A better day :)

So yesterday I was not the happiest of people. Weekend had been less than fun and I woke up after limited and restless sleep tired and grumpy. Work was made up of other tired and grumpy people (amazing how that happens eh? Or maybe it's just that I tolerate it less when I'm tired and grumpy :) and even my machine went on strike. No memory. Sheesh. All sorts of similar little things that in the grand scheme of things really don't matter but appear mountainous when I'm in a grumpy mood. And a mountain I had absolutely no interest in climbing at that. So I headed off to the barn to teach. Got stuck in some random weird traffic (it's summer, there shouldn't be any traffic! And no apparent reason for it). So got there 15 min late. Any of you who actually know me will realize that's pretty much unheard of, and I get very stressed when I'm late for something. Park the car as fast as possible and run to the ring to realize I only had one student. Deep breath. One student is good. One student means the lesson should only be half an hour. One student means I'm actually 15 min early. And one student who's very kewl and not particularly concerned with the fact that I was late. Alright no problem. Deep breath, shrug the day off, and start over. Teach my one student (the remaining 45 mins :) and she was riding really well (private lessons'll do that to you >;-P) So I was pretty happy about that. Ok the day was starting to look better. Next group had a few "new to me" students -- which is always entertaining. This particular farm sends students to me when they've learned the basics and are ready to go a little farther -- but the "basics" are taught in a variety of ways. So some students I end up reworking the entire way they ride -- and almost always get a great reaction from them when they get it "my" way because of how much better their horses go. hahaha yeah classical riding. So first lessons are almost always fun for me. And, one of my regulars in that class discovered my birthday's later this week. *I* hadn't even realized my birthday was later this week! hahaha and she brought me a "coach of the year" ribbon :) You know, it's such a little thing, but it entirely made my day. Possibly my week :) The first one of those I ever got nearly made me cry -- I still have it too *g* Maybe I should see if I can start a collection of them :) I would be thrilled if I managed to earn a collection of those :) Everybody in the next few lessons conspired to continue the trend of my day getting much better. The horse that always quits, jumped everything in front of her. Pony riders stayed *on* their ponies. Everybody was riding appropriate horses and those horses were sound and relatively sane. Generally makes my job much easier :) Then there was one student, who has been working hard for a very long time now, who earned a super-bright lightbulb a couple weeks ago. Well she has since, pretty consistently proven that that light's staying on. So at the end of the night I let her learn just what she could do with her new-found skills. I wish I had a video of the look on her face through that one. hahaha The difference between her coming into the exercise and afterwards is the kind of thing that makes me love teaching. Roughly translated to starting at: "this is a bad idea, we're going to die, but Lauren said we should do it..." and ending with: "OMG I did it! And I did it WELL! And it was fun!" Absolutely amazing to watch. I love it when my students accomplish the impossible :) Alright so I go home with my day ending w/ me in a much happier place then it started. But now I'm super-high from teaching (a fairly standard occurrence :) so instead of falling into shower and bed, which'd be the logical thing to do given when I have to get up for work, I go on the computer. And the first thing I see is the countdown to vacation. wooohoo. hahaha always makes me smile. Then once I get into my email there were a few comments on my last Flash, which was really nice to see. Then I saw a message from Zelli's new owner (new? hahaha he's had her for a year and a half. But she was my baby. That horse meant the world to me in a way no other ever has -- don't get me wrong, I adore Si. And have many others in the past. But Zel was special. In all sorts of ways >;-P) So anyways, Zelli's new owner, who is a lovely older man who bought her to do entry level eventing and so his granddaughters could ride, let me know that they've had a change of plans and she's spending the summer trail riding. hahaha and - other than the western saddle! (I asked for pics :) - I can so envision her absolutely loving it. He's taken her all over Ontario and through part of the States, doing 25-35k hacks. Apparently they've even been swimming. :) And are "fun jumping all the logs they can find" (best I can tell "fun jumping" is jumping that's not in lessons or competition). And she is, of course, an absolute pro at it. Apparently can lead, follow, or go anywhere in the pack safely. I'm not the least bit surprised at that of course, but it made me sooooo happy to hear the turn her new life has taken. Happy and sad, I will admit. I really miss that horse. But she's leading just about the perfect life for her now, and spoiled beyond belief. The princess being treated the way she always knew she should :) Then today when I got to the barn the superpony was *almost* sound. Woohoo. If all is well she should be good tomorrow and I can ride on Thurs. Fingers crossed!