Liebster Blog Award

I LOVE blog awards :) I was nominated four times, by Monica at Panic and the Pony, Niamh at Life of Riley, Ruffles at Just a Girl and her horse, and Carrot Top at Little Bay Horse. Thank you!!! For some reason this post took me forever to get together, so here it finally is. I decided that I'm going to answer all 4 sets of 11 questions, but I will do two sets in another post so this doesn't get too overwhelming :)

How to accept the award: The Liebster Blog Award is a way to recognize blogs who have less than 200 followers.  Liebster is a German word that means beloved and valued.  Here are the rules for accepting the award:

1. Thank the person who nominated you and include a link back to their blog.
2. List 11 random facts about yourself.
3. Answer the 11 questions given to you.
4. Create 11 questions for the bloggers you nominate.
5. Choose 11 bloggers with 200 or fewer followers to nominate and include links to their blogs.
6. Go to each blogger's page and let them know you have nominated them. 

11 Facts about me:

1. I hate giving facts about me; I feel like I'm not that interesting of a person. 
2. I love traveling, it's my goal to visit every continent someday. So far I've been to Costa Rica, India, France, Spain, England and Bhutan. The next places on my list are Italy and Ireland, hopefully with a stop in France again. 
3. If I could pick any job in the world and not worry about money, then I'd probably be a horse trainer. Or rather, anything that would allow me to spend all my time with horses - training, rescue, rehab, breeding, competing, etc. 
4. My dream is to one day be able to build my dream barn/house. It's literally just that: a barn with living space on top! I pretty much have the entire thing planned out, down to a floor plan and decorating scheme, lol. 
5. I love to read and I will pretty much read anything, though fantasy is my favorite genre. Plus, I read really fast so usually during the summer I go through about a book a day.
6. I love bling! Sadly it's not as accepted in dressage, which is my main discipline, but I still have a sparkly browband and my ear net that I can use in eventing dressage has crystals. I would love to be mainly in western disciplines where you can bedazzle everything, but I like my english disciplines just a little bit better :)
7. Hot pink and sky blue/turquoise are my two favorite colors, with purple coming in a close third. I have a strong desire to make all of my tack come in those colors and be matching. 
8. I love, love, love seeing horses of non-traditional breeds succeeding in different disciplines. Such as drafts in eventing, quarter horses in dressage, etc. 
9. My least favorite foods are raw tomatoes, shell fish, mushrooms and olives.
10. I'm addicted to Netflix and will totally binge-watch TV shows. The latest was Desperate Housewives (with my roommates) and Doctor Who. 
11. I raised rabbits and showed them competitively in 4-H and ARBA (breed shows) for 10 years. I had Dutch and Champagne D'Argents rabbits. I am quite knowledgeable about them and love helping people at the vet clinic with their rabbits since the vets don't have a ton of experience with them! I miss having rabbits and hope to get one as a pet soon.

Questions for me: (I got nominated four times, therefore you get 22 answers to questions this time and more to come later!)

1. What's the last book you read cover-to-cover?
I (re)read The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (one of my favorite books!) and am currently starting on the Game of Thrones series...

2. Have you ever broken a bone, and if so how?
Nope, amazingly I have not.

3. If you could chose any super-power, what would it be?
The ability to speak and understand any language, animal ones included :)

4. What would you change about the horse world that doesn't have to do with animal abuse or money?
I guess I would encourage people to be more open to new ideas and new people. Obviously what works for one horse/rider might not work for another, but I find a lot of people immediately discredit some ideas, simply because it's just not what they are used to doing. And being open to new people too is important I think. A lot of horse people are really open and friendly (obviously! Just look at the horse blogger world) but there's quite a lot of horse people at the other end of the spectrum that come across as snobbish.

5. What are those 'Baby on Board' signs for cars really for? Nobody have ever been able to give me a satisfying answer.
I really have no idea... I think some people use it as an excuse to be a rude driver, like you can't be mad at them when they have a baby in the car.

6. What are your three favorite words?
Serendipity, juxtaposition, dilapidated.

7. What's the most 'out there' thing you believe in?
I have to say that I'm rather boring... I don't really believe in anything that "out there". I don't believe in aliens or ghosts, or being able to know the future or travel in time. I'm definitely open to the possibility of some "out there" things, but don't explicitly believe them to be true.

8. Describe the last time you laughed out loud.
The last time would have been last night, hanging out with my 4 roommates. They are all hilarious and ridiculous, so any time we're all together we are bound to have a good time.

9. Mares, geldings or stallions?
Well, I don't typically have a preference, I've worked with all three. But, I've owned way more mares than geldings and I get along well with them.

10. Who would you most like to go on a trail ride with?
Not sure if this is supposed to be a person or a horse, but I'd love to have one more ride on Grady and pony Jazz on him. That was my favorite thing to do...

11. What's the most ridiculous thing you've bought for riding or horses?
Ha, a pink sparkly crop.

12. Were horses is your childhood?
Yes, I got my first horse when I was nine (Grady) after moving to the country where we had a barn and a pasture. I begged my parents for riding lessons and after riding the neighbor's very ornery horse, Ruby, for a while, they finally caved and found a trainer who found me my first horse!

13. What's the weirdest lesson/clinic you've ever had on horseback
That's a tough one... there hasn't been anything too crazy, I'm usually pretty good at picking up strange ideas and figuring out how to apply them, but the weirdest has to have been with this local trainer through the dressage team. He's a nice guy and I have several friends who board and train with him full time, but he's just strange. The weirdest part of my lesson would have to be when he kept telling me to relax my forearms and wrists. I just didn't understand how to and finally he came over to me and started shaking my arms to get them to relax. Something must have worked because he stopped bugging me about them, but I don't think I actually changed anything?

14. What one thing would you change about your horse?
I would change her (Jetta's) argumentative-ness. She always has to have something to argue about which results in so many evasions. She's getting better as she gets older, but a lot of times she will refuse to do something just for the sake of it and after bickering for 20 minutes she gives in and pretends it never happened and it isn't a big deal. 

15. What one thing would you change about yourself?
I would change my laziness. It's my biggest bad habit and it affects my riding too. I'll go to the barn and decide that I'd rather not jump just because it means dragging out the jumps. Or it means skimping on grooming or not practicing riding without stirrups.

16. Do you board or keep your horse at home?
I usually board during the school year and take my horses home during the summer time, but I'm still not sure what the plan is for this summer.

17. What is your favorite thing about boarding or keeping your horse at home?
My favorite thing about boarding is having nice facilities: an arena to ride in, nice stalls, a wash rack, etc. My favorite thing about having the horses at home is being able to walk out the door down to the barn. The horses have a big pasture, big stalls with runs, I can feed them however I like, I can go riding down the street, there are trails behind us. I don't have an arena but I do have a roundpen and I can use the neighbor's outdoor arena.

18. What is your least favorite thing about boarding or keeping your horses at home?
Least favorite about boarding is having to pay... But also the drama that comes with keeping your horse at someone else's barn - you have to abide by their rules and deal with other people. And the fact that sometimes you can't get the exact care you'd like. Keeping my horses at home, I dislike not having certain facilities, but mostly just the fact that I have to be out there two or three times a day, every day and if I want to take a day off that's not usually an option.

19. What nicknames do you have for your horse?
For Jetta it's dork or brat. Misty is Misty-moo. 

20. What scares you the most about riding/horses?
There's not a whole lot about horses and riding that scares me. I've always been that fearless little girl. But now that I'm getting older I'm getting a little more cautious. Jetta's rearing scares me since she has flipped over on me before and I got hurt pretty badly. Cross country jumping scares me a little bit since Jetta dumped me over a jump.

21. What is your best skill around horses?
I would say my best skill is not being afraid. I have no problem dealing with naughty horses, I don't get nervous if I get on a horse that's a little flighty or spooky. I don't have issues dealing with bratty horses on the ground either, for instance the barn owner's stallion who strikes and likes to turn his rump to me. I have no patience for naughty horses and am very much the "alpha mare".

22. What is your dream pony vacation?
I think my dream horse vacation would be some intense, upper-level sort of training trip in either dressage or eventing or jumping. Something where I'd get to ride other horses and learn to improve my skills. Get multiple lessons a day then go for fun rides on the beach or through the countryside. Not sure where though...

11 questions for nominees:

1. What equestrian sport that you've never done before would you like to try? 
2. If you could ride any horse (living or not), who would it be?
3. If you could buy one tack item, no matter the expense, what would it be?
   
4. Why did you start blogging and who in real life knows that you blog?
5. Besides horses, what is your favorite hobby?
6. Second favorite animal? (horses are obviously your first :)
7. Favorite color?
8. Least favorite equestrian fashion fad?
9. Black or brown tack?
10. What is your favorite place to go besides the barn? (can be a travel destination or someplace close to you)
11. Favorite food that you couldn't live without?

11 bloggers: I have no idea who has or has not been nominated at this point, so sorry if this is your second (or third!) nomination. I gave up trying to keep track.

1. Hillary at Equestrian at Hart
2. Karly at All In
3. Matt the Cowpony
4. Kristen at Sweet Horse's Breath
5. in2paints at R Lil Bit of Cash
6. Karen at Contact
7. Lauren at She Moved to Texas
8. Jen at Wyvern Oaks
9. Gingham at Pia's (and Praire!) Parade
10. Checkmark115 at Chasing the Dream
11. Amy at Slow and Steady