Don't get ahead of yourself...

The words "Don't get ahead of yourself" have been long and often revered as words of wisdom. It's important not to overstretch your boundaries, not to overextend your abilities, not to overwhelm yourself in any way. These words are also just so HARD to follow.

Following another rather inspiring ride on Thunder last night (Mommy got to go by herself, which was both pleasant and lonely), my brain is swirling with more goals, dreams and ideas of what we can accomplish together. Add to that a trip to the County Fair (complete with Kiddo's $5 Pony Ride on Velvet) and I'm just a sea of equine-themed emotions.

-  I want to buy my daughter a pony. Doesn't everyone? The cuteness! Oh, the cuteness. This kid in a leadline class would just make me die. I'd melt on the spot.

-  I want to ride every day and get into great shape and get Thunder into great shape and win EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE and wear a tiara and sash to the grocery store.

-  I want to try just one teensy local competition so that I can totally casually dip my toe into competing for the first time in oh, thirteen years-- and then I was doing teensy local shows mostly at walk/trot. I have to this day 1 show's worth of W/T/C class experience. Eeep.

-  I want to ride every day and feel the wind in my hair! (Although totally not because it drives me crazy when I'm riding-- hairnets and braids are my friends)

-  I think I just want to wear a tiara and sash to the grocery store, period.

-  I want to ride Thunder well. I'm riding him better than I expected, to be sure, but I know that we can accomplish so much more. Things like maintaining a nice rhythm in all gaits. Keeping nice balance, straightness, bend. Keeping him happy and easygoing the whole time we're working. He's mostly happy and easygoing now, but there are still times when I don't feel like he fully trusts me to not let him get eaten by everything. Times when he gets annoyed with me. Times when he's completely checked out of our conversation.

-  I want to get his hair under control! My gosh! It's a hot mess!!

-  I want to take him trail riding and meet my friends and their horses and we can all be buddies together.

-  I want to begin taking lessons with him to really get our training together tightened down.

-  ***List of Pipe Dreams for Kiddo and Her Hypothetical Pony***

This is clearly a very exciting time for this "Re-riding Beginner." I'm very excited about all of this. In fact, I'm so excited that I'm blogging instead of sleeping at the moment. It's these times, however, that I really need to remind myself "Don't get ahead of yourself." It would be easy to dive right in, hit a wall, and then crash for another who-knows-how-long. To "scare off opportunity before it has a chance to knock." It's going to be much harder to take it a day or week at a time, but it will be very well worth it.

In the meantime, I can bide my time wearing my tiara about town.