I love The Weepies, and I feel a little bit like I'm hanging on for dear life on this wildly spinning world at the moment. But hanging on, I am.

To clarify my training situation, I'm now riding and taking lessons at my original barn (where Missy was born and lives) and at a new barn which is a 5 minute drive from my office. The only way I could ensure that I would be able to ride every week was to take this step, they have a pool of over 60 lesson horses and many different venues in which to ride, including covered arenas for when the weather is bad. It's a group lesson with 4 other women in my age range and skill level and we do different things every week. I needed to do this to maintain both my sanity and any kind of skill level I might have, since I cannot count on being able to ride on the weekends, the only time that I can make it to Missy's barn.

I understand no trainer has all the answers, and I have found that I am learning a lot from having another trainer, the problem is, my original trainer has literally known Missy her entire life (she's 11) and started her (twice). If anyone should know how to manage this mare, it's her, but for the life of me I can't figure out why she is so conservative and so cautious, as if Missy, given the chance, would stomp me to death. I know she has both of our welfare in mind but I am bored and Missy just keeps getting abcesses, hurting herself, and having mystery problems that prevent me from being able to ride her for long stretches of time. I love her dearly but owning her is like owning a Ferrari with a couple spark plugs missing.

I took a HUGE step this month to improve my situation and changed the one thing that I had complete control over: where I live. I've lived in a very rural area at the top of a mountain in the redwoods for the last 10 years. While it's beautiful and peaceful, it's also a 75-minute, 50-mile commute each way to my office, and half of that is on mountain roads. The isolation was also becoming an issue for me, and I needed to change something in my life in order to drag myself out of the ditch of unhappiness I found myself in. Serendipity played a part in me finding a lovely 1-bedroom cottage nestled behind a gorgeous main house in exactly the place I wanted to be, with manicured landscaping, a private enclosed patio, a dog run for Aubrey, hardwood floors, a huge bedroom and a wood-burning fireplace. At 750 square feet it feels just about right, my only complaint is the kitchen is really tiny, but I don't cook much so I decided I could learn to live with that.

I haven't had a 20-minute commute in 15 years and I am loving it. Other than a very short stint right after I left my ex, I've never lived alone and I'm having a lot of fun decorating and setting things up exactly the way that I want them.

I was very concerned that I would be excruciatingly lonely, but so far that hasn't been the case, probably because I have my little spitfire pup with me. She is so funny and energetic and loving! She also LOVES my new bed, as you can see. I'm not sure what's going to happen with the house in the mountains or how or when my husband and I will live together full-time again, but for now I make the trek up the mountain on Friday nights and head back to my Petit Trianon on Sunday night for the work week.

I'm not sure who this Donna is that has done these things this year...gone to Jordan on my own to spend a week with women I'd never met, found a new barn and a new trainer, and now, getting my own place, but I think I like her.