A totally superfluous and unrelated photo of Itxa HorseNation informed me this morning that they'd like to pay me for the stories I write for them. I have little dreams, but getting paid to write about the thing I love most has always been one of them.  When I was teeny tiny, I would make "newspapers" about the horse shows my model horses were having on the braided rug of my bedroom; envisioning myself covering the equestrian events at the Olympic Games someday. HorseNation is far from the Olympics, but it's sure a long way from the braided rug.  As a little kid, you have so many dreams about what you're going to do. I think reading Great Expectations in high school was the first time I ever confronted the inevitable lesson of adulthood that all those dreams will probably be losses you will have to reconcile with your therapist someday. I have reconciled some of those losses, maybe never more than I did after working for Congress in Washington and t...

While I really  did this because I wanted the novelty of hearing my horse trot and jingle, I think I may just start riding her in these bells all the time.  It blocks out all those fake sounds she pretends are terrifying, AND people will know when the crazy mustang is coming up behind them! Million dollar idea. Right there. 

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