Today is Tank’s 20^th birthday! In just a week and a half, I will have owned him for 11 years—longer than anyone before me. He is truly “mine” and I am the richer for it.

We rode together yesterday, all by ourselves, while the wind shook the trees and rolled a blue beach ball around the jump field, while a neighbor helped our barn owner move some large items with a piece of heavy equipment. Any one of those situations would have been a recipe for spooking and running when I first got Tank. Yesterday, he didn’t even bat an eyelash. I guess we’ve both matured in the past 11 years.

This quote sums up for me the miracle of a relationship with a horse:

“Riding is a partnership. The horse lends you his strength, speed and grace, which are greater than yours. For your part, you give him your guidance, intelligence and understanding, which are greater than his. Together, you can achieve a richness that alone neither can.” –Lucy Rees, “The Horse’s Mind.”

Thank you, Tank, for 11 years of simple pleasures and everyday adventures. Your birthday “cake” is on its way!

I found the second reference in this piece, written by Amanda Stuermer, on Jennifer Louden’s blog (emphasis hers): “I believe we choose the direction of our days, and that choice begins with our first waking thoughts. If I wake up worrying how I will ever get my to-do list done, I will feel rushed and pressured the whole day through. My words, actions, and habits will reflect that sense of anxiety. If instead, I wake up grateful for the opportunity to pursue my passions, I will feel inspired and my words, actions, and habits will reflect that. I would so much rather that my character and my destiny be guided by inspiration than anxiety.”  

We can also use the rhythms of the day to infuse inspiration into our lives. Rather than check email or social media (or, even worse, the news), begin the day with something that lifts us up, such as music, inspirational reading, meditation, a walk, or a few yoga poses. When we take a break during the day (and you are taking breaks, right?), use that time for further inspiration—flip through a magazine with beautiful images, get out in nature if possible. Even five minutes away from “to do” will help. At bedtime, we can turn off all our screens and end the day with the practice of writing down good things that have happened or what we are grateful for. Keeping our minds constantly tuned to what inspires us will help us through times of stress, struggle and change.

Inspiration looks different for everyone. Some of my sources of inspiration include the “Acoustic New Age” radio station on Pandora; my Pinterest boards Truth, Beautiful, and Isn’t That Cool?; blogs like Zen Habits , and inspirational speakers like Brendon Burchard.

I just came across the following idea in Chellie Campbell’s The Wealthy Spirit: Children have “I can hardly waits” while adults mostly have “I can hardly stand its.” Children are usually looking forward to something—school being out, a birthday, an exciting milestone. While adults, well, we are more often NOT looking forward to something—often those same somethings the kids are looking forward to!

I don’t know about you, but I thought being an adult would be more fun. Instead, I’m having my roof replaced, having the leaky dishwasher fixed and fighting the traffic while the county repaves the road that runs just outside my subdivision.  Fortunately, I’ve just remembered that I am the boss of me—and it’s time to follow Campbell’s advice to those of us with “I can’t stand its”: “Find something to look forward to with joy and focus on that.” 

But what if there’s nothing we especially look forward to? It’s time to schedule something! Maybe plan a summer trip, or buy tickets to a show or sporting event we want to see. If that’s not possible (and even when it is), schedule something smaller in the meantime. Plan to rent a movie and eat popcorn on Friday night with your spouse. Make a lunch date with a friend. Decide that at 8:30 tonight, you’ll curl up in bed with a good book. Just choose something you’ll enjoy and look forward to. Write these anticipated pleasures down in your calendar or on your to-do list.

I’m willing to bet you’re all fine, upstanding, law-abiding, tax-paying individuals. You give to those around you—now give to yourself. Give yourself something to look forward to. Simple pleasures and everyday adventures don’t plan themselves, you know. As for me, I’m looking forward to a visit from my two sisters-in-law, a Field Trip Friday involving a flea market, and a production of Annie at the local performing arts center. 

Introduction by Ted Kooser: Stories read to us as children can stay with us all our lives. Robert McCloskey’s Lentil was especially influential for me, and other books have helped to shape you. Here’s Matt Mason, who lives in Omaha, with a book that many of you will remember.

The Story of Ferdinand the Bull

Dad would come home after too long at work

and I’d sit on his lap to hear

the story of Ferdinand the Bull; every night,

me handing him the red book until I knew

every word, couldn’t read,

just recite along with drawings

of a gentle bull, frustrated matadors,

the all-important bee, and flowers—

flowers in meadows and flowers

thrown by the Spanish ladies.

Its lesson, really,

about not being what you’re born into

but what you’re born to be,

even if that means

not caring about the capes they wave in your face

or the spears they cut into your shoulders.

And Dad, wonderful Dad, came home

after too long at work

and read to me

the same story every night

until I knew every word, couldn’t read,

                                                                                                  just recite.

Saturday I completed my 31 Days of Sketching challenge—and I’m proud to say I didn’t miss a day! On most days I spent at least 15 minutes sketching and/or painting, and there were only a couple of days that I scraped together a few minutes and a few pencil strokes just so I could say I’d sketched. Winter Interrupted came at a good time and helped me add watercolor sketches to my sketchbook. I posted all my sketches on Flickr. (Belle of Belle, Book, and Candle took up the challenge as well, and you can see her sketches here.)

I wanted to become more comfortable sketching, and to make it more a part of my life instead of just done every now and then. I’m still not as comfortable as I’d like, and I did find that I didn’t experiment as much as I would have if I weren’t posting my sketches publicly.  Of course, I could have chosen not to post, but that felt like cheating. This tells me that I still care too much what others think. I don’t like to share my mistakes or what I think will be perceived as not very good. I will continue sketching, though probably not every day. I have several ideas for more sketchbook pages from Winter Interrupted, as well as (ahem) pages I want to complete from our New England trip a year and a half ago.

The month-long challenge seems to work well for me. It’s both finite and concrete; long enough to see progress, but short enough not to be overwhelming or boring. These challenges keep me focused when my natural tendency is to be easily distracted by new and shiny ideas or projects. So what’s next? I’m leaning towards a horsemanship challenge for the month of February. I’m off to a poor start because I did nothing horse-related yesterday—but I could still pick it up today. Do I need that concrete, I-will-do-this-every-day structure? I suspect yes. I could easily do a horsey thing every day, whether it’s play with Tank, finally watch the horsemanship DVDs gathering dust in my bedroom, or delve into the books, articles and internet research on horse topics that I seldom seem to have time to get into. There is tack to clean, or ground work exercises to try, and, of course, February is a lovely month for riding. I’d love to see my riding and horsemanship skills take a big leap forward.

I’ve had mixed success with the word of the year concept. While I’ve learned from and tried to permanently incorporate the connotations of my previous words of the year (open, light, passion, and the “secret” word I never wrote about in 2014, brave), I have not always felt that I fully embraced the concept. I tend to set a word of the year and mostly forget it, rather than draw on it for inspiration and guidance throughout the year.

In contemplating this situation, I realized that previous words had something in common: they were ways in which I wanted to change myself. And while self-improvement and change are good, and I’m certainly not saying I don’t need to continue to change and grow, I am, frankly, tired. In 2015, I need less struggle and more flow. Just for a little while, I want to leave myself alone and become more accepting of who I am right now.

So this year’s word of the year is…

—drumroll—

Delight.

Delight does not require that I struggle to be something I’m not. I don’t have to strive for it. I just have to pay attention to the delight that already exists in my life, and to actively seek delight in all that I do. Delight gives me permission to enjoy life, to turn my attention onto what’s going well rather than focus on what I want to be different. With delight to guide me, I’ll be more likely to say yes to what sounds fun, as well as look for the pleasure in all the everyday tasks and responsibilities I have.

I don’t have to look far to find things that delight me: my wonderful animals, a stack of books to read, blooming orchids, a good cup of coffee, the jumble of art supplies stacked in my office. I’m easy to please, and choosing delight as word of the year seems like something to look forward to!

I’ve read that we attract what we focus on. I’m eager to see just how much delight I can draw into my life in 2015. I’ll keep you posted.

What delights you? Have you chosen a word of the year? Do share.

Friday I returned from Laure Ferlita’s artist’s beach holiday, Winter Interrupted. Along with a suitcase full of dirty laundry and sand in my shoes, I came home with new friends, new sketches and great memories. Eight of us spent four days sharpening our sketching-on-location skills at various places in the St. Petersburg, FL, area. Each day we had a new destination: John’s Pass, Clearwater Marine Aquarium, the beach itself, and Sunken Gardens. Laure offered instruction and demos, then turned us loose to sketch. Most of us had never met in person, but had taken online classes together and/or connected through our private class blog. It didn’t take us long to bond, and we ended up spending a good deal of our free time together, too.

Some general observations on this adventure:

Sharing benefits everyone. One of my favorite things was when we shared our sketchbooks after each session. Each person’s take was different—even when two people sketched the same thing, the results were different—the hand of the artist in action. One day we also shared all the items in our sketching kits—so much fun to see each person’s favorite pencil/pen/sketchbook/palette, and we all jotted down tools we want to get our hands on.

“Bad sketching days” happen. I had one when I felt overwhelmed and just “off.” I didn’t like any of my sketches, but I made myself sketch anyway. The next day was better, and I can always go back and sketch from photos if I want a better representation of what we saw that day.

I love sketching palm trees! I added them to several pages, even when they weren’t part of the lesson.

Palm tree practice--my favorite is the one in the middle

Sketching in ink can be fun. My mechanical pencil ran out of lead at Sunken Gardens and I was forced to sketch with a pen—something Laure encourages but I hadn’t yet tried this trip. I’m not confident in my drawing skills and the pencil served as a security blanket. And you know what? I had the most fun sketching that day, and that page is my favorite page from the trip. (I can hear Laure laughing from across town.)

Art instruction is great, but being inspired by fellow artists is even better. Each woman on the trip had something besides her art to bring to the group. I came away energized and eager to make my life even better than it already is. Getaways like this help us to pay more attention to our own wants and needs, and to open up to new people in a way we wouldn’t during our normal, everyday interactions with others. (Thank you Laure, Cheryl, Claire, Clare, Patti, Susan and Terry!)

I’m still working on my pages—and will be for a while—so I can draw out the pleasure of the experience. I’m grateful to have had the chance to escape my everyday routine and add some art adventure to my life!

When was your last getaway? Are you planning one soon?

Introduction by Ted Kooser: During our more than four years of publishing this column we’ve shown you a number of poems about motherhood. Here’s another, beautifully observed by Liz Rosenberg, who lives in New York State.

I Leave Her Weeping

I leave her weeping in her barred little bed,

her warm hand clutching at my hand,

but she doesn’t want a kiss, or to hug the dog goodnight—

she keeps crying mommy, uhhh, mommy,

with her lovely crumpled face

like a golden piece of paper I am throwing away.

We have been playing for hours,

and now we need to stop, and she does not want

to. She is counting on me to lower the boom

that is her heavy body, and settle her down.

I rub her ribcage, I arrange the blankets around her hips.

Downstairs are lethal phonecalls I have to answer.

Friends

dying, I need to call.

My daughter may be weeping all my tears,

I only know

that even this young

and lying on her side,

her head uplifted like a cupped tulip,

sometimes she needs to cry.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2009 by Liz Rosenberg, whose most recent book of poetry is “Demon Love,” Mammoth Press, 2009. Poem reprinted from “Paterson Literary Review,” Issue 37/2009-2010, by permission of Liz Rosenberg and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2010 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

I had a thoughtful blog post planned for today, full of encouragement and wisdom (har), but due to circumstances being what they were, I did not finish it. Instead of giving you nothing (don’t thank me), here is what my day was like:

As I was sitting in my office this morning (which doubles as Prudy’s bedroom at night), I notice something suspicious in her water dish. It was a mouse.

More specifically, my wireless computer mouse.

I snatch it out of the water, remove the batteries, and toss it in the trash thinking it can’t possibly work. On reflection, however, I pull it out of the trash, dry it thoroughly and replace the batteries, thinking just maybe it might still function. Lo and behold, it does! Sort of. Perhaps I can muddle through the day if I am careful. I can always borrow a mouse from my husband if my newly dried off mouse fails me—which it does almost immediately. I can click on things, but if I try to scroll, the screen leaps and stutters until I pull the batteries out of the mouse again. OK then. Borrowed mouse it is. Let’s get back to today’s blog post…

But wait! You say you want to type? No, no, no, no, no. Whether the keyboard decides to take a break, walk off the job in sympathy with the mouse, or just simply make my life difficult, suddenly it doesn’t work. I try rebooting. Nothing doing. Into my husband’s office I go, to use his computer to look up “keyboard won’t work.” I find a solution on a Dell forum that works. Back in business. OK, about that blog post…

[Short interlude in which I eat lunch.]

OK, then, let’s put some nice, soothing music on Pandora for inspiration. Hmmm. I don’t hear anything. What gives? Do my external speakers work? Yes. How about iTunes? Yup. OK, look up “sounds don’t play on web pages.” Try a bunch of things, including clearing my cache and cookies (which means I now have to sign in to everything again). Nothing. OK, I guess I can listen to iTunes—BUT WAIT—now iTunes doesn’t work, either. (Pity poor Laure Ferlita who was getting a blow-by-blow recounting of all this.) I wonder if the laptop has sound and the problem lies between it and the external speakers? Pull the laptop out (it lives on a shelf under my desk and I use a docking station to connect it to an external keyboard and monitor) and find that no, it doesn’t have sound.

No, I do not curse.

I give up. Stare pitifully at my paper. Twiddle my pen. Can’t think of anything to write. Click sadly over to YouTube to look longingly at some silent videos.

And suddenly

A miracle.

Sound.

Don’t know how, don’t know why.

Beautiful sound.

But now it’s 4:30 and I’m cranky. Decide the encouraging and wise (har) blog post will have to wait for a day when I feel encouraging and wise.

Moral of the story? Some days are irritating and unproductive. Some days expose your weaknesses. You just have to put up with them, do your best to get through them, and hope the next day proves to be better.

“There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. By being happy we sow anonymous benefits upon the world.”
—Robert Louis Stevenson

Chocolate makes me happy.

I’ve been so busy with this and that I feel like I’ve been neglecting this blog. Along with my normal, day-to-day stuff, here’s a little bit of what’s been going on:

Tank is lame and I don’t know why. Later today I have an appointment with the farrier to rule out hoof issues. Our current thought is he’s pulled a muscle. If that’s the case, there’s nothing to do but take him for gentle walks and let it heal.

I’m sketching every day. You can see my sketches on Flickr, but I assure you they’re nothing to make a special trip to see. It’s more about establishing a sketching habit, brushing up and improving my sketching skills and getting over “fear of the blank page.” I’m posting them to keep myself honest. Belle, from Belle, Book and Candle, is sketching with me, and you can see her sketches here. 

I’m helping Laure Ferlita wrap up details for Winter Interrupted: An Artist’s Beach Holiday that will take place Jan. 18-22. (Another good reason to get back in the habit of sketching!) 

And, of course, I’m reading—library books mostly, and nothing towards any of my reading challenge goals. Oops.

So what’s new with you?

Introduction by Ted Kooser: Mark Sanders, who lives in Texas, is not only a good poet, but he’s an old friend to the poetry of my home ground, working hard as teacher, editor, and publisher to bring Great Plains poetry to the attention of readers across the country. Here’s an example of one of his poems.

The Cranes, Texas January 

I call my wife outdoors to have her listen,

to turn her ears upward, beyond the cloud-veiled

sky where the moon dances thin light,

to tell her, “Don’t hear the cars on the freeway—

it’s not the truck-rumble. It is and is not

the sirens.” She stands there, on deck

a rocking boat, wanting to please the captain

Her eyes, so blue the day sky is envious,

fix blackly on me, her mouth poised on question

like a stone. But, she hears, after all.

                                                                  January on the Gulf,

warm wind washing over us,

we stand chilled in the winter of those voices.

With the turning of the year, many of us become more contemplative. We think about the past year, the future, and what we want more or less of in the coming months. Here is a collection of end-/beginning-of-the-year links I found inspiring and helpful, and that you might enjoy also:

Playing off the 12 days of Christmas idea, Laura Vanderkam has come up with “12 Days to a Happier, More Productive You.” 

Sandra at Always Well Within  has prepared a couple of free downloads here: A time-tracking log as well as a worksheet to help you review the past year.

36 Prompts to Help You Plan an Awesome 2015 from Daring to Live Fully. 

Just in case you’re overwhelmed by “have an amazing year” cheerleading, remember that “life isn’t a tidy upward achievement narrative,”—and that’s OK.

How to say No graciously—an important skill we all need. 

Disconnect, do less and be more successful!

And on a lighter note, the folks at Smartpak (no affiliation) have made a series of funny videos with the theme “If horses were people.” Here is a recent one, about blanketing, that made me laugh. (The farrier one is hilarious, too.)

I know the calendar is an arbitrary division of time, but I feel the weight of the old year bearing down on me. The weight of goals achieved and not achieved, of challenges met and unmet...the days and weeks and months of 2014 feel heavier each moment. A new year is about to dawn, and it feels like a weight will fall off my shoulders with the passing of the old year. Do you feel that way too? The endings and beginnings of this time of year feel like a good chance to shrug off the old and look forward with optimism to the new. But before I go all philosophical on you, let me just quickly review the public challenges I set for myself in 2014:

I succeeded in all three of my reading challenges—click here to see the results. I am just finishing up that last Mt. TBR book, but it will be done by the end of the month. I managed just one bingo, but I filled a number of other spaces—just not in a line! And I read all the “required” classics, and one of the optional books.

For 2015: I plan to read from my shelves again, since (surprise!) I continued to buy new-to-me books in 2014. I did end up with a small reduction in the TBR pile, but I still have many, many books secreted on my closet shelves.  I’ll also participate in the updated classics challenge here and once again in the Vintage Mystery Bingo Challenge.

30-Day Gratitude Photo Challenge

I’m so happy that I completed this challenge—it was fun, uplifting and gave me the boost I needed to take on…

31 Days of Sketching with Belle from Belle, Book and Candle starting Jan. 1. She plans to post her art on a separate blog (address to come), and I’m not sure yet how I’m going to post mine. I’m still working out the details and collecting prompts so that I’m never at a loss for what to sketch. My goal is to make sketching an activity rather than an event.

This year has been a year of emotional stress and upheaval (and dying computers and dogs going to the emergency vet), though I haven’t publicly written much about it. It was also a year of seeing old friends and family, reading good books and discovering Doctor Who. I’m grateful for the gifts 2014 has given me, but I want 2015 to feel different—less frustrating and anxiety ridden. I can’t control what happens to me, only how I react. Optimistically, I turn towards 2015, hoping for a happier and more successful year. But hoping will not make it so. If I want 2015 to be better than 2014, and I do, I will have to make some changes—in what I do and how I think. I’ll share what I learn in hopes that it will help and encourage you, too. As always, I’m especially grateful for all of you who have taken time to read my words and share your thoughts with me.

What gifts has 2014 given you? What do you look forward to in 2015?

The problem is, life wants to happen at the same time I’m busy making Christmas plans.

My challenge is to take the pressure off by doing only what is meaningful to our family, not getting caught up in what other people do this time of year (no matter how fun it sounds), and letting some of “life” slide for the time being. Not that this is news to me, of course, but I seem to need to be reminded again and again. There is no “right” way to celebrate the holidays, nor is there a “right” way to be happy. There is only the way that is right for me.

I hope you are having a joyful and stress-free holiday season! If you have time, share some of your favorite holiday traditions in the comments section below.

Introduction by Ted Kooser: I flunked college physics, and anything smaller than a BB is too small for me to understand. But here’s James Crews, whose home is in St. Louis, “relatively” at ease with the smallest things we’ve been told are all around and in us.

God Particles

I could almost hear their soft collisions

on the cold air today, but when I came in,

shed my layers and stood alone by the fire,

I felt them float toward me like spores

flung far from their source, having crossed

miles of oceans and fields unknown to most

just to keep my body fixed to its place

on the earth. Call them God if you must,

these messengers that bring hard evidence

of what I once was and where I have been—

filling me with bits of stardust, whaleskin,

goosedown from the pillow where Einstein

once slept, tucked in his cottage in New Jersey,

dreaming of things I know I’ll never see.

Photo courtesy Mocanu Bogdan

Oh, you’ve never heard of the Kathys? That’s because I just invented them. I was planning to do a “10 Favorite Reads of 2014” post, when I realized I had nearly twice that many favorites chosen after a quick pass through the list of books I read this year.  These awards are completely personal and subjective, with the main requirement being that I read and loved each book listed in 2014, regardless of when it was published. Sadly, the authors receive nothing but my undying thanks and admiration, and the likelihood that I will recommend and buy their books in future, even if they, the authors, are dead. (I admit this is a fairly questionable honor.) So without further ado, I give you the Kathy Book Awards:

Fiction: Life After Life, Kate Atkinson. 

Runner up: Kind of Cruel, Sophie Hannah. I was surprised and pleased to find this is one in a series.

This was the hardest category from which to choose a winner. I read a number of really outstanding novels this year. Other favorites included: Old Filth, What Alice Forgot, The Elegance of the Hedgehog, and The Little Stranger.

Vintage mystery: The House on the Roof, Mignon G. Eberhart. Great story, and a terrier named Blitz.

Runner up: The Brading Collection, Patricia Wentworth. I figured out whodunit!

Classic: All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque. Surprisingly, All Quiet beat out a horse classic for the honor. The book affected me deeply, and I wrote about it here.

Runner up: My Friend Flicka, Mary O’Hara.

“What you love is as unique to you as your fingerprints. You need to know that because nothing will make you really happy but doing what you love.”

—Barbara Sher

I love how relaxed these two are

When I bought Tank 10 years ago, I had hazy ideas of what we would do together. I knew I would ride, of course, maybe jump some low obstacles, and I wanted just to be able to hang out with him, to be near my very own horse. My lifelong dream. For a while, riding casually and hanging out was enough. Then I saw a demonstration by a group of people who used the Parelli Natural Horsemanship program—the things they could do with their horses, on a lead line, under saddle and at liberty (with no tack)! Both people and horses looked like they were having fun. My curiosity piqued, I started learning about Natural Horsemanship and my relationship with Tank became infinitely better.

But it’s been a couple of years since the last Parelli infusion and we’ve become too set in our ways. When I’m not planning to ride, I’ve gotten into the habit of only hanging out—pleasant, but not the best use of my barn time if I want to strengthen our bond and be able to do more things together. I’ve become lazy about coming up with games to play with him. And playing with Tank is good for his mental and emotional stimulation, as well as cementing my role as leader. I’m pretty sure right now he whinnies when he sees me because he knows he’ll get snacks, not because he can’t wait to see what we do together! (Hey, it’s a start. At least he likes to see me coming.)

So hoping for inspiration, Saturday I attended the first day of Pat and Linda Parelli’s Future of Horsemanship Tour in Tampa. This was my second time at a Parelli event (see “Mind: Blown”). This event was smaller than the one I attended in 2012, and not quite as packed with information. Most of the presentations were different, however, and this year they had a brief demo of Cowboy Mounted Shooting by Jesse Peters—which he performed bridleless—way cool! The photos aren’t very good because he was going so fast, and yet he was able to navigate the course and slide to a stop on a dime. Amazing partnership.

I won’t get all technical with you, but I did come away with some new ideas for playing with Tank, and, of course, some other little life lesson-y tidbits!

“When you take off the lead rope and halter, you’re left with the truth.”

When you take away the external controls, will the horse stay with you or wander off? What kind of relationship/partnership do you have? In my horse world, the truth is that sometimes Tank will stay with me and sometimes he won’t. I’m not yet the most interesting thing in his world. Applying this principle to the rest of my life, I ask myself what would I do/say/eat if I didn’t have external controls? If I were trying to please only myself and honor my deepest beliefs and wishes? How would my life be different?

Use psychology to improve training.

One of my favorite segments was the one on horse personalities—or horsenalities (since horses aren’t people). The Parellis have broken horsenality into four categories: left brain introverts, left brain extroverts, right brain introverts, right brain extroverts. (Tank is a left brain introvert.) This is important because each type of horse needs a slightly different approach in order to learn. This goes for people, too, however you want to divide and categorize them. Communicating with spouses, children, coworkers, family members and friends can be enhanced by understanding their personalities and choosing the communication techniques most likely to get through.

I want to become a better horsewoman, and in order to do that, I need to put a bit more time and thought into my horsey activities. I’ll have to rebalance my other activities, and sometimes that’s uncomfortable. (For instance: to go to this event I had to miss my library’s annual holiday book sale!) I believe it will be worth it. And now, to the barn!

Introduction by Ted Kooser: I love poems with sudden surprises, and here’s one by Jennifer Gray, a Nebraskan. Will you ever see depressions puddled with rain without thinking of the image at her conclusion?

Horses

The neighbor’s horses idle

under the roof

of their three-sided shelter,

looking out at the rain.

Sometimes

one or another

will fade into the shadows

in the corner, maybe

to eat, or drink.

Still, the others stand,

blowing out their warm

breaths. Rain rattles

on the metal roof.

Their hoof prints

in the corral

open gray eyes to the sky,

and wink each time

another drop falls in.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2013 by Jennifer Gray. Reprinted by permission of Jennifer Gray. Introduction copyright © 2014 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

I did it! I stuck with my 30-Day Gratitude Photo Challenge, posting a picture and a few sentences about what I’m grateful for every day in November. This is an encouraging first for me!

I enjoyed being able to focus on all the good things I’m grateful for and having them recorded in one place means I can revisit them when I’m unhappy, stressed, or frustrated. In addition to that, I learned that I can, indeed, stick with something for 30 days straight, and that yes, sometimes it is easier to do something every day rather than once in a while. (See Grechen Rubin’s post, “Proposed Resolution: Do Something Every Day.”)

A couple of things made this challenge doable for me. First, there were specific boundaries. I knew how long the challenge would last (30 days), and I knew the theme of each day’s post ahead of time, thanks to Dani’s prompts. While I did have to decide what aspect to write about, having the prompt meant I already had a topic, and that made it a lot easier for me. I mostly posted at night, but I kept the prompt in mind all day. It probably took me about 15 minutes at most to choose the photo, write the post and put them both up. Once I had my post done, I didn’t fret about doing more—I knew I had finished that day’s challenge and could move on to something else.

The second thing that helped was accountability—I announced I was doing this challenge here on the blog, and that I intended to post the photos on Facebook. Even though I doubt that anyone was waiting breathlessly for my next post, I did feel accountable for making sure one made it up there every day.

Speaking of posts, here are four of my favorites:

Day 7 prompt: Attire. I'm grateful for the riding boots my husband gave me for Mother's Day 10 years ago. They help me feel more secure when riding, and help my horse understand my cues better. Plus, I think they're pretty cool looking (though they need to be cleaned and polished)!

Day 8 prompt: Friendship. This should be easy, because friendship is hands down one of the things I'm most grateful for. To the women I've met only virtually through blogging, to my barn buddies, to the far-flung friends I only get to talk to occasionally, and to those special few who have supported and encouraged me through all the highs and lows of life, I say a big THANK YOU! I don't have one photo that can express all that, so I'll go with this one of a little plaque that hangs in my kitchen--given to me by a friend, of course!

Day 21 prompt: Scent. New Orleans is a town full of sights, sounds, and smells--not all of them pretty. There's one scent I absolutely love that you can occasionally get a whiff of as you walk down the street there—Sweet Olive. Today I'm thankful for the Sweet Olive perfume I bought in NOLA. Whenever I open the bottle, I'm whisked back to one of my favorite cities.

Day 28 prompt: Desire. I'm grateful that there are things I desire—things to work and plan for, and look forward to. One of my biggest desires is to have the money and freedom to travel more—hence today's photo.

I am glad the challenge is done, and while I wasn’t exactly getting bored with it, I am ready for a change. So what’s next? Armed with the realization that I can stick to something, I want to choose another thing to do for 30 days, something that will take approximately the same 15 minutes per day. Perhaps sketching—think how much improvement I’d make if I sketched every day for 15 minutes! I know that to be successful, I need boundaries and accountability. I’ll need to find or make up prompts for sketching every day (any suggestions for a book or website that could help me do this?), and I’ll need to have some accountability. I don’t want to post my sketches on Facebook, however, because I want to feel free make mistakes and try new things without being too embarrassed and without inflicting my learning curve on others. Plus, in order to post my sketches, I’d have to scan them into the computer daily, and that might just be the straw that breaks this challenge’s back. Do I have enough gumption to be accountable to myself? I’m not sure. I’m still pondering this. (Plus, I’m not prepared to commit to a 30-day project over the Christmas holidays. This will have to wait until 2015.)