Relaxed & Forward Blog

Thankful for You.

  I'm doing something different today, in the spirit of Thanksgiving. When I started my blog, almost eight years ago...
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One Book Award; Two Bar Incidents

The 2016 Readers' Favorite Book Awards were held last weekend, in conjunction with the Miami Book Fair International. Stable Relation...
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Photo Challenge: Magic

Not other than here. Not other than now. Not other than normal. ... Anna Blake at Infinity Farm Horse Advocate,...
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The Passion to Punish

First, last, and always, this is the truth about communication with animals: Punishment is the lowest form of expression. A...
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Photo Challenge: Tiny

Feel that tiny instant just after the thrust, the silence of soaring with hooves thundering down below. The push of...
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Word Geek Needs Prom Date

“She’s insufferable with this stupid human game. What’s wrong with tossing a ball? We try to...
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Winterizing the Compassion Fatigue. Again.

Chatting lightly about weather is considered the tiniest of small talk, unless you live outside the urban bubble. We take...
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Photo Challenge: Chaos

There's a kind of grace in the slippery unbalance of chaos when I remember it's only the rear entrance of...
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Bite Your Tongue.

It's an election year and I'm a politics geek. There, I said it. But the rhetoric is deafening. Sometimes there...
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Photo Challenge: Transmogrify

Time and shadow blurred our edges until we became each other in a shared breath never fully exhaled. Anna Blake...
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Going the Full Heart Distance: Saying So Long

It's deep fall here on our farm. Most of the leaves are gone; Canada geese are on the wing. Each...
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The Best Reasons to Stop Riding

  I think I've heard all the clichés about change that I can stand. At a certain age, we don't...
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Photo Challenge: Local

As vast as mountains silhouetted and layered angled across the horizon. As close as whispers of breath, nostril to flank,...
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Riding the Inside of Your Horse

When I was just a dressage-princess-wannabe, before I became a full-blown Dressage Queen, I thought dressage riders all wore a kind...
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Photo Challenge: H2O

A thread flows affirming life with a humble reminder we’re only nests made of frail twigs, stray hairs, a cooled...
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A Serenity Prayer For Both of You

The seasons are changing and the air feels cooler. That's what you notice, but your horse seems just a bit...
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The Devil Is In the Details

  How to create a homemade project that looks professional and inviting and even artistic--that's the dilemma. I would love...
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Photo Challenge: Nostalgia

In a dark rosy blur of nostalgia, free of time and fear, images rise to tell the story of who we became, just a half-step...
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