I'm Back!

Holy cow! What a week! I'm pretty sure that I met myself in the highway several times over the last few days. Kirk and I went to work an event in Jackson, which is three hours away, that started in the middle of the week. That's not such a big deal for professional horse trainers and people who don't have kids, or even people with kids who aren't in school yet, but for us it's huge. Leaving my kids at home now (so that they don't miss school) means coordinating a small army of babysitters, in addition to dealing with the fact that I miss them like crazy. Oh, and there's the small matter of paying someone to stay with our kids night and day and take them to school. And pick them up. And do homework, feed them, bathe them, and all that other stuff their dad and I normally take care of. The sitters are always ready to go home when we get back!
The event that we went to is generally the biggest barrel race in our area each year. As luck would have it, nothing went my way this time. One of the horses I pre-entered got hurt, forcing me to scratch her. Then it was either donate the $200 entry fee I'd already paid or take my colt that I knew wasn't ready to go to such a large event. I ended up taking the colt, and now definitely wish I hadn't!
My husband left home Wednesday afternoon, and I stayed home one more night to drive the kids to school on Thursday. I dropped them out and headed for Jackson, watching the clock very carefully so as not to miss my run. Missing my run is one of my worst fears at big shows. I'm not really sure why; it's never happened before, but when I stopped in Starkville and found myself locked in a bathroom stall, it didn't take but a second for me to decide that door was going down. Fortunately, I didn't have to destroy the stall door in order to get out, or slide under the door (eeewwww...) but I would have, in a second. I have been trapped in a bathroom one other time in my life, on my wedding day, and trust me, that door didn't stand a chance.
Anyway, I finally made it to Jackson, unloaded my truck, walked inside to check the draw...and got a phone call from a number I didn't recognize. Naturally, because I was three hours from home, it was my daughter's teacher letting me know that she was sick and I needed to come pick her up from school. Somewhere in my subconscious I knew this was going to happen. Planning for all the "what ifs" was my greatest source of anxiety in planning this trip. Maybe it was self-fulfilling prophecy. I don't know. Fortunately, my college age sitter was out of class and could go get her. On a positive note, we already had a new bottle of amoxicillin powder sitting on our kitchen shelf just waiting to be mixed up. Hey, being a vet's kid has to have some advantages. My daughter kept asking her sitter if she had to take "horse medicine" again, so I'd love to know what she told her teacher when she went back to school yesterday.
After I finally got the kids squared away, it was time for me to do what I'd gone there for in the first place: run barrels! My first run was on the more "reliable" of my two young horses. He doesn't have a tremendous amount of "try" about him, but he always turns three barrels and rarely hits one. After listening to me complain (again) about how lazy he was, my husband (who doesn't make barrel runs but has watched a million of them) suggested that perhaps I should get up off my arse and lean forward, his theory being that the horse wasn't running because I wasn't asking him to. Good idea, right? Sure! So on my first run, I leaned forward, sent him in there, and overran the first barrel by a mile! As I was getting it back together leaving the second barrel, I leaned forward, asked him to run...and hung my belt over my saddle horn. I didn't sit down for the third barrel or on the way out, because I couldn't! As I was coming to the gate, I was thinking, "Please, Lord, let this horse stop! I run him without a curb chain and I can't sit down to ask him to stop!" Fortunately, he stopped before he hit the closed gate, even without my help. Not the way I wanted to start things off!
My second run of the weekend was on my young horse who definitely was not ready for an event like this. He is little, quick and catty, and as my husband likes to put it, "If you stub your toe, you will be walking out." He wasn't really sure about this whole program, so he zigged and zagged and finally found his way to the first barrel, but by then he had shaken up his jockey. I pulled a little too hard on the left rein, and being the obedient boy that he is, he turned in front of the second barrel. Just to annoy me, once I turned him around, he went back through and made two awesome turns, as if to say, "See, I can do this if she'll get the heck out of my way!"
The second day of the event wasn't much better! I had a better first barrel on my big horse, then hit the third barrel, which kept me out of the finals. My little horse was totally full of himself after being shut up in a stall all weekend, and decided that just to keep it interesting he would turn in front of the first barrel this time. (I freely admit that he had help from his jockey in making that decision.)
So needless to say, I didn't have the weekend I was hoping for! It's so frustrating when you look forward to something all year, really work at it, and then it blows up in your face. My husband and I were sitting around, discussing what a horrible week it had been and what we could do to fix it, and then it happened. Just like it always does. God brought me back to reality. My friend who has cancer called and let me know that according to her doctor her time is getting short. Really short. And just like that none of the barrel racing stuff really mattered.
I had a rotten week, one that I'd like to forget about. But at least I've got the promise of another one. I always seem to be gently (or not so gently) reminded that I have so much to be thankful for. My husband and my kids are healthy. I'm healthy. I am blessed to be an American. And I still get to participate in a sport that I love. Time to pick myself up, dust myself off, and start over. Again. I got some good advice from a friend this weekend: 'Sometimes stuff just has to work because you decide that you're going to make it work." Duly noted.