Well this is, uh, different.

I have the next 4 days, until Thursday, with absolutely no horse chores, horsey interaction, riding, lunging, long-lining, grooming, nothing. Nada.

I am home, 68 miles away from the reasons I am in school for Equine Studies, the reasons why I get up every morning and spend so much of my time on things other than myself.

I have the better part of the week free of frozen water buckets, steaming hot grain mashes, and pushing wheelbarrows through snowbanks.

This is utterly amazing, and yet utterly bizarre and sad.

I don't really know how I feel. I am home for the holidays, technically it's until January 9th. I decided against bringing Ernie and Stella home with me because it's just too expensive and a huge hassle. So down at school they stayed. And I am here. Over an hour away. With nothing to do.

I know I needed a break. I was starting to feel burnt out (scratch that, I've been burnt out since mid-October) and it was starting to affect my motivation to get out to the barn. I'd get through chores and feeding and think, "It's just too cold/I'm too tired/the weather is too crappy/I have too much to do". Any number of excuses worked. Not good, but it's reality.

I also know that sometimes a break means getting away from EVERYTHING. I'm a firm believer that everyone needs a day off at least once a week. My riding instructor doesn't do anything horse-related on Sundays. She doesn't teach, ride, groom or do anything more than feed her horses and let them be horses. She doesn't want to be around a barn, talk about lessons or have anything to do with horses (unless it's an emergency, of course.) She just needs the time away to get recharged.

So that's what I'm trying to make this next few days into. I need a few days to recharge, to know the horses are fine and taken care of and will be happy to see me on Thursday when I go down. I've paid a good friend of mine to care for them until then, and I know she does a good job, so the natural worrier in me just needs to put a sock in it until then.

Naturally, this means not very many entries until then. I won't have much to talk about, save for if a dire emergency comes up, and I'm hoping for none of those.