Horse Induced Injuries won't stop me Riding!

Monday I went to the physiotherapist, yet again. I kind of half live there. But what made this time so rare was that my latest injury was not from a horse! It was stupid me running in a park and hitting a patch of mud which twisted my ankle, noticing I was being watched and instead of crumbling to the ground like my legs wanted to, allowing my pride to make me keep running through the pain.

This week's injury

Anyways, like I say, its rare. Why?
Well as far back as I can remember, I have always been surrounded with horses. The story goes that my mom got 3 horses when I was just 2yrs old - apparently she used to use a kiddie harness and tie me into a horse and take me riding to put me to sleep. When I was 5, my parents started a horse riding school. When I was 9 I was competing in jumping, cross country and gymkhanas against under 17s and thrashing them (a reason I avoid competing now is that I have dangerously competitive spirit that brings out the worst in me). At 12 I began guiding beach trails and teaching others to ride. At 16 I was training young horses to be ridden. And now, I work with horses still, guiding trails and training horses mostly.

2011

When clients ask me (inevitably they do) if I have ever fallen off of a horse or been injured by horses, I have to laugh because no one has been riding regularly for a year and not had some fall or injury, let alone 22yrs with horses. Its life, it happens, it comes with the territory, and its all I've ever known.

Many years ago I stopped counting my falls and injuries and only counted the serious ones. 
Now in no ways am I trying to scare you off, in my opinion my scars tell my story, I've always enjoyed showing off "battle wounds" (is that weird?) and comparing stories.

And you must understand, if you go horse riding and yet you never fall off, you've never learnt a thing. Its not about the fall, its about laughing about it, dusting yourself off and getting back on, learning from your fall and not making the same mistake. 

The common things are toes being trodden on and an arm being bitten. Its an old saying that "a horseman's trademark is a black toe nail", but I disagree. If you haven't been able to get out of the way of a 600kg animal in time, if you haven't yet learnt to dance with horses and get your feet away, then you're not much of a horseman. Its been a few years since I had a black toe from a horse. But in years gone by I've had more black toes and bruises on my feet than I care to remember. One that stands out was when I was about 13, a certain heavy horse stood on my left foot, right across the joint on the bridge of my foot and all I heard was loud cracking. After I got her off, the bruising was considerable and the arch of my foot was lower. I was quite happy actually, because  I had broken the foot 2 years earlier (more on that later) and the doctor had not set it properly, causing a raised arch, which made finding shoes to fit virtually impossible! And suddenly shoes could now fit.
As for getting bitten, yup that happens too, and you quickly learn to watch a horse's body language and see it coming. If you see it coming, then you can get out of the way in time, or counteract it. Fortunately horses don't bite like dogs do. Dogs bite to take a chunk of flesh, to rip you apart. Horses "bite" generally with their teeth clenched, so its kinda more like a sucker punch than a bite - most of the time. Unless you're giving them carrots and stick your hand in their mouth.

People say its cruel to hit a horse, I agree its cruel to beat a horse. But if a horse tries to purposely go out of its way to hurt me, my instant reaction is to give it a clout. I've watched horses in a herd environment all my life, if one horse is misbehaving in the group, the lead horse will literally discipline it (go read Monty Roberts "The Man Who Listens to Horses"), be it chasing, kicking or biting. When one horse kicks another, the one on the receiving side generally just flinches and walks away. But when a horse kicks a human, said human will literally go flying. Which is why when a horse goes out of his way to threaten or hurt me, I will discipline him accordingly.
How do I know a human goes flying when kicked? Because I have been on the receiving end of a horses' hoof way too often.
When I was 5 I trusted them a little too much, and walked into the paddock with carrots, at which I was literally mugged by horses and got my first booting, fortunately only to the stomach, and went flying a good 3m back!
When I was 10, I again trusted my steed a little too much (recurring theme) and didn't warn her before walking behind her to plait her tail, next thing I knew I was waking up 2 hours later under a tree at the show we were on our way to, and yes I did compete that day and came in 3rd place.
When I was 18, my boyfriend's parents came to visit for the first time, and I walked behind a certain horse at feeding time and got booted on both my knees in front of him and them. Ah so embarrassing!

Kick Mark 2010

In training a young horse on his first ride out when I was 20, I walked next to him along a piece of road (because you never know what may happen when he first sees traffic), and as a truck came by he freaked out, somehow twisting and kicking me. I literally had my butt kicked that day, flat on by not one but two hooves of a 650kg muscle machine, that bruise took 2 years to disappear!

Kicked in the eye 2012

And my most famous one was when I was cleaning out the feet of a horse, when she  stepped on her own foot, pulled it away and bashed her hoof against my right eye. I still have a slightly funny eye from it.

Then there's falling. One saying that I quote to new riders regularly is "you're not a true rider until you've fallen at least ten times", possibly its because by that time you stop counting, but mostly because by that time you've learnt what causes falling and how to avoid it. Bonus being that you also know how to land, whereas when newbies get scared and bail, they injure themselves more. 

You also learn by then that although there is a big hype about falling off, its really not such a bit deal.
Yes falling off is embarrassing, whenever I come off, first thing I do is look around in hopes that nobody saw me. Yes, you do get dirty (friend of mine once fell off into a patch of devil thorns, mean girl that I am I laughed all the way home.), but very rare is it that you get hurt. Obviously the more you ride the more likely that you may fall, and the more you fall, the more you may get hurt.
Of the falls I have had, oh there are hundreds of stories I could tell you.
From the time a friend and I raced up a hill and my horse bucked me off, landing on my head on a pole, thus getting my first concussion at 8. Yes I had a helmet on, otherwise I would not be alive to tell the story.
To the time I was doing a cross country jumping course in wet weather and my horse slipped falling on my left leg and breaking (thus the raised arch) it at 11.
Or the time I was 12 and galloping down the beach on my favorite little Arabian and she hit a patch of really soft sand, sending us both somersaulting and just missing 450kgs of horse landing on me. I might add to this that I was riding bareback and enjoyed the freedom of regularly galloping with my arms in the air.
There was the time in 2010 that I was showing off and cantered through a public area, my fantastic horse saw a child run in front of him and swerved to miss the child unbalancing me. I landed perfectly, hitting the ground running with no problem, but then I tripped and broke my leg. :-|

Getting the cast removed in 2010

The two most recent falls I've had though have reminded me that I am getting older, less flexible, and easier hurt.
They've both been in the last 6 months, one where (yet again) I was not paying attention to what my steed was doing, but chatting to the rider behind me when my steed spooked at a packet and leapt to the side. Like a bad Warner Bros cartoon, it felt like he jumped out from under me and I was left hanging in the air for a second, before hitting the ground flat on my back like a sack of potatoes. So embarrassing that I jumped up and  right back onto my steed in milliseconds. Later that same day another horse in the group fell in a deceptively deep mud pit and had to be dug out by yours truly. Unfortunately my back was hurt from it and after 3 weeks I went to the physiotherapist, who poked and prodded and then quite simply stated "you've dropped your kidney", but hey she did what "all the king's men and all the king's horses couldn't" do, she put me back together again.

Digging a horse and subsequently myself, out of a mud hole

And the one a few week ago which had me nose dive into solid ground. Unfortunately no physical evidence of that to show anyone except whiplash. With that much pain, I kinda wish I did have some decent evidence to show for it.

So, is horse riding dangerous? Heck yes.
Is it worth the risk? Absolutely!
And in case you need, give me a call, I know a really good physiotherapist.

2004

Why I volunteer

I recently walked into a store at the end of a day, wearing a paint splattered t-shirt, dirty cargo pants and gumboots, my hair in a messy bun, and probably dirt streaked across my face. 

I was minding my own business and getting what needed to be got, when a 40 something year old, happy and very round man walked up to me, staring me up and down. I laughed, most people ask about my bright purple gum boots, and I presumed that was what he was about to ask about.

Lo and behold, I was all wrong! He looked me up and down and asked "Are you an engineer?", I was pretty stunned and a little flattered that someone would think I am as qualified and advanced as an engineer! However I am not, and I answered this man by saying "No, I am a construction worker, I volunteer on building places of worship." 

To which the happy man was suddenly the shocked one, "Volunteer? Why would anyone volunteer on a building site? Do you mean you actually work on a building for free?" the stunned man asked. 

"Yes" I plainly stated, "I enjoy it, and I believe I am serving my spiritual brothers and sisters and my great God Jehovah by doing this."

The poor confused man just walked away shaking his head and repeating "Volunteer, she is a volunteer! Volunteer?" in different tones and levels of shock.

However this conversation led to me thinking a bit about that very question, why do I volunteer when there are literally hundreds of other things I could be doing? A friend recently said to me that my "business could be quite lucrative", so why dont I just "work more days, allow more work and money to come in"?

The truth be told, I have thought of those questions, often. But the answer always returns as the same, because I am happier this way.

The bible says at Acts 20:35 that there is "more happiness in giving than there is in receiving" and the truth is that I have felt and seen that.

Nothing compares to the joy of seeing a person realize for the first time that God actually has a personal name, and his name is not "Lord" or Jesus (Jesus is vitally important to salvation, but he is the son of God, not God), or to see a person finally click that all the wickedness in the world is not God's fault.

The energizing effect I get from volunteering to build places of worship, being a part of a worldwide brotherhood. People of all nations, languages and races working together, not for profit, but for the same reason I am - to serve God and to serve our "neighbour".

Crying tears of joy with people who are instantly my friends although I had never met them before, because they are now receiving an honorable place of worship which they may have been waiting for perhaps as long as 10 years.

Absolutely no secular work in this world can even begin to compare to the benefits from that.

Borrowed from a friend's Instagram.
This is Mpolweni Kingdom Hall, before and after.
I have had the privilege of helping on this hall
for the last 2 months

Knowing that I am a part of something so big, and something that is moving forwards at such a rate while many other "causes" and even businesses and corporations are busy collapsing is something I wouldn't trade for the world or all the treasures it could offer.

So yeah, sometimes I may be messy and tired, exhausted and broke, but one thing's for sure, I am happy.

And genuine happiness is something many billionaires cannot even attain.

I have met the most incredible people through my volunteering, I have been to places I never knew existed, and I have the honor of knowing that I am making my great God Jehovah happy. Nothing can or ever will beat that.

To find out more about the awesome organization I am proud to volunteer with, check out the world's most translated and currently the most popular website www.jw.org

Social Media Simplified

I am yet to meet someone who has got access to the internet and yet doesnt have some form of social networking account.

I have done more than one post on safety and privacy on social media and networking. But today's post is not that. Today's post is a bit of a "Pro's & Con's" list of 7 social networks that I use. What I like about them, what I hate about them, and how I use them.

So without further ado (yes, some people still use that archaic wording!) here goes:

1 - Facebook

Possibly the most well known social network in the world. Facebook is now 10 years old (est in 2004), and growing daily. Facebook is certainly one of my favourite social networks.

The Things I like about it:

• It can be kept private
• Almost everyone has a facebook account and thus anyone you know can be added as a friend
• Also because of its popularity, it is widely recognised as a good form of advertising, both in paid advertising (those little boxes that pop up on the right of your screen so often) and in “Pages” where businesses can have a social media presence.
• It can be downloaded as an app or viewed on almost any internet capable device, so you can view it anywhere
• Its great for sharing photos

The things I hate about it:

• Its addictive
• Whenever people first get a facebook account they go way overboard with posting things on it (don’t lie, you’ve done it too)
• Facebook is constantly changing the user interface, the privacy settings and the pages rules. This often results in one having to relearn the whole system and just a week later doing it over again. Not fun!
• The mobile apps for facebook are often updated and crashes your whole mobile device
• People sending game invites

How I use facebook:

• I use facebook to keep in contact with family and close friends (sorry, if I don’t know you, I don’t add you)
• Keeping up to date with friends I see too seldom
• I share photos with family and friends
• I have 5 “Pages” for various business endeavours, including Horse Beach Rides, Romantic Events, and a page I manage for a friend Longhorn Leathercraft
• Its easier than email to send private instant messages to friends that don’t have other instant messaging apps.
• I also use it to “LIKE” pages that I am interested in getting updates from.
  

2-Twitter

The definition of twitter is “a micro-blogging website”. So instead of giving a full length blog post (like what you are reading here), a person will voice their opinion, share a link, or post a photo with a short caption. The limitation being that anything they write must fit into 140 characters or less (that's the same as an old school sms).

The things I like about it:

• Its a great source of local news and traffic reports, if you are following the right Twitter accounts
• I like that it says you’re following a person, not that you’re “friends” with a person.
• Its constantly updating, and its all short and sweet, so you not really missing anything.
• If you look properly, there are a lot of cool people out there and twitter can be a really good place to make fabulous business connections.

The things I hate about it:

• Its not so well designed for use on the pc, its really best used on your phone.
• Its a public forum, so any random person can follow you and you can follow any random person, which is possibly the best and worst thing about twitter.
• There’s a lot of stalkers and weirdoes on twitter, so you have to be really careful.

How I use Twitter:

• Like Facebook, I have multiple accounts, one for personal use and one for each of my businesses.
• For personal use, I use it to voice my way out opinion on certain matters
• Its great for small updates on business matters
• I regularly use it before I’m going on a drive to find out the traffic situation (@pigspotkzn for Durban Traffic updates)
• I follow some accounts just because they share funny photos.
  

3 - Instagram

Ah, Instagram, one of the most recent social networks and it is growing in popularity greatly. Especially with the excitement build up of instameets and up and coming great photographers. Its actually quite incredible how many great photographers there are out there.

The things I love about Instagram:

• The incredible photos that so many talented photographers are sharing. (Check out Pixanator, Macgrogs, PrinceThreeLife, and Taroism)
• The fact that I can actually imagine I am a good photographer (its debateable) and share my photos.
• Benefiting from Instameets – where a bunch of Instagrammers get together and tour a place or area of the city and share photos from it.
• Seeing parts of South Africa, and even of Durban that I never knew existed, or the parts that I did know about through the eyes of someone else.

What I hate about Instagram:

• Too many people share far too many selfies. Its ok to share one every few months, but a selfie a day, will scare everyone away!
• Unfortunately here in South Africa the cost of internet is fairly high, so sharing and viewing pictures online tends to empty my data bundle quite quickly.
• Its really a social network designed for mobile use, so although you can view photos on instagram from your pc, you cant really do much else with it.

How I use Instagram:

• I love being able to edit some of my best photos and share them with the whole wide world.
• The instameet I attended was great fun, and I got an amazing tour of the Moses Mabhida Stadium, which I would not have done if I didn’t have instagram.
• I have met some incredible photographers and very useful business connections through the use of Instagram.
• I have managed to get into contact with cousins of mine that I had not chatted to or had any contact with for years!

4 - Whatsapp

Whatsapp is a social media come instant messaging site. Its a very popular IM application on smart phones here in South Africa, and across the globe.

What I love about Whatsapp:

• Its instant
• It is private, so I can send messages, audio, photos and even videos to anyone and only they will see it
• It is on the web, so just like any other social media it can be sent across the world at much less than the cost of an sms or email
• You can have a group chat with people you select

What I hate about Whatsapp:

• Many people are ok with doing business across whatsapp, but I still feel uncomfortable doing that.
• Many of the older generation blackberries do not get whatsapp and thus those who have blackberries are almost un-contactable.
• If you don’t have internet on your phone (perhaps you’re out of data, because you were too busy enjoying instagram) people freak out that you are ignoring them or have blocked them.

How I use it:

• I use it to contact family and friends from all over the world. In fact as I type, I have just received a photo from a friend in London who attended the International Convention Of Jehovah’s Witnesses this past weekend.
• I enjoy having a whatsapp group chat with my cousins and aunts and uncles from across the world.
• I do minimal work on it, which I guess is useful, but I’m not a fan of doing that.

5 - Google Plus

Google Plus has been called the Gym Membership of Social Media, everyone has an account but almost no one uses it. Which is true. Google didn’t succeed in buying out facebook, so they decided to make their own version, anyone who already had a google account (90% of people online) automatically got a google plus account. Problem being that Goole just hasn’t yet made it user friendly enough.

What I love about it:

• I don’t really have to set up a whole new account, I just log in through my gmail account. 
• Its got all my email contacts already loaded as contacts on my g+ account so I don’t have to search to find my people.
• I like the home page that it comes up with
• I like that you have an option to edit your posts after publishing them (I often make typos)
• I like that its easy to make “Circles” of people and share only with them

What I hate about it:

• Its arbitrary and out of the way to get to
• Very few people actually regularly use it, because of the point above
• Google still hasn’t made it all that user friendly
• It takes time to learn, time I don’t really have

How I use it:

• I Dont use it often, but I do like it. There are friends who have Google Plus but don’t have facebook, and I like to know whats happening with them.
• I definitely use it for our business account (you can join us on horsebeachrides@gmail.com) as you can never advertise too much.
• Its nice for sharing photos.

6 - LinkedIn

Now if ever there was a social media site that is absolutely useless in my opinion, that's LinkedIn! Its supposed to be a place where business people can meet like minded business people and make useful business connections. I'm not sure if its because of my form of work, or if its the design of the site itself, but I just don't like it.

What I do like about LinkedIn:

• If you are in search of a job, you can possibly find one here
• You can put your whole resume onto this site and it will suggest job vacancies
• Its nice to have a social networking site that actually tells you who has looked at your profile

What I hate about LinkedIn

• All the connections you have on LinkedIn are pretty much stagnant. Its not like other social media sites that people regularly share photos and status updates on, its just “there”
• I cant really find many people I actually know on it
• The people who would be useful connections that I don’t yet know, I cant really add them as connections or even get in touch with them unless I pay LinkedIn.

How I use LinkedIn:

• Simply put, I don’t use it.
• I do have an account on LinkedIn, but I only access it about once every 6 months nowadays to see if anyone has tried to connect with me. I used to check it daily, and then weekly, but its just too stagnant for my liking.

 

7 - Pinterest

The idea behind Pinterest is a pinboard, where you can "pin up" photos and recipes and ideas that you like and want to try, or things that you have done and want to share with others.

What I like about Pinterest:

• There are so many cool ideas and things I want to try on it. 
• It can give links to almost any website and has literally got thousands of categories.
• Many of my friends have it, so its a great way to see what hobbies they’re into and things they like.

What I don’t like about Pinterest:

• Its not that easy to upload new content to pinterest
• Its so enjoyable to look at all the different ideas on it that you get lost in one storyboard after another and can spend far too much time on it.
• Much like Instagram, it takes a ton of data
• Many of the ideas link to outside websites, some of them are a bit dodgy.

How I use it:

• I find much information on many of my craft projects through pinterest
• I occasionally share my own photos and ideas on it. You can find me on Amelia Byrne
• I use it to save ideas and projects that I currently don’t have time to try, but want to try sometime in the future.
• I keep up with what hobbies and trends my family and friends are going with.

Blogging when times are busy

A perfect spot to just sit and
contemplate life

I often find the hardest part about trying to blog is choosing a topic for each blog.

I stand in the shower thinking "hey, I should do a post on social networks", but I don't get time to do it yet. By the next day I'm sitting in traffic and  considering how to put together a post on CFS, again I just don't do the post yet.
This sort of thing happens so often to me. I'm constantly thinking of fabulous topics, from my favorite music playlist to the love/hate relationship I have with my job. From the gorgeous cat called Charlie Chaplin to the way my car is driving. From the latest and greatest series that I'm watching to the volunteering I do.

And I know its annoying to anyone who wants to read my blog to be an erratic writer, and even more annoying when I use that same old excuse that "I'm just so busy that I don't have time to blog" 
I had a little chat to a fellow blogger on twitter the other day, and although we both enjoy blogging, its still just so hard to do it. For her, she's a self employed business woman and a mom of two young children, oh and she's also trying to learn how to live on the small holding her family moved into recently.
For me, its working for my parents, trying to get my own business going, and volunteering full time.
Both of us regularly wake up early, are on our feet, on the go from the moment we leave bed. Dealing with house work, public and so many other things. That often bed time is well after midnight and no personal time other than the time spent in the bathroom during the day!
That's been my life for the last 3 or more weeks. So if I do in fact take the time to blog, you can know that its very important to me.

I even tried to do a 30 day blogging challenge recently, well um, yeah I made it for about 4 days.
Oh well, here I go again, trying.

What I do like to do with a blog is find a day that I can write until my eyes are almost popping out, and then schedule a bunch of posts to automatically upload once a day.
Lets see if I can get that right though.

Frustration and Being Match Made

Quite possibly one of these sweetest things to see in this world is a couple who are still happily married after 30 or 40 years. To see an older couple look into each other's eyes with such love and respect is something that can melt almost anyone.

Because that's the way we were designed, we were all created with a strong desire to be loved, cherished and cared for.
Its quite understandable too that people in such relationships wish to share that happiness with others.

But the truth is that in the world we're in, that is not a common occurrence. Its so rare that newspapers will feature couple's who get to a 30th anniversary. Its so rare that single parents and step families are the norm.

Thus it should come as no surprise that I am going to refuse to allow myself to be pushed into or out of a relationship without knowing exactly what I'm doing! I already did that once and it hurt like mad, plus I'm independent enough to not allow anyone to make my decisions in such important matters for me.

However I do feel a tad guilty for pretty much going off the deep end at some innocent (they're never truly innocent) little old ladies the other day. They had started a conversation about some young men I know (these particular young men, have never and will never enter into my mind as potential mates!) and how these young men are planning on staying single to keep keep lives simple. They then started discussing a young couple I know who got married and had a baby immediately and how married life is. At which point they turned to me, yes 7 sets of inquiring little old lady eyes pinpointed on the only young lady (ok so I'm not that young, I'm 24, but in amongst them I'm a young'un) in their midst who happens to be single, and asked "What about you Amelia, will you stay single or get married?"

Now you gotta understand this is a major sore point for me.
On the one hand we have my parents, who are dead set that I am single for life after that nasty breakup at 19. I understand where they're coming from, they watched their happy little girl meltdown in the center of what should have been a good time, rebel for a while, then come back to her senses as a bossy and very determined woman. They don't want me to get hurt again (and neither do I), I totally get it. My parents are happily married, but they know its not common.

On the other hand I have family members and friends who have been happily married for a long time and cant bear to see anyone single. A certain family member happens to mention this every single time I see them. They dont just mention the fact that I'm single and "need to get married now before I get old", but regularly tell me about eligible bachelors, just in case I need to know where to find them. It has gotten so far that they are now telling me about "reputable dating websites", and every time I see them saying "you've been on ***** website havent you?", when I say no, they tell me I'm lying.
UGH, I have not been on that website, I'm not interested in a flipping dating website, or in the guys you are attempting to match-make me with!

So yes, when those poor "innocent" little old ladies asked me about if I want to get married or stay solo, I instantly replied "that I don't want anyone matchmaking me!" and walked away.

The truth is that  I do want the happiness that those happy loving couples have, and here's a little secret (secrets are made to be told, right) I do have a guy who I'm watching at a safe distance. But I'm scared of the pain that could happen if I choose wrong, and there's no way anyone is getting the details!

To my guy friends, don't worry, if I've contacted you in any way over the last month, its not you.

Joe Jackson once had a song which makes me think of this whole scenario.

"Happy Loving Couples"

I've just been to see my best friend

He's found another girl

says she's just about the best thing

in the whole damn world

And he says, "cant you see

what the little lady's done to me?"

Says it like he thinks I'm blind

but the thing that you see

aint necessarily the things you can find

Happy loving couples make it look so easy

Happy loving couples always talk so kind

'Til the time that I can do my dancing with a partner

Those happy couples aint no friends of mine

People say I'm too damn fussy

when it comes to girls

Happy couples say

I must live in a lonely world

Wanna be, wanna really be

what my friends pretend to be

Be it in my own good time

Being kind to myself

'Til I become one of two of a kind

Those Happy loving couples make it look so easy

Happy loving couples always talk so kind

'Til the time that I can do my dancing with a partner

Those happy couples aint no friends of mine

You Aint no friends of mine

You aint no friends of mine

You what I mean

Happy loving couples

In matching lamb turtle-neck sweaters

Reading Ideal Homes magazine

Yeah!

Wanna be, wanna really be

what my friends pretend to be

Be it in my own good time

Being kind to myself

'Til I become one of two of a kind

Listen to the song here