A day off?

Taken from GRS Blog So I was intending to be away this weekend. As such, I had nothing booked. So when my plans were cancelled, I ended up with a WHOLE day free! Woohoo. So I promptly made a list of all the things that desperately need to be done. Laundry. Clean house. Pay bills. Latin HW. Paperwork. Clean tack. Pull horse's mane. And as I was sort of mentally sorting through the order in which I would accomplish these things, I happened to glance at FB and saw a note about dressage at Palgrave. hmmmmm today eh? Well if dressage is on at Palgrave, my coach will be there. And likely her groom. And some other people I'd like to see... So I look up her ride times; I was already too late to make it there in time to see her first horse go, but her second one was in the aft. Ok so my laundry was mostly done but the rest of the things on that list got scrapped in favour of going to watch her ride. hahaha so I spend all my life at the barn, and on my day off what do I do? Go watch somebody else ride. Obsession? Addiction? Insanity? Possibly all three. But I do know that no horse-person would be even the slightest bit surprised by that choice. So whatever it is, I'm not alone with the affliction *g* hahaha Those who know, cannot explain. Those who don't know, can never understand. I get to the grounds n find her stalls. No people. Ok wander around a bit. Visit the tack store (Sienna now has a new half-pad. The first I've ever bought actually, but her Fleeceworx pad disintegrated so I needed a replacement n figured this was worth a try :). Wander back. Still no people. Pick up a random time sheet -- ok she has a student going in a few mins (yeah for excessively detailed dressage sheets), wander over to 1st level land. No M, but it was amusing me to sit and listen to the various coaches and their students so I hung out there for a while. My fav line: "That was GREAT! At *least* an 11!" and then I guess realizing she might've been a little too enthusiastic, an aside to those around "I'm a judge, so I can decide it's an 11." hahaha - amused me anyways. At one point there were about six coaches all sitting side by side speaking instructions quietly. All to their respective students, clearly wearing headsets. Was sort of entertaining to pick out who belonged to whom :) But then, I'm easily amused. So eventually wander back to the stalls figuring my coach has to reappear eventually since her horse is still there and we're getting close to when she should be riding :) Was just debating where to wander next when her super-groom appeared. N where she is, M will soon be. hahaha So we chatted for a few minutes, and sure enough shortly thereafter she arrived followed by the appropriate getting changed and tacked up chaos. Quite enjoyed watching my coach warmup her superstar horse and evesdropping on her coach's comments. I even more enjoyed watching her absolutely brilliant test. And the look on her face coming out that made it clear it felt as good as it looked :) It's not too often you get to see somebody come out of dressage smiling like that. So we go take care of the horse and watch another of her students ride. Convince a near-by kid to did a ditch to funnel water away from the stalls for when the rapidly approaching storm hit. hahaha he was handy to have around :) And then it's time to go find the scores. Always scary -- what happens if the judge didn't think it was as good as it felt? It *shouldn't* influence how you feel about a ride, but it always does... So as we were hanging out, about to go see, her phone rings... Scores are up. And hers? First. As it should be :) I oh so rudely read through her test (bad Lauren! :) to see a good number of 9s on it *g* Pretty sweet. Anyways so that was a good random horse-show day. Had fun socializing, did some shopping, and watched the friend I went to see ride a kick-ass test. Doesn't get much better than that. So on the way home stopped to ride my pony. N while I wasn't sore at all after yesterday's lesson when I woke up this morning, about two minutes into trying to ride I could feel all sorts of new muscles screaming. hahaha but my horse went beautifully! And we finished just before the rain hit. And just to round things out she did get her mane pulled and the tack did get cleaned. So while the *whole* list didn't get done, parts of it did *g*