Best Laid Plans...

It's a gorgeous Saturday. Sunny, mid 70s, with a bit of a breeze. Perfect day for riding.

Except I'm not. The kids have a horse show tomorrow and Noah is riding Sug in itty bitty jumpers. He told me he would feel more comfortable about giving the mare the ride she deserves if he could work on things in one more lesson before the show. 

Bless his heart, does the little booger know how to work me or what? 

After riding we need to rush to bathe the beasties, clean tack and finish prepping because we had plans to meet friends for dinner. Of course we were running late, so things were, ummm, in a word- hurried.

Here's the summary:

Arrive home with 45 minutes to spare before needing to leave. The Boy proceeds to make the fixings for his famous chocolate chip cake while I set to work polishing his boots.

Daughter starts polishing her paddock boots. Realizes she forgot to tell Mom she'd finished the brown polish last show. Mom does several deep breathing exercises to avoid hysterics and sends Dad to store in search of more brown show polish. Crisis averted.

Boots are polished. No time to shower, so splash and lather arms and face to get rid of worst of the barn sludge. Poof myself with powder bomb of anti Monkey Butt powder and a spritz of perfume to get rid of eau de equine. 

Hair is mix of hat head and cowlick courtesy of horse slobber, vaguely reminiscent of the spooge hair gel scene in Something About Mary. Apply splash of water and hair goop to create semblance of order.

Pull on summer dress uniform of plaid skort and polo. Realize have not shaved legs and look like feral yak. Attempted to dry shave, which resulted in removal of square inch of shin and much cussing. Slapped on bandaid with hopes bleeding would stop by the time we got to our destination. 

Get to friend's house. Act like mature adult and monitor alcoholic beverage consumption, as horseshows and hangovers don't go well together. Get home feeling quite virtuous. Hit the rack only to realize I had not actually baked the cake. Crap. Adjusted alarm on iPhone to reflect earlier wake-up call. 

Alarm adjustment turns out to be unnecessary as barn buddy and fellow horse show attendee elects to return my text from previous night at 5am. Now wide awake and have plenty of time to bake cake. 

Commence warming up espresso machine for mandatory infusion of caffeine. Frothing of milk too noisy and too much effort, so elect to go with quick shot of whipped cream on top of espresso. 

Kids are dressed, cake is ready, so with a quick prayer to weather and horse show gods, off we go!