Category Archives: life

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Never have a city girl feed the goats.

Never, and I mean never, send a city girl to feed the goats. That is the lesson I learned this weekend. Now it all worked out okay. We all got a good laugh but it was a lesson in life and a good topic to share.

I am a city girl. While I do not live in a town, my housing development probably has 1000 people living here. I would not even call myself rural. I live in between a city, Omaha, NE and a smaller city, Blair, NE. I have never lived on a farm. I grew up in the Omaha area. I am not necessarily fond of farm animals. I will walk through the livestock barns at the state fair but that is more for the family than myself. I would rather be in the quilting building or the building that has all of the canning items or the retail building.

The Girl Scouts in my county had an overnight to celebrate the birthday of the founder of Girl Scouting, Juliette Gordon Low. I organized it so it was held at Camp Fontanelle, the church camp where our family volunteers and our children attend. We are very devoted to this camp.

This camp offers a lot in the fall. There is a corn maze, a pumpkin patch, tree climbing, hiking, outdoor evening movies, overnights and there is even a petting barn that houses numerous types of animals. Our troops were taking advantage of these opportunities. As we are Girl Scouts, we wanted to perform some type of service for the camp. Some of the things that were suggested were a little too difficult for the younger Girl Scouts so I suggested we go to the petting barn and take care of the animals. The director and asst. director of the camp thought that was good and said that we could feed the goats. They said I need to feed them two leaves and I would find them under the tarp, that they were square. I heard what they said, but not really. I went on my merry way to get help from the girls.

I, with another adult, looked under the tarp and could not find any small squares of hay. All I could see were bales. My thought was, “Oh, they must mean 2 bales and they just used ‘country’ language.” Now mind you, there are four goats and one sheep. No way could they eat 2 bales. But I was doing what I was told. I told my friend that we should just put one bale in and then check to see about the second bale.

This is when the girls could help. I got my camera out and snapped away while my friend and the girls dropped the hay bale into the pen. We were so proud! I snapped away photos of the goats eating the hay (above), of the girls posing outside the pen. This city girl can do country work; so I thought.

I found the director and asst director working with the girls and their tree climbing (BTW, not the way that I climbed a tree. This is more like rock climbing without the rock, just the ropes hanging from sturdy limbs. photo  below) I told them what I did and asked if that is what they meant. They both laughed and said that I gave them enough food for about 5 days! I immediately headed back over the barn to correct my error.

Those goats never looked so happy. They were gnawing away at the bale and if they could have talked, I think they would have told me they were delirious with joy. Such a table we had spread for them. We needed to get that bale out so I took 2 leaves (which, by the way, is a section of the bale that is naturally made in the baler when it is being formed. You just have to grab from the end and it will naturally break) and threw them in the pen to get the animals away from the bale. My friend jumped in the pen and lifted the bale to me and I put it back under the tarp. Crisis averted! I couldn’t imagine how miserable those animals would have been. And to think I thought two of the bales was what was needed!

So what is the lesson. There are many. The obvious is, don’t assume that you can figure out what is meant. If you don’t understand, ask questions.

Secondly, you don’t always know what is best. Those goats and that sheep were excited to have so much food. They went to town and were being very gluttonous. I think they would have eaten on that bale until it was gone. That would have been very bad for them and made them very ill.

Thirdly, it is okay to not know everything. There are many things in which I excel: cooking, baking, singing, organizing/managing. I know my limits at home. I choose not to use the riding lawnmower. It scares the livin’ daylights out of me.

And lastly, don’t send a city girl to feed the goats. Except now I know what a leaf is so I actually could feed the goats now! Let’s hope that this lesson is remembered when I run into the next time when I think, “I can figure it out when I get there.”

After the Girl Scout event was over, I, with 3 of the women that were at the campout, went shopping for fabric to make a quilt for the annual fundraising auction for Camp Fontanelle. Hours later, my friend was still laughing so hard about the escapades that tears were streaming down her face. We definitely had our fill of laughing for the weekend.

Life is good!

My latte’ for the day was chocolate, almond.

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Mad Libs – A Lesson for Life

In honor of Mad Libs and in the memory of its founder, Leonard B. Stern, who died this week at the age of 88 years, I write this in the true Mad Libs form. I will fill in the blanks with my words. You may choose your own words to fill in the blanks.

Mad Libs (noun) is like life (noun). The skeleton is (verb) there and it is up to you (pronoun) to add color (noun), action (noun) and variety (noun).

You (pronoun) can decide whether you will have a beautiful (adjective) day (noun) or a yucky (adjective) day (noun). Will you (pronoun) gracefully (adverb) meet (verb) your struggles (plural noun) or will you fall (verb) short? While many (adjective) people (plural noun) feel (verb) that they do not have control (noun) of their own life (noun). They feel (verb) powerless (adjective) in their attempts. Over (preposition) time, they lose (verb) confidence and day (noun) after day (noun) their self-esteem (noun) is lost (adjective).

What can be done (adjective) to ensure (transitive verb) you (pronoun) control (verb) your life (noun)? Feel (verb) good (adjective) about (preposition) yourself. You should exercise (noun) at least five (number) times a week and get enough rest (noun); seven (number) hours (plural noun) a night. Eat (verb) a proper (adjective) diet (noun). Try to laugh (verb) every (adjective) day and find (verb) love (noun). With those steps (plural noun), you can be on the road (prepositional phrase) to a great (adjective) life.

Composing that Mad Lib was not easy, and neither is life. Some struggle with major issues; how do I protect my children from bullies, where will I come up with the money to pay those medical bills, how come I can’t find a job? Some have minor problems; how do I get my child from Point A to Point B this week when I am so busy? And sometimes we just have annoyances; I need more time in my day to get things complete.

No matter where we fit in, whether we have struggles, problems or annoyances, all of these things, or any combination of the three, we must remember that what you have, the person next to us has. Their problems may be multiplied exponentially. So when we think about how disconnected that person is, or maybe rude, or moody, it may be that they feel at a loss. Kindness begets kindness, Maybe if we show kindness and caring, it will make the person feel better if they are having a bad day or it may make you feel better.

In the end, try to do something nice for yourself every day. It may be reading a book, snuggling with your child (ren), spouse or loved one, taking a long bath, laughing, or crying. Every morning, I make a nice BIG latte and it helps start my day on a good note. Today my latte was Toasted Marshmallow Pumpkin. It was very nice on this blustery, rainy day.

Remember that you have more control than you think. You have the chance to choose the adjectives and adverbs for your life. Try to make them positive and uplifting, not words or thoughts that are downgrading and negative to you and those that you effect.

Take control. Remember those days when you played Mad Libs and laughed and laughed and laughed because of the words you chose.

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Bread Pudding

I said I might write about bread pudding today and decided it was a quirky topic and I should just go for it. Who knows how this will develop. We will go on this journey together.

I love bread pudding! Whenever I see it on the menu, I will order it for dessert. That is quite the commentary because I generally never order dessert from a restaurant. I then make a judgement of the restaurant based on how I liked the bread pudding. I do the same when it comes to eggplant parmesan in Italian restaurants and tamales in Mexican restaurants.

I like my bread pudding to be moist but not so moist that you can’t differentiate the torn (or cut) pieces of bread. It has to have the perfect consistency that doesn’t taste mushy in my mouth. It needs to be not too dry, not too wet. Just like Goldilocks, it needs to be just right.

It can be chocolate bread pudding or banana or just plain ol’ bread pudding. What is a delicacy, but really adds to my enjoyment, is a warmed rum butter sauce. In fact, I would say a standard bread pudding with a warmed rum butter sauce and oh yea, nuts sprinkled on top is the best of the best.

I guess I am somewhat like bread pudding. I am just a plain ol’ girl from the Midwest. I like to think that I have good values that are simple to follow; be nice, give back to the community through service, and raise a family that is respected by the community. I think that whatever you believe in, you need to be consistent and follow through. As a Christian, I believe I should be in church every Sunday. Yes, there may be days that I would rather stay under my nice warm quilts, but going to church is the least I can do to thank God for allowing me to wake up every morning.

I would like to live a simple life. How wonderful it would be to not be tied to a computer for communication or a cellphone for that same reason. How nice it would be to wake up in the morning and only need to worry about making the best home for my family and volunteering to make my community a better place to live.

All very simple. You know there has to be a but coming though don’t you…

BUT that is not the reality of our world. We need to be connected to our electronic world. That is just the way it is. If it weren’t for the internet, I would not be blogging and you would not be reading this post right now. If it weren’t for the cellphone, I wouldn’t be able to have a sense of security knowing that I can get a hold of my children when I need that connection. Our family has been able to learn about the world and our country because of our traveling. What a wonderful opportunity we have had that many have not.

Those things are the rum butter sauce and nuts. Without those extras, the food is good (life) but the extras help me appreciate everything that this world has to offer. Without the internet or our traveling, our world would be so small. I am so glad that we have been able to expand our children’s scope of the world because of those extras.

So while my simple rules for life are good, because of the rum sauce and nuts, my life does seem more complete. There are days when I just am bread pudding and have no toppings. I clean my home, run errands for the whole family, bake/cook and do all of those domestic things that I just love. More times than not, there is so much more going on that it gets crazy. There are days that not only is there rum sauce and nuts, but sprinkles and whipped cream or maybe a flambe’ is made by adding rum and catching it on fire. Those days when I have added a little too many extras, make me a little crazy and I feel overwhelmed. The simple life helps me appreciate those extras and conversely the extras help me appreciate when things are simple. In that way, my life is complete.

How is your life complete, are you a plain bread pudding or are you someone with a few toppings or an overload?

My coffee latte for the day was Almond Joy; chocolate, almond and coconut.

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Politics

Okay, I am kidding. I am really not going to write about politics, specifically. I am going to talk about kindness, consideration, responsibility.

First of all, I have not watched any debates and have never planned on watching anything like that. And, believe it or not, I am very politically minded. I don’t watch them because I know how I am going to vote and I know that watching the debates would just get me frustrated and stressed. I hate how comments are twisted and something that seems common sense to me is interpreted by another party and it takes a whole other personality and then causes confusion. I hate how people stereotype and how polarizing politics has become.

So let me write about what I believe. I hope that you do not put me in a category or stereotype me. I am sure by the end of describing who I am, you can guess my party. But let me tell you that I do not agree 100% with my party. What I believe is what I believe. I just so happens that what I do believe fits primarily in one party.

Maybe you haven’t read anything of mine before so let me tell you a few things. I am a stay-at-home mom who has a couple of minimal paying jobs. I am a church handchime director for youth 7-10 years old. I also direct a youth vocal choir. The members are from 11-18. I receive less than $1500.00 a year for these two choirs. I am a substitute teacher but am limited to 40 days a year as I do not have a teaching certificate. I have taken classes to be able to sub and I can sub K-12. I do like subbing. I volunteer for the Girl Scouts, the Boy Scouts, my church, the school, a church camp, My children started out in public school but because my husband traveled with his job, we decided to homeschool so we could travel. The children were homeschooled for six years. This is their second year back in school. We have a son who is a Junior (who was just accepted in the National Honor Society) and a daughter who is a Freshman.

I have a degree in mass communications and met my husband two years after I graduated from college. We have been married 23 1/2 years. We lived in Spain for a short time, almost a year, when our children were 3 & 5.

That is a little about me. Now about what I believe.

I BELIEVE…you have to believe in something bigger than yourself. For me, it is God.
I BELIEVE…My husband and I are responsible for raising our children. It is our job to teach them morals, responsibility, and to guide them in a way that they can be independent, self-sufficient, Christian minded adults.
I BELIEVE…that we pay way too much in health insurance and taxes. With my husband being self-employed, people don’t realize how much we have to pay out.
I BELIEVE…that unless it is physically impossible, you should do some kind of work. If you are on assistance, get off your tail and volunteer if you can’t find a job.
I BELIEVE…that welfare was not meant to be a program that was long-term.
I BELIEVE…I should do everything possible to help our Earth. We recycle, live in an energy-efficient home, have a solar panel, are conscious about using our yard to filter out any chemicals that might run into the lake from the residents uphill.
I BELIEVE…that too many children today feel entitled and do not show enough respect to authority figures.
I BELIEVE…that if schools can teach about Kwanza, Hanukkah, they should be able to talk about Christmas and Easter.
I BELIEVE…that the Ten Commandments are good rules to follow, regardless of your belief. I mean don’t we want to people to not steal, cheat, kill, covet, etc…
I BELIEVE…You should teach your children that they should get married before they live together or have sex. (what they do is their business but I would not teach my children anything different)
I BELIEVE…if I have to pay for your children, I should be able to tell you how many to have.
I BELIEVE…that we live in the greatest country in the world. Having lived in Europe, I have seen how others live and the freedoms that we have are phenomenal. Many Americans do not appreciate what they have.

If you cannot guess my political party, I am not going to tell you. But I believe that you have a right to disagree with me. And I will not call you names. I can tell you that people from another party have called me clueless, a f***ing idiot, racist, and I could go on. I would never talk that way to anyone.

I also can’t believe that this country would not want people to work hard, to make all the money they can, so they can put it back into the economy, or save it for their retirement, or give it to not for profit organizations to be able to help those that are unable to help themselves. I can’t believe that we, as a society, want people to be dependent on government for their survival. How sad is it that we are teaching people to be complacent and not be engaged in their own life.

If someone disagrees with my statements, I am sorry. I like to think that I have it right. If you do not agree that people should want to be independent, that we should be concerned about our environment, that my husband should be allowed to provide for our family by hunting deer, antelope, etc…, that we should be allowed to make money so we can help others, then you must not be a member of the party for which I am a member. BUT I do not like controversy, so I will not tell you which party it is.

That is the beauty of this country, we have the chance to be a part of different political parties. That is not the case in other countries.

I guess you can decide if my statement that I was not going to write about politics was accurate or not. Maybe tomorrow I will write about bread pudding!

Oh and BTW, my coffee was a take off of the Magic Bar, chocolate, butterscotch and coconut. It was Nummy!

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Twin Bing old-fashioned candy bar for an old-fashioned wife

Twin Bing, the name of my coffee today. It is made with Black Cherry, Chocolate and Macadamia Nut flavoring. I added a little coconut for added flavoring. The original Twin Bing is made with Cherry nougat, chocolate and ground peanuts. I did the best I could to match the flavor but there is no peanut flavoring that I can find.

Today was just one of those days. Not a bad day, but a day that went by quickly. My intention was to have it be a day of running errands. Go to the bank, the store, check on the cat that we are cat sitting. I wanted to get those things done today so I could spend the day home tomorrow and clean, organize, etc…

The day started late. I mean I was up before 6:30 but when I thought I would be out of the house before 8:00, it was well after 9:00 before I walked out the door. And instead of going to one bank, I went to two banks, one for my daughter and one for the GIrl Scout troop. I then had to go to the church because there was some Girl Scout items there that were dropped there for me, so an additional stop. Next was the post office. I dropped off a letter and a package and then headed south to Omaha. I thought I would be home by noon and it was 10:30 before I was even in the city. I guess my day was going to be longer than I had expected.

I stopped at the BP gas station where I had a coupon to get 5 cents off a gallon. Needed to use that with the price of gasoline these days. I had this brainy idea that I should call my girlfriend who works in Omaha and have her meet me at Nobbies to pick up items for the Girl Scout overnight. Nobbies (nobbies.com) is a local party store that is better known nationwide for their catalog/internet business, Oriental Trading (orientaltrading.com). It is the best place to purchase items for holidays and parties. Joan and I met and got the cute little Halloween craft items for the upcoming overnight. After we went our separate ways, I decided I was close so I would visit the cat that we are watching. While spending time in the home, my husband calls and asks how close I am to being able to go home. I told him I was just finishing up with the cat and I still needed to do the grocery shopping. He said that he needed me to go home and check to see if he really had purchased his deer tags for this season. He had heard a rumor that the deer tags were going to stop being sold as of tomorrow (ended up being not true) so I headed home to check. I told Kent that I would go shopping tomorrow.

That is what I like about my life. I am a wife. I do not have a full-time job so I can be around and take care of the family. I know that there are women out there that think I am so old-fashioned and I should “get a life”. But I like being able to be around and be the errand runner, the person that people can count on at any time of the day or night.

If I had a full-time job in an office, I never would have been able to take off time to run home and see that Kent had the deer tags purchased for the season. He was worried and being in Colorado, he would not have felt as ease until he knew that he really had taken care of the tags. Because I don’t have a full-time paying job outside the home, I was able to be a comforter for a friend who needed to get to UNMC in Omaha for her husband. She didn’t know her way around Omaha and she knew that I could get her there in a timely manner. I was there when my girlfriend had to make the decision to take her husband off of life support. I took care of her daughter when she just couldn’t handle it anymore. I was able to homeschool our children for 6 years, which has helped mold them to who they are today. If being available for the people I love, having the ability to drop things to help out, to volunteer for causes that are important to me makes me an old-fashioned woman, then that is what I am.

BUT… I am an independent person. While I do not make money that I could support myself, I have the personality of a business woman. I expect things to be run properly. I expect respect from anyone I work with in my volunteering, substitute teaching, my music work at church or all of the committees of which I am involved. I dress neatly and when necessary, professionally. I am polished in all I do.

People who know me, know one of my favorite sayings, “I wish I could live the Amish life.” And it is true, I love the sense of community that the Amish have. I like that they share their resources. I would love to have the ability to grow all of my own food, trade my goods for things that I cannot grow or make.

I have a garden, I make quilts (not as many as I would like). I can sew. I do not knit or crochet or have a garden the size I would like. I do have the ability to grow some vegetables in the winter as we have a greenhouse. I have actually made cheese and I regularly make bread for the family. I am an awesome cook (if I say so myself) and love to do those things for my family. I sing, cross stitch, am a pretty good organizer and have leadership skills. I can speak in front of 300 people and not bat an eye and I can teach young people how to develop their music talents with their voices and musical instruments. So with all of the domestic talents I have, I have just as many business-like talents.

Which do I like better? I have no favorite because, for me, they each compliment each other and when they work together, it enhances everything. I am who I am; Independent, dependent, interdependent. I love my life and the irony of everything I am and do.I am such a mixed bag and I wouldn’t change a thing.