Today was a much better day

Y'all, I am humbled by the love and support my whiny, woe-is-me post got. Thank you.

Today was a much, much better day. No, Marty isn't better yet. And, no, my laptop isn't home yet (please keep your fingers crossed that the wonder geek at Staples can fix it). But, a lot of other really cool shit happened today.

Today, I went with Joey to the regional Science Olympiad competition. This was the first year that Joey's school fielded a team and their coach, Ms. Amanda Pritchard, did a phenomenal job. She and all the parent volunteers put in a huge amount of work with our kids and it showed. Kingswood elementary took 1/5 of all the ribbons awarded, took home a 2nd place overall for the JV team, took home a 2nd overall for the Varsity team, and won the award for the school with the best team spirit and sportsmanship. Joey competed in 3 events and he and his partner won a first place ribbon in Landformers (all about geography and geology). I am so proud of all the kids. I also have to say that it's incredibly cool to be surrounded by a bunch of kids who gave up a bunch of mornings for practice and an entire weekend day for academic pursuits.

At the last minute, the organizers of the tournament put out a plea for some parent volunteers from the participating schools to help run some events. With my genetic inability to say no (thanks Mom), I piped up and ended up helping run two events. It was incredibly easy but it ended up paying big dividends for me. I really hit it off with the lady I was helping with the first event. We talked about our kids, summer camps, and lots of other things. When I was telling her that a summer camp we both know about has horses, that sparked conversation and I'm not sure what prompted me but I mentioned that I use to ride a lot, had been on the Equestrian team in college, and even spent a summer training horses professionally. She got excited and said that she had three horses (2 were rescues) that she could really use help exercising and wanted to know if I would be interested in coming out and riding. It was all I could do to keep from jumping up and down and yelling hell yes. I love riding and miss it terribly but it has been way too expensive to fit into our budget, I am so thrilled that I'll have an outlet for this passion of mine again.

So, all in all, I had a damned fine day and (yes, Monica) I've decided I was a bit too hasty in my decision to hate March 2012.


How was your day?