Sorry for my lateness in posting, yesterday was an incredibly stressful day with tests, finals, and multiple assignments due. By the end of the night I had lost the ability to form a coherent sentence, much less write out a post! However, even though this week has been incredibly busy, I learned an extremely valuable lesson that I would like to share with y'all. This weekend marked three years together with my current significant other. For the past two years, we've been in a long distance relationship with me in Waco and him in Houston. (Now, for those wondering how this ties in with horses, I'm getting there). We had planned to get some dinner, spend some time together, and just enjoy each other's company, but due to events over the past semester which severely infringed on our time together, things were less than ideal between us on the night we should have been celebrating. His biggest worry was that we weren't seeing each other enough, which made him feel like we were drifting apart. I understood completely, but essentially let him know that due to responsibilities to school, research, my sorority, various study classes, volunteer work, and the horses, there wasn't much I could do to change. After a long, difficult conversation, we parted ways after the break still together and on good terms, but wondering if we were facing the end of our relationship, Now, with all of these worries in my head, my natural first response was to call my mom for advice. As I'm sure many of you know, nobody can set your head straight and point out your fixable flaws like mom can. And she certainly had a few words of wisdom that I really took to heart. She pointed out that I spent more time at Baylor doing non-school related activities compared to the time I spend on my horses and on my relationship. Namely, she drew my attention to how much time I spend with my sorority, hanging with friends, and being active in other organizations I am involved in. So how did I expect my relationship to grow and strengthen and stay healthy when I put it aside for other fun college activities and extracurriculars? How could I improve as a rider and bond with my horses when I give them the bare minimum amount of time? What is really important here, and if I look back, what did all of my time go towards? So with a newly rediscovered sense of self, I called up my guy and we talked it over again. I vowed to spend more time on him and our relationship, and he vowed to be understanding when those pre-med responsibilities do surface and swallow my time. I promised my mom I would come home and work on not just showing, but also being there to help train my wonderful bays who are so talented and full of personality. Because in the end, you have to recognize when you are losing sight of your passion, and do whatever is necessary to make time for the things you love. Swamped this week? Let someone know you would love to get lunch, but maybe next week would be better. Talk to a coworker if you feel yourself spending long hours at the office, and share the load. Spend some time with family, with your husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend, let them know they are important to you. Make memories, strengthen bonds, and give and receive hugs. And be sure to take an hour or two out of your day to go feed some carrots to your equine friends, because we all know that they are the ones who get you through work, or school, or even both. There's no better therapy than the feeling of whiskers on your hand, the low nicker of a friend who is happy to see you, and the warmth of a furry coat in the November cold. Feel free to comment below and offer your thoughts, opinions, criticisms, or questions! I hope you all have enjoyed Black Mountain Ranch's blog posts thus far, we are always open to suggestions or just a chat!