appy Birthday to my beautiful mare, Savez, who turns six years old today! Here she is all dressed up and braided for schooling a few weeks ago before our first show. So shiny and pretty.
She’s an amazing partner. This may sound nuts, but in a way she’s my good friend and we always seem to enjoy our time together. Even though she’s quite an athlete, I like to make sure at least half of our time includes just hanging out and relaxing. It does wonders for the horse/human relationship.
Some of you asked how our show went – Savez was awesome! Lot of firsts for both of us – my first time to pull a trailer (I’ll be honest I was scared). Her first time to ride in it (she cried like a baby at first). First show for her. First jumping show for me.
If you can believe it, I didn’t get any pictures at the show because we had a hiccup with the camera and time just got away from me – it was a lot of schooling and we worked our tails off. Although Savez was a little insecure to be in a new place, she totally loved the jumping part of our weekend. In our flat classes (the non jumping part) she got a little too “happy” in the ring and sometimes tried canter faster than the horses. I had to explain to her with my body language “just relax, girl…this isn’t a race.” She didn’t believe me and argued back “but Mom, I want to run faster than everyone! I know I can do it!!” It’s funny because she can be a real Type A around other horses, despite her young age. These days we’re practicing a lot more relaxation and cadence in our canter around other horse friends. She’s doing much better! ; )
I’ll be back to share a very simple creative project I did on the day of the show for all of our riders – it’s something you can easily do at home for daily inspiration…
I‘m Seleta, a city girl living the beach life with my husband, fabulous four offspring, happy horses and frisky fur babies. A former TV personality turned Designer, I love to share the sparkly side of life. Read more 
standing on the truth
Today’s idea came from my good friend, Nikole (here we are a few weeks ago touring the Atlanta Showhouse). Nikole has been a friend for more than seven years. I met her when I was about nine months pregnant with number three – bloated and battling bad brows. She’s amazing and wise beyond her years – her natural elegance and charisma can’t help but command your full attention, yet her character and faith shine through in all that she does. She’s just plain cool. And I have great respect for her on so many levels.
So today’s little project is called Standing on the Truth. The idea is to jot down an inspiring scripture on a tiny slip of paper whenever you need a little extra confidence, peace, patience, etc…then you slip the paper in your shoe, thus standing on the truth all day long. It’s a great little secret weapon!
I applied this idea in a creative fashion to my recent horse show and shared it with all of the riders from our barn. To share with the group, I recycled a pickle jar and labeled it, then cut down the scriptures and filled the jar. We all picked our favorite scripture and slipped one in our boots before going into the ring. I have to say, it really helped battle the nerves and added an element of comfort and assurance in doing our best.
Supplies you’ll need: paper, jar, scriptures and scissors or handy slicer.
Type out your favorite scriptures then slice them down – fortune cookie size or bigger ; ) Because I’m slightly challenged with my scripture knowledge, I had to google things like “inspiring scripture” or “scriptures on strength.” Tried to keep them down to one liners for simplicity.
For the label I used one of my faves, which is this free font…
And some paper from Martha Stewart (can’t find the paper online – but it’s called “elegant” in 12 x 12).
Here is the final product.
This could be a fun project for kids to learn their Bible verses over the summer – I’ve already made a jar for one of our children and every morning she wakes up, reaches her hand in the jar and has a surprise scripture to read. We discuss its meaning at dinner time – although things have been so busy that we’ve already forgotten a few nights. This could also be a great inspiration jar before you go to work every day – or a motivation jar for enduring round the clock kids at home this summer, ha!