1. I'm sitting at a techniglass waiting for a new windshield and glowering at myself that I forgot to charge my phone last night.  2. Must stop breaking windshields.  3. I work from 8-2 now, and it's life altering. Sunshine and all that.  4. As a memory hoarder supreme, I am struggling with the entire idea of snapchat. Fleeting photos? Sounds like a great way of getting Facebook to buy your product for $3 billion without ever having to pay for a server.  5. Itxa has had a couple weeks off except for grooming and groundwork. I did not get a couple weeks off from paying her rent or scooping her poo. Horses are funny like that.  6. I have a hard time believing the Olympics is really that much cooler than Utah's Wild Horse and Burro Show. Therefore, we are in training for the coolest thing since the Olympics.  7. There's a musical freestyle, guys. A musical freestyle.  8. Wouldn't it be hilarious if one of DoTerra Oil's products was Snake Oil? The answer i...

"The horse is a mirror to your soul. And sometimes you may not like what you see in the mirror. Sometimes you will." - Buck Brannaman

Believe it or not, from 6:50 a.m. to about 7:10 a.m. every morning is one of the best parts of my day. My car may be cold and frosty, the traffic may be horrible, and my breakfast corn dog may not have heated evenly in the microwave that morning, but this is all secondary to the 20 minutes I spend listening to Pleasant Grove High School's morning radio DJ.  This kid is my hero. First of all, he has surprisingly good taste in music. His self proclaimed favorite music is Arcade Fire, The Black Keys, and Fleet Foxes, and he regularly introduces me to bands that he likes for the same reasons he likes said bands, and I glean my small shred of music coolness almost entirely from him. Second, his oldies palette is dead-on. Motown, Beatles, Beach Boys, the Byrds, and the occasional Pink Floyd. He also references these sounds in the new music he plays, which again, I love. Third, he clearly has the worlds dirtiest teenage boy crush on Lana Del Ray, and I find that charming. Four...

You know how like 200 years ago, people were so flippant about the spelling of their names that they would just change them intermittently, and even spell names wrong on headstones and such? That is Itxa's life. Sometimes I will spell it with an x like it should be, sometimes I will spell it with a -ch, like it sounds. Sometimes I will call her Homer Simpson, because it eliminates the mystique. Also, because she loves donuts. Curse you, Daniel, for introducing her to donuts. The past several weeks have been difficult.  When Itxara arrived to Keystone from Robyn's training program, she was PERFECT.  We walked, trotted, cantered, took trail rides, crossed rivers and bridges, danced over poles, and I left every single day in total euphoria. Then we went to Maryland for work, and she took two weeks off at my parent's ranch just getting to be a horse for the first time in several months, I'm sure. I was happy she got that time off. But for any number of reasons (my mot...

Dan and I went to a conference. We visited some towns and battlefields. We ate some excellent food. We visited DC. We got in fights at interchanges. We swore we would not forget the GPS next time. Amen. Rayburn Building, Washington, D.C. Annapolis, MD Annapolis Cemetery Gettysburg, PA Gettysburg, PA Hagerstown, MD Just off the C&O Canal, Maryland Antietam Baltimore, MD

Yesterday, my alma mater tore down my favorite building on campus to make way for another multi-million dollar glassy modern building. My favorite classroom was the top floor, furthest right. Nearly all windows. I cried a little. My major, my academic advisor, and some of my favorite classes were housed in this building, including my capstone thesis class. It was held on the top floor, and in late April and early May, the antiquated rooms sans a/c could become an oven of historical theory and literary study. It could also put you to sleep. Then someone would take the initiative to go around and open the windows that went around 3/4 of the room, and a light breeze would swing in down the Salt Lake foothills and carry the hot air out the window and deposit our misery in the West Desert.  The adobe roof tiles reflected the heat away and, all things considered, the building did alright without modern air. It also had the most charming women's bathrooms you've ever see...

I took the bus/train today. Gas prices, common sense, and some guilt brought on by a depressing episode of This American Life about global warming convinced me to give the corrupted public transit system another go.  And truthfully, it's not that big a deal. With traffic as bad as its been, I get home at the same time either way. The only difference is that I have to leave the house at 6:30 to catch the train, when normally I could leave a little after 7 in my car.  I know it's silly, but those 30 minutes kill me. Not because it's early (I'm a morning person) but because it's some of the best 30 minutes of my day. Dan and I get ready together, the dog shoves his face in my lap so hard he falls over and then looks up at me like I invented pizza and chew toys, and the cat curls his entire body into our tiny bathroom sink at the exact moment I decide to brush my teeth.  Dan turns on the news and we make fun of how condescending the anchors are to the morning guests, an...

I'm glad that last week I cleverly gave myself a free pass to talk about my horse some more.  That was brilliant. ************************** So I fell in love with this flashy trashy mustang in a matter of about 2.6 seconds. After that, I needed info. I talked long and hard with every single one of the BLM officials about her.  I couldn't believe my luck.  She already had 6 months of saddle time courtesy of the Gunnison Prison Inmate BLM program that paired horse savvy criminals with mustangs to help them find homes (the horses, not the inmates).  Not only do I love this program, but I can't describe what a ridiculous bonus it is to have your mustang come to you saddle trained. The only bad news was that while the other horses could be adopted first-come-first-serve, I would have to bid for this mare the next day at the festival auction. Stakes raised. So I decided to be really judicious, and act like I wasn't making this decision impulsively, and I wandered a...

I have been trying for about a month to think of something that I wanted to write about as much as my new horse, because I know that what I am doing now is gross overexposure.  You've probably seen more about my horse the past 21 days than you have of Kim Kardashian, and Kim SPAWNED this week. Lucky for you, Icha does not have a sex tape. Though I'd prefer that to Kim's sex tape. I am, however, going to talk about my horse some more, now. Sorry. If new moms get to put pictures of their placenta on their blogs when they give birth, you're just going to have to sit through Icha's adoption story. Actually, I like to think it's pretty good. For some inexplicable reason, I had been looking forward to the Utah Wild Horse and Burro Festival since probably February. I think it was partly because my mom's horse, Posie, was up here, and I was thinking about showing her until her soundness started to concern me a little. It really bothered me that I wouldn'...

Two nights ago, Jeoffrey had his first kill that I know of. He took out a rather large mosquito-like bug that had flown into our house at around 11 o'clock at night. I made the sound that a girl makes when a large flying bug flies at her hair, and out of nowhere, Joeffrey jumped off the top of the fridge, flew through the air, and gracefully nailed this bug. He played with with for about a minute before swallowing it whole. Well played, Cat. THIS MORNING, I awoke to a bizarre crackling sound- the closest thing I can liken it to is claws on glass. It's a sound I've heard before, and I have always wondered if it might be a mouse. I'm from a ranch. Rodents are a part of life and death, so I mused over buying mouse traps as I continued to drift in and out of early morning consciousness. Abruptly, I noticed that the sound had gotten much louder- closer. I open my eyes to see Jeoffrey near the foot of our bed, staring at me with something in his mouth. I think "awesome...

It's raining. Time for music. Shout out to Dan for his influences of Gordon Lightfoot and Neil Young. (Playlist.com didn't have "Raining in Baltimore", or I'd have added that, too.) Also, sorry to Dan that this list includes Adele. Because I know how he feels about Adele.

"When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute and it's longer than any hour. That's relativity." -Albert Einstein This is sort of how I feel when I'm home sick and totally miserable and there's been nothing on TV all day, and then suddenly COPS is on.

I love that I took two days off of work for a horse show. Showcation, as I like to call it. For work, I wake up at 6 so I can go in and sit at a nice desk in business casual attire and leave at 5. For showcation, I wake up at 5, put on a button up shirt and choker, jewelry, breeches, and impeccably shined knee boots. I try all day to keep said shirt and breeches clean while I groom, braid, muck stalls, and ride like the dickens. I will go home around 8, and do it all over again tomorrow. But that moment after your best and hardest class full of highs and lows, when It's just you and your horse taking sweaty tack off and together you exhale the day- wow. When a 1000 pound creature cozies up and closes her eyes when you hold her head and breathe in her nose- wow. When you realize this horse doesn't know you don't own her but merely sizes you up by the sum of your lovely experiences- wow. It's hard to describe without it sounding trite, but when a horse lets you in, yo...

It's because of people taking pictures like this with their Friesians that Dan will never let me live it down if I buy one. This isn't easy for me to admit. It's not really in the spirit of my general behavior. Well, okay, it's in the spirit of behavior that I don't usually like to flaunt to the general public. But you guys, this one time when I was living in DC, I got scammed. Now I was lucky enough to get out of hot water before I lost anything, but a nigerian internet scammer did manage to convince me that he had a house for rent in DC for $700 that had a barn and a botanical garden. Even though the address he gave me was for the projects. I was new to Craigslist, okay? So yesterday when I was looking through the online horse ads on my lunch break, I was pretty steamed to see an ad that claimed to have a fully trained, 5 year old, purebred Friesian for sale in Utah for $1,000. Just to give you some perspective, a five year old fully trained purebred Frie...

1. I don't want to talk about America. 2. I would like to talk about Spain. Spain was beautiful. Especially the day that I tasted Falafel for the first time, got a massage at the ancient cave baths, and went to sleep in my darling little apartment with a balcony and a cobblestone street below. 3. I don't want to talk about horses. 4. That's a bad sign. 5. I do want to talk about how weird it is that Tim Riggins is my crush on Friday Night Lights. That is absurd. Except for the long hair, which if you knew my husband sometime between 2004-2011, would make perfect sense. 6. I don't want to talk about the weather, or the fact that I planted my tomatoes too early. 7. I do want to talk about the fact that I currently wear size 8 skinny jeans. It's true, nothing tastes as good as skinny feels. 8.  I don't want to talk about the direction of my life. 9. Well, I do and I don't. 10. Here's the thing. You know how if you're in a boat that...

Despite my immune system's plan to thwart my every ambition, I've had good successes the past few weeks. Stressful at times? Yes. Visual payoff? Harldy. Worth it? Imma say yes, because today is a good day. I got some good connections out of the Expo, and I did not wuss out. I actually had a great time, and I almost, and I really mean ALMOST, bought one of the trainer's challenge horses. That would have been a mistake, but a good one. You came here for horse drama updates, didn't you? OF COURSE YOU DID. After much back and forth, feverish delirious mind-racing torture, I decided to call mom and make her an offer. ___________________________________________________________________________ "Hello Martha." (this is what I call my mother as of late, despite the fact that her name is not Martha.) "Hi Stinky, whatcha doing?" (This is what my mother has always called me. It's my name.) "Well, I was at the barn, and I thi...

This weekend is the Utah Horse Expo. I'm excited. I'm scared. I'm scared because I'm going to be there representing myself as the Editor of The Utah Trotter . Once people put my face to this thing, there's kind of no going back. And I don't want to wuss out like I did two years ago. (So much wussing out. I talked to one guy shaping hats before crawling into a dark hole of fear and shame. I can laugh about it now. Or...a week from now, maybe.) I've been trying to read lots of motivational quotes about how good ideas look crazy at first, and how to overcome fear, and how you should do what you love and BLAH BLAH BLAH. So this weekend I'll be at the Expo as a lone representative of my crazy idea that someone ought to be telling the stories of the horse industry- the struggles, the conflicts, the heroes. We ought to start getting to know each other and finding each other's experiences relevant. We ought to be resources and mentors for each other mo...

It has been five years since I worked at the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs. The distance between then and now felt especially poignant to me this morning as I was coming into work and listening to the reporters talk about the Kenyan elections on NPR. Five years ago, I was a wide-eyed baby intern trying to find the balance between being helpful and staying out of people's way. The 2008 Kenyan elections had gotten out of hand, ethnic violence was erupting in eastern Africa's most stabilizing cities, and we were sending observers to try and sort out what was going on there. When those observers got back, they had an intimate briefing with the Committee staff and some Congressmen. One of my bosses sent me to transcribe the meeting and report back. I sheepishly walked into the gorgeous congressional hearing room with a glossy oak table at the front, and rows of chairs in back. I took a seat at the back of the chair rows, trying to minimize my nervous fidgeting. One of ...

I did not fight the urge to partake of staff meeting office donuts all winter just to give up on my bikini bod in MARCH. Kick it back into gear, Little Lady. Oh, and by "Bikini Bod", I obviously mean "Skin-Tight White Breeches Bod" Curse you, Corn Dog Gods. (but not really.)

I said that sometimes this blog would be about corn dogs. How long has it been since I made a genuine ode to mysterious animal byproduct rolled in corn flour and deep fried to white trash culinary perfection? TOO LONG , said the Corn Dog Gods. (I know this church is true.) Since Utah recently got its first Trader Joe's, my coworkers and I decided to make an adventure of it during lunch today. I picked up oodles of organic this and that, but obviously, this had to come home with me: There is something so wickedly, delightfully oxymoronic about a wonderful hippie leftist food company trying to sell a healthy corn dog. No Nitrates or Nitrites, guys! (Also, WHAT ON EARTH is the difference between nitrates and nitrites? I don't know. Don't want to know.) It's a corn dog, guys. A CORN DOG. There is no scenario wherein animal byproduct shaped like a machine mold and rolled in corn batter could be considered a wise or fancy choice. Not ever. Does that mean you shouldn...

www.TheUtahTrotter.com Visit the Facebook Page and Give us a 'Like'! Two years ago I started a website to cover Utah horse news and events. It was a ton of work, but really worthwhile, and I felt like I was giving a voice and a community to people who needed one. And it was getting great attention for awhile. But when I changed jobs, it became important for me to rededicate myself to the money making machine, and take a step back from my writing. It was an incredibly hard decision. I took down the Facebook page, the website, and closed shop. But I didn't delete it, and I didn't give up my site address. Some part of me said that maybe a better time would come. I don't know that the time is really better now, but I think that I have to try. With Posie and I looking at a slew of spring shows and harboring ambitions to make a triumphant return to the Wild Horse and Burro Festival in June, I feel reconnected to my favorite community. I have loved writing f...

1. If strep throat and a whiteout is enough to keep you from going back and rescuing your favorite riding crop that you left in the indoor arena, you have no business riding horses. (It has this amazing squishy handle, so much better than any other crop ever.) 2. If strep throat and a whiteout is enough to keep you from going to the barn in the first place, you have no business riding horses. 3. Here is a great tip: Sometimes, if the furnace stops working, your house will get really cold. 4. When it's fixed, your house will get warm again, and you can start watching all those reality shows stored on the DVR in the coldest room in the house that is no longer cold. 5. Things that make a sore throat feel better: cough drops, tea with honey, chocolate, Ruffles, Kraft MacnCheese, and medicine. 6. Things that don't make a sore throat feel better: Juice. Why do sick people drink juice? 7. Dan has been letting me watch a great deal of RFD-TV lately.  I think pretty soon we...

Some cold winter weekend lessons: I learned that if you squeeze a water bottle that's half frozen in your car, the plastic might be extra brittle and break, and that the half unfrozen part might spill on everything, mostly into your cupholder if you're lucky. The solution to this could be to just put the broken bottle back in the cupholder and forget about it. Because then when you get in your car Monday morning, and everything is fully frozen, you just pull the broken plastic water popsicle out of the cupholder, and throw it away. Bonus: It may or may not take the crumbs that were in your cupholder with it, leaving your cupholder cleaner than it was the day you bought the car. * * * * I learned that plaster walls are the serious downside to old home ownership. I built a custom display rack in the living room for Dan's records, which turned out absolutely awesome. Unless you sort of pound on it, and then you might notice that plaster falls out of the screw holes. l...

1. A moment I experienced hundreds of times over 2 years: Being on the DC metro and going under the Potomac. You have to pay attention to even notice you're going downhill, until suddenly your ears pop. Then you know you've hit the bottom and will start back up to the other side, soon to emerge at the Arlington National Cemetery stop. It's the first above-ground stop leaving DC on the blue line. You can see the river, the monuments, and to the other side, the white stones extending endlessly over the ridge. It is as mundane, smelly, and irreverent of a moment as one could ever ask for, until suddenly you think "I'm on a train, under the Potomac River, in Washington D.C., going to work, so that I can pay for my apartment." 2. Walking through innumerable palace rooms in the Alhambra in Granada, Spain. Before I went, I learned the names and events and places that carved Spain into our imagination, and it made every step of that jo...