crash. No school, no work, no horses, nothing. Otherwise, poor little Kayla fries her little mind.

So here we go.

Monday;
School from 9-1pm
Riding lesson with Rico from 2-3pm
Work from 4-7pm
Gym from 7:30pm-8:30pm

Tuesday;
School from 9-3:30pm
Work from 4-7pm
Gym from 7:30-8:30pm

Wednesday;
Work from 8-4:30pm
Ride Rico and Costa from 5:30-??
Go tanning after (got to love faking and baking. For once in my life, I don't look like a corpse!)

Thursday;
Work from 8-12:30pm
School from 2-5pm
Personal trainer from 6-7pm
Go tanning after the gym (which is nice. the heat feels amazing)

Friday;
Work from 8-12:30pm
Job interview at 1:45pm (got a casual position interview so I can hopefully make some more $$$, although I'm not sure when to book it all in!)
Ride Enrique

Saturday;
Work from 8-4:30pm
Ride Costa

Sunday;
Work from 8-4:30pm


I can survive this week. I know I can :P Next week looks a lot better

Enrique is absolutely certain of that now. Where before there were some doubts in his mind, there's none now. Gremlins in the arena. Evil, ugly gremlins who long to destroy the minds of poor, innocent Trakehners.

First of all, we have a large (think about 12ft) back door in our arena, which allows you to see the hayshed and part of the outside arena. And the doors can either be closed all the way, or you can have a sliding half door over the lower part of the door so that you look out. Generally, unless its winter, the door remains half closed for ventilation and. This has always caused concern for Enrique, because you can see out and things can sometimes pop out at you. (one time visitors came bye and leaned over it just as we were going around the corner. Enrique almost shit himself. And almost dumped me)

So he's cautious of this...in fact, all the horses are, some more, some less. Costa for example, looks at it and won't go close to it until you ride him in bigger circles and get closer and closer until you are right next to it, and then he's generally fine, even with activity happening outside. He seems to realize that its ok-its just the outside and if he does spook, its a small shy and then he carries on. Enrique, on the other hand, can be ridden right up to it from the start and is generally just fine until he sees something...and this something can be something so small as a sparrow, and then he'll try to spin around and bolt like the hounds of hell are after him. Same happens if he sees other horses in the outdoor, he stops dead, spins on his haunches and heads for home...or rather the wall as by that point, I'm swearing at him and telling him to grow the hell up!)


So, we had a lot of snow the past two days. About 3" of the stuff. And today was warmer (yay!) so it was starting to melt. Enrique was being fabulous. Monday was an ok ride, but today he felt really good. We're really starting to get crisp walk to canter transitions instead of the "what? canter? how's about I trot a few steps...no? alright, I'll canter" So we were about 1/2 way into our ride, when we passed the doors....and all this snow fell from the roof right into the arena and right into his path and face with a loud woosh. Well, let me tell you. In Enrique's mind, this was clearly an indication of the Apocalypse. The poor grey beast lost his little Trakehner mind, bolted forward, dislodging me from my stirrups, and almost knocking me out of the saddle, and was so out of it, that I literally was seesawing the bit trying to get him back to me for 5 minutes before I could turn him enough to run him into a wall (and the poor beast actually did run himself into a wall. He's got a cut now on his nose thanks to hitting it on the wood. oy) . He just fried. He was coated in sweat and shaking. So I spent the next twenty minutes of our ride getting him past that Evil Corner. I have to say though, he did feel fantastic despite that; he was so up in front of my leg and sensitive at this point that my littlest half halt was enough to have him sitting back right on his ass. But We Were Not Amused.

Frustrates me though, as I thought we were getting better with this door thing. I mean I know most horses would have shit themselves in these circumstances; but he was always so sensitive about that corner to begin with. Of COURSE it would happen to him. Now he's absolutely convinced that there are gremlins with a penchant for eating big grey Trakehners lurking in the corner.

On Steven and Chris It's really too damn bad that they are gay. How many other men are good looking, intelligent, can cook, are creative and ENJOY housework? Damnit, why the hell are they gay? *sigh* This little project fascinates me, and I am going to attempt putting a print on a pillow and seeing if it works properly, because it could open up a whole new world for me - since my whole decor centers around my photos that I have of family and my animals.

Speaking of my animals, I've been a bad horsemom. I haven't ridden since Wednesday, and yesterday night was the first time I went out; not to ride, mind you, but to pull Costa's mane and run him around. I blame the weather. Welcome to Calgary. Yesterday we had a windchill of -17C (4F). By thursday, it's supposed to be +15C (60F). And they wonder why Calgarians live with constant headaches. Speaking of the weather, I have to attempt to clip both my horses sometime this week. Enrique doesn't have much of a coat, but he gets so sweaty anyways, and Costa resembles a close cousin of the wooly mammoth. So need to get them done!

I am pleased to report that while I have only lost 2lbs in 3 weeks (because I'm such a damn slacker and have yet to put any effort into this) I have lost 1" around my waist and 1" around my hips. Got another 10" to lose around my waist, and 7" around my hips, and 6" around my bust, but its a start! And Im hoping that its a little push into actually getting serious about this shit so that I don't feel like a cow riding a horse ;)

I leave you with a picture of my Little Grey Beastie, Sasha - who is my soul sister and is truly who I want to be when I grow up ;)


To my fellow Canadians out there - HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!