Optimax Upgrades??

I am officially one of those girls who has a mild panic attack if I can't immediately locate my phone or have it within grabbing distance.  When I go to meetings, I keep my phone out. When I go to lunch, it's on the table. At the barn? it's in my pocket till I head to the ring (unless P is being a beast, then I find some way to strap it to my body in case I get ejected and need to dial 911 from the ground...)

So, you can imagine my surprise when I went to get in my car for lunch today and saw my phone on my seat. "weird" I thought, "did I really not check it all morning??"

Clearly I had a backlog of customers/clients/employees who had been attempting to find me all day, but one number stood out..... MY LOCAL TACK SHOP. 

This could only mean two things

1) I finally won one of those damn drawings I always enter at the register on a regular basis
or
2) MY SADDLE SHIPPED FROM ITALLLLLLLY.

Since never, not once in my life have I ever won a drawing, I (naturally) assumed it was news on my saddle.

Which it was.

But not that it shipped.  (waaaaah)

Apparently, Prestige is "upgrading" the Optimax line, and I needed to decide if I wanted to wait for the upgrades, and therefore delay my saddle further, or decline the upgrades and push production through with the old specs, which would put my saddle in my hot little hands by the middle of October.

Sigh. I am SUCH a creature of instant gratification, it's nearly impossible for me to delay anything (lunch, purchases, major decisions..) in the name of due diligence or potentially increased quality.

I swalled my immediate response of "I WANT IT NOW" and calmly asked what exactly was being upgraded/changed

- the billets, for increased stability
- the panels to allow slightly more shoulder freedom
- the leather, to make it more durable
- some of the interior stitching to prevent tears. 

I'm not so impulsive that I miss the importance of these upgrades, or of the fact that I'm investing some serious cash in this thing and a few more weeks just aren't that tragic.  But still my little shoulder devil was whispering things like "but you saw the old one, with the old leather and the old panels and it was fine..." 

I did a quick google search to see if I could find anything on the changes, and of course I can't.  So  for once the internet is not helpful, but ultimately I decided that I should be a big kid and wait for the improvements.  My saddle gal swears that she's put the screws to them and is guilting them into an expedited production....

I hope so, and I hope my trainer does get annoyed with me in her tack all the time.  She's generously letting me ride Pia in her lovely buffalo Custom Saddlery, which is definitely spoiling me.  That thing is comfy as the day is long, and also keeps me locked and loaded even with P's biggest objections...

Apparently patience is a virtue.. I'll just add it to the list of those I'm missing....