The Weekly Routine

Everyone else seems to have done this, so why not. I'll do it too. It makes me sad though... I realize how much time I waste dwaddling in the evening (and it's mostly because I'm tired or want to be social at the barn), but then it doesn't help my overall tiredness so I'm continuously feeling rundown.

I wish I slept as soundly as Sophie (or got as much sleep as she does!).
She's such a sound sleeper that you can mush her face around... and it stays how it's been mushed!

I don't usually go to the barn Monday or Friday, so the days are pretty easy.

Monday/Friday:
5:50 - Wake up
6:15 - Finally get out of bed and get ready to go to work
6:50 - Get in the car and drive to the bus stop (this sometimes doesn't happen until 6:55, oops)
7:05 - Get in line for the bus (gotta be near the front of the line so I get a seat cause standing is no fun)
7:10ish - The bus shows up (this kind of happens whenever it wants to around this time)
8:00 - Sit down at my desk
Breakfast and lunch happen at work (I can't eat breakfast then ride the bus)
4:30 - Peace out yo!
4:35ish - The bus decides to show up (4:45 on bad days)
5:20ish - Get back to my car and go home (or run errands)
5:35ish - Home! Make dinner, do things that I don't usually have time to do (pay attention/talk to Husband), clean, etc. Shower before bed.
11:00 - Bedtime

Mondays and Fridays are usually non-horsey because I've been horsed out by those days.
Definitely was horsed out by the end of Championships.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday are barn evenings!

Tuesday/Thursday:
5:50 - Wake up
6:15 - Finally get out of bed and get ready to go to work
6:50 - Get in the car and drive to the bus stop
7:05 - Get in line for the bus
7:10ish - The bus shows up
8:00 - Sit down at my desk
Breakfast and lunch happen at work
4:30 - Peace out yo!
4:35ish - The bus decides to show up
5:20ish - Get back to my car and go to the barn
5:55 - Arrive at the barn, change clothes and water down alfalfa cubes
6:05 - Have Penn in his stall munching alfalfa.
6:15 - After getting stuff out and probably talking to someone, groom the nomming horse.
6:35 - Put Penn in crossties and tack up
6:45 - Ride
7:30 - Back to the crossties to untack and put the horse away
(depending on how sweaty/gross Penn is and the temp, Penn gets brushed down or a bath. Horse put away time varies a lot based on those things and if Penn is going back outside after dinner)
8:00 - Put stuff away, chat with people.
8:30ish - Go home
9:15ish - Arrive at home, put in a load of laundry if needed, and take a shower because I'm usually pretty gross. Showering while tired is my worst enemy. I'm usually pretty tired by this point in the day and I move pretty slow because I enjoy just standing in the hot water.
10:15 to 11:30 - Decompress time/pass out in the living room because I'm too tired. Get back up and put lunch together for the next day, deal with any laundry in the washer, generally crawl around the house trying to organize for the next day.
11:30 to Midnight- Bedtime

If I haul during the week, I usually do it Wednesday. Like I did for the obstacle trail thing!

Wednesdays have an interesting twist- I generally work at home once a week and my usual day is Wednesday. This is the day of the week that I sleep in! Strangely, in recent months I have yet to leave work on time (aka sign out) and I usually spend an extra 10-20 min working past 4:30.

Wednesdays:
7:40 - Wake up
7:55 - Crawl out of bed and get the laptop out and running and set up in the office for the day.
8:00 - Log in remotely to work.
Breakfast and lunch happen at some point in the morning and then afternoon.
4:30 - Peace out yo!
4:45 - Ok, really peace out.
5:00 - F this all, put on barn clothes, get in my car and go to the barn
5:45 - Arrive at the barn, water down alfalfa cubes
6:00 - Have Penn in his stall munching alfalfa.
6:15 - After getting stuff out and probably talking to someone, groom the nomming horse.
6:35 - Put Penn in crossties and tack up
6:45 - Ride
7:30 - Back to the crossties to untack and put the horse away
8:00 - Put stuff away, chat with people.
8:30ish - Go home
9:15ish - Arrive at home and take a shower because I'm usually pretty gross, and again it takes time becase I'm tired.
10:15 to 11:00 - Decompress time. There usually isn't much to organize for the next day since I've been home all day, but Wednesday night is Garbage Night and Husband and I tackle that task together (collect bags from the kitchen and bathrooms, throw out bad food, dump and refill litter boxes etc).
11:00 to 11:30- Bedtime

By the end of the week I feel a little derpy too.

Weeknight barn days usually end up going a lot longer than this schedule suggests... I get hung up at work and don't leave on time sometimes, or I clean tack after riding if it's really dirty, or just get caught up in the "time warp" of the barn. Hell, I didn't leave the barn Wednesday until 9:30 because the farrier was out to shoe Penn and I shaved his whites again, so I didn't get on to ride until 7:45 and then it just took forever to get things done. Tuesdays and Thursdays are hard for me- I'm usually out of the house doing things for 13-15 hours after dedicating an hour to getting out of the house... which means my last 8 hours of the day need to handle anything else I need to do (shower, organize for the next day) and I want to decompress, not immediately go to bed, so I dig into those 8 hours kind of quickly and miss out on sleep. I don't mean to whine or complain, I do this to myself, but I'm tired.

Weeknight barn nights are also tough for dinner- I try to bring something to eat in the car on the way home, but sometimes I just fail and get Sheetz for dinner because I love Sheetz and there is a convenient drive thru on my way home. #fail

Glutton for punishment: two horses and all their gear (plus a 3rd horse's stuff), about to walk down to SJ warm up.

So guess what? I work some more on the weekend, but not a crazy number of hours... it's more the idea of "I already did 37.5 hours (plus 3-7 additional hours which has been the case for the last few months) of work this week, so let's wake up and do 6 more!"

Saturday/Sunday:
7:00 - Wake up
7:15 - Get out of bed and ready to go to my fun job!
7:30 - Leave for the barn
7:45 - Stop at Sheetz drive thru for breakfast. Sometimes I get a sub to have for lunch on my way home from the barn.
8:30 - Arrive at the barn to clean stalls and feed and shuffle horses as per the weather and time of year.
11:30 - Stop working (I only do 3 hours each morning- when the horses are on night turnout I usually get everything done - feed/horse shuffling, stalls, blow out the barn - but when they're on day turnout I usually only get through 1/2 to 3/4 of the stalls)
11:30 to 1:30 - get Penn, feed him alfalfa, groom, tack up, ride, put horse away. Sometimes this goes on until 2 or 2:30 if I'm talking to someone.
By 2:30- GO HOME. I'm usually much faster about barn stuff on the weekend because by the time I get to fetch Penn to ride, I've been barning for 3 hours and usually have some kind of pressing thing I need to go do (like go to Tractor Supply or the grocery store). I'm super quick when I don't see anyone at the barn- I can be driving out by 1!
3:30 - I'm home by this point if I didn't need to run errands, so immediate shower and usually a nap.
5:30 to 11:00 - Cook dinner, spend time with Husband, clean the house/kitchen, use the interwebz, etc.
By 11:00 - Bedtime. Saturdays are usually the only day I go to bed before Husband. He does long projects on the weekends and sometimes is up past midnight working on them.

I try not to let the shit hit the fan.

Of course the days have random things tossed in. Over the summer, Trainer taught every other Tuesday night. As we get into fall and winter, she'll teach every other Saturday. When there are lessons, there are more people to talk to (plus lessons to watch), so I end up spending more time at the barn. The farrier comes out on weeknights, so those nights are usually quite late for me because I rarely come out just to hold the horse; I'll ride too (a 40-45 min drive that's 25 miles one way does that).

You can probably tell that I don't go out and do things other than horsey things... well that's because: a) it's usually expensive to do fun things and I'm already working both days on the weekend to work off some of my board so I can afford to horse show because my job does not pay OT, b) I'm usually so booked up that I don't want to do anything else, or it's hard for me to make the time. The BOs are great about being flexible on the weekends since I'm there both days, so I can skip a day and go do things like horse shows, road rallies, family functions, etc.

All this because I've made riding my #1 priority in life (Husband may not be happy about this statement).

And that's ok cause I get to spend a lot of time with this handsome face!