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...