What Makes it Good

I've been mulling over this post for a little while, but haven't been able to sit down and write it out until now. Recently, She Moved to Texas did a post, then Sprinkler Bandit followed it with her own, on what makes a good blog.

Personally, I know there's many different reasons I follow a blog which range all over the place, all of the ones listed by She Moved to Texas and Sprinkler Bandit are valid and things that I often look for in a blog. Most blogs I follow don't have all of the pieces of what make a "good" blog perhaps, but I still enjoy reading them immensely. What I'm interested in though is: What do you like about my blog? What keeps you coming back to read, why did you follow me in the first place and what are your favorite things that I do?

As I'm nearing 100 followers, a milestone I wasn't really sure I'd ever achieve, especially when viewing my blog through a more objective lens and thinking about all the reasons I wouldn't follow my blog if I was not the writer of it, I'm kind of amazed I have so many readers and I feel so lucky that all of you think I'm interesting enough to read, even if it's just in a "she's kind of a train wreck sometimes and I just want to watch it happen" sort of way!

So I'd love your input! ETA: I know you're lurking there... I just checked and this post has 18 views and 5 comments! Meaning lots of you readers aren't commenting! I want to know, so do it ;)

In other news, I finally made it out to ride. I knew I wouldn't be able to ride Monday so I planned to go before work on Tuesday. But because I had so much homework I stayed at home and did that instead, so I was going to ride for sure on Wednesday. But I still had so much homework that there was no way I'd be able to ride and get things turned in on time... By today I was in a mood: I'M GOING TO RIDE WHETHER OR NOT I HAVE HOMEWORK, IF I FAIL BECAUSE OF IT, SO BE IT!!!

Yeah, I was a little desperate. But, I don't really want to fail, so I allowed myself one hour of pony time.

This is what I found... Coated in mud with wind braids to boot.

It was wonderful. I wanted to lunge Jetta and ride Misty, but time-wise it only worked out to ride Misty. My neighbor told me that she'd put a sign on the arena if she ever didn't want me to ride in there because it was too wet or for whatever other reasons, so when I went up today I didn't think anything of it but started riding around. I figured she'd put a sign on "my" gate that I come through from my barn, but there wasn't one. As I rode, I started noticing that the cones I though were randomly dispersed seemed to actually be marking wet spots she didn't want the horses going through? Then I noticed that the gate on the other side that I didn't come through had red tape wrapped around it...

Jetta behaved herself while we rode

I wasn't sure if that meant riding was okay or not so I went back to my pasture just in case and rode around there. I thought it would be too slick to do much work, but it seemed just fine for Misty (with Jetta it would probably be too slick, but Misty is much more careful!). We did some flat work in the bottom "riding area" and then we galloped! Well, Misty's style of galloping, which is much slower. Still working on the whole "go fast" thing, but it was fun nonetheless. I tried videoing both the galloping on Misty and the galloping and other antics of Jetta. At one point we galloped up the hill toward the barn and stopped just in time to see Jetta take off from the other side of the pasture at full speed, leap the creek/ditch and come galloping up to us. I thought I caught it on video, which would have been awesome, but someone didn't press the right buttons... Cough cough, it could have been me.

Hardworking ponies get apples

It was a much needed ride and hopefully I will get to go again Friday!