Goals check for the week of February 18

Last week Michael had Monday off of work; his mom came over Monday to spend the night (she lives in a rural area about an hour southeast of us), so he also took Tuesday and Wednesday off.  As a result, I didn't have much time sitting at my computer during the first few days of the week, and in fact I didn't even remember to do my accountability post for the previous week (the week of February 11) until I finally had some time on Thursday.

As you can imagine, this meant that I didn't get much done last week.  The one thing I did do a lot of, however, was ride!  This was a mixed blessing, as you'll soon see.

1. Novels: No progress, except for possibly a little work on find some more images and locating another book for some ongoing research.  Not great progress, but at least it wasn't nothing, either.

2. Blogs and websites: Still no progress.  Eventually I will get to this...

3. Other writing projects: Ditto above comment.

4. Books: Finally!  Something else I can report progress on!  I did finally finish reading my book club's February selection on Thursday.  I took a short break from long books, choosing as my next book a thrilled that I finished in 24 hours; and then I started Les Miserables, one of the books on my 2013 reading list!

5. Horses: The past week has been both encouraging and discouraging in the equine department.  I rode Panama Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday, and the little girl I nanny for rode him Monday; however, he seems to have a problem with his back, so I was riding him so often to try the saddle out with a different pad, and finally to try the old saddle to see if anything made a difference.  Nothing did, so I backed out of the schooling show I was going to do on Saturday, and the vet is coming this week to check him out.

The good news is that I rode Rondo on my own a couple of times, both Monday (while the girl I nanny for rode Panama) and Tuesday (I rode him briefly to show my mother-in-law, who gave him to me, how he's doing, and then let her sit on him for a few minutes, just at the walk.  Riding Rondo without my trainer present is a huge step for me, as I have been a little worried about doing so until now -- there is so much I still don't know about what to expect from him.  I was intending to ride him again this weekend, but I didn't have time on Saturday (I had to wash and repair Panama's blanket before our big snowstorm started Saturday night), and Sunday we were virtually snowed in.

So it wasn't a hugely successful week, but I am pleased about my progress with Rondo, even if I didn't accomplish much else (and even if I am also rather worried about Panama)!