That's Life...

It is a totally gloomy day here in "colorful Colorado", we have gone from serious draught to monsoon! It has been raining for the better part of 2 weeks, thank goodness I have had "breaks" traveling, here, there, and, everywhere!
I am not a fan of rain but I am seriously scared of fires as well, so, for now I will take the rains which will green everything up and keep the fires at bay at least for a few weeks.
This rain will of course end and we will very quickly ascend into the heat and inevitable draught of summer.
This weather also puts me in a bit of a thoughtful mood, as it were. I have been thinking about the twists and turns that life brings, trying to sort out why things happen the way they do and for what reason. Trust me when I say that I think everything in life happens for a reason, sometimes the reasons are hard to determine but never the less, there are reasons!
Starting with the horrible natural disasters that seem to be rampant in our country and around the World.
These latest tornadoes in Joplin, MO really should put the trivial things into perspective shouldn't they! I am overwhelmed with sadness for all of the people that have lost their homes and even worse, loved ones. I cannot even imagine having such a horrible tragedy hit close to home.
Even with this fresh in our mind, as long as it does not affect us directly we still seem to find a way to feel bad about something that is by comparison not even on the radar of the most minute importance.
I guess this is just one of the many things that make us human, not bad, just human!
Today the news of who will be representing the US in France on the AKC World team was announced, I barely slept at all last night in anticipation of the phone call I was hoping to get, trust me, I have been playing this game long enough to know that there are no guarantees, and, anything can happen, however, Maze and I did an amazing job at tryouts ending up 4th overall proving that we have the skills, patience, experience, and, ability to represent the US at the 2011 World Championships in France.
Well, although I carried the phone with me everywhere, stared at it pretty much continually, and, seriously willed it to ring, it did not.
To say I was not disappointed would be a very big lie, however, when we put it into perspective and weigh it against the grand scheme of things, it is but another blip on the radar of life.
I am going to allow myself to be disappointed, but, most importantly I am going to allow it to help me to continue to work hard at achieving the goals that I set for myself and my dogs in agility.
I am going to use it to push myself to continue to try new and different things, push myself to train and handle even more aggressively than I feel that I already do, and, most importantly, I am going to use this experience to continue to remind myself to enjoy the process!
I have worked hard to get where I am in the wonderful sport of agility and I have been very fortunate to experience a lot of firsts, meet a lot of awesome people, go to the most fabulous places. and, experience what success feels like both in competition and my love and passion for teaching!
There are many more awesome experiences to come for me in this sport I am certain of that, so, todays feeling of disappointment will pass and it will be replaced with euphoria over some wonderful thing, then there will be more disappointments, more euphoria... that's life!
So, before this mornings emotional smack down, I was actually in one of those awesome euphoric states after having the most wonderful time at the SC Regional in Fort Worth, TX. Again, the events, or lack there of :-), of this morning certainly did not take away from the awesomeness of the weekend!
The trial was fantastic! I got to once again see bunches of friends that I have not seen in a while as well as hang with some folks from right here in Colorado, a great time was had by all!
The Colorado/New Mexico/Arizona contingency did super and truly represented the area in an amazing way.
The courses were great, and, my dogs were AWESOME!!! Before I talk about me, I want to say how incredibly proud of Geoff I was! He and Rumor came with me to Fort Worth and after a crazy tax season and truly zero training he and Rumor earned byes into the semi finals of PGP and Perf. Speed Jumping! They also Q'd in both Masters classes offered and took third place in IHC Perf. Jumpers, they are a great team!
Now, about me :-) Maze was a very good boy! He came home with 53 IFCS points, placing in 5 of the 7 IFCS classes, a bye into the GP semis after a 4th place finish, a bye into Steeplechase semis, taking 2nd place overall in the 26" class, and was a member of the third place DAM team!
Wally kicked butt in several classes but my crowning achievement of the weekend with the Wally man was getting a GP semi final bye by going clean through both rounds and doing so without a voucher!
SoBe was my very best doodle bug ever! She placed in team jumpers, team gamblers, and, won masters gamblers in a very competitive 22" field. She looked fabulous and did not have a single run that I was not over the moon about!
So, overall, a FANTASTIC time was had by all :-)
In summary, on occasion life hands us what we consider to be lemons, but, most often life gives us countless things to be appreciative of, happy about, and, down right lucky for! Try not to sweat the small stuff, have a seat and enjoy the lemonade! My friends... THAT'S LIFE!