Craziness

Forward: Thanks to everyone for their support and encouragement in response to my last post. Shit sucked, I'm not gonna lie. But I'll go forward because what else can I do? In the meantime I'll just be glad that I can ride again. And drink beer. mmmmm. Beer.



So, it's been a week since I last posted.

Eeek.

I'm sorry.

Life has been totally, utterly, completely crazy lately.

We've had more animals in our house than the San Diego Zoo

We drove from NJ to South Carolina and back in 34 hours.

I sent a riding student to the ER in an ambulance.

I made pumpkin chili without any pumpkin last night.

WITHOUT PUMPKIN, people.

If it gets any crazier than that, I don't want to know about it.

So where do I start? I guess we'll do this in chronological order.

Over the past two weeks, we've had no less than seven animal in this house. No, you didn't read that wrong. SEVEN ANIMALS. That means the pet-to-human ratio was 7:1 during the day and 3.5:1 during the night.

It was ridic.

One night, we were eating dinner at the dining room table and something hit my foot, so I looked under the table.

Big. Mistake.

It was like that scene in Open Water, where everything looked calm above the surface, but beneath the surface there were like a million hungry sharks thrashing about.

This is what happens when you agree to watch your In-law's dog, your sister's cat, and your sister's ex-roommate's cat without looking at the calendar.
Whoops.
I'm happy to say that the In-law's annoying beagle (nicknamed "Bad-touch Bandit" for ...well...you don't really want to know) is now gone. But the cats are still here.
It's like living in an episode of National Geographic, except instead of hunting, all of the cats just sit around and whine for food.

Lovely

And then this past weekend, we had to drive down to South Carolina and back. Something to do with a nasty break-up and a certain brother-in-law whose stuff was still in "the ex's" townhouse just outside of Greenville. So we left Saturday morning and returned back to NJ on Sunday night. Thank GOD Brian and I get along so well, or those 22 hours in the truck would have sucked big time.
It didn't help that we got a late start on account of me sending one of my students for a lovely ambulance ride after she fell during her lesson Saturday morning. It looked like a normal, slide-off-the-horse type of fall. But she hit the ground and started screaming in that "Oh Snap I Just Broke My Pelvis" kind of way, and suddenly I found myself calling 911.
Turns out, she just bruised her butt. In fact, she was smiling and joking with us by the time the ambulance arrived, which allowed me some time to snap a few pictures:

But when it comes to back injuries - and potential lawsuits - I don't mess around, so off to the ER she went.
Do I feel guilty, as a trainer, for sending one of my students to the hospital? A little.
Do I feel guilty, as a trianer, for capuring the moment with awesome cell-phone photography? Not at all, folks. Not. At. All.
(Hey, someday, she'll cherish these memories).

So that was my week.

It was wild and hairy and full of unexpected trips to unexpected places.

I'm not complaining - I love a good switch-up in routine - but I'll be happy when things calm down and the most exciting part of my day is switching the laundry from the washer to the dryer.

Phew