I finally got the correct size bitless bridle and so far it's working pretty well. I do have greater control when steering left to right and more importantly, she isn't fighting it and throwing her head around. She's quite lovely, isn't she? In case you were wondering she's had that bump on her nose all her life, my trainer likes to say she tried to be a unicorn.













Here's an underside view as well. I've made at least an interim decision about Miss, I've decided to find a trainer off the property where she is now to take her for a month or so (depending on how much it costs) to do an independent evaluation of her and see if she can stand up to working five days a week. In hindsight this is something I should have done at the very beginning, even before signing the contract, but, better late than never I suppose. I hope this will accomplish a bunch of things at once: if she can handle the work she will come back much farther ahead than she would have if I had just let our trainer take her sweet time and only work her intermittently; if she comes back in great shape I can make a better determination if I want to keep her or not. If I decide not to keep her she will be easier to lease than she is now. If I decide to keep her it will be because I see the potential I don't see now. If she can't handle the work and comes back lame or injured, then I have an independent opinion that she should be retired. I asked my trainer to recommend someone to send her to, that way they can't say after the fact that the trainer I picked didn't know what they were doing.

I've also told my husband that I want to move. We've been living in a lovely rural area for the past 10 years, but it is a hard 75 minute commute to my office and I am isolated from my friends and from civilization in general. I know this is his idea of heaven but I think I deserve a compromise position after a decade of bearing the brunt of the sacrifices in order for him to live here. I also see this as a way to get out from under the debt that we've accumulated in the past few years while he was intermittently unemployed, sell the house and rent for a little while, build up a little nestegg and find the perfect home for both of us.

Aubrey is a little ray of sunshine, she's become the unofficial mascot of my department at work. She likes to have the highest vantage point possible, hence the perch on the picnic table. While she's on the leash (which is all the time at work), she's very quiet and well-behaved, but once you let her loose she's a whirling dervish until she works off all that pent-up energy. No matter how bad my day she can still make me smile.