New Year, New Place...Life changes!

Happy New Year!

I imagine I don't have many regular readers anymore, since my updates have been spotty at best...but if you're still lurking once in a while, thank you :) If not, I guess this is mostly for me!

My last riding lesson was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. It went really, really well. I don't remember specifically what we did, but I think it was building more on the stuff from my last post: staying with the horse, allowing him to do his job, pushing him when needed, and of course, staying straight! I do remember we did a couple of courses and were pretty solid on distances each time, which I was thrilled about.

I had fully intended on continuing to ride right up until the end of the year, I didn't want to stop my forward progress! But then my husband and I had to make a trip to LA to get the rest of his stuff after Thanksgiving, and on Saturday morning, while we were prepping to load the truck up, he asked me to move the passenger seat forward. So, I tried to, without getting in it. I promptly proceeded to throw out my back. I heard a pop and all of a sudden felt excruciating pain and couldn't move. That made helping to load the truck and trailer very interesting. At one point, my husband said, hey, can you grab that for me? indicating his foam practice target thing-a-ma-bob...I looked at it, on the floor in the garage, and looked at him, and said, no, I don't think I can. That's when I knew it was bad...I literally could not get down there to pick it up. The ride back to Florida was absolute torture, and I spent much of it in tears.

In hindsight, this wasn't an all of a sudden thing. My lower back had been sore for a good month or so, starting toward the end of August. Then at the end of September, I totaled my car, on my way back from LA to FL. My injuries were minor, in the grand scheme of things, but my neck was basically straight (it should be curved!) and my lower back was even more sore than it had been previously. Riding made it feel better, so I kept riding. But, I guess I should have been resting it. It really didn't occur to me until trying to move a truck seat threw it out, that maybe I had pulled something. Not smart, I know.

So, under treatment from my chiropractor, lots of ice, some light stretching as I've been able to, my back has been feeling pretty great the last couple of weeks. I can consistently touch my toes and put shoes on that require tying laces. I have not been adjusted in 2 weeks, due to the holidays and moving...but I do have an appointment tomorrow with a chiropractor in my new home, so I am hoping that works out.

That leads me in to the new home part, lol.

As of December 29, I am a resident of North Carolina. I took my current job with me, and now work from home. My husband has a new job here, which solidified the move, and we are settling in. I am looking forward to our furniture getting here tomorrow, by Friday night, we should be able to sleep on an actual mattress, rather than an air mattress (my back is NOT liking the air mattress, I ended up sleeping on the floor last night because the mattress was making me twist and causing pain to flare up). We bought a new living room set, which should be here today, so that at least will make the next couple of days more bearable.

My current plan is to let my back continue to heal for the month of January, work on strengthening it over the next several weeks by building on some core exercises. I would like to start working out again toward the end of the month, barring any more setbacks (y'know, like when I tried to put pants on standing up in early December and tweaked my back again!) -- and once I am able to do that consistently, without pain, I will start reaching out to barns around here and see if I can get in a lesson program. With any luck, by the middle of February or so, I will be back in the saddle again. And, I am hoping by the end of the year, I can lease something and have a little more regular riding time.