Art update

Normally my muse and I have a good, professional working relationship. I say dragon, she says "rocks?". I say Default Fantasy Woman, she says "Rocks!". I say cute fuzzy, she says "God Dammit, ROCKS NOW!" and then I paint another techno-frog and we're good to go for another few pictures. However, this weekend I was filtering through a bunch of my digital photos and I found one I'd taken of shelf fungus on a oak tree. Now keep in mind, I had one commission on the board, 99% finished. I have two more waiting to go. I have blk's thingy to get done before Arisia and my sellable originals for the winter conventions are few to non-existent. You get the picture, lots of serious painting to do. And the Muse? She's going "Fungus, fungus, fungus, Fungus, FUNGUS!" and bouncing around like small child who has eaten pound of fudge.
( Blame the muse )

Horse update

So I'm finally back to work after a wonderful week of doing a lot of nothing. Its rather scary just how fast you can settle in to being a home body. We had a couple friends over here and there throughout the week for game playing and I went to the barn a couple times to ride but other than that, I stayed at the house and vegged out.

Speaking of riding, my Boy snuck behind my back and paid for the ubber-spiffy saddle and girth I'd had out on loan from Dover. Talk about unexpected Christmas present.

I'd had the Dover saddle fitter come out(twice) with lots of saddles and girths and we tried just about every combination possible of them. The saddle fitter said Tisa's back wasn't the problem, fitting a saddle to her was easy. We found a couple that would do the trick and the one I choose fit her the best while still feeling pretty good to me. The actual problem that caused all the girth gauls is that Tisa's girth channel is way up under her forelegs instead of straight down below where the saddle should sit. That causes most girths to inch forward and pull the saddle up onto the shoulders.

So yeah, we tried all types of girths ranging from fleece covered (useless) to those huge dinner plate things the eventers use (all too big for my narrow chested arab). We finally found a weird shaped Passier thing that, while being obscenely expensive, keeps it all in place. I have moral issues about paying that much money for a piece of leather but ... it works. No girth moving forward, no rub marks on the back from the saddle sliding. Tisa is comfortable and happy. So comfortable and happy, in fact, that we've started really moving forward with her training again. We can actually do extended trots and walk to canter transitions now, instead of getting pissy bucks and squeals when we try. Like my instructor said, its amazing what my pony is willing to do when she's no longer getting pinched every time she tries.

On the down side, I'm losing all of my tricks for slowing her down when she's having a young and stupid day. She KNOWS she can get to the canter from both the walk and a halt. Trotting is optional and that means I have that much less time to convince her to do something else. Long gone are the days when she couldn't bend her neck and trot at the same time. Now she can bend her whole body into a "C" and still make the canter transition. Great for the whole dressage thing but not so great when its cold and the wind is going and she's convinced every little noise is a monster that is going to eat her.