October skies are cloudy..

The snow is mostly melted now, but not on the mountains. It got me in a Christmassy mood, and now I have to switch back to pumpkins and turkeys!

Where have I been?

HOnestly, I don't really know. I really tried to get a cute video of Caleb posted and when I couldn't get the thing loaded, I lost the motivation.
Then both our computers crashed.

So here's an update in a sort of stream of conscienceness format:

In the past few weeks my stomach has popped out like a turkey timer. I have to wear all my ugly, too short maternity pants. Actually, the pants themselves aren't ugly at all, it's the bottom of the pants lightly brushing the tops of my shoes that is ugly.

Got the ultrasound of new baby. When I saw "it" on the screen I thought it might be a boy, but then I had a really intense dream last night where I gave birth to a little girl. The ultrasounds now a days are incredible!!!!! And since I got one so late in the game, "it" really looked like the chubby cuteness one associates with a baby. Rather than what looks like a grainy shot of a potato.

Put an ad of my 4 year old mare on the website : ranchworldads.com. If you are at work and therefore have free time to check it out, look under "horses for sale" and then under "08 Doc O Lena, Doc Quixote bred" I think Tack is in one of the shots and my shadow is in another.

I have been cooking lunch for Western Frontiers a couple of times a week and have really enjoyed it- I hate cooking at home, but there's something about having a huge industrial kitchen and a clean up crew that makes cooking fantastic! I cook for about 20 people. Bringing back some memories....

Caleb has absolutely earned his name of "tornado boy." He likes making international calls on the phone, puzzles, and looking at books. This apart from the usual eating dog food and playing with dirt.

The church is going well, we got a few new families so I am hitting the sunday school trail again. Celebrate Recovery tugs along and is really good for our community. We are starting some leadership training for all the leaders in the surrounding areas since almost everyone who is leading CR has no training. It feels like we are all banding together to pioneer this thing in our basin and that is a really fun feeling.

Been doing some sewing- very cute Christmas presents, if I do say so myself. Sewing is something that has taken me 15 years to get to the point of enjoyment, but I really like it now. It helps to have a slightly perfectionist personality, which I don't at all, but have slowly been cultivating in my life to my own benefit.

Life looks pretty good from here. I worked out of my last post a while ago, so I haven't been depressed the last two months like my blog made it seem!

I think I am going to post this without even spellchecking!

Living from teh edge,
Faith

Child Labor Law- if it's a child, it should labor

He'll qualify for minimum wage pretty soon and finally start pulling his weight around here.

Healing word

Coming off of a week of fantastic family time, it feels like I hit low gear coming home. Things have been so difficult since coming back to this place I still think I love.

Pastoring is such a different life than that of missionary. There are different irritations, different dry spots, different perseverences. Lately it feels like we have dropped a plow into the desert and are trying so hard to get the field growing. Our muscles strain, our feet dig in but we are still cultivating a place that resists growth. Nothing comes easily. The rocks seem unending and I am getting tired of keeping the plow straight.

Today I was having a time of worship and the Lord brought this song to me:

I lift my hands in sweet surrender

Your holy presence covers me

Yours is the voice, there is no other

You speak the word that sets me free

Healing word, You speak the healing word

The healing word sets me free

Healing word, you speak the healing word

The healing word I receive

Because Mom said so.......

Well, after the post about the horses, Mom wrote in commenting on the lameness of the girls' names. It's true, they are pretty lame and it took me months to name them!!!!
Months!
I royally suck at picking out names, as evidenced by my track record:
rabbit- Johnny Boy this one still makes me laugh
rabbit- Jessie actually, not too bad.
cat- Lurch what?
gold fish- Fishey awesome. Truly plumbing the depths of creativity on that one.
dog- Barnabey now that was perfect, but named by Mom, so it doesn't count
dog- Tack this is a terrible name, but after calling it Puppy for 3 months, I had to draw the line.

So in the light of my miserable naming attempts, I'm calling out for help:


Name my horses. If you come up with one I like better than sister or kitty, it will go on the papers. It's up to you faithful readers. Bring on the names.

The 28 year old dream:

For a girl who grew up on Trixie Beldon, National Velvet, Black Beauty, The Black Stallion etc. etc, it seemed just cruel that I never had a horse. No matter that we lived in a city, I was an irresponsible dreamer capable of killing of many a fish through lack of feeding, and none of my family really even liked animals, it was still just cruel!

Then I worked in a breeding stable. I was close.

Then I moved to Wyoming, where people stuff horses into their yards no matter HOW urban they lived. I was very very close.

Then I married the cowboy and came to the horrifying realisation that he DIDN'T WANT A HORSE!!!

How could that be? Was he not the real deal? Did he not spend hours apon hours in the saddle as a cowboy???

Therein lay the problem. The cowboy has this mentality: horses are for getting a job done. Not for fun. They are too expensive and problematic to be considered a hobby.

I was crushed. What could I do?? There was no way I could justify having a horse since there was no kind of work I could do with one. (Read the post where I "sort cattle")

I was bereft. I was hopeless.

I forgot that the Cowboy really does love me.

Imagine my surprise when I asked him to go to a sale in Worland with me and he said there was no way he was going to let me but a horse without him.

Did you catch that? "BUY A HORSE" Yessssssssssssssssssssssss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, we went to the sale and we came home with not one, but TWO horses, Sister and Kitty.

this is Kitty:

she is Ron's horsethis is Sister:

she is my horse

Because of the major slump in the horse market due to the closing of all slaughter plants in the US, these horses came extremely cheap. They have excellent bloodlines that show up in their awesome conformation. Let me explain:

In this picture Sister is standing a little funny because she is almost on top of that waterer, but we can still critique.

She has a nice big hip (butt) which is a horses' engine. Good.

She has a deep girth (ribs) meaning she's got a lot of space to breathe. Good for a barrel horse moving at top speeds.

Her neck ties in nicely to her shoulder and her shoulder is big and slanted. This means she will have a smooth way of moving. She's got a very pretty head and nice expression.

She has a short back and nice withers, which all is good for an athletic horse.

Overall, both Sister and Kitty were absolute bargains. The Lord was looking out for me when we went to this sale. Sister was barely green broke, so I have been working with her, getting her ready to ride. It's a slow but enjoyable process. Unfortunatly I will have to stop pretty soon because of the baby.

Kitty is halter broke and that's about it. I would like to sell her but the cowboy wants to hang on to her.

Did anyone else notice that THE COWBOY bought a horse? What can I say- auctions are exciting places!

So that's the dream come true!

The boy, uncut and unrated

So this is what Caleb has been excited about lately. He will feed Tack one kibble of dog food at a time. Although it's more like: 3 kibbles for Tack, one for Caleb, 3 kibbles for Tack, one for Caleb. Did you see him lick the delicious dog food off of his fingers at the end of the video? Nice.

And in case some of you are wondering about his nutrition levels, I do feed him normal food too, as evidenced by the spaghetti face: (and highchair and wall and floor)

I've heard from certain family members who read this blog and DO NOT COMMENT (leading me to believe I only had two family members that ever read this therefore I could post pretty much anything I wanted no matter how boring (i.e. the birthday video)) that I need to put up more pics of Caleb and some walking video- so stay tuned. Coming up soon.

Who am I kidding? it will probably be next moonth. But it will be good.