Almost every December for as long as I can remember I've played in a Christmas concert or played Christmas music with a small group. With the exception of last year.... I missed the music and being the one playing it, but hadn't found a group that I fit in with. It took finding Central Florida Community Arts for me to get back my Christmas concert! On December 7th, 8th, and 9th I'll be joining the CFCArts Community Choir as a member of the orchestra for the Once Upon A December show.

As you can probably guess, the song Once Upon A December is going to be featured which makes me super excited. The flute part is so amazing and so much fun! I can't wait to share this and all the other songs with my friends and the community. There will be songs featured from both Christmas selections and other holiday music. I'm excited for the variety of music and the opportunity to accompany a choir. I've played in musicals, I've had fun with friends playing while they sing, but I've never accompanied a choir in a formal setting. 

Unfortunately yes, this is a formal setting where I have to pull out the infamous "Amazon concert" dress. I love dressing up and picking out the right heels and accessories for each concert but I am getting soooooooooo sick of that Amazon dress. It might be time to hunt down a new dress. 

Anyways, off of my little dress issue and back to the concert! If you're interested in attending then information and tickets can be found at this link. According to friends who have attended past Holiday concerts this is one of the biggest and best events that CFCArts hosts all year! I look forward to seeing everyone who attends!

Today is day three of the NYX Lippie Countdown! If you're wondering why I'm talking about a random lipstick then please see this post. The past two colors have been pretty neutral and my style so I was a bit nervous when I saw that the preview of today's color was purple and looked dark. I tend to be intimidated by dark lip colors because I don't believe that I can pull them off. 

Upon opening day 3 I was not surprised to see that the line this color belongs to is Simply Vamp. I was surprised to see that this is a Lip Cream seeing as the past two have been dedicated lipsticks. 

This specific shade is She Devil and honestly the name fits the the color. This is a deep purple almost plum shade. This looks highly pigmented but didn't want to apply evenly. The edges of my lips applied nicely but the inside was much lighter and needed two passes with the stick. It applied nicely and cleaned up nicely, but was extremely easy to smear. This color did not hold up to drinking and needed multiple applications through out the day.

Overall, I like the color but it's not for me. The color suited my skin tone but is completely wrong for my personality. It's too bold and too dark. If I go towards bold and dark I prefer the reds because they're more in line with classic colors, purple is much too strange for me. Despite my dislike of the color I do plan on keeping this and possibly using it for a costume or fun event down the line. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a fun purple lip color but I would not recommend this for someone looking for long wear. 

Like many of you I try to set individual goals for each month. While scrolling through the various blogs I follow, I realized that many of them share their monthly goals. It dawned on me that this would be a great way to hold myself accountable, so here are my 5 goals for August!
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August Goals
1) Canter through the water.
Thanks to all the rains Florida has been having there is a small section of the arena that's flooded. Now Cupid is 'Little Miss Prissy Pants' and hates getting her feet wet. Our recent goal has been to walk through this puddle without issues, and we've managed to trot through it without a major break in gait. My goal for August, if the puddle sticks around, is to canter her through the puddle. Because I would love to take her cross-country schooling and to a hunter pace, she's going to need to adjust to going through water.

2) Practice the flute for 2 hours a week.
Central Florida Community Arts Orchestra rehearsal has started again and this time I need to really dedicate myself to the music. I would love to play for the Christmas concert so I need to make sure that I give this whole season 110%. The upcoming concert consists of music that is from Spain and Latin America which are pieces that I'm not really familiar with but have proven to be extremely fun to play!

3) Read 3 books.
I would love to start working through some of the books on my GoodReads "Want To Read" list, but first I've got to read through the 100 books that are currently on my Kindles! (Yes, I've got two of them)

4) Workout 3 times a week.
It's no secret. I've gained weight. I hate it so I've got to do something about it. I'm going to be checking out a training program through a local running store but until then I've got to start rebuilding my strength.

5) Paint office.
I've got this room in my house that has sat and done nothing for the past year. It started as a guest room, then went to my office, then started to gather stuff that I didn't know what to do with. I honestly didn't know what I wanted to do with this room and what my goal was for it. But now I've settled on a basic plan and just need to talk with my mom about swapping furniture. In the meantime I've picked out my paint color for the room and need to get it painted before bringing the heavy antique furniture into it.

See. It's in need of a makeover.

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Now for the fun part; seeing if I can achieve these goals! I'll be using my planner to track what I've accomplished, and when, so I will have an accurate record of what I've done.

As you might have caught on I was not happy at my last barn. Things went sour a few weeks ago and they went sour fast. I'll work on a "Why We Moved" post eventually but for now just understand that I had to move for Cupid's health and my sanity. We moved closer to my mom's house, which is still a 45 minute drive for me, but I couldn't have asked for better facilities. Despite only being here for a few days I've got a great feeling about this place!

Our moving day was Thursday. I stopped at Winter Garden Feed Co. on the way to the barn so I could pick up Cupid's current feed. She is currently on Nutrena ProForce Fuel and will be switched to Seminole Wellness Perform Safe. In order to ensure she has the correct food at the new barn I decided to be the one to pick up the feed, which also allowed me to get a new Jolly Ball and a Redmond Rock.

From the feed store I went to the, now former, barn. My plan was to ride Cupid one more time at a familiar place, give her a bath, then pack all my stuff. We were able to get our ride in, but the bath was a slight disaster. One of the other boarders at former barn had her horse grazing on the grass outside the barn and something about that freaked Cupid out. She once again took out the was stall wall (which has never been properly installed or repaired), effectively ending our bath. Once she calmed down, I had her stand quietly in the wash stall then took her to the hose outside to rinse the conditioner out of her tail. I allowed her to graze and prance around her turnout field until the new trainer called to let me know she was on her way.

The new trainer was kind enough to come pick Cupid up and had been informed that Cupid is extremely bad about trailers. I have never been allowed to load her myself or seen her loaded without a fight. In the weeks leading up to this move I had worked on a lot of ground work with the hope that she would be a bit better about loading. When the trailer got to former barn I was informed that I would be expected to load Cupid. Needless to say, I was a bit freaked out that something would happen to her. Cupid loaded like a champ! She followed me slowly up the ramp and stopped at the top, I let her evaluate the trailer and think about what I was asking. Once I felt like she was comfortable with the idea, I asked her to follow me into the trailer itself. To my surprise she listened and let herself get clipped in and the dividers shut! With that, lack of dramatics, we were off to the new location!

The whole drive to the new barn I panicked about everything that could go wrong. Cupid might be a bull getting off the trailer, she could bite someone, I might appear completely stupid, the barn could be worse than the last place, we might get asked to leave, and finally, this could be a complete success and I would feel stupid for second guessing everything.

The trailer beat me to the new barn and I dashed to it to help, thinking that Cupid was being a complete jerk which is why she wasn't unloaded. Nope, she was nervous and pawing, but the trainer explained we were going to wait to unload her until she stopped since she wasn't scared just being impatient. The went on for 15 minutes with us verbally praising her every time she stopped. When she stood for a full minute without pawing I was given permission to start opening the dividers to get her off. With each divider we did have to stop for a minute but she picked up quickly that standing quietly would get me to move quicker. Finally, she was untied, all the dividers were down, and I was holding her expecting her to bolt off. She calmly looked me in the eye and if she could talk she would have called me an idiot for thinking she's a monster. We slowly walked off the trailer and she got all the cookies I had in my pockets, tons of praise, and a well deserved grazing/exploring session while I explained her history to the new barn owner.

As we spoke the barn owner walked me through how her integration into the herd would go. Cupid's stall is located in a shed row of 4 stalls that is located in the center of a paddock. The other three horses would be stalled during the day while Cupid is allowed to roam, then Cupid will be stalled at night while the others have turnout time. This will allow all the horses to get to know her on everyone's terms and at a comfortable pace. Eventually we'll start adding the horses into turnout with her one by one until all four horses can be left out together. Because we arrived during the day Cupid was released into the paddock and quickly started visiting with the other horses. She had a whole "squeal and pinned ears" moment with the other mare, but there were no dramatics with either of the geldings in her group.

I stuck around the barn for about 3 hours just watching her and making sure she was settling in properly. Eventually my mom started texting me that I needed to leave the horse alone and take a break so I headed to her house to take advantage of the pool.

I returned to the stable that night for about an hour just to do one final check on Cupid. All the horses were stalled for dinner so we were all able to go visit with her. She didn't seem too thrilled with the bran mash she was provided but I was informed later that she had finished it all before the girl doing barn chores came back to turn the others out. Cupid appeared relaxed and was her usual lippy self, trying to see if there were treats in our pockets or if she was able to get a good scratching from us.

Overall, I've been really happy with our move and am excited to see how the rest of our adjustment goes! My only regrets with this move are that I completely underestimated how good Cupid actually is and that we didn't move earlier. I had looked at this barn months ago but backed out because I wanted things to get better at the old place.

 ***Note, I'm completely aware that Cupid is underweight. She's currently on a light work schedule and working towards a better feeding schedule. One of the items I'll be addressing in my "Why We Moved" post will be her weight***