It's a Wonderful Life

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I can't believe it's only been a week since I posted all that great stuff...and now there's just MORE great stuff to post! We do lead charmed lives (thanks, Mr. B, for this freedom) and make the best of it. While we dream of open spaces, farm animals and more, while we talk big about what we'd do if we ever hit the lottery, we certainly can't complain about the lives we live now. Yep. We sure have it good.

So, here's the latest.Saturday, the girls and I volunteered at a local horse sanctuary. This lady has it FIGURED OUT! She LOVES horses, particularly the American wild mustang. She's figured out a way to protect some of them, spread the word about them, have a ranch with hundreds of horses AND get all the work done with the help of countless volunteers. Now that's creative problem solving!

There were about a dozen and a half volunteers there on the spring volunteer training day. With so many bodies (lots of them girls from Santa Ynez and Santa Barbara Pony Clubs), we were able to complete lots of tasks quickly including: bringing in the tamer ambassador horses, grooming, mucking of paddocks and barns, painting the large paddock to discourage cribbing, cleaning out the pig pen, feeding.

The girls were eager to help, even on the shoveling portion of the chore list. Some of the Pony Club girls camped over. We didn't know that was an option, and opted not to rush home, load up and return. After all, Mr. B was home! We didn't want to ditch him. Maybe on another volunteer work weekend.



Tuesday the girls joined me for a journalism lesson at our local Montessori school. It was really fun planning the morning's activities, and directing some 30 young people in creating their own first newspaper.

After a brief discussion about various forms of media, their strengths and weaknesses, and the future of media, we broke the class into four sections (news, features, sports, comics - their top-four choices) to develop a newspaper focusing on a recent field trip. They worked together to develop their stories and write headlines. (Our girls blended RIGHT in, perhaps in large part because they spotted four of their former swim teammates.)

I through a few curve balls (like breaking the news to comic staff that they were, as our graphics staff, also responsible for advertisements) that provided them better insight to the challenges of working under various deadlines. In the end, they had a funky newspaper that got the basic points across, left a lot of them asking to start a school newspaper, and asking for a return visit.

We'll see if staff feels the same!

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