A Girl and a Horse

The Scientist rode in the annual Horse Show at her riding school on Saturday. She participated in three events. The first was Showmanship. This involved judging the appearance of the horse and tack. The Scientist spent two hours the day before, preparing her horse and cleaning the tack. She also put in about forty-five minutes the morning of the show, doing a final grooming of her horse, or pony, actually, cleaning out its hooves and all kinds of fun stuff. She placed eighth out of thirteen, just well enough to garner a ribbon.

She also participated in two Cavaletti events. Cavaletti apparently refers to poles that the horse goes over. She rode Peter Pan the pony for these events. In the first event, she rode a set pattern which included going over poles on the ground. In the second, all the girls rode at once, changing from a walk to a sitting trot to a canter to a posting trot and so forth when instructed to do so. She placed fourth out of five in both Cavaletti events. She was disappointed in her results, but her family thinks she did well for her first horse show.

One girl fell off when her horse balked at a jump, and apparently Peter Pan went to his front knees while another girl was riding him, and the girl fell off. We missed this; it happened when Mr. BTEG, his sister and I were grabbing some lunch in a restaurant and enjoying some air conditioning. My sister-in-law, who is pregnant with her first child, was musing on how parents can bear to let their children take part in things that might be dangerous for them. What do you all think? For me, it's because riding horses, or dancing, seems to be part of who they are, or who they want to be. I can't deny them this chance to develop part of themselves. I do pray neither of them will ever be seriously injured in pursuit of their dreams.

The weather was hot and the sun rather bright, so that the Scientist's mother and aunt both felt the effects of the heat over the course of the day. However, we were all happy to be there watching the Scientist take important steps in her horsemanship.

A Photo Instead of Words... For Now

The Perfect Gift

Especially for a woman with PMS or going through menopause, is this. Just make sure you put high quality chocolate in.

Trying to Keep Up

Ever feel like your kids dirty your house faster than you can clean it? That's where I am right now. And I can't even look forward to shipping them back to school, either. The Scientist may be starting at Ohio Virtual Academy this fall, however. Honestly, she just has not been putting out her best effort. She's discovering this as she does the math assessment for OHVA. So I will probably just have to focus on the Dancer's schooling, while overseeing the Scientist.

Most of my running around is done for a while. I have to drop the Scientist off at her riding school for a couple of hours tomorrow morning, so she can clean and groom the horse she is showing during the horse show at her riding school, which is on Saturday. I have to pick up a couple of new leotards for the Dancer for her dance classes this fall. Speaking of fall, we'll be getting back into our fall routine soon, with Latin for the Scientist on Wednesday mornings, and three dance classes for the Dancer this year. At least two will be back to back so we only have to go out to the studio twice a week. I'm glad I've learned how to knit; I'll probably be doing a lot of knitting while watching the Dancer at her lessons.

Have to go cycle the laundry. I'll be posting about the horse show on Saturday.

Stop the Insanity

Between dropping off and picking up the Scientist for horse camp all this week, seven doctor/dentist/etc. appointments for various members of the family in one week, and watching a neighbor's child for part of a day, I am remembering one of the reasons why I'm glad we homeschool: I hate running around. It has been kind of nice being on a schedule, but all the coming and going is making me dizzy!

Lacking Words

Life is not exactly dull here, and I'm still keeping an eye on the world at large, but there isn't anything recently that has inspired me to share it. I'll post a few notes just to catch readers up with life in my little world.

Wildchild (who I may rename the Dancer) is disappointed that there are no dance classes in August. She'll be taking ballet, jazz and tap this fall and is looking forward to it. In some ways, she reminds me of the character of Posy, from Ballet Shoes, who "lived for nothing but her dancing classes," and "could only say and understand things with her feet."

The Scientist is going to horse camp for five hours a day all this week, and is enjoying herself except for the snotty girls. She's learning more about horses, which she enjoys; she loves animals. She has also made a new friend already, although who knows if she'll see her again after horse camp. The girl is living with her father right now, but will go back with her mother after the summer, and I don't know if the mother lives near. Obviously there are lots of larger issues with divorce, but I feel frustrated with how hard it is for my girls to maintain friendships with children of divorce; it seems like a good bit of their "free" time is spent away with the other parent. It just occurred to me that if I had been younger when my parents divorced, I could have lived through the same thing, and I would have hated it. As it was, they divorced when I was in college, so I was independent in the view of the state.

We haven't done much Olympics watching around here. Mr. EG is almost anti-Olympics, being interested in very few sports and thinking the Olympics are over-hyped, so it's not on when he's home. I should find a schedule somewhere and find out when the equestrian events are on for the Scientist, except that she's gone five hours a day, and most of the riding seems to be already over.

I've often been rather skeptical of the "God provides everything you need" crowd, not because I don't trust in God's Providence, but because it often seems to be used as a reason to give more to the church than you can afford, and "trust God" to make up the shortfall. However, Mr. EG's car just died, and the problems are not worth putting more money into with this vehicle. We had just gotten a substantial amount of money from the government that we were owed, so we were able to afford a "new" car without taking out a loan, which does seem rather Providential.

So, I guess I found some words after all. Perhaps I just need the discipline to force myself to post more often!

Day Care Scare

This is one of the scary things about leaving your child in the care of others. And yes, I know that parents have been known to forget their kids also, accidentally leaving them in locked cars and such. But doesn't that usually happen as the parent is rushing off to work, full of thoughts of the job? I know not every mom can stay at home, but the stay-at-home mom can often live a much more relaxed lifestyle, where the kids *are* the job.

Fun and Games

Here we are in our child-free weekend, and although I miss the chilluns, Mr. EG and I have been having some fun. Yesterday we stopped at Dave and Buster's on the way home and played air hockey, billiards (I'm an expert at slop ball), and raced each other in a race car game. It was something we haven't done in a while, and a nice change.

Today after church we stopped for the first time at Bubba's Q restaurant, owned by former Cleveland Brown Al "Bubba" Baker. Supposedly it is the only restaurant in the country to sell de-boned baby back ribs, which were good but not quite to my taste. My husband, a football fan of That Evil Town to the East, might not have liked some of the wall decor, which included autographed jerseys from Bernie Kosar and Brian Sipe. The football theme was carried throughout, down to the menus, which felt like a football on the outside and were colored orange or brown.

Today I'm hoping to get some sewing and house cleaning done with only Mr. EG under foot. :) I'm glad we're getting the kids back tomorrow. They're probably having a fantastic time at the water park.

Warning: first two links have sound.

Positive Notes

Yesterday was the last night of Mom/Kid Ballet. Even though we only took it once a week, I noticed my stamina was a lot better at the end of the course than the beginning. Now to keep that up! It was a nice experience for Wildchild and I. She loved being able to show her mom how to do something!

We seem to have pinned down the source of Mr. EG's somnolence. His sleep study showed he does not have sleep apnea, so the doctor targeted his meds next, and his asthma medication seems to have been the culprit. He is slowly returning to normal life. :)

We will be getting rid of our daughters for the weekend. :) They are going to a waterpark with their aunt and uncle on Sunday; we're dropping them off on Saturday and getting them back on Monday, since the family lives an hour and a half away. They should have lots of fun.