Packing

I'm packing today. It's really hard because Croatia has a very different climate than that of Sweden. I have to pack so many layers and it's hard to decide between jeans and shorts. Also, after my amazing shopping spree, I have so many pretty clothes I want to show off and it's hard to pick and choose. Lastly, I have to have both a beautiful, casual/formal wardrobe for Croatia and then a mainly horse-based wardrobe for Sweden. I am definitely taking my savvy strings! Hopefully I'll have figured out how to balance my needs by the end of today. My plane leaves Thursday morning but I have quite a few things to do. I must:

• Buy mini sanitary items such as toothpaste, toothbrush
• Activate my debit card. It's so cute! Little proceeds of my purchases go towards the Humane Society so my card has a cat and dog on it!
• Get Jet-Lag meds. People: what do you do to avoid jet lag???

I'm nervous about keeping Neva and Natalia busy. Neva is the cutest little girl - like a pixie and very hard to keep still and quiet. I'm thinking about watching a little movie with them and about getting Neva to FoCUS. My horsemanship journey makes me think that Neva is like Allure, Linda Parelli's horse. The busier she gets, the more I have to match that. Get her so busy that all she wants is to slow down, haha.

Natalia loves to read so I can help her read some nice books I loved as a kid. She is very observant and a bit more introverted as the older sister.

My goal is to keep the girls enjoying one another's company. I think it's easy for sibling rivalry to occur during long trips, but with some savvy, everything will be great.

My carry-on is a backpack with Sudoku, my computer that has my Flow Yoga DVD and the Parelli NEC Celebration DVDs, yoga magazines, and The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd.

My plan is to get my Driver's Ed online done while I'm on vacation so that I can zoom off and pass my written test and do some driving to the barn.

I also want to learn some new Croatian and Swedish recipes. I heard they make the best desserts in Sweden.

Okay, I have to go eat lunch and then I'm off to see an Ayurvedic practitioner at The Common Well in Fairfax. I read this great book by Shubra Krishan entitled Essential Ayurveda: what it is and what it can do for you. I highly recommend it and I feel free to explore Eastern Medicine now.

Ciao Amigos!

Tessa R.

P.S. I went and had a great last session with Rumi yesterday! He is the best, most willing horse I have ever worked with. While trust is so hard to gain with him, I'm really WAITing for him to relax before we move on to new moves.