Month: July 2024

Alzheimer’s changes everyone around the affected person. You might think that with this happening to Mom while I was in my 40’s, well, I was already grown up. That might be true, but what happened anyway is that I grew up. I became more patient, a lot wiser, more empathetic, more in tune with my own feelings, and a LOT OLDER. It aged me quickly. No longer just concerned with my own life, I became the advocate for my parents that they desperately needed. I learned every day how to be that person. I learned what was most important is being there for the people you love and that love you.

During those years from 2018-2023 both my parents passed away. Baby Girl lost two people she adored. I felt abandoned and alone. During those years I lost clients from my barn who could not understand that they were no longer my top priority. I kept clients who understood, and who stood with me. I treasure these people and they are still clients today.

My whole outlook on life changed. My dreams started to swirl around me like West Texas dust, blowing away and becoming faint. I managed to hang on to my business but realized I needed to downsize. After my Mom died, I let go of the “riding school” portion of my business. I no longer provide school horses. Because of this I now only have clients that own or lease their own horses or ponies. I still love to teach, and I love to horseshow. I love these girls like they are my own. Of course I still love ponies.

In 2022 Bruno broke his leg. That was the end of my Pony Finals dream. Baby Girl and I were gutted. Both of us realized from Day 1 that he would never be the same, no matter what happened. You all know that he has recovered in a miraculous way, but there is still no Pony Finals future for him. For a year we rehabbed him and Baby Girl rode a different pony that she wasn’t exactly fond of. Finally, we found and bought Prince, through the help of my inheritance. I tell Dad thanks every day, sending gratitude up to Heaven, that a rainbow was given to us after the storm.

These days my dreams are a little different. I can see the log cabin type house that we want to build in East Texas in my mind. I see the piney woods and the red dirt. I see the small barn I want to build, the garden which will not grow anything because I have no green thumb, I see a pond with Canadian Geese. I hear the racoons at night and the mosquitos swarm as I sit on the porch sipping sweet tea. I see Baby Girl coming up the drive, on a visit from college, and I stand up to greet her and thrust a glass of tea into her hand. I see the Maine Coon cat I want lurking around the doorways, just trying to get in the way. Sometimes I see baby goats.

I see myself writing, a published author. I see Tony out the picture windows of my office, tinkering in his garage he wants to build. I see sunny days and chilly Christmases with our small family. I see only Bruno, Prince and Hugo grazing in their paddock. I see a different me. A more relaxed me. Someone who isn’t always rushing against the clock to “get things done.” I see vacations and cruises and enjoying the downtime.

I see peace at last.

My own business. What a treat! What a dream! I couldn’t have done it without the most generous sponsor. She believed in me and helped me out a ton the first year (and when I needed additional funds she was there to support me). She told me, write a business plan. So I did. It took forever but it really made clear to me what path I wanted to take.

I won’t dwell on the first 18 months that Abingdon Park existed. There are not many great memories from that time. A few. But not a lot. It was hard being on my own. I didn’t live there so I had to drive in twice a day, or spend the entire day there. The owners took me in like a long lost little sister at first but as time went on it became clear that we were VERY different types of people. It all came to a head one day in May 2009. She kicked me out, I was gutted because I thought my dream was toast. But then we had a post-kicking-out meeting to try and resolve things. Things got heated. She told me that if she was going down (I won’t tell you what for – sorry) that I was going down with her.

All of a sudden my heckles were raised. My back was up and fire filled my eyes. I just looked at her and said quietly “I don’t think so.” She threw down a $20 and stormed out. Her partner just gazed at me and shrugged her shoulders. I knew she didn’t have the guts to stand against her. From that point I became a new person. I started to become ME again. Remembered who I was and what I wanted to accomplish in life. I found a new base of operation fairly quickly and rescued my ponies from the various barns that had helped me out by taking ponies on a moment’s notice. I am thankful for all the people in my life who have been there when I needed someone. God truly puts people in my path for a reason. I am thankful for my parents and my brother who came with their trucks and their compassion.

The new barn I found was really pretty but really run down. The best part about it was that I met Tony there in January 2010. A year later I moved into the little “barn house” that was there, with Tony. It had spiders. Tarantulas. Scorpions and massive centipedes. One day we saw a foot long centipede come out of the closet. Ali (10) and I screamed and stood on top of a chest of drawers while Tony literally took the walls down until he found that M-F’er and killed it. Another day I was reading in my bed and a scorpion fell into my hair. I have a ton of stories like this. However, the place was for sale and Tony and I wanted a place of our own. It took a couple more years (and a wedding) but eventually we found this place on Zipper Road in Pilot Point. A dream became a reality as I watched my husband, my Dad, and some friends build my arena, tack room and paddocks and clean out the old Hay barn. The meter high weeds were mowed, multiple trips to the dump happened and eventually we were ready to begin again.

After a miscarriage and almost a year of “trying again” I finally became pregnant with Skylar. And Tony left for Haiti. A mission he had agreed to before we knew I was pregnant. That was the hardest year of our lives. He hated being away (and hated Haiti) and I hated being on my own, pregnant and then with a newborn. That winter I was pregnant was ridiculously stressful. I have an awesome picture of my Mom in all her winter gear, dressed to help me out cleaning stalls. One of my barn families was ready to help at a moment’s notice and came out during the terrible ice storm we had that year, despite the roads and the weather. God Bless them. My Mom and I ended up eating hamburger buns (toasted) because we couldn’t get to Walmart and we had no groceries in the house! We had to get water from the house using a wheelbarrow and a “water bladder” – we unhooked the washing machine and used that hose because everything in the barn had frozen. I’m telling you, these were some of the best memories despite it all! It was quite an adventure.

I realized I had it all. ALL my dreams had come true. A house and a barn of my own, a husband, a child, my own business. What more could I want? For a long time I was happy and satisfied. It was HARD but it was worth it, because it was mine.

And then my world fell apart. In 2019 my Mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

Nothing has ever been the same.

To be continued….

When I was young I wanted to be a jockey. I wanted to ride fast and hard and be part of that boy’s club. Julie Krone was my idol. When I was 12 we looked up “jockey camp” which was in California. Unfortunately the camp was too expensive for my parents to manage so the idea quickly turned to dust. When I was 14 I decided I wanted a pony farm. I wanted to breed Welsh ponies and have high-quality, gorgeous ponies – I can still see the acres of paddocks with white fencing in my mind. By the time I was 16 I was more practical. I was going to be an accountant. I loved math and numbers and took accountancy as a high school elective. The teacher was excellent and she had a full class of would-be accountants at the end of the school year.

Fresh into college I was absolutely sure that accountancy was my path. In my sophomore year I took basic accountant classes and sailed through. First semester of my junior year saw the “theory” of accounting melt my brain and give me panic attacks. I didn’t get it. None of it made sense. I started struggling with my grades, and with my destiny. Being ever-practical, late into that semester I changed track and dived into business management with gusto. Ahhh, this was easy. It all came naturally to me and I could easily bullshit my way through essays at the last minute. I began to get all A’s again.

I graduated in December of 1997 with a degree in Management, a Bachelor of Business Administration. Securing a job was easy. I had been working in a Continuing Medical Education (CME) office at a hospital in Bryan. Continuing on that career trajectory, I was employed by the University of Texas-Houston Health Science Center as an Event Planner in the CME office. For three years I worked in Houston. Hating it, I soon decided to move to Dallas, to be closer to my parents. Again, with career goals in mind, I took a job as an Event Planner with Physician’s Education Resource. For a year I flew back and forth to Hawaii, to Canada, to New York, to Santa Fe and more.

The good Doctor who owned that company was a real tool. 9/11 happened. On a Tuesday morning. I was meant to fly to Orlando on Friday. Not ONE HOUR after the twin towers fell he called all 30ish of his employees to the conference room. After some spiel of fake concern (he was not from America, I will tell you), he looked around the room and said “life must go on.” Maybe true, but not in that moment! He locked eyes with me and said “you’ll still go to Orlando on Friday.” It wasn’t a question. I responded with “I doubt the planes will be flying, and I am not going anywhere.” I had already put in my resignation and Orlando was going to be my last hurrah. I left that day and didn’t look back.

(The planes were not flying by Friday, and nobody went to Orlando).

I had said an immediate YES to a the owner of the barn where my horse was stabled when she asked if I wanted to teach lessons and manage the barn. My mother was concerned. I told her I had been handed a dream on a silver platter and I wasn’t going to turn it down.

And that’s where my life changed forever. I left the glittery world of traveling and catering to physicians behind (and the income) and fell headlong back into the world of horses.

It wasn’t easy. I lost thirty pounds in a matter of months from spending 10+ hours at the barn each day. Cleaning thirty stalls did me in. Then they’d immediately not be clean again. It did not sit well with my OCD heart. I’d try to make sure they were all perfect as often as I could but there were too many other things to capture my attention. Taking care of the horses, teaching lessons, holding for the vet or farrier, cleaning tack, managing parents and owners, amiss a variety of other chores. The barn was owned by three ladies, one of which was meant to be my friend. But I remember one day I was sitting on a bench, taking a break and eating an apple. She came by me and I remember almost panicking because I was not working. She was a hard-ass and wanted everything to be in her control at all times. She was not fun to work for. I swear she did not know how to have real friends. I tried hard, but by the time she sold out and moved away, I was relieved.

The money wasn’t great. I started out with more than I left with. The other two ladies who owned the barn kept changing the details of our agreement until I left because I was not making enough money to stay. I had completely changed the atmosphere and energy of that barn in the six years I was there. It was a thriving hunter jumper barn with mostly good lesson horses and a huge student base. Even as the Head Instructor, managing the lesson program, going to horseshows and teaching nonstop, I was not being compensated fairly in my opinion. In one sense they were a GREAT six years. I had awesome kids and parents and a super fun “show team.” I have extremely fond memories of those horseshows and banquets. Those parents and kids will always be in my heart.

In 2007 I was offered the opportunity to come to Aubrey. To start my own business. I had long decided this was my new dream. I did not want to breed ponies, but I wanted to OWN them. And so Abingdon Park & Pony Farm was born.

To be continued…