2014: Year in Review

I can't believe 2014 is over, which also means I've been blogging for a year!  While I definitely wasn't as active as I wanted to be I'm glad there weren't any months that I totally stopped, and think there's obviously room for improvement this coming year.

Before I started blogging myself I loved reading the year in review posts and am so excited to do my first.  Albeit late... Whoops.

January

January was cold.  So cold.  Polar vortex cold.  As a result, Molls didn't get ridden a whole lot.  When we did rides were hit or miss, as can be expected when she has an entire week off between rides.  To fill the blog I started participating in the 30 day Bloggy Challenge.

February

February was the month of snow.  Lots of snow.  All the snow.  So much snow, I dedicated an entire post to winter memes.  This was also the month that I wrote my favorite post of the entire year, where I outlined what I would say to my horse if I could.  I did more riding in February than January, thanks to a few flukey warm weather weekends, but reading back through my posts it seemed like things went from 40 degrees to half a foot of snow in an instant.  Typical New England.

March

Evidently March was the month of blog hops and exercises.  Honestly I totally forgot about the "Exercise of the Week" segment that I started, but the posts can be found here, here, here, and here.  I also became a Back on Track believer and Mollie celebrated her 17th birthday!

April

April brought better weather (praise!) and more riding, much to Mollie's dismay.  I introduced the blog-o-sphere to Montana, spent days where I should be working at the barn instead, and had plenty of horse filled weekends.  Evidently nothing too exciting happened this month.

May

This month I had a serious blast riding multiple horses.  I talked a little bit about Pit Pat, made some progress with Montana under saddle, and briefly introduced Gobi Pony (and his luscious locks) to the world.  Mollie also got her teeth done although it really didn't help any of the issues I was hoping it would.  Evidently I didn't talk much about Mollie this month... bad mom.

June

June was a month of little riding because of real life getting in the way.  I did manage to do full write ups on Gobi and Calvin and I periodically talked about Mollie too.  Then Molls side lined me for a few weeks (during the busiest time of the year at work... thanks kid) and I got to sport a really gross boot for a few weeks.  I did finally finish up school, and Mollie continued to keep things interesting by rubbing some holes in her face, and winning herself some more time off.

July

July was kind of a mess.  I really don't have a lot to say about it.  I began the month trying to combat Mollie's NQR issues and they were resolved, mostly, with a new shoe setup.  Then life got real cray, and the most horse action I got was during a clinic I gave at Beech Brooke Equine Rescue.  I rounded the month out with Mollie's heaves acting up again, and throwing a wrench into my clinic with Jean Luc Cornille (recaps here and here).

August

We began August with the absolute low point of our year, when I had to make an emergency vet call because Mollie couldn't breathe.  I freaked out a lot, she got started on Prednazone, and it made her kinda crazy.  Because we were taking it easy riding wise this month, I did a few blog hops and talked lots about Montana (here and here).

September

Apparently not a whole lot happened horse wise in September, as it is the month I had the least amount of posts.  I began the year going back to school as a sub, which allowed me to ride a bit in the beginning of the school year as I wasn't working much.  That changed about mid-September however, and my life got really busy, really fast.  At the end of the month I published one of my most viewed posts, the cost breakdown of Mollie's COPD diagnosis.

October

October was a pretty fabulous month, even if I apparently didn't write much... bad blogger.  I even wrote a ride recap for the first time in MONTHS.  I was very lucky to get some updated photos taken from Doug Foscale Equine Photography, and then shared some of my thoughts on equine photo shoots in general.

November

November was a very interesting month.  I didn't really plan on moving Mollie, but that was exactly what we did the first weekend of November.  I was unsure about moving at first, but the biggest pro was that Mollie now lives 5 minutes from my house.  This continues to be the biggest pro to having her at this barn.  I began riding more, and even jumped Molls around a little bit for the first time in years.  Mid month I went to Equine Affaire and bought all sorts of goodies :)

December

December started off with me putting Mollie back in her double bridle and loving every second of it since then.  Things got a little weird mid month, with Mollie losing weight (very unlike her) and a discussion about appropriate forage in the winter months.  I still need to update everyone on that situation, but got distracted by Christmas things... one of them being Fly on Over's Secret Santa!

This has been a whirlwind of a year, and I can't believe it's over already.  Writing everything down like this is an interesting reminder of everything that has happened, and an interesting view of the ups and downs we faced each month.  Here's to 2015, and hopefully more consistent riding and blogging. 

Thanks for following along!