Random Thoughts from a Random Girl

OMG! It never ends!!!

2013-05-24T18:42:00.001-07:00

Those who feed on rumors are small, suspicious souls.

CHARLES R. SWINDOLL, Growing Strong in the Seasons of Life

I had to stop today when I heard the newest rumor and remind myself how old I really was. I guess I had thought that by the age of 41 local people would've found some other poor victim to attack with this sort of crap, but apparently not. Over the years I have been the target many times and well, I've got broad shoulders, and I am WAY STRONGER than most would realize so for the most part I shrugged it off and will continue my daily routines as always.

However, I was still ticked at the same time that there are so many people in this community and in the world in general who are walking newspapers and can't wait to get the newest misinformation in their head so they can then constrew it how they feel needed and pass it on to the next loser walking by. This is high school crap! Middle school crap! Plain out bullshit really. Too many people who have a lack of self confidence themselves who make themselves feel better by trying to make others feel bad. Nice, heh? Grow up!

So, for the record, in case anybody heard this latest rumor about me.....I AM NOT ANOREXIC!!!

Facts - 1) Yes, I have lost a large amount of weight since working at the farm.

2) I eat just like I always did. And that's not good. Chips, soda, candy, coffee with tons of cream and sugar, red meat, potatoes, bread, pasta (love my carbs), ice cream (2 bowls a day sometimes), donuts, etc. I don't usually skip meals either.

3) I do a shitload more physical work than I did at my office job at Times obviously. I also work 7 days a week, on average 1o hours a day, getting up at 3:45 am and a lot of days going all day until 9:00 pm. Because as soon as I get home from the farm I am then taking care of a 4 1/2 year old with a TON of energy until I go back and do more work.

Plain and simple, I would throw it out there to anybody who is willing to try it, that if you followed me around for two to three weeks and came and did my job at the farm, at the same pace I do it, and then watch Luke, and manage a household that contains 3 kids, a husband, a dog, a hamster and parakeet, you would likely lose weight too. Almost a guarantee.

I didn't try to lose the weight. Other than at my annual doctor appointment in April, I rarely step on a scale and weigh myself. My only indication that I lost the weight was that my clothes weren't fitting so I bought new ones. And to be perfectly honest, I don't necessarily like the way I look now. I would prefer to have my more curvy and heavier body back.

So anyhoo, I'm done venting. I'm still a bit angry though. Seriously, I was dealing with this crap back in high school when upperclassmen girls would label me with all sorts of names. Daisy Duke rings a bell (thanks to the class of 1989). I dealt with it shortly after high school for various reasons and many times since. If it weren't for my husband's love of his cowies I would've moved far away from this crap already. Seriously, I'm considering being a hermit. People, not all of them of course, but a lot of them plain and simple just SUCK.

Happy Girls :)

2013-05-14T11:00:00.000-07:00

Finally! Finally, finally, finally! A few days in a row with the sun shining and feeling warmth in my face and on my skin! I cannot even begin to tell you how much that means to me and how much it has lifted my spirits. For me, this time of the year is the greatest. It's like a rebirth of everything surrounding me. Nature is blooming all around me, around you, and I can't hide my excitement. I'm happy! My kids are happy!!! And the big girls at the farm are happy! I can see it in their eyes.

They absolutely love it outside! Going out to their pasture is like going for a walk to the local playground. Some run around and leap about like crazy little kids and them some of them are more laid back and content to take in all the fresh air, the sounds all around them and just chillax a little bit. Either way, I guarantee you they are counting their blessings right now for not being stuck in that darn old barn any longer.

Here are some of our beauties who were nice enough to give me close up shots of them and say a few words about their day. Wisdom from cows, who would've thought?

"Hi, my name is Terri. I can be a little bit stubborn in the barn at times, heck, even outside of the barn at times. My boss, Dana, gets a little frustrated with me, but she deals with it because she thinks I'm pretty. If there was one thing I could share with you it would be this, every time we remember to say "thank you", we experience nothing less than heaven on earth. I hear Dana thank me a lot when she gets done milking me. Thank you for not kicking me she says."

"Hello there! My name is Kristy. I love being outside and having the freedom to roam in the pasture. Dana asked me to share some wise words with you so here goes. There is a calmness to a life lived in Gratitude, a quiet joy. I am always grateful for the hay and food they provide me, and a good old massage on my head and neck area from her every day doesn't hurt either."

"Hola Senioritas (practicing my Spanish today)!" My name is Amanda and I LOVE this gorgeous weather we are having and just LOVE to be outside with all of my friends. When I am having one of my bad days, and Lord knows we all have those, I just remind myself of the following - Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough. So, so true! I don't ever envy those guys across the road over there, I just appreciate what I have over here. That's enough for me. Have a nice day!"

And so you have it!

Smart girls I must say. I think they've taught me a few things over the last year and a half. And I know I'm a different person than I was before they came into my life. Without a doubt farming puts life into a totally different perspective. You couldn't possibly understand without having lived it yourself, trust me.

When Dad's Away, Luke and Mom MUST Play!

2013-05-01T13:29:00.002-07:00

Love is when the other person's happiness is more important than your own.

So, Jeff left us today for a much needed break from the farm and is enjoying the Brewer game with the best man from our wedding. Perfect day for it I would say. And I won't deny that when Jeff goes on his merry way I get a little antsy to do something other than the norm that day as well. So as we were finishing up chores today I pulled Luke to the side and let him know that first we were gonna do some resale store shopping for some summer clothes for him and that he could also pick out a toy at the resale store, he was more than thrilled about the new toy thing. And then, the best surprise of all for him, a trip to a park that he had never been before. I can't even explain his reaction to such a simple thing. On a beautiful day like today, apparently the park idea was a huge hit. So on we went.

If there is anything I have learned about my little Luke in the last 4 1/2 years, he is ALL BOY!!! Give him a truck, tractor or anything with four wheels on it and he can keep himself happy for a very long time. So while I sat in the shade on a park bench nearby, he played and played and played. Loading wood chip after wood chip into his dump truck and driving them through the grass and park.

While he was playing so contently I was in awe of God's handy work around me. Man, what a gorgeous day to be thankful for and a much needed pick-me-up from the long winter we had experienced.

After Luke finally got sick of the trucks and moving objects he took time to explore this new playground we had never been to before. Oh to be a kid again with no cares in the world.

We even had our own little photo session by a tall tree before leaving. Luke is a great photographer isn't he? After snapping both pics of me he said, "Nice!"

And my favorite photo of the day. I love this little man so much!!!

Have a great week!!!

Catching Up

2013-03-28T12:21:00.001-07:00

Patience is a virtue, Possess it if you can, Seldom found in woman, Never found in man.

So it's been a while since my last post....sorry, sorry, sorry. I'm a busy lady what can I say?

I seriously feel like I am being pulled in so many directions all the time that I'm never quite sure what task to complete first. Unfortunately my blog is usually one of the things that gets put to the back burner when other crap is keeping my plate full.

But I have a lot of catching up to do so I figured now would be a good time to fill you all in on my happenings as of late.

2 weekends ago I attended my annual state bowling tournaments in Milwaukee. I didn't bowl worth a darn but I did have a nice time with my Mom and my friends and got to sleep in on Sunday morning. Hurray!!!

My Mom was crowned a Grand Duchess for being 70 years old and bowling in the tournament (see her crown pin she is wearing?). She also received a plaque for bowling in at least 25 state tournaments in her life. We were bowing down to her all weekend because of her Duchess status. Duchess Muriel. She looks like a Duchess, heh?

In addition to being able to hang out with "The Duchess" all weekend we also had a lot of fun playing Sour Apples to Apples in our hotel room while consuming alcoholic beverages of our choice. Some consumed more than others. Not sure what is going on in some of these pics?

I was a good girl. I wasn't tackling anybody or wrestling, just sitting back and taking it all in. Our motto for the weekend ended up being the following...

"If nobody else claims it, it's yours!" I know that doesn't mean much to you guys, but for all of us there, it's pretty darn funny. I can't wait to see what our motto ends up being next year. LOL!!!

So, then...last weekend Jeff decided to attend the men's state bowling tournaments, and I was left with the kids by myself most of the weekend. No big deal there. However, the kids love when Dad is gone for a bit because he isn't always the most adventurous with his food/restaurants so they couldn't wait to do lunch somewhere different with Mom.

We decided on Beanies. Love that place!!!

Zach and Luke were in Heaven with their Strawberry Smoothies.

As was I with my Strawberry Daquiri. Yummy!!!

And of course, our family tradition of sticking a french fry into the burger came into play when somebody wasn't paying attention.

And Luke even managed to behave for the most part. He only beat his big brother up once...or twice while there.

This past week we also celebrated Samantha's 15th birthday with some ice cream cake and candles.

Sam was even nice to her brothers and after she blew the candles out initially, we relit them and let them blow them out the second time.

In-between the birthday celebration, bowling tournaments, working at the farm and everything else I managed to teach Zach's Sunday school class on Palm Sunday and later the boys were part of our Palm parade at church.

I also had flowers on the altar at church on Palm Sunday in memory of their brother, Adam, who passed away 6 years ago.

And if you aren't tired yet (I am), we commenced Sam's birthday today by assembling the new futon she received as a birthday present.

Her bed before.

And thanks to the large box it came in the boys have now decided to create a hideout/fort type thing on my living room floor. Yippe, more crap to walk around and trip over. You gotta love that!!!

And so are the days of my life. I require a lot of patience and a lot of energy. Being a Mom is extremely trying and tiring and I hate to say it but Spring Break has been anything but a "break" for me.

I wish all of you a Happy Easter holiday. I'll check in again next week.

Dedicated

2013-03-21T09:07:00.002-07:00

A daughter is a mother's gender partner, her closest ally in the family confederacy, an extension of her self. ~Author Unknown

So, today is a very special day at our house, a certain daughter of mine is celebrating her 15th birthday. It's crazy to think she is that old already? I mean, seriously, I don't feel old enough to have a child that age and it seems like just yesterday when I became a mother for the first time.

So, because she has turned into such a beautiful person (inside and out), I decided today's post needed to be dedicated to her and everything she has accomplished so far, and to reflect on some memories from her past.

I do know that when she was under a year old, as you can see from the above pic and the next one, that she didn't have a ton of hair and earned the nickname "baldy butch" from some family members.

Bald or not, she was the sweetest little person I ever laid eyes on and I didn't care. To me she was perfect just the way she was.

I think on her 1 year pictures she was finally starting to grow some real hair that was gonna stick around for a while. Hurray!

And, from little on, she was very inquisitive and always advanced with many things. She started walking at 10 months, talking super early and was potty trained at 2 weeks before her second birthday. Jeff of course will say that she got all her intelligence from him but I would like to take some credit as I did spend a lot of one on one time with her when she was small. I wish I had all that time now :(

In addition to spending a lot of one on one time with her, another thing I instilled in her from very little on was the following:

"Don't let anybody make you think they are any better than you are! You are just as special as the next person and deserve the best just like anybody else."

I think she really took that to heart and has developed into her own unique, genuine person who does what she wants, and dresses like she wants, is friends with who she wants and isn't the least bit fake. LOVE THAT!!!

Sometimes I think at the ripe old age of 15 she is way more mature than a lot of adults when it comes to fairness and not judging others.

Honestly, she is my best friend. I confide in her a lot and she does in me. I can tell instantly when something isn't "quite right" with her, and I don't know what I'm going to do without her in a few years when she goes off to college and conquers the world head on.

Some cute pics to make you smile. My how she has grown..........

If you're reading Mom's post baby girl, I love you more than you can ever know and always, always will. I love that we think alike and finish each others sentences at times. I love that we can act completely goofy and insane at times together but that you still "get" that I am the Mom. I love how much you care for your brothers and help out with them so much and well, I LOVE YOU!!!! Mwaaahhhh! XOXOXOXOXOXO!!!

Memories

2013-03-11T19:35:00.001-07:00

Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose. ~From the television show The Wonder Years

So, last week I borrowed a tote full of old pictures from my Mom's house. I used to look at these pictures a lot years ago, before life got busy and hectic, but it's been a while so I felt a look into the past and into fond memories was well needed so the tote took a ride over to my house where I've been occasionally going through them all one by one.

Oh my goodness there are some real good pictures and some funny ones too. It's fun to go through them with my kids and give them a glimpse into my life when I was young. What Grandma's house looked like years ago when I was growing up compared to now. How I looked and our various family members did and Sam especially got a kick out of the hair and clothing from years ago. I'll admit, it is quite funny to look at.

While going through some of them I pulled out some of the more significant ones for me. Pictures that no matter how many years go by before I go through these again, these are some of the pictures I will hunt to find and pull out to make me smile.

Like this one....

Yeah, this lovely lady is me when I was about 6 months old. Look at those legs! This photo is actually painted and my Mom and Dad had pictures like these done of my brother and sister as well when they were 6 months old too. For the longest time these portraits of us hung on the living room wall at my parents house, in order by age of course. I just think it is one of my favorite pictures of me ever. I love the little flower basket.

Then while searching for more pics I came across this one. Another family favorite.

The man in the center of this photo is my Great Grandpa Oscar, he is from my Dad's side of the family. I am the little tiny baby in the yellow on the left and am sitting on my sister's lap. The sweet little girl on Grandpa's lap is my cousin, Cindy and the two boys are my brother (the older one) and my cousin Tim on his lap.

In fact, we decided to replicate the pose at my cousin Cindy's wedding in 1996, but instead of Grandpa Oscar we let his daughter (our Grandma), sit in his spot. This photo was taken 24 years later.

Man, those were some good times. I really do like to look at these old pictures and think back to those days and remember moments that correlated with the photos. I remember her wedding being such a fun day. It would be fun just to redo it all over again.

As I was going through the tote I was brought back to my roots and thinking about my Dad as so many people have told me in the past that I look a lot like him. I also think our Zachary resembles him in many ways. He has that super dark skin tone that my Dad always had. He has the dark hair color as well as the big dark eyes. Here are some pictures of him as a young boy to give you an idea of what I'm talking about.

Yeah, I really think this last one looks a ton like Zachary.

Oh and yeah, the funny pics. Somewhat embarrassing pics I might say.

How about this one?

Nice polaraid picture of some obnoxious orphan Annie lookalike. Yep that's me alright. I'm looking pretty hot, heh?

I actually remember going to the salon in Random Lake to get this wonderful perm. The Golden Palace I believe it was called, correct me if I'm wrong.

Don't ask me why I thought I needed my hair to look this way but at the time I think I seriously thought I was looking pretty darn hot. LOL!

Oh and the annual Christmas photo of the grandkids at Grandma's house. We are all so cool, aren't we? I love my plaid dress and my cousin's matching sweaters, not to mention my sister's lovely outfit and glasses. Hilarious stuff!

Okay, enough of this for now. My bed is calling me and I just can't look at anymore of these old time photos. Although they bring back a lot of good memories it is also starting to make me feel REAL OLD!!!

Nighty night!

A Little Glimpse

2013-02-25T08:34:00.001-08:00

"There is no gilding of setting sun or glamour of poetry to light up the ferocious and endless toil of the farmers wives." Garland Hamlin

So it's been a while since I've posted about my daily happenings around the farm and Lord knows I'm always full of good stories about that place. It is a never ending storybook really. Some good stories, some comical, some dramatic, always something.

In fact, it was Monday today, start of the work week for normal people. I obviously am not normal (never have been really now that I think about it?), and well with the way my day started all I could think was, "Yikes! If this is any sign of how the rest of my day is gonna go, I'm in trouble!"

What happened you ask to make me think this? Well, how about a big, old, poop-covered cow tail smacking you square across the face at 4:15 am? Nothing like waking a person up, heh? NOT NICE! Honestly, that was the first time I've ever gotten caught off guard that bad. I had to go to the milk house and wash my face off completely with warm water afterwards and I think there could've been some in my teeth? Yuck!

Anyhoo, after that incident, the day did seem to take a better turn and so far so good. Thank goodness!

So yeah, I thought today's post would be about showing you a little glimpse of my daily happenings around the farm. In the past I've showed pictures but they don't capture the true essence of the animal's personalities and what I get to see every day and what makes me enjoy the job as much as I do.

So here are a few little glimpses into my "life as a farmer" and "farmer's wife".

This first little clip is to show you some of the baby calves I have to feed outside. I only have five of them outside right now but they are soooo sweet so I had to include them. So soft and cuddly with their little winter coats on.

How can you not love and want to take care of these little ones? When my day isn't going so great, they do help to lighten my mood a bit by just being "them".

The next clip is of some more of the youngest babies we have at the farm. Born just last Wednesday and Thursday so they aren't even a week old yet.

Can everybody say "Awwwwwww...."?

Now, enough of the little ones. Let's meet some of the "big girls" on campus. The cream of the crop! The top dogs (hee hee top cows I mean).

These lovely ladies are the money makers at our farm and like I've said before, each and every one has a very distinct personality, just like humans. Some of them I like a lot and some not so much. Some like to be drama queens and some go through the daily routine practically unnoticed.

Funny stuff, heh? When I watched this over for the first time I seriously cracked myself up. Maybe you didn't find it as funny but sometimes I question my sanity. Talking to cows? I need to get out more.

And last but not least, here is a little introduction to some of my girlies inside the barn. And yes, when doing my chores and feeding them hay or whatever else I do talk to them and call a lot of them by name. They don't usually answer me but they do show interest. That's more than my husband does sometimes :) Us girls got to stick together!!! I apologize for this clip as my battery died on my camera as I was recording so it cuts out kind of rudely.

With that I hope you enjoyed the little glimpse into "my world". A lot different than most of you can imagine I'm sure. I still say, I'd rather be shit on by cows at this job than shit on by people like at my last.

These girls don't do it intentionally at least and they DO appreciate me. They love when I milk them, they love when I feed them and they may not show it by hugging me or sitting on my lap like a dog (that wouldn't be good?) but I know they do.

Have a great week!!!!

Progress

2013-02-18T11:03:00.001-08:00

Optimism is essential to achievement and it is also the foundation of courage and true progress. - Nicholas Murray Butler

Winter stinks, it really does and I've surely had enough of it. It makes chores longer at the farm, it makes me add about 5 pounds to my body every day by wearing triple layers of clothing to keep myself warm at work and any sign of Spring I get a glimpse of makes me a little giddy.

Even before working at the farm I wasn't fond of the winter months. I am not an avid snowmobiler or skier or anything like that so I could care less if there was any of that white stuff outside. All it does for me is make a bigger mess inside and outside of my house. Snow pants and boots strewn all over out kitchen area where our side door to the house is, mittens miscellaneously placed where they fall at the time and I've had enough.

But, today was a little warmer out. There is a little sunshine in the distance and things are thawing at the farm, I could feel it instantly this morning and the cows could too I think, a couple of them were smiling real big and I saw some chatting about it in the distance. They too can't wait until they have those wide open pastures to graze in during the day and don't have to be stuck in the barn anymore, it's no fun in there.

With this warmth brought me new energy. A new attitude I guess. At least while it's here. I know what those stupid weather men are predicting right now for later this week so I'm not getting overly excited but am "living for the moment".

So while my little guy is keeping himself busy playing on the WII on his new Hot Wheels game I am making some much needed progress on neglected areas of my house.

First I started off with a request from Luke (who always has to help) and whipped up some chocolate chip cookies with almonds to keep everybody in the household happy. Double batch as usual, and it will likely only last until the end of the week if I'm lucky.

During the baking process I did two sinks full of dishes, one from last night (I refuse to do dishes at 8 pm in the evening after we've come home and ate supper) and one with the plastic containers in the cupboard I reorganized this morning.

In-between baking cookies, retrieving drinks and food for Luke, and doing dishes I've also managed to fold and put away two loads of laundry and have another one in the dryer and one in the washer as I type. Sweet!

Our dog Lucy hasn't been much of a help with any of this. She didn't even flinch much this morning, even while the wonderful aroma of cookies was baking nearby. She's got the life!!!

Earlier I also reorganized the upper kitchen cabinets. Tossing out a lot of old things we accumulated over the last while, expired medicine, etc. I have a motto at my house when cleaning, "If I haven't been using it and it's just taking up space, it's outta here!" Oh sure, sometimes these poor, neglected items end up in a box for the local Goodwill or they meet their fate in our beautiful garbage can.

Oh don't get me wrong, I have a very LONG way to go before my house is back the way I remember it being long ago, before three kids and before working a lot of long hours. But for once I feel like I am making some progress. Just these small baby steps are making me smile.

Now granted, it's very likely nobody else in the house will notice, and what I just spent time organizing will more than likely be out of sorts sooner than I hope, but such is life. I have temporary satisfaction from these small little things. These small steps toward some control and some balance in our life makes me happy for now.

Although, by this time, Luke is ticked at his game on the WII and just stormed off to his room because he's mad at me. I actually kind of like when he does this, it gives me a little quiet time and it usually makes him rest on his bed and give into his much needed nap.

I hope you all have a great rest of the week. Hopefully I can keep up my energy level (keep your fingers crossed) and continue on this progress I'm making. I have so much more to do.

The Eyes of a Child

2013-02-10T10:56:00.002-08:00

While we try to teach our children all about life,
Our children teach us what life is all about.
~Angela Schwindt

Yesterday was a good day. Initially, in the morning while doing chores, I didn't know if I would have the energy to do this when I got home, but a special little boy in my life was begging the second I walked in the door and well, my arm was twisted and my decision was made. Little Luke was finally going to have the fun experience of going to Build A Bear Workshop to create his very own special friend.

See about three months previous I had casually mentioned the idea to him and how there was this cool place where you could pick out your own animal, stuff it, name it and get clothes for it and all this stuff at "the mall", needless to say, he hasn't let the topic go away since and I can only make up excuses for so long as to why we couldn't go.

So we went. I had special talks with both of his older siblings that although they were going along, this was Luke's special day and neither of them were going to talk me into getting new bears themselves (and yes for those of you wondering, they would've). Nor were they getting anything at the mall at any other store unless they paid for it with their very own money. Although they weren't thrilled at the idea, they got it and away we went.

There is nothing better to me than taking a young child somewhere he's never been before. I honestly never go to malls shopping and when I do it's either for school shopping when Luke isn't along or Christmas shopping when he isn't along either so this experience was very new to him.

The first thing he saw when we walked into the mall were the escalators. He was very excited!!! I think if he had the chance he would've rode up and down them all day. He kept calling them "the steps".

So, once up "the steps" we headed over to Build A Bear.

At this point Luke has absolutely no idea what to expect, we aren't frequent flyers in these kinds of places.

We head into the store and show him the roughly 20-25 animals to choose from. Bears of course, dogs, kitties, bunnies, monkies, there was even a penguin. He looks with all seriousness and then stops and says, "Oh nevermind...we can go. Let's go to the monster truck store."

Can you believe it?

Of all those animals, each of them really cute, he didn't want any? Most people would find that a good thing, that their kid didn't want something from Build A Bear, but I didn't drive roughly 40-45 minutes away to this special store to drive to the nearest Walmart instead and buy a monster truck.

I then explained to him that if he picked out the cutest one, he would get to help put the stuffing in and name it and wash it and blow dry it and that the animals would be really sad if nobody took them home to love them. After that he was convinced.

So he picked this adorable little puppy.

He still didn't completely understand the process yet and while waiting in line kept wanting to go back and grab the already stuffed one like this on display. I think he was pretty certain that the unstuffed one he had wasn't going to be loveable enough and didn't want to get ripped off. Thank goodness the line moved at the pace it did or we could've had a major meltdown real soon.

Onto the creation of his puppy.

Being asked if he wants his doggy to be soft, medium or hard. He chose soft. I would've too. Who doesn't love a real softy, heh?

Luke running the foot pedal to put the stuffing inside his newly found friend. He was starting to dig this Build A Bear thing now. Or Build A Dog in our case.

Here he just picked out the heart that eventually goes into his new friend.

Here he is rubbing the little heart for his friend to warm it up. Previously he had to kiss it too but I didn't get that on film.

And the heart is in and his new friend is complete and being stitched up. Dontcha love how he picked a very feminine, pink little doggie? LOVE IT!!!

Now, time to bathe, blow dry and comb his new friend.

Ta da!!! A new found friend.....who he ended up naming Butterscotch? Yep, he has a pony from Christmas named Butterscotch too and we have a cow at the farm named Butterscotch and well, he's stuck on that name for now I guess.

By the time we left the store he was allowed to pick out some clothes, so he picked out a little pink, multi-colored onesie jammie with hat and some hot pink slippers for her feet. Too funny.

And the Build A Bear experience was a hit. And luckily for me it wasn't that expensive by comparison.

We headed to the food court for some grub and had conversation. Luke only had one complaint about Build A Bear, he was not happy that they didn't have any farm animals to choose from. His list included cows, pigs, horses and chickens. Apparently he would've liked to have stuffed one of those instead.

And before heading out of this big place "the mall", we had to stop at Luke's favorite thing there...

Seriously, I can't pass these up myself, how could a 4 year old? We had some Mike N Ikes and a few gumballs before leaving. I think we even stuffed some pockets with some extras for the long ride home.

It was a step away from reality and the strains of the adult life. Just the four of us "chilling" and not caring too much about anything for the moment. Life was good.

Snippet

2013-01-25T12:20:00.002-08:00

Snippet -a small part, piece, or thing; especially: a brief quotable passage.

I've been busy this week and have had a ton going on. Oh don't get me wrong, my weeks are always busy, but this week had an extra celebration that wasn't planned for at this time last week.

Here is a little snippet of the following week for myself.

It started out with the baptism of my nephew's beautiful baby girl, Kylee Lynn. My daughter, Samantha, was asked to be her Godmother and truly honored by this.

I think she is going to go out of her way to make an impact on this special little blessing from God. Truthfully, at the ripe old age of 14 I believe my daughter has already made big impacts on other people's lives with her caring and compassionate ways that I am 100% sure they picked the perfect Godmother for little Kylee. I can't wait to see what the future holds for these girls and look forward to watching them grow up together.

As my week went on I had to find the way to break the news to my 11 year old that his steer, Angus, that we have been raising since August at the farm, got sick with pneumonia and once this nasty cold spell hit earlier this week he passed away. He was already sick on the below picture but was holding his own and we had our fingers crossed for a full recovery but well, he's no longer with us.

It was horrribly cold in these parts this week and on my drive to the farm on Monday morning it showed a wonderful -11 degrees. Yuck!!! So, needless to say, more work was required around the farm all week with frozen water tanks, frozen water pipes, cowies having to come back in the barn every day after getting some grub outside and it was tiring and somewhat depressing.

So, mid-week, to get out of the depressed mood that had overshadowed the house, Luke and I were spending some goold ol' Mama/Son bonding time while the other two were in school.

First he decided he should help me with my dishes (a new task he's been wanting to partake in a lot lately). Not so sure I like this idea but what the heck? He's happy, and if he's happy I'm usually much happier too.

Shortly after helping with the dishes he decided he should also watch the little stepping stool/ladder deal he was using as well. Needless to say there was a lot of water on our kitchen floor?

After cleaning up the water on the floor, my belly was craving some homemade chocolate chip cookies (a Dahm family favorite) and Luke LOVES to help make those as well, so away we went.

His favorite thing to do is turn on the mixer and turn it off when I tell him to, and of course, he cannot wait to lick the beaters at the end of it all. I made a double batch, which ends up being two full cookie jars, and well, they are almost gone already. Yummy!!!

These cookies were much needed as a comfort food for me and like I said earlier, to help with the sadness I had been feeling all week.

On the same day my great niece was being baptized our family learned that my cousin, Donna, had passed away after a year long battle with ALS. A brand new baby beginning her journey with the Lord not having any clue what great stories she would come to know and how powerful and mighty He is and one beautiful, humble and super kind woman leaving this earthly world to begin her journey with her God in Heaven. It was rather ironic to me at the time.

I attended her funeral yesterday, a funeral she planned herself before her passing. It was heartbreaking for so many people but simply beautiful, like her.

When I found out a little more than a year ago that she had been diagnosed I sent her a card in the mail explaining to her that whether or not she had known it she had always been such an inspiration to me as one of my older cousins. She led her life through the Lord and was very family oriented, extremely kind, humble and I can't imagine her ever speaking a bad word about anybody. She will be missed by so many.

There was a quote from the Little House on the Prairie on the program for her funeral that is a little snippet I would like to share. I liked it a lot and thought it was worth passing on. I think we should all think of this when remembering loved ones we have lost.

"Remember me with smiles and laughter, for that is how I will remember you all. If you can only remember me with tears, then don't remember me at al.l"

Here's to you Donna. Her favorite drink in the world is a Lime Vodka Sour. I will miss you.

Bloggity, Blog, Blah......

2013-01-16T10:58:00.000-08:00

Blah - a feeling of boredom, lethargy, or general dissatisfaction.

Ughhh...I have a case of the "blahs" the last few days. I don't prefer to feel this way, I truly like to be more productive during my time at home, but I can't shake the way I've been feeling lately. All I want to do is sleep (which I never can really because of Luke) and I want to hide away from society in my house all by myself. Yuck! How boring is that?

So...I decided that maybe, to try to get rid of the blahs that I've been having, I should give myself a little question and answer session and include all of you as to humor myself and possibly remind me of good things and happy things so here goes.

1) What is your full name? - Dana Joyce Degnitz Dahm

2) Have you ever wished your name was different? - Heck no. Truthfully I feel very lucky that my parents picked out such a unique name and only once the entire time I went to school did I have somebody with the same name and she only stayed at our school for one year I think.

3) Do you have siblings? - Yes I have two. My brother, Dion, is 10 years older than me and my sister, Delene, is 8 years older than me. I remember as a child the two of them fighting A LOT but I rarely fought with them because of the age difference. We really didn't have many things to fight about.

4) First memory that pops into your head about each sibling? - Well with Dion I think it would have to be me idolizing him. He was my handsome, older brother and well, I just thought he was the greatest. In fact when my girlfriends would sleep over and we would play truth or dare, sometimes we would dare each other to sneak into his room and give him a kiss on the cheek while he was sleeping. LOL! And well, I would have to say with my sister it would just be hanging out with her when I had gotten a little older and she was driving and we would go to some picnics or fairs together to see Rocket 88 (she loved this band). I also spent a lot of time with her when her children were first born and loved those days. And she taught me to crochet when I was small.

5) What are some of your best childhood memories? - Hanging out at the race track where my Dad raced on the weekends. Times were so much different then seriously. For example, as a parent now, if I don't see my kids next door at the playground for 15 minutes or so I start to worry where they are or who took them. When I was little and hanging out at the race track I could seriously run crazy all day long with my friends (most of who were boys there) and my parents never really came looking for us. They were just happy I wasn't bothering them or asking for money :)

Another good memory would be going up north most summers for a week on our family vacation to Big Sand Lake. Some friends of my parents had a cottage up there that they rented out and we would go there almost every year to fish and just relax. My fondest memories up there are of seeing the bald eagles in their ginormous nests on the point while out on the lake fishing. I can also remember every night putting our scraps from supper out on the deck by the all glass front of the cottage and waiting patiently for the raccoons to come up, oh so sheepishly, to chow down. We sat as still as we could inside and watched. As a child this was super cool stuff. There was one raccoon that came up a few years in a row that was missing its tail.

6) Where is your favorite place to vacation? - The first destination that pops into my head is sunny Arizona. I love the warmth and the saguaro cactus that surround the entire area but the biggest reason I like going there is to visit all of our friends that have migrated there over the years. When we see them again and have our get togethers, stories are shared from the past, a lot of laughing is done and you forget about all of the craziness of your normal life.

Honestly though, I have been quite a few places already over the years and I couldn't really pick a favorite. I have loved all of them in one way or another and appreciated something from each place. I am very partial to mountains though I'll confess, so send me out west anywhere by the Rocky Mountains and I'm pretty thankful. I will never get over their beauty.

7) What things do you like to do in your free time? - Free time? What is that? Ha ha. No really, IF I get free time by myself, which is like NEVER, I like to go to stores like Home Depot and just browse and dream about if I had the talent to fix things I would buy this and buy that to fix up my house. Or I would just go to a movie all by myself and then maybe for lunch. And yeah, I like to browse at the Hobby Lobby too and get ideas about things. If I have some free time with just the kids then I will usually take them out for lunch somewhere that Jeff won't go to (he is extremely fussy about where he eats and won't try new places), like Chilis or Beanies or Buffalo Wild Wings, and after lunch we might go play at a playground for a while or sometimes hit a movie, it depends on our mood at the time. Also, I like to crochet, make photo books on Shutterfly or Mixbook, I recently taught myself to quilt and have that on my to do list for the near future and I could spend a great portion of my day just listening and singing to the many songs on my IPOD.

Enough with the questions, here are just a few thoughts and tidbits running through my mind at the moment.

***I need a break from my 4 year old. Seriously, I love the kid but I am at home with him every day of the week, pretty much every hour I am awake, most of the time by myself. One of these days I really have to pawn him off on somebody to have some alone time where I can just do something for me. That rarely happens and if it does it's usually for a dentist appointment or something I'm not enjoying anyway.

***My hair is getting long. It just dawned on me that I haven't been to a hair salon since April of 2011. So I haven't had a haircut or professional coloring of any kind since then.

***Do any other wives get along with their mother-in-laws? I'm not gonna elaborate here or I could get myself in trouble, but seriously am I the only one who is really irritated by mine and never had a special, trusting relationship with her?

***I LOVE my fleece jammie bottoms!!! I wear these pretty much every day at home between milkings and they are soooo warm and so comfie. I think I need a few more.

***A little secret, don't share with my husband if you know him. My husband is also fussy about his soda. He is a Coke man all the way, prefers not to drink Pepsi if he doesn't have to. Most milkings at the farm we each have a soda. His Mom usually has a good supply in her fridge that we get it from and she usually has a variety. In the past I would bring out two cans of Coke, one for him and one for me but I found that part way through the milking he would open the soda that I brought out for myself and start drinking that one too when he was done with his and then when I finally got a chance to stop and take a drink it would be 1/2 gone and it ticked me off. Sooo...I wised up. I now drink Pepsi or some kind of soda I know he doesn't like. He doesn't touch my soda now!!!

***The other day when looking through my house and stressing over the fact that I felt I would never get caught up no matter how hard I tried I calmed myself down and convinced myself not to stress anymore and get used to the fact that until my kids are out of the house it will not be in order. I feel better today about it.

***I made Sam's favorite dish for supper tonight - Australian Pepper Steak. Don't ask me what's Australian about it, I'm pretty sure there isn't any kangaroo meat in it or anything, but that's what the recipe is called. She'll be happy.

***I should really stop now. I'm sure I'm boring all of you to death. Sorry. When I get started sometimes I just can't stop.

So, it's Hump Day today, heh? For you normal Monday through Friday people it's all downhill from here. For people like me the days of the week really don't mean too much, they all run together. This helped my blah mood, remembering some good things and sharing some of these random thoughts. My brain has too much time to think some days. That's not always a good thing.

I hope you all have a great rest of the week!!! Ta ta for now.

One Year Later (a little late...)

2013-01-02T10:44:00.007-08:00

“If you have faith in yourself, you will accept changes easily. You won’t be afraid of who you might become.”

So, this past month I celebrated my one year anniversary of being a full time farmer and farmer's wife. Honestly, it didn't occur to me that it was even the anniversary until the evening milking that night, to which I made my husband (my new boss) aware and asked where my present was and to which he replied, "Oh I'll give you a present. *wink* *wink*. No shocker there! Nice to know that us working side by side for a year now hasn't changed the way he talks to me and his continued smart assness (is that a word?).

When I reflect on the last year I can say without a doubt that this has been a life changing experience for sure. As with any other job this one has it's ups and downs and pros and cons but at the same time I'm glad I made the change.

I don't think anybody can truly understand "farm life" and being a farmer without firsthand experiencing it day in and day out. And I don't even mean people that work part time on a farm, to me that isn't even close reality of it. To be a true farmer and a successful one you must make a commitment to it that is almost unparalled in any other occupation out there. Honestly, you have to be married to it really. Heck, most farmers are more committed to their farms and their animals than most spouses are to each other nowadays. It really is a "way of life". But an honest, simple and awesome way of life for us.

Recalling the past year there are a few things that stick out in my head, good and bad and some well just very memorable. I'll start with the good.

I LOVE the scenery. Even in the brisk cold of winter and the scorching days of summer, there is nothing like seeing the sunrise in the morning in the East with the neighbor's silos in the distance, hearing the birds chirp, the calves mooing, dogs barking in the distance and nature waking up. I believe it brings me that much closer to God and makes me really appreciate the world around me and puts life into perspective.

I LOVE that our kids can come to work with us and learn what work is. Oh sure, when school is in session I do miss out on time with the two older ones as they are in school most of the while I am home and get done when I go back to the farm, but when they have days off of school (Christmas break and summer for example), I am home with them a lot more than I had been in the past. And like I said, a lot of nights they come to the farm with me when they are done with school and hang out in the barn or run around outside and what not. In fact, there have been quite a few nights when all three of the kids and Jeff and I are doing the milking together without any additional hired help. I think it's important that they are taught a good work ethic and can also appreciate what we do each day.

I LOVE the animals. Oh don't get me wrong, a lot of days they can piss me off and be uncooperative and all, but they really are like little kids (or big kids in the case of the cowies as they are rather large). Seriously, they look at me and Jeff like their Mommy and Daddy and they know we are in charge. I have come to know most of them by their names now and not just their ear tag numbers and find myself having one way conversations with them quite frequently. No I am NOT crazy, just compassionate and lacking adult interaction I think :)

And last but not least, I LOVE that I miss out on all the drama and bullshit involved with an office/factory job and that I no longer have to get up in the morning worried about who I have to impress today. I work with my husband every day, he's been married to me for 16 years and has seen me at my best and worst and could care less what I look like when I'm in the barn. The cows sure don't care what I look like so long as I am nice to them and take care of them. So because of this I also save time and money, another bonus. I go through a lot less hairspray, a lot less makeup, I spend a ton less shopping at Kohls for nice clothes, and a lot less deodorant because let's be honest, if I smell... I fit right in there, so I rarely wear it. LOL!

Now onto the bad. Hmmm???

Ding ding ding! First on my list are the crazy hours. I don't think I will ever be able to say that I enjoy getting my butt out of bed at 3:45 am every single day of the week. And quite honestly every morning the first thing that pops into my head is usually "This sucks!" or "I can't wait to come home and take a nap". Although the nap thing doesn't always happen obviously as I have a 4 year old barking orders at me all day. Oh and did I mention this is 7 days a week (twice a day milking). So, on an average week I work about 9 hours a day x 7 = 63 hours a week. It tires you out, really. A lot of physical labor!!!

One of the other bad things that pops into my head is the fact that I will never get used to or like having to ship any of our animals. Obviously this is a business we're running here and our goal is to produce milk and sometimes if a cow can't get breed back to keep her milk supply going or well she just gets sick for some reason or other it doesn't do us any good to keep her so we eventually have to ship them. Not fun. Because like I said, they do start to become a member of our family in a way and I usually leave the farm before I see them get loaded onto a truck for that reason.

Another bad thing that pops into my head is....

Farming in the winter isn't real fun. I've never been fond of winter to begin with and that was when I didn't have to work outside in it, but now it really bugs me. Trudging around in the snow outside to get to and from the calf huts to feed my babies is a bitch to say the least and freezing water pipes and having to keep the cows in the barn more often so they don't get too cold just adds to the work we have to do. Thankfully I've become pretty good at dressing for the elements (a lot of layers-not my best look for sure) and if you are in the barn at the same time as the cowies it is actually pretty warm, so I try to look on the bright side.

Over the past year I've had some memorable experiences at the farm. The one that really stands out is the day I was hauling a steer back from one of the other barns (we rent two barns from other people where we keep our younger stock). In the truck with me was the high school kid that helps by us and Jeff was still up the road with the tractor at the barn we had just come from. My goal was to take the steer back to the main farm so we could ship him that day. All is going real well until I turned the corner onto Jay Road where our farm is and I looked out the rearview mirror and the steer was standing on the road behind me?! Honest to goodness I thought I was hallucinating and seeing things and my first thought was "How the hell did he get there?" and the second thought was "Whose animal is that it certainly can't be ours?"

Well long story short, the high school kid obviously didn't close the door properly on the cattle trailer, the steer came out, for whatever reason when I went running back to the main farm (not even sure why I went running to be honest) the steer followed me and we got him mixed in with the cows before Jeff got back. I think the steer had the "hots" for me maybe? Either way I was happy he got back where he belonged and I was real happy.

Around the farm there are a lot of things that the kids can get into and it makes me nervous. There are just too many big animals, moving parts and big machines and those elements and kids don't always mix. In the course of the last year we have had a toddler put his hand into a moving pulley (emergency room visit needed), a 10 year old drop a wagon pole onto his big toe (toe still recovering), a 14 year old drop a wagon pole on the top of her foot (foot recovered now I believe), a 10 year old get chased by the same red cow that tried to run him over in the barn at an earlier date, a toddler get bucked up against a wall twice by a red cow (damn red cows!) and well, too many instances that I care to mention. Overall though each of these has taught all of us lessons and what not to do in the future so we stay safe.

It's been a good change. I think sometimes people in general don't have any idea what we do and look down us. Those people to me are clueless.

Oh sure, we may not be the next Donald Trump or Oprah Winfrey BUT......we live honest lives. We surround ourself with our kids, each other, nature, beauty and HARD WORK. I LOVE IT!!!

It's That Time of Year Again

2012-11-30T09:42:00.000-08:00

The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other. Burton Hillis

The custom of the Christmas tree developed in early modern Germany with predecessors that can be traced to the 16th and possibly the 15th century. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the use of evergreen trees, wreaths, and garlands to symbolize eternal life was a custom of the ancient Egyptians, Chinese, and Hebrews. Tree worship was common among the pagan Europeans and survived their conversion to Christianity in the Scandinavian customs of decorating the house and barn with evergreens at the New Year to scare away the devil and of setting up a tree for the birds during Christmastime.

Interesting information heh? I never knew that myself so I thought I would Google it and see what I found out so there you go.

I do know that last night the kids and I decorated ours and it has become such a fun tradition in our home and something the kids really look forward to each year, especially Zachary.

Because of the farm hours I now have I will admit that I wasn't overly thrilled about having to come home from chores at 7 pm, take a shower, eat and then about 8 pm just begin to decorate the tree but the kids insisted earlier in the week that we do it Thursday night when Dad was at his weekly dart night so we could make as much noise as we wanted, goof around more than usual, play our Christmas music as loud as we chose and not interupt him watching Pawn Stars or some other show. So I gave into their wishes, made myself an Old Fashion and let the fun begin.

The kids were in good spirits and Zach couldn't stop talking about how he literally "gets the shakes" just thinking about Christmas morning and opening all of the gifts he gets each year.

Samantha of course is getting "too cool" and everything to enjoy it quite as much as she has in the past, but despite her coolness she did help out quite a bit and seemed to have a good time.

Lucy our dog was pretty uninterested in the entire ordeal but managed to open her eyes for this photo at least.

But I will admit, to me there is nothing quite as sweet and innocent as watching a little 4 year old place ornaments on the tree. Luke was focused and so involved in getting the ornaments out and hanging them himself and it was so cute to watch.

It's funny, every year when Christmas is approaching I start to grumble a bit, mainly because it really has become such an expensive time of year for us and then it is over so stinking fast. You put forth so much effort with all the decorations, the shopping, the baking of cookies and the list goes on and on, and then it's done and you just dread the task of putting everything away.

Last night was fun though. Before the kids were born I used to make sure our tree had every ornament strategically placed and that all ornaments were in sync with each other so I had a perfect tree, but over the years I've gone away from that. Reason being we have accumulated a lot of personal ornaments with meaning that have replaced the plain old round ornaments I used to have. I buy all three kids a new ornament each year and they know exactly which ones are theirs and I already told them that when they move out they can take their ornaments with them.

I also have the homemade ornaments from the kids from over the years, and although they may not be the "prettiest" ornaments in somebody elses eyes, I wouldn't get rid of them if you paid me.

Memories were a big part of the fun last night. Reflecting on every individual ornament, who it came from, what meaning it had and so on.

Zach's little sled ornament from kindergarten.

A string of homemade garland Sam made when she was younger.

Some ornaments that were given to us a few years ago from my Grandma Dorothy, who passed away about 1 1/2 years ago. They are on the tree in her memory.

One with our little baby Luke's picture in it. He's getting way too big too fast!!!

Obviously I'm not going to bore you with pictures of every single ornament but I think you get the idea. Our tree has so much meaning to us. Ask us about any ornament on the tree and for the most part it will have a story behind it and I LOVE THAT!!!

This next one by far is the biggest conversation piece and we laugh like crazy every year when Zach brings it out and reveals it again and we almost always hang it front and center on the tree "just because". Awww, look at my little angel :)

So, our tree is finished, except for the presents under the tree. Those won't be there until likely December 22nd or thereabouts because we are famous for waiting until the last minute to do our Christmas shopping. Why break tradition now?

The tree may not look perfect to some people but for me I wouldn't have it any other way.

Thanksgiving Thoughts.....from Cows

2012-11-22T07:40:00.001-08:00

For flowers that bloom about our feet;
For tender grass, so fresh, so sweet;
For song of bird, and hum of bee;
For all things fair we hear or see,
Father in heaven, we thank Thee!
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

So in my last post I touched on how thankful I am for the wonderful things that I have been blessed with in my life and I again woke up this morning feeling an overwhelming sense of peace with my life and gratitude, even if I did have to wake up at 3:45 am on a day when most of the world is sound asleep.

As I was strolling through the barn this morning I took a look around me and saw all those precious faces staring at me...

And it was then that I decided these cows needed to be included in this wonderful celebration and I decided to interview a few and see what they were thankful for. I mean, really, they must be just as thankful as we are right?

So I chatted with this lovely lady first.

As you can see, she looked a little grumpy when I initially asked her and wasn't sure if she wanted to partake in this question and answer session, but after much thought she replied, "I am thankful for hay. I mean afterall, hay is the bomb!"

I nodded at her as it all made sense to me and decided to go talk to some more girls. Bridget the cow was quite forthcoming with her answer and right there waiting to be a part of this game.

She almost instantaneously said, "My pasture. I totally love my pasture. It is a place of solitude for me during the day where I can relax and make more milk for all the lovely people in this world. Without it I'm not quite sure where I would be."

Wow! I was impressed. Big words for a cow, heh?

Then I asked this lovely lady here what she was thankful for, even though I already kind of guessed what she was going to say. And she instantly stated "My baby to be. See, I'm going to be having another baby soon and I'm very excited to be a Mom again and find out what I'm having. I'm rooting for a girl of course."

Awwww....how touching is that? See, cows really do have feelings too.

And then because I had a lot of work to do yet and I knew "the boss" (my husband) was going to start getting on my case if I didn't pick up the pace I moved onto my last cow for this Thanksgiving Day interview.

This is Terri. She is one of my favorite cows although I will admit can be a total pain in my rear most of the times. She was full of wisdom and gave multiple answers.

"I am thankful for my barn so big and red to keep me warm in the winter and to shelter me from the sun in the summer."

She then continued.....

"I am also thankful for straw. Without it my rump would get pretty darn sore and my utter would get real dirty and Lord knows we don't need that."

She was full of comments.

"And hmmmm....I am thankful, so thankful for being milked twice a day. I can't imagine how sore I would be if I didn't get milked when I was supposed to."

And the best comment she made of all.

"I am thankful for YOU and that other guy too (she then winked)." I then told her, "Diddo!"

Interesting heh? Who would've thought cows had such deep thoughts?

What I took out of all of this is the following. Basically they are thankful for the same things I am, with the exception of the being milked thing.

Food to eat, shelter to protect them from the storms life throws at them, a place to sleep, family and friends. They don't need anything more than that really. They like it simple, in fact they crave simplicity. Maybe more of us humans should think the way they do and life wouldn't be so darn complicated.

Hebrews 13:15 By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving Day!!!

Thankful

2012-11-14T11:34:00.002-08:00

Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough.
-- Oprah Winfrey

First and foremost, I apologize. I'm sorry it takes so long for me to post lately. I have good intentions of getting on here more but then other things happen and I get sidetracked.

Not that I want to point blame at anybody for my lack in posting, but if I could I'd have to point it at those three adorable faces up above. Seriously, they keep me on my toes and they really like to have Mom's attention when I'm not at the farm "hanging out with the girls".

I guess I can't blame them for that, I'm a pretty fun chick to hang out with most of the time. And I'm also pretty competitive so playing board games with me and playing against me on the Wii can make things even more exciting. Not to mention our exciting dance-athons in our teeny tiny kitchen. Our favorite song for those at the moment is Gangdam Style. Who cannot dance when that song comes on?

We've been busy. Not only at the farm trying to get the Fall harvest complete before that crappy cold/white stuff starts flying, but at home as well. Samantha had been practicing regularly for her very first high school musical Footloose, which was performed three times this weekend and a big success, Zach had been playing soccer up until a few weekends ago and well Luke, well he's just Luke and keeps me on my toes ALL THE TIME.

There just never seems to be any time left in the day to do much of anything else and I've become very thankful for early departures to my bedroom to sleep for the night. And also thankful for a break in my day to just sit and watch the latest episode of DWTS on my DVR. Oh yeah, and my coffee.

For me, life has really become about the little things. The little things that so many people take for granted so they can get all wrapped up in the greed that has overtaken this country and this society.

Life to me is about the simple things. These kinds of things.

A good old jump in your pile of leaves. The kids hate raking them for sure, but to them it is all worth it when they have this to enjoy at the end of it.

Watching my boys sleep together. To me there is nothing more comforting and peaceful than these moments. It makes you feel like you did something right.

Smiles on my kid's faces. Nothing makes me happier, being a parent, knowing that I was able to bring joy to their life in some way, shape or form.

I also can't deny a good ol' piece of pizza makes me smile (I think I could eat pizza every day).

And some Partylite candles burning in my house. Still my ultimate dream job if I can ever work it back into my crazy schedule.

I am very thankful for God's beauty surrounding us. Every little inch of it. Even this morning, when it is rather brisk outside at the farm, the sunrise was absolutely gorgeous. I will admit when I had an office job I didn't truly appreciate it, I was rarely out in it. But now, I soak it all in and listen to every little noise from nature. I breathe in every little scent (good or bad) and I marvel in His creation.

And last but not least, I am thankful for my family. My husband, my kids, Lucy our dog, my Mom, Brother, Sister, In-laws, our Fathers, little Adam, Nieces, Nephews, Grandparents and everybody in-between who have molded me into who I have become today. Life is trying, life is tiring and it's not always filled with joy and happiness, but I do believe it has been the trials and tribulations that have made me grow and have made me stronger and for sure have made me way more appreciative of the little things. God Bless!!!

Long Overdue

2012-09-11T10:26:00.001-07:00

I've missed you all. I've missed sharing my thoughts and life with you. So...I decided that it was time to make a post as it has been long overdue.

Oh trust me, my life hasn't slowed down one bit, it's still crazy busy with the kids, the farm, the hubby and everything else in-between, but I have a lot going on in my head and a lot going on period that I'd like to share and get out with the hopes of making people smile, or make them realize that they aren't alone in their thoughts and to also boost people's spirits about life in general.

I'm back...I will try my best to be regular with my posts but at the same time I am not making any promises so please be understanding.

Being that I haven't been on here for a while there has been a lot to catch up on and it won't happen in one post alone obviously so I have decided for now to share the latest happenings around the farm. I have found in the past that you all seemed to find my previous posts about the farm rather interesting.

The stories and "life" around the farm is nonstop. I've found that the animals have become like my "other" children and I do care about every single one of them. Who would've thought I'd have a big enough heart in me to give out that much love, heh? There are a lot of animals to love there.

Some of them continuously drive me crazy, some of them you barely know are there as they are so quiet and easy going and some call out to you with personalities that want the attention that you can't help but love them.

This lovely lady's name is Wren and she is one of the most easy going cows in the barn. She is a rather small and short cow, by comparison, and when she walks in the barn she is by no means in any kind of hurry. She takes her old sweet time coming up the aisle and is almost always one of the last ones in. I can pet her anytime in the barn and she just keeps eating away and makes nothing of it, the kids can pet her too. She's very sweet.

This cow is one of my favorites because she too is rather calm tempered and I love the marking on her head. Her name is Amber as you can see and she is typically one of the first cows in the barn for every milking. One morning a few months ago Jeff went out to walk the cows up for the morning milking and found her laying in the river that runs along the cow pasture. She had broken down a wire that is up to keep them out of the river, being curious as cows are, and had spent most of the night submerged in the cold water. We weren't sure if she would make it but she did. She bounced back rather well with the exception of losing the calf she had been pregnant with at the time.

This pretty lady is Sami and no, I didn't name her. Jeff's Dad actually named this cow before he passed away. Funny thing is, she kind of reminds me of our daughter, Sami. Not that I'm saying our daughter is a cow, she's obviously not, but they have similarities. This cow LOVES to eat and she makes it a habit when leaving the barn after her milking to bounce into as many stanctions as she can on her walk out looking for leftover hay, corn or whatever she can find. I would say on average I have to back her out of four different spots before I finally get her butt out of the barn. She also is tall cow with a bigger build, just like our Sami. Sami even agrees she is like her and takes no offense to it. In fact I think she thinks it's pretty cool.

This is Toni and she is for sure the most unique cow we have at the farm as she is blind. Yep, you heard me. I think she must have a little sight as she does seem to know her way around the farm pretty darn good, but she definitely has a visual impairment as I have personally witnessed her running into a lot of things. I hate to say it, but most of the time when I do see her do this, I can't help but chuckle and then I say out loud "poor thing". I've witnessed her running into the barn walls, poles in the loose housing area and she has hit her melon on the barn cleaner chute many times. Her poor head takes quite a toll. Her hearing is awesome though as I can walk where she is and she knows right away I'm there and will turn her head in my direction...just like she did to pose for this picture.

Yesterday was another busy day at the farm with many unexpected happenings. There truthfully aren't too many dull moments around there with new babies being born almost daily and all of the animals living there.

Today we had to call the vet in to look at one of our younger cows. She hasn't been feeling too hot the last few days. She just looked sad and she wasn't eating real well and if you've ever milked a cow their utters and teets totally change when they are sick and it was obvious when milking her something wasn't right. He came in and looked and it ended up that she had a twisted stomach and in order for her to feel better surgery was necessary. We decided, being that she was a new cow and had many years left in her that the cost of surgery was worth her getting better and being around for a while hopefully. Everything went well. She's a little sore and still bouncing back but I think she'll be fine.

Farming is hard work and a lot of long hours for sure but like I've said before, it brings you closer to nature and the simplicity of life and I'm so appreciative for that. I'm amazed daily at so many things around me.

There was an unbelievable sunrise the other morning. I was ticked I didn't have my camera along to take a picture, it would've been amazing! I marvel at the corn field to the south of the property and watch how much it grows and how green it has become over the last few weeks. The little babies all around me, hanging out with their mamas or just hanging out together make me smile.

I truly do believe, despite the hard days, that God knew what he was doing when he led me in this direction in life. It seems to be where I belong. Luke seems to love the mornings spent there with Daddy too. Tractor rides are the best!!!

And like I said before, the farm is full of surprises. This morning when I climbed into a full wagon of hay bales so I could throw some off and bring them into the barn I found the cutest littlest surprises. Mama obviously took a lot of time planning out where to hide these little ones. I have since made everybody aware they are in there so they don't harm them.

The circle of life...it just keeps spinning :)

The End

2012-07-18T19:46:00.000-07:00

I do the very best I know how - the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing so until the end. Abraham Lincoln.

So, as you've noticed it's been a while since I posted. I've been busy and well just not in the right frame of mind to be inspirational here to be honest.

I won't take pictures as proof but I can tell you I am overwhelmed. My house never gets in order, I've been behind in laundry for months now and truthfully just need to load the truck up once and make one big trip to a local laundromat to tackle this "monster" so I get caught up once and for all.

Every room in our house (with the exception of the living room and kitchen right now) is a disaster with no order and needs to be organized immensely and I'm embarrassed at the sight of them really. I don't even want people to come in for fear of what they could think. Things throughout my house that should've been fixed a very long time ago but never get fixed unless I personally do it myself and quite honestly, for anybody who at one point maybe thoughT this, I AM NOT SUPERWOMAN!

Oh I can do a great job of pretending to be, and I think I'm pretty darn close most of the time but I think it just really finally sunk in that I am not.

So because I am not Superwoman, I didn't fix the crappy wall in the bathroom yet, I didn't repaint the living room I so badly need repainted, I can't change the f'ing lightbulb on the side porch that has been burnt out for yes probably 4-5 YEARS (the thread on the screws for the light fixture over it prevent me from taking it off-trust me I tried!), and the new bath faucet I purchased for our sink has yet to be put in but that's okay, I've only had it about a week so it has to ferment in our cupboard for at least another year or so before it could possibly be installed.

Oh yeah, and add three kids, a dog, a hamster and two birds into the mix, and a husband that I love dearly but uses all of his energy at the farm, and well, I've been feeling very defeated as of late. Which explains my lack of posts lately. And which has led me to the decision that obviously I just don't have time in this crazy day to day life of mine to be blogging anymore.

Just another thing I am giving up until hopefully another day when life slows down a bit. Wishful thinking on my part I believe, but a girl's got to wish.

So a few stats about my blog that some of you might find interesting. In the time I've been blogging just over 7,000 people have read the blog. And I found it very interesting that they came from the following places: The US, United Kingdom, Russia, Germany, Turkey, Latvia, Canada, Netherlands and Austria. Pretty cool! Never thought that would happen.

I'll miss sharing my thoughts on here, I'll miss being able to inspire.

Seriously though, despite my mood as of late and the overwhelmed feeling I have become so very familiar with, I remain positive. I know I still have it a lot better than some and those things are petty really.

Prayers going out to two high school friends currently struggling with some big battles of their own, Kari and Tania. You can beat this shit!!!

Blessings to all. Mwaaaahhhhh!!!! XOXOXOXOXOXO!!!!

Ups & Downs

2012-06-22T08:45:00.001-07:00

Experience is a harder teacher because she gives the tests first, the lesson afterward.

It's been a while since I posted about the farm and I thought "the girls" deserved their turn in the spotlight too. I mean afterall, I spend roughly 63 hours a week (on a good week) with them and they have become part of my family really.

This past week at the farm has been a little rough. No, my boss hasn't been giving me a hard time or anything, but as with everything in life, we've had some unexpected things occur there that have left us feeling a bit down.

Sunday morning, during milking, one of our more experienced cows (I talked about her in a previous post), when into labor early and the vet was called in to take a look at her. It ended up that she was pregnant with twins, and the vet delivered them both alive (two little girls), but because they were so early and weighed only roughly 20 pounds a piece or thereabouts, their little lungs weren't developed good enough and they both died within 30 minutes or so. I don't like to see that kind of stuff. I know they are just cows to most people, but I never like to see stuff like that happen, I think you all know why.

Mama cow who had the baby twins :(

So that was the first bad thing this week.

Then we found out Tuesday night, via Facebook, that the high school kid who had been working for us for about a year, has decided "he wants to get out of farming". I love how he worded that..."get out of farming", makes it sound like he ran the place and was going to make it his future. So once again, we are short of help at the farm. Only good thing is, we do have somebody else in the works, so hopefully that turns into something.

About this time, the whole attitude we have is bummed a tad, and then we get to the farm on Wednesday morning, only to find that our bull calf that we have been raising for about 9 to 10 months (Bernie) hung/choked himself to death during the night by getting his head caught in a headlock and he must've panicked and fell once it was stuck. My heart sank when I found him.

Seriously, he wasn't a baby calf really anymore. I went with Jeff to pick him up when we bought him from this other farm back in September. A red and white Holstein bull that we were raising for breeding purposes with a very good bloodline. He weighed roughly 700 pounds now and he would always let you pet him on the nose, Zach did this almost every time he was at the farm and adored him. Talk about a kick to the head. All that work and time we had put into him and something like that happens?

This is a picture of Bernie I had from a few months back when he was much smaller. Poor guy :(

What lessons I have learned this week around the farm. The circle of life just keeps turning. As rewarding as the job can be, at the same time, it can get depressing, as can life.

BUT!!!

That is when I kick myself in the ass, not always but most of the time, and remind myself of the good things and the other blessings I am a part of. So onto more daily images from around the farm to cheer myself and hopefully you up as I've been a little bit of a Debbie Downer so far.

Here are some of the other babies I have around the farm that call me "Mama". I swear, sometimes when they moo just the right way when they are hungry it sounds like they are calling me that. Maybe I'm just losing it completely, but it does to me.

Some of the bigger girl babies I am feeding every day. They are so sweet.

A familiar scene in the barn anytime food is given to the animals. I see a lot of animal behinds!!!

One of my new bottle babies. I love how spotted she is.

Another bottle baby.

Another bottle baby. I love her nose and eyes.

I have a bunch more I could show you but I'm pretty sure you'd get sick of seeing all of those little calves.

So onto the big mamas and experiences I take part in every day.

This young lady apparently wants to be a cheerleader or something and has a problem with "doing the splits" in the cowyard. Doing the splits for a cow is not an easy thing to get out of so it's not necessarily something to be proud of. So...to avoid her doing them too much she has special accomodations in our loose housing area between milkings to avoid showing off in front of her friends. The soft, fluffy straw housing in there helps to avoid her doing them :)

This is a familiar scene at roughly 4:00 pm every day. The girls are waiting to come into the barn to be milked. And yes, most of the cows will come up on their own at that given time as they "know the routine".

Some of the girls getting their last bite of "grub" before heading into the barn for milking time. I think they are giving me the evil eye or something?

Everytime this cow comes down the aisle I crack up. Her marking on the top of her forehead looks like a bow to me so I can always spot her as it looks like she is wearing a bow in her hair.

And next is the cow I affectionately call the "Grandma" cow when talking to the kids. She is one of the oldest cows in the barn and doesn't get around the best. She also has special accomodations in the loose housing barn most of the time or the other younger cows push her around out in the cowyard (big bullies!). I found out her real name is Mandy. Pretty name for such a docile and easy going cow, heh?

And the last girl I'm going to introduce you to is one of our "newbies". She just started being milked about 1 1/2 months ago and I took to her right away because of her face. Another farmer I know, when I made the comment that she had such a precious face, said they "all look the same", and I disagreed right away. I think they all look a lot different. The combination of their markings and personality and the sensitivity you can detect in their eyes makes each one of them different. This particular one stands out to me because of how black her face is and then you get the white in her chest for the contrast. Like I said, I think she is pretty darn sweet and distinct looking.

So yeah. I hope the next week is better at the farm and we aren't hit with anymore surprises like this week. Seriously though, I still wouldn't trade it.

I visited briefly with some co-workers at my old job earlier this week. I would've liked to visit longer but I had Luke along and he was tearing up the joint. But I can tell you, although I love and miss a lot of the people I met there, I didn't walk out of those doors wishing I could go back. I think I made a good move.

God Bless!!!

Small Town Living

2012-06-12T11:27:00.000-07:00

The nice thing about living in a small town is that when you don't know what you're doing, someone else does. Anonymous

Truthfully that has got to be one of my favorite quotes ever and I think it's because it is both funny and has a lot of truth to it.

I have lived in a small town with an actual water tower for many years now and grew up out in the country near some almost nonexisistent little towns as a child and there is no doubt that everybody knows everybody and what comes along with that is that everybody "thinks" they know everything about everyone. I smiled and giggled just thinking about how the rumor mills fly in our small town and how some people would literally have nothing to do and wouldn't know which way to turn if they didn't have their local gossip to spread about. Sad really.

Gosh, I don't think I can count on both of my hands how many times over the years that I have likely been the subject of one of these stories, and I often think it would be real fun to be a fly on the wall when people are talking about me so I can hear everything and see how falsified the story really is. I'm not quite sure why certain people get off on this kind of bullshit really. And why they have to be so childish when they are grown adults and dish out information to others that isn't even true 80% of the time (percentage is just a guess of course), but I choose not to be a part of it. Another reason why I left the corporate world, where rumors are as common as changing your underwear, and have recently turned into somewhat of a hermit. I just don't need that kind of stuff in my life and don't see a reason to hurt somebody else by talking about them. I'm better than that.

This by far is one of the biggest downfalls to living in a small town BUT at the same time there are a lot of advantages to living in a small town as well and the boys and I took time today to experience small town living.

Samantha has left us all for the week to travel to Washington DC and Virginia through a school trip opportunity and it's been just me and the boys. Yesterday was spent grocery shopping and running to the White House of Music to pick up an Alto Saxophone rental (not cheap by the way) for Zachary as he has decided he wants to take band in summer school and next school year and try this out. We'll see how that goes? Wish me luck.

Well today, after getting some things accomplished around the house the boys and I and Lucy the dog took a walk to our local drugstore, Burmeschs, to get a Slushie (or Hushie as Luke would call it), a glass bottle of Coke for Zach and an ice cream cone for Mom.

Zach and Luke on the way to Burmeschs for our "goodies".

Lucy watching the window at Burmeschs to see where her boys went?

The boys enjoying their purchases.

Oh the trip back had it's moments as the boys kept competing for first place on the ride home and Luke kept getting ticked off that Zach was passing him up and "winning". Meanwhile I am carrying my ice cream cone, Luke's Slushie and trying to walk the dog who keeps stopping to smell things while monitoring the situation ahead of me. I wanted to drink heavily by the time we got home.

But once again, it was at that moment when I decided that once again I was blessed. I felt lucky to live in a small town where I can go for these crazy walks with my boys on a daily basis if I want and not have to worry about crime and being safe.

Blessed that I wasn't in the office at my old job all day while my kids were on summer vacation and that I could spend this extra time with them when they are home now.

Blessed that although I live in a town where everybody knows everybody's business it is a small enough town that I also know who to keep my kids away from and chances are for the most part I know all of the parents of the kids my children are going to school with.

I don't wish to live in some big Metropolis. If I choose, I can visit Milwaukee anytime I want and enjoy the "big city life" at that time.

You take the good with the bad in pretty much everything you do in life and you learn to accept them both.

The boys are getting along now (I won't say that out loud). Once again, that is also a blessing :)

Oh Can Boys Keep You Hopping!!!

2012-06-04T19:18:00.002-07:00

Mothers of little boys work from son up till son down!
-- Author Unknown

Oh Boy!!! It has been one heck of a week. So frantic and crazy at times that I'm not quite sure where to start?

I do know that I am one tired Mommy and you can thank my two crazy boys for a lot of this.

My week has been filled with one trip to the Emergency Room, way too many stressful situations trying to control my 3 1/2 year old son, baseball practices, games and a tournament and many interesting conversations about puberty with my 10 year old son. Nice!

I'll start with the scare we had early last week. Luke almost always comes along with us to the farm every afternoon. Sometimes the other two kids end up there as well after school and they keep an eye on him and hang out with him to keep him out of places he shouldn't be while Jeff and I do our chores. On this particular day however they both had activities after school and couldn't be there so he was hanging out with us. He was with Jeff at the time and Jeff had just turned on the roller mill to roll some corn for the cowies. Jeff had just told Luke to stay away and he had moved back a bit, but he apparenlty was acting goofy and lost his balance/footing and when he fell he fell towards the belt/pully area portion of the roller mill sending his right hand into the belt and over the pully, all the way around and back out again, landing him with a bigh thump on the ground and a lot of screaming. Jeff came flying into the barn with him in his arms and within minutes I was on my way to the ER. Thankfully there wasn't any major cuts or anything but there was immediate swelling of his entire hand which eventually led to Xrays and thankfully negative results.

It was scary. I dislike trips to the ER with my children. I think the most painful thing any Mother can endure (or Father as Jeff was worse than I was) is to see their child in pain and feel as if you didn't do your job to protect them.

Luke was a toughy though and had actually stopped crying shortly after we left the farm to head to the hospital. He smiled at the hospital and even told me he wasn't going to do this ever again on the drive there.

I stopped and counted my blessings many times over since then. It could've been a lot worse and I won't even go into details about it. Let's just say we are lucky, very lucky. It took a few days for him to start using that hand again, but all is back to normal now for the most part.

One would think that an injury like this would make this little guy slow down a tad but apparently it doesn't. Luke was still full of piss and vinegar and pushing all of my buttons on a daily basis.

An example of one of the things Luke likes to do to Mom at least once a week.

Most of the time throughout the week I am home alone with him. And I get home from the farm and one of the things I have to do almost immediately is take a shower as I am quite smelly. Well, he thinks it is really funny to unlock the door and take rides on his bike, 4 wheeler or whatever down the sidewalk and almost to the corner intersection while I am in the shower. So I get done with my shower, peek around the corner to check on him and then he isn't there. So, I quick throw some clothes on and look out the window and lately I have been chasing him down with my Ford Explorer so I can catch up to the little shit. Seriously!!! He's quick!!!

It's always an adventure with boys. Which leads me to my next story.

So Zach, our 10 year old, has been learning about puberty in school all week. The girls are taught in a separate room from the boys and by a female teacher and the boys have a male teacher.

The first day he came home and decided to talk about it and the first thing out of his mouth went something like this, "So yeah Mom, guess what I got to learn about today in puberty class?" Said with a little sarcasm of course.

To which I replied (a little nervously of course but curious at the same time), "What?"

"All the parts of the penis, oh yeah," he stated with a smirk on his face.

At this point all I really did was raise my eyebrows a bit with a quizzical look on my face and said, "Okay. That's interesting."

"Sure is," he said and he walked away. Apparently that was my clue that the conversation was now over. It cracked me up. I know Samantha had these same classes a few years earlier but she never came home and really mentioned much about them to me.

The next day comes, Zach gets home from school and I am done with work and that leisurely time of the night comes and Zach says to me.

"Soooo, guess what we learned about today."

"Hmmm?" I say, "No clue." Playing dumb.

"Sperm and eggs and how they come together to make babies!" More sarcasm of course.

My eyes lit up at this I'll admit so I responded with, "Did your teacher tell you that these sperm and eggs can't come together to make babies until AFTER you're married?"

"No!" he says. "Our teacher said that this can happen after you have gone through puberty?"

To which I corrected him by saying, "Oh no, he was wrong. You have to go through puberty AND be married for this to happen. It's a rule. Your teacher must've forgot the married part." Ha ha.

He then left the room with a puzzled look on his face. Oh brother! This will get more interesting in the next few years I'm sure. He already had a magnifying glass out (not really but close) looking for signs of the "changes" he will be going through.

Truthfully there is never a dull moment in my life. Not anywhere close to dull. I can't imagine the last time it was. But with that said, I wouldn't have it any other way. I adore my boys and they keep me young.

I hope all of you have a great week and never have any dull moments either.

Weekend Adventures

2012-05-28T11:07:00.000-07:00

To us, family means putting your arms around each other and being there. ~Barbara Bush

What a gorgeous last few days. Sure, we had a little much needed rain here and there, but for the most part the weather was spectacular for me. Not overly hot, but tolerable heat, and heat that made all of us want to get out and explore a little more and take advantage of.

And despite being a full time farmer now, and not usually knowing the difference between a Monday and a Saturday as we work every day of the week, for some reason it did seem like an extended weekend to me anyway. I'm sure that was because the two big kids were off of school Friday and again today and having their presence around the house made it "different". A LOT LOUDER but different.

To anybody who knows me, my kids are my world, and despite the fact that I am a lot of times dragging butt by roughly noon or thereabouts from getting up so early I made a point of spending some extra time with them this weekend while they were off of school and doing some things together.

Jeff has been busy at the farm doing field work that he hasn't taught me how to do yet (notice I said yet), so we planned some of our days around bringing him lunch to the field. And it is a given that anytime we bring lunch to the field you can expect us to have to hang around for a little bit so Luke can get a tractor ride for a little while. But you know what? It is worth it to see the look on his face every time he is sitting in Daddy's lap on that tractor. His smile is ginormous!!!

So what did we do for entertainment? Well, we found some real cheap entertainment within walking distance from our house (although we chose to drive down there this time), we headed to the lake!!!

I know a lot of people rip on the lake and how dirty it is and what not, but I don't care, I think we are very lucky to have this so close by and to be able to just walk or ride bikes down there on any given day to break up the monotany of our daily routine.

Zach and Luke took advantage of the gorgeous weather immediately and didn't waste any time getting into the water. I am not a water person really and would much rather hang out on the beach and just "observe" and relax a little.

Sam's idea of being at the beach is text messaging the entire time, but isn't that what every 14 year old girl thinks she needs to be doing these days?! Ugh!

In-between texting her and I did manage to have some good conversation so I suppose it wasn't all that bad.

I love to sit back and watch my boys interact with each other. Even though they do fight occasionally, it is obvious that little Luke really looks up to his big brother and just loves to hang out with him.

And Zach was a gracious big brother and let Luke (with the help of Mom) bury him in the sand. Luke thought that was cool as all heck!!!

It was nice. We went early before it got too hot and before it got too busy with people. It's a lot easier to keep track of your kids when the beach and water is emptier.

I dipped my feet in the sand and the water. It seemed cold so that was all the farther I ventured.

Instead I decided to sit back, relax and take in all the sights around me.

Sorry...I just couldn't help it :)

I hope all of you are having a wonderful Memorial Day weekend and wanted to end this by giving a shout out to all of our service men and women who are serving or have served for our country. The sacrifices you have made for our country are unbelievable and for that I am extremely grateful. God Bless every single one of you always!!!

Exhausted by Blessings

2012-05-20T19:25:00.003-07:00

Count your blessings.
Once you realize how valuable you are and how much you have going for you, the smiles will return, the sun will break out, the music will play, and you will finally be able to move forward the life that God intended for you with grace, strength, courage, and confidence.
Og Mandino

Wow! I am E-X-H-A-U-S-T-E-D to say the least. What a crazy weekend!!! I don't know that I can possibly remember every detail of this weekend, but I can tell by the way my body feels and how my energy level is dragging that I obviously had a busy one.

I can also say, as I sit here typing this, while hearing my 3 1/2 year old grunting on the toilet roughly 10 feet away, that I had one of those weekends where I felt extremely blessed although there were moments of stress as well.

Saturday morning started with chores at the farm and then I rushed out to get home and take Zach to his soccer game in town, my Mom had already left with Sam for hers in Elkhart Lake. Thank goodness I have mastered putting my hair back in a cute little pony tail twist thinger or I would never get to any of these events on time.

Zach had a good game, they won 2-0, but of course when he scored his goal of the game I was on a long walk to the porta potty at the soccer field with Luke and missed it. Never fails.

Immediately after the game the boys and I headed home, Sam was dropped off soon after by my Mom and after they showered from their soccer games we headed off to run some errands. Today was not one of our better days when it came to running errands with Luke. He had me a tad ticked off before we even ate our lunch at the Pizza Ranch, but thanks to the help of the other two kids we managed to calm him down and Mom down and went on our merry way.

Next we ventured to the Hobby Lobby to pick up craft "stuff" to make a school project for Zach this weekend (like we needed anything else to do right?). As my day would have it, they didn't have everything I wanted to make his project so we are now going to improvise and make do with what we found instead. Sounds a lot like the story of life if you ask me.

At this point, I seriously was losing my patience with this defiant son of mine and nixed even attempting to go grocery shopping with him for fear I may completely lose it in front of a million people and well, we just know that wouldn't be good. So we headed home for a little while and then headed to the farm for evening chores. Didn't finally stop moving and sit down until darn near 10 pm Saturday night. Ugh!

Bring on Sunday's plans....

Our first born, Samantha Joyce, was confirmed today at our church. The same church she was baptized at 14 years ago when I was a newby to the whole motherhood thing and had so many life experiences to take part in yet. It honestly seemed like this day was so far away a few years ago but all of a sudden it is now here and gone.

I confess, I sat back and watched her while taking pictures, along with her friend Treylee that she has grown up with at our church, and my heart was filled with a sense of pride and I gave myself a little pat on the back for how she has turned out so far, at the same time there was a part of me that was sad inside. Sad that she is so grown up already, sad that I can't hold her in my arms and rock her to sleep anymore, sad that in a few short years she will move on with her adult life and possibly never look back. Tears are building up in my eyes while I type this.

During the ceremony at church her parents, her Grandmas, her Godparents, her mentor from church, the boys (I left Luke in the church nursery for this process) were invited up front to say some prayers with her and we all had to place a hand on her somewhere, and I had tears in my eyes, tears of joy and a little of sadness too.

Where did my sweet little baby girl go? She certainly can't be this old already can she? Time just flies by way too fast and before you know it, well, it's gone. Man, a person really needs to take advantage of every single opportunity they can and savor it, treasure it and if you can hold it forever. You really can't get these kinds of things back.

So when my kids climb into bed with me (Luke still almost always sleeps in our bed with us), I don't ever kick them out. There will come a time, and I've seen this with Sam and Zach already, when they won't ever do that anymore, and I'm going to keep them close to me as long as I can.

I end this by saying I am so proud of Samantha and the person she has become. She has made many of us so proud. And at the ripe old age of 14 I honestly think she is more strong in her faith and has a better relationship with God than most adults do.

Today was a good day. This weekend was a good weekend. I wouldn't trade it for the world. I'm still exhausted, but it's a good exhausted and I can live with that. May all of you be exhausted by blessings too.

Hidden Treasures

2012-05-11T13:05:00.001-07:00

Motherhood brings as much joy as ever, but it still brings boredom, exhaustion, and sorrow too. Nothing else ever will make you as happy or as sad, as proud or as tired, for nothing is quite as hard as helping a person develop his own individuality especially while you struggle to keep your own. -- Marguerite Kelly and Elia Parsons

What a gorgeous day it is outside today. The sun is shining, there is a nice steady breeze and I am making sure to take all of it in and reflect while watching my little man play in the sand.

Mother's Day is just around the corner and quite honestly, it is hard for me to believe that I have worn the title of "Mother" for 14 years already. It hasn't been easy, that's for sure. But at the same time it has been by far the most rewarding and most important title I will EVER have.

I think about all of the cute experiences I have had the pleasure of experiencing and retelling over the years with each of my children and the conversations we have shared. The singing, the dancing, the storytelling, the vacations, the school projects, the sports they have participated in, the talent shows they have been in and all of the good times.

For example, the time my dear little Samantha, at the ripe old age of 4'ish asked me the following:

"Mom."

"Yes dear," I replied.

She continued, "Why do I only have one mouth?"

To which I replied, "Excuse me?" As I thought I misheard the question.

"Why do I only have one mouth?!" she asked again.

To which I replied, "Well how many do you think you need?"

"Three!!!" she exclaimed.

"Three?" I said. "Oh Lord know. You drive me crazy with the one you have." I stated with a smile on my face.

I mean seriously. Where and why would she even ask something like that? It's not like she saw other people walking down the street with three and she thought she got ripped off or something right? I'll never forget it.

Being a Mom brings all kinds of hidden treasures on a daily basis. Some maybe not the kind of treasures you may really want to find. Like the stain in your rug, the marker on your wall, or the phone call from the school principal (we've experienced all of these through the years).

I did find some cute hidden treasures this morning when doing my laundry however. When opening the clothes chute and taking various things out of it underneath the pile of laundry were these. I think I know who happened to put them in there and it made me smile instantly.

Our dog's toy football

A toy baseball

A toy basketball with an empty paper toweling roll in background

An empty milk container

So, after finding these wonderful surprises Luke and I headed outside for our daily walk to Burmeschs for an ice cream cone and then headed next door to the park for a while. Oh sure, I could've been doing other things in the house as the good Lord knows I never seem to get caught up around here but seriously, what's more important? A spotless house or spending time with my kids and letting them explore and enjoy the beauty surrounding us.

While observing this innocent little guy just entertaining himself in the sand I thought about other stories of the past with my kids and felt very blessed. I have three healthy kids, knock on wood. Three smart kids. Three individual kids who are different in their own ways but alike in others, and I think that's cool as all heck as I have always taught them to be who they are no matter what other people may think of them. Dress the way you feel comfortable (within reason of course), be friends with the people the most like you no matter if they aren't the "popular" or "cool" people necessarily, and fight for your dreams and yourself no matter what. I hope they realize, I think they do, how hard that may be at times but how important it really is.

And most important, to treat others and themselves as God would want them and expect them to as he truly is the ultimate judge.

Which brings me to the last cute story.

Truth be told, our two older kids have seen the Jackass movies. I do use the remote to skip certain scenes however that obviously aren't appropriate but apparently they left a mark on our son, Zachary.

A few years back, him and I had a deep conversation about heaven and hell. And after losing both his grandpas and baby brother he decided his ultimate goal would be to do what God wanted and be a good person (he does struggle with this occasionally) so that he could go to Heaven when he died and see them all again. We talked pretty in depth about this for quite a while when he was in the bathtub and I was sitting on the toilet (fully clothed) talking to him. After this conversation he paused for a short while and said:

"Hey Mom. I bet those guys from Jackass aren't going to Heaven, heh?"

To all you Mommies out there, Happy Mother's Day on Sunday. You all deserve it. It is the toughest job in the world!!! And may God bless you with many more hidden treasures every single day to come.

The Daily Grind

2012-04-27T19:58:00.003-07:00

Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment, full effort is full victory. Mahatma Ghandi

Well it's been a while since I blogged about my new job at the farm and for any of you concerned that it may be because I no longer enjoy it, well, you are wrong. I just felt the need to post about more than that.

But, it's overdue, and my "girls" need a shout out too as they have become a big part of my life.

It's funny, but if you had ever asked me a few years ago if I thought I would have quit my job as a Customer Service Rep to become a full time dairy farmer I'm pretty sure the answer would've been "No". But honest to goodness, I look back now and really think I should've done it sooner for many reasons that I won't necessarily dwell on right now.

Instead, let's take a look at some of the images I see on a daily basis around the farm and explain some of them to you.

Above is an "action" shot. This is what it looks like when the first group of cows start heading into the barn. We have 74 stalls in the barn for the cowies and when 74 cows start walking in the barn one by one I always think it is pretty darn neat. Out of 74 cows, the majority will go exactly to their designated spot without any issue, and then you will have roughly 5 or so that like to screw with you and go somewhere they don't belong and you have to watch for them and direct them to the right spot. Seriously, it's not that they don't know where they belong, they really just like to piss you off I think.

Another picture showing the cows coming in the barn for milking.

With the weather being nicer out now, the cows stay out in one of three areas we have fenced off for them in-between milkings. They love this!!! So before the cows come in the barn one of my jobs is to walk out to where they are and walk them up to the barn. They of course moan and groan (yes seriously, some of them do) when I make them get up from their comfy spots in the dirt/grass/poop to haul ass to the barn, so I get some funny looks. Here are some of the girlies that were nice enough to pose for pictures during this process.

The cows checking me out as I approach them to walk them to the barn for the afternoon milking.

She's looking at me as if to say "Really? Now?"

They are such nosy creatures and always very cautious about people although they are very comfortable with me now.

This is one of the Brown Swiss cows we have at the farm. Sam officially gave her the name Butterscotch years ago when she was just a little calf. I get to milk her :)

Despite what people think, cows do not sleep standing up. A lot of them do what this lovely lady is doing and turn their heads back. Awww, I woke her from her afternoon nap.

This chickie is one of our sassier, I don't give a shit kind of cows in the barn. She doesn't really kick or anything, she's just a pest and wanders into other open stalls to find more food and takes her old sweet time getting out of the barn. I think their eyes and demeanor are so sweet.

The cows headed up towards the barn.

Another one of my jobs at the farm is to take care of the baby calves. Although they can at times be major pain in the butts, just like normal little kids I suppose, at the same time they are very sweet. The first few days they are bottle fed like the little girl below.

But within a few days I try to wean them off the bottles and then start feeding them from pails. They will drink their mother's milk for a day or two but then will be fed milk replacer (Similac for calves) after that. Here is the line up of all the pails I had to make for the little ones today.

There are so many things I see around the farm each and every day.

The gorgeous scenery looking to the south from the barn. I know it may not look like much to the average person but I have found a deep appreciation for the trees and want to climb that one limb that is bent over and just sit there someday. There is also a small river that surrounds the property that is a neat little addition and peaceful.

Yep! Poop, poop and more poop. It is honestly never ending. We could seriously have one full time person around the farm whose sole purpose was to deal with the poop the cows produce and they would likely never run out of work. By the end of a milking I unfortunately have it located in way more places on my body than I care to, but it is what it is, right?

Luke is usually with us at the farm every afternoon so this is a very familiar scene in the barn. Luke running through the barn or riding one of the many vehicles sitting at the top of the barn. Oh my goodness can he cruise on these things. The barn is empty on this photo but quite honestly most of the cows are so used to him being there he can ride all over the place now when they are in the barn and they don't make much of him. Do you think he has enough stuff to ride?

Now onto some of my most memorable cows in the barn. For me anyway.

This is a cow Jeff milks on his side but she stands out to me. I don't know her official name but only know her as #47. She was one of the first cows I could recognize in the barn because her head is always tilted to the side like on this photo. It is never straight. I think this gives her the appearance of always being slightly confused and it makes me giggle. She is also a very nice cow and a "worker" according to my bossman.

This cow is on my side and I should be milking her, however, she is one of roughly three cows total on my side that doesn't like me to milk her necessarily. She has a tad bit of attitude and will continuously stomp her back right leg the entire time I clean her off before putting the milker on. The only way I can get the milker on her is if her Daddy (that being Jeff) stands by her with his hand on her butt/backside so she behaves. Sounds like my kids at home?

This cow is also on Jeff's side of the barn but I just think she is a very nice cow. Currently she is pregnant with her third set of twins. Yes, third!!! One set of her previous twins is also in our barn as milking cows now and her second set of twins is up the road at the other farm growing up yet so they can then become milking cows. So let's just say she is an experienced Mommy (kind of like me) and I just took a liking to her. I'll post pics in a few months of her next set of twins.

This is a photo of a cow on my side I like to call "Big Bertha". I don't think this photo does her justice but I can only think to myself that I am soooo happy I don't have to carry that around every day. Yikers!!! Seriously, when it is time to put the milker on her I darn near have to get down on my knees and put my head under her utter so I can find the tits on the other side of her. No lie!!! Obviously though, she milks out a lot and is very docile!!!

And now let's meet #95. She's kind of a hit or miss/Jeckyl & Hyde kind of cow. You just never know what you're going to get and yep, she's on my side of the barn. Well, I caught her with a bad hair day or something on Wednesday morning's milking and now she will stand out in my head for a while now. Since working at the farm I've had an occasional kick here and there but nothing overally major. Well, thanks to this snotty lady above that has all changed.

While holding her milker in place (squatted on the side of her) as it was leaking air she decided she was going to let me know who was boss and rammed me in the knee roughly 2-3 times. Needless to say a few choice words were uttered as I flew into the aisle to get away from her "issue" and well, yeah, I've milked her two times since with no problems, but the slightest hint that she has PMS or whatever and Jeff is hanging that milker on, not me. Below is the damage. Ouch!!!

It's a constant adventure. It takes a lot of patience working with the hubby who isn't always the most understanding and supportive in some situations. Overall though, it's great!

It's hard to explain to somebody who hasn't done this themselves. So totally different than the corporate world. I'm thankful I'm not stuck inside all day anymore and have found a new appreciation for so many things this world has to offer.

Who would've thought it would take this to make me realize so much?

Annual Bloody Mary

2012-04-23T10:25:00.000-07:00

One reason I don't drink is that I want to know when I am having a good time. ~Lady Astor

So, this past weekend was my annual weekend getaway without the hubby, without the kids and without the worries of every day life. No cooking, no cleaning, I was able to sleep in and there were no kids hollering or whining at me because they were hungry or their sibling was driving them crazy and what not. And it was that time of the year where I consumed my annual Bloody Mary on a Sunday morning at 9:30 am. Yummy!!!

This past weekend I attended the State Bowling tournament in Madison with some members of our Tuesday night bowling team along with some borrowed members from another team in our league. Every year around this time I go to this and it has become a tradition for me to go with my Mom. I think I have personally been going for about 19 years already.

My Mommy and I at the bowling tournaments this past weekend.

Now for any of you wondering about our expertise as bowlers, I'll let you know there really isn't any. Ha ha. I mean, really, we all enjoy bowling or we wouldn't be doing it, and we all have an occasional awesome game here and there, but to say any of us are real good bowlers would be a lie. We go to the tournament to have a good time and get away as friends/family for a little while.

I personally look forward to it for the following reasons: going out to eat at nice restaurants in-between the bowling sessions, being able to see new places, getting a break from being a Mom and wife for a little while and spending time with my Mom, my best friend Stacy and a fun group of ladies!!!

My best friend Stacy and I.

Other members of our bowling group drinking their bloody marys.

Margie and Kaylene from our team.

My Mom and Lori waiting to bowl.

Our whole team. What a crazy bunch, heh?

Some of the women that attend this event really give 'er when they go and seem to be quite intoxicated while there (that always make for cheap entertainment for us). I however choose not to drink more than my fair share and usually stay pretty low key when it comes to the alcoholic beverages. I have learned over time that alcohol and I just don't get along too well and I'd like to think I'm old enough to have learned from past experiences.

So, the comraderie (I think that's how you spell it) was great!!! Our meals were superb!!! My bed at the hotel was extremely comfy (loved the pillow), although my internal clock woke me up at 3:45 am thinking I had to go milk the cows. Thank goodness I was able to turn back over and sleep in for a while. Nice!!!

And the coolest thing is, for once, I actually bowled well the entire weekend and didn't miss my average one game. In fact I earned myself a 200 pin for bowling a 226 game my first time on the alley. Yeah baby!!!

I look forward to next year when it is in Milwaukee. And I am thankful for the great time we all had this year.

And once again, the family survived without me although Luke seems to be giving me a little bit of the cold shoulder today (little crapper). Gotta love three year olds!!!