NHR Question

Would you rather have a side-by-side fridge or a single-door fridge? With freezer on top or bottom? I really don't have a preference, but I should develop an opinion. What would you like and why?

This one's ~C's fault, twice

Here is my horse, accoutered in her fancy new enduro breastcollar.


I wouldn't have bought it if I hadn't gone to Washooo to hang out with C, and then she goaded me into posting this. ;)


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Primal

So I've been eating this primal diet for 3 or 4 weeks now. I lost 10 lbs almost immediately and now I'm very slowly losing a bit more. That's ok, though, because I'm actually NOT counting the days til I can cheat. This really works for me.

I will direct you to Tamara's blog, because she is the person who inspired me to try it. She'll send you to Mark's Daily Apple, because that seems to be the epicenter of primal eating - but I didn't read his site til I'd read hers for a while, so say hi to her.

The way I think of it is "no grains, no sugar." It's similar to a low-carb diet, but for me, the application seems way different. If you read low-carb sites, they are usually obsessed with making low-carb versions of typical American food. It's an eternal quest for chicken-fried steak and mashed potatoes and gravy, with whatever weird substitutes to make it low carb. Primal is like "there's so much good food to eat, even without bread."

So what do I eat? Eggs and bacon for breakfast. A huge salad with plenty of homemade dressing for lunch. Nuts or a piece of fruit for snacks. A normal dinner, without grains or potatoes.

I am not very hardcore about this. (About anything but riding, really.) If I want a sweet, I'll have a tiny piece of 75% dark chocolate or some fruit. If I want a drink, I'll have a finger of bourbon on the rocks. Quality over quantity.

Anyway, I find it to be a very sustainable way of eating. If I want pizza or sushi badly enough, I'll go get it, but I'm just not craving anything.

I was eating like this - effectively low carb - when I rode Moonshine. Aside from being up all night and super tired, I felt better at Moonshine than I did at Rides of March, when I ate "normally."

I am getting back into the gym, too. I have been debating whether to post this kind of stuff here or over on the dormant fitness blog. Votes? All horse stuff here (sorry Kacy ;) ) or horse and human fitness here?

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Blogging 201

Terry requested a post about some blogging tricks, so here we go!

Number one - become familiar with the Edit Html tab. When you're typing in it, it looks like this.



The stuff in the brackets is the actual HTML code, and it does the cool stuff like italics and links and inline images and videos.

I'd like to show you the embroidery I'm working on. I recently took a picture of it and uploaded it to Flickr. They just changed the look and feel of Flickr, so this will be topical for a while! :)

I went to the photo page and clicked "share this."


Then I clicked "grab the html." Remember, you're in the HTML tag, so you want to grab the HTML.


Just follow the instructions - copy and paste the code over into your Edit Html blogger tab. It'll look like this:


But when you click the Preview button, you will see actual pictures instead of html code.



It's a little confusing at first. You don't have to READ the stuff in between the <> and the brackets, and if you accidentally type something in there you can "break" your pictures so they don't work. If you keep flipping back and forth between edit html and preview, you can usually straighten it out.

It's a little confusing at first. Remember that there's always two sets of brackets - links have a <a href blahblah1233> part and a </a> part. You don't have to READ the stuff in between the <a blahblah> and the </a> brackets, and if you accidentally type something in there you can "break" your pictures so they don't work. If you keep flipping back and forth between edit html and preview, you can usually straighten it out. Stay out of the code in the brackets, though, and you'll be fine! And remember, you can flip back over to the Compose tab as soon as you've pasted the HTML in.

If yall like this, I'll do another couple posts like it to follow up.

Test

Trying out a blogging app from my phone. Why yes, work is really boring sometimes!

test italics



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Malaise

So I haven't posted in a while - not because I want to quit blogging, but just because I don't feel like I have a goal or anything to talk about. My horse is in killer shape and we don't have a ride to attend til October. Going out and working on canter sets or heat training or hills seems really pointless.

My trailer is still for sale, but that's no big deal. I refuse to mark it down a couple hundred dollars - I'd rather keep the damn thing til it finally sells at $1100. And my trailer fund is getting sidetracked to be a down payment fund. The market is amazingly soft and our lease ends soon, so we're looking in to buying a house. In the long run, it'll be more awesome to have a house with my horse (and her goat) in the backyard.

It's still pretty melancholy though.

Care and feeding of the rider

So most of what I forgot to bring was stuff for the human. I didn't bring any kind of light, so I did everything by the light of the moon, one glowstick, and my cell phone. It was good enough. I didn't bring my camping stuff. I have no idea what I was thinking. I guess I just didn't want to bother my husband to borrow his truck and make him drop me off then come pick me back up...

I did bring some food, and I did snack all along the trail. I've been doing the primal eating thing - no sugar and no grain, basically - and I stuck to it pretty well. I ate nuts and fruit roll ups, and I drank water and unsweetened electrolyte drink. Fruit roll ups are only marginally primal, but I didn't have any terrible moments of low-blood-sugar-despair. I was going to bring some beef jerky, but... I forgot that too. I did bring a bottle of whiskey in case I needed a shot of courage to climb back on that beast for another loop, but I was fine!

I brought clean clothes, too. Dry socks at a vet check does more for my morale than anything else.

I don't know if this is weird, but I really enjoyed the times where I was in a pocket of aloneness. Dixie's easier to ride, of course, when she's focused on following another horse, but she's more fun to ride when I'm really riding her. I love the peaceful nonstop miles of communicating with her - keep on going, not too fast, watch out for that chalk mark, easy for the rocks.