Lauren Sprieser

Anyone familiar with Chaos Theory? I was a Liberal Arts major, so my stupendously basic understanding of it is this: When you step back and look at all the things going on, you can start to see patterns, even beauty, in utter mayhem. This horse show weekend, though certainly filled with its share of mayhem, was also rather beautiful.

1. As soon as ride times are out—all 41 of them—make a list of all your students' times, what tests they're riding, and in what rings. Make several copies of this—one for the tack room, one for your working student, one for your pocket, and one for your pocket after you misplace the first one.

Since my weekends tend to be dominated by horse shows, clinics and other general pandemonium, people tend not to schedule lessons with me on the few weekends I'm actually around—I guess my peeps are used to my absence. And it's nice to have a quiet weekend, especially on weekends when there's terrific live coverage of some little local horse show like the Rolex Kentucky CCI****.

Ella hasn't had a day off since the middle of last week, what with our trip to Michael's, and since it's going to be rainy and foul over the weekend I decided to let her take today. So she went out first thing in the morning, about 6:45, in one of our nice big paddocks to the right of my indoor, where I can keep an eye on her. I got on Fender about the same time, working him out in our front fields (he was great), and then did the same with Midge (he was great too), before starting teaching at about 8:30.

Sitting in the corner of one of Michael's tack rooms is a diminutive trash can labelled "Whup Ass." It is, of course, a joke. But neither Midge nor Ella nor I required the opening of said can last weekend, when we drove up for our first New Jersey lessons of the year: We were sort of awesome.

We're t-minus two weeks 'til my clients' next show, t-minus five weeks until Midge's next show and t-minus 3 days until Midge and Ella head up to Michael's for some lessons. Time to get my game face on!

Colleen of Advanced Saddle Fit and our new friend Holly of Equi-Lutions came down for one of our semi-annual-or-so saddle fitting events this weekend. And the weekend started out with Jackie, who rides a wonderful creature named Gunda. And Jackie and Gunda fit smashingly into a saddle that, coincidentally, Colleen had accidentally ordered two of in a beautiful brown, when she'd really only needed to order one. And so Jackie and Gunda got the fruits of Colleen's mistake.

I've been home for almost two weeks, during which I've hosted one clinic, organized another and taken 10 clients to a horse show. Heaven help me. No smooth transition here, just a swift kick back into the Real World!

Tuesday, 6 a.m.: We're on the road! We're going home! The kids loaded great, the truck is clean, my stuff is packed. We're on the road! We're going home!

And I realize we're going the wrong way on the turnpike.

Tuesday, 2 p.m.: I'm an hour behind schedule. Want to know why I'm an hour behind schedule? Because EVERY truck stop I stop at has epic lines. Dude.

I came to Florida with one Grand Prix horse not quite meeting expectations, one Intermediaire I-and-a-half horse because we couldn't put more than a handful of one-tempis together to save our collective lives, and a 6-year-old with more doofus than skill. I came down burnt out, overweight and in dire need of a plot twist.

We're returning home very different, all four of us.