Out of the Homework Business (and Deep in Horse Love)

Hey, friends, a few days ago the first big exam of the final stretch of high school was on the calendar, and our breakfast conversations didn’t get past sounds like “grmpf” and “hmm.” We’ve entered an era where I only find out the night before a test that something’s going on at school by accident. Because someone is looking for a test sheet. Or a pen that works.

The End of Homework Help in High School

When I think back to how crazy school drove me for a while! I was a huge fan of the German book “Are You Okay, or Do You Already Have Kids in School?”, and the Covid years of homeschooling nearly pushed me into burnout. Now they handle everything themselves. I’m not involved in homework or exams anymore. I’m out. Can you believe it? I never would have expected that myself!

Here’s what I find fascinating right now: you all love the photos of the pile of shoes in our entryway, which often look so much alike. But the kids are reaching an age where that sameness, that please-don’t-let-me-stand-out, blend-in-with-everyone-else-all-the-way-through-school thing, gives way to individuality. Some of them are daring to try different hairstyles and different clothes now. A new courage is emerging from the teen years, a figuring-out-who-you-are and showing-it, yes, really, a kind of growing up.

College Marches On

Our oldest, the one who’s moved out, has survived her first nights in her own apartment. She bought plastic wrap for the first time in her life, and a case of bottled water. She cooked fish sticks and mashed potatoes with her roommate, and between fun party nights she’s thought back to home now and then and still came to visit us again <3 Her third semester just started. It all goes so fast.

What else is going on? I’m celebrating the anniversary with the creature who feeds my need to take care of someone now that the kids are grown: my little horse. It really was a ride, this first year with him. It was love at first sight, and then in December I came crashing down after he got spooked, and lying there with whiplash I thought: Whoa, it feels like a sandlot kid suddenly being asked to pitch in the World Series.

One Year as a Horse Mom

And don’t we think the same thing with a baby at some point? When it hits us what kind of responsibility we’re carrying? And then you get advice and help and win your confidence back. In this case it was really very similar, even though at least I got to sleep through the night this time 😉

In the beginning he also had a case of scratches (a skin infection on the lower leg), later a fungus, and after that there was scuffling in the herd and, every so often, lost horseshoes. But then everything settled down and got better and downright euphoric, until in May a wound on the inside of his front leg wouldn’t heal, and an X-ray showed that a piece of bone had chipped off after a kick. The little guy needed surgery (luckily, I have surgery insurance for him!).

I’m telling you, I nearly lost my mind, and it showed me all over again how deeply I’m in love with this black-and-white dream pony <3 I was at the clinic every day, and over the next two months we very gently worked our way back to where we’d been before. All of that as a totally inexperienced horse mom who had pretty much stumbled into this by accident 😉

Well, what can I say: we’ve grown together, we’ve both learned so much from each other, and I feel like things are better right now than they’ve ever been. I’m so incredibly grateful for this experience and this chance and this real little slice of pony-farm life that brings me total calm and contentment in stressful times. Sigh.

What’s on the calendar? Well, a quiet weekend. Finally, again. After book launches and moving out and the twins’ birthday and campaign season, I had, crazily enough, also set my sights on the Cologne half marathon this Sunday, October 5. I trained all year, I have the best running partner, I outdid myself more times than I can count, and I even managed about 8.7 miles (14 km) several times, something I’d considered flat-out impossible my entire life.

It was a great, exhausting, time-consuming experience that got me into the best shape of my life. But then two weeks ago my knee gave out. And not just with sore muscles or tightness, but with the real feeling that the torn meniscus they found during the Covid years was bringing back the fluid in my knee. So I had to hang up my dream of running a race like that in Cologne, with the cathedral as the finish line.

It wasn’t easy for me, and I cried, and then I thought: It’s just not meant to be right now, the last few weeks were intense enough already, and nobody can take away all those training runs. I’ve hit so many goals this year that I’m going to sit back, cross my fingers for my friend Steffi, and take this weekend really, really slow… ride, and live in the day instead of running miles and miles around the countryside. That’s one more nice reason to be grateful, on top of all the others. How are you spending the long weekend? (October 3 is a national holiday in Germany.)