2025 foto finish

Happy New Year!! Whatever your feelings on the matter, 2025 is well and truly over. As such, I’d like to do one last flush of ye olde iphone and post the final few photos from the year. 

according to the jockey club, this wild child is 8 now! somebody should let her know lol….

You’ve already heard me whine about being confined mostly to the great dusty indoors for our December rides. And… Well, that ain’t super likely to change in the immediate future. C’est la vie!

anyway. the holiday season is dead. long live the holiday season!

I still followed through on my traditional holiday limbo routine, tho — polishing off the last of my ‘use it or lose it’ PTO for the week between Christmas and New Years.

weather has been wintry this month

Idk what exactly it is about this week, but I always find it super peaceful and restful. Sometimes, depending on conditions, we can be really proactive about scheduling fun adventures — like schooling Loch Moy’s derby course! 

lots of time spent indoors for sure

This year was a little less hustle-bustle with the horses, tho, instead favoring quality family time. (And the lesser-quality associated driving time that entails…)

the snow never lasts long tho, and it dried enough for some hacking!

Tho actually — I DID get out to Loch Moy before Christmas. Less for high octane, jump-all-the-things schooling of the derby course, and more so just bc it was a convenient meeting spot for erstwhile longtime coach Dan, who’s located down in Northern Virginia these days.

woods are so pretty this time of year <3

And it was good! I didn’t write about it bc 1) zero media; and 2) it was more of a sorta reintroduction for us all, plus obvi his first time* seeing Doozy. Plus I was actually a bit of a hot fucking mess, not gonna lie, for reasons you’ll understand shortly. So Dan asked to get on Doozy for a little session — putting her thru her paces and over a couple jumps before handing her back to me to do the same. And again — it was good! 

Rest assured, tho, if I get my way, and my 2026 intentions hold true, there will be more to come in the near future!

(*If you ignore the time we almost accidentally murdered him when he was coaching in the warm up at Doozy’s first ever event, oops)

my sweet new shelter kitty Jojo was such a wonderful addition to our little household, even if it was heartbreakingly brief <3

And anyway. About the whole ‘hot fucking mess’ situation… The night before that lesson, my sweet beloved new shelter kitty Jojo, who had only been with us for about 4 months, suddenly went into significant respiratory distress. I took him to the hospital, where x-rays confirmed he was in the final stages of heart failure. We made the only possible choice and let him go right then and there. Ugh. My heart is broken <3

The Original is carrying on tho <3

It feels like a lot of beloved animals lost just in the last year or so, with Jojo’s predecessor Martini passing from cancer this past summer. And obviously losing Charlie a year ago now, if you can believe it. I still think about him and miss him every single day. 

my mom visited!! doozy was #obsessed

Part of the beauty of the holiday season, however, is making space for bringing family and friends together to remember and celebrate those who aren’t with us today. 

Doozy had only met my mom once before, but basically immediately picked up on her strong “Cookie Lady” vibes and was instantly smitten <3

also made time to ride with friends!

Really, tho, the year closed quietly. Well. Ok. “Quiet” is probably not the right word to describe Winter Doozy, Queen of Chaos. Ahem. 

experimenting with the KK again to see if maybe doozy has actually grown up

She’s been an absolute handful in our schooling sessions. Explosive, touchy. Sad if we’re alone, but also sad if we have company, but the vibes are off. It’s been a LOT.

really tho, so much time indoors. sometimes with bounces!

And it’s been a bit frustrating, not gonna lie. Except… Actually, the quality of the work (when we aren’t turned inside out spooking at the sound of clumps of dirt pinging off the walls…) has been quite decent! Relatively speaking, obviously.

the face of a horse who is more than happy to make her own excitement

We even made it out to a lesson with longtime dressage trainer C* as a fun limbo week to-do, and she felt like Doozy has developed and changed so much just in the last ~6 months, and even since she last saw us in September. 

(*OMG if 2026 is the year of ‘getting the gang back together’ I’ll be over the moon!)

ooooh we finally made it out for some lessons again!

Obvi Doozy was still a hot touchy explosive diva in that lesson too. Like omg she almost straight up Lost Her Shit, Ma’am, when we arrived as the last horse was finishing their lesson with practicing flying changes (in a slightly thunderously forward manner). 

“New Year, new you. *I*, however, make no such promises!” — Doozy, 1,000%

But overall, it was a great lesson and great to get that outside perspective that, sure, yea it might feel like I’m sitting on a barrel full of TNT, but the moments that are good? Are good. 

Regardless, it’s so good to get out again, after a somewhat prolonged cautionary period of mandated isolation. Doozy is always at her most civilized when she’s routinely getting off property. Plus, getting into new and different spaces can make our at-home indoor feel more boring and familiar (and therefore perhaps less exciting lol). 

A girl can dream, right? And isn’t that what January 1 is all about anyway?? We’ll find out, I guess. In the meantime, happy new year, folks!