Not So Clever

I've been waiting to share this post for a while; today seemed like a good day to unveil my blog's new title. The clinic went really well, but it also served as a gentle reminder that, for me anyway, dressage is a very slow journey. 

In the beginning, I created a website for a dressage group, but when I realized that I really wanted to write, not just maintain the website, I snuck in a blog at the bottom of the website's drop down menus. Not being particularly focused, I called the thing Karen's Dressage Blog, and the title of the blog just stuck. It certainly wasn't a very creative title from someone who needed an outlet for her creativity.

I published my first blog post on February 19, 2011 as more of an experiment than anything else. I just wanted a place to create and wondered if this might be the place for doing so. I had started using the "Notes" thing on Facebook, but that didn't give me the right audience. I had also been keeping a scrapbook/journal for many years, but I was quite limited in what I could do and there was no audience to provide feedback.

That original website didn't last long; it's a really long story. Once I passed on maintaining the group's website, I realized that Bakersfield still needed an online dressage presence. While there weren't a lot of people like me out there, I knew there had to be at least some riders interested in joining the dressage community who weren't sure how to do it. So I built www.bakersfielddressage.com and used Karen's Dressage Blog as the site's home page where it's been ever since.

I've had a lot of fun writing this blog. My domain server isn't as blog friendly as some of the other sites (Blogger, Word Press, etc.) so it doesn't give me some of the stats that other bloggers can use. Like, I don't know exactly how many blog posts I've written, but I know it's close to 1,000. I publish daily except for the occasional weekend that we're out of town or when we travel abroad.

Anyway … It finally occurred to me that Karen's Dressage Blog is a ridiculously boring title for a rider who has some pretty cool ponies and does some pretty cool stuff. So I sat at my kitchen counter and prepared to be enlightened. I sat for quite a while browsing Facebook and then reading other blogs before I gave up. A few days later, I sat again prepared to have this awesome lightbulb moment. Nothing came to me.

As I sat waiting, I realized that writing and riding were both endeavors where the learning can't be forced or rushed. Suddenly, I had a new name for the blog. While it might not be clever, Not-So-Speedy Dressage definitely describes my journey. It's still Bakersfield Dressage, and it's still Endurance to Dressage/Everything From A - C, but now the blog's title is more representative of who I am. 

Thanks for reading and sharing your own stories with me.