January 2015 | Page 2 of 3 | Midwestern At Heart

Sometimes things happen for a reason

Sometimes life throws you curve balls, I’m sure we’ve all experienced at least one! Well mine gave me the opportunity to go back to school Fall 2013. It’s been quite the road trip and I swear I walk away feeling like the problem child more often than not.

I don’t have a degree in English yet I’m pursing my Master’s in English – Technical and Professional writing.
I had to take extra classes that my first degree didn’t require so I didn’t have a full Master’s load of classes last spring. Why does that make me the problem child you ask? Well at the semester in which you’ll complete 27 hours you take your first round of Comps. Yeah so… at the end of this semester I’ll be at 24 hours so I don’t take comps this spring, so either I have to take a summer class and comps or wait and take them in the fall when I’ll basically be done with classes at the end… or technically I’ll need one class the following spring. See the conundrum?
The degree program I’m going after they did away with. There’s one gal who is ahead of me in classes and then there’s me. We’re the last two pursuing this degree, but she’s ahead of me when the class was offered so they know what to do with her, they sometimes scratch their head with me.
Literature isn’t where my heart is so it’s extremely painful sometimes reading poems like Beowulf and The Rape of the Lock. I like to read but I’m more of a contemporary reader. I want to read something about Photography or a good romance novel or a Stephanie Plum novel or even just some fast read that is a current seller.

And the list goes on and on. But I don’t want to give up. I’m pursuing my degree hot and heavy. I’m scared a lot. I feel out of my league a lot. I want to cry sometimes. But it’s all good. It’s making me grow, right? please someone comfort me and tell me that this is making me grow :).

I’m a member of a Women’s organization, PEO and every day (most every day anyway) I get an email from our president with words of well wishing or quotes. Today’s quote really applies to me and made me smile:

While driving along the road to success resist the urge to exit simply because you see a really great parking space!

Exactly, just keep plugging away! Be the little tug boat or the engine that could!

That thing that happened in high school that pretty much changed your life forever

So one day I ran across a list of 50 post ideas on Fat Mum Slim. One of the ideas was that thing that happened in high school that pretty much changed your life forever. Wow, now that’s deep. Truthfully there are 2 different events that happened, one happened when I was a freshman and the other happened when I was a sophomore.

Let’s focus on the thing that happened when I was a freshman though.

I grew up showing horses. That’s no news here. We had Arabians that we showed in Western Pleasure type classes until I was 5 and then my mom her gelding and we got out of the Arabian horses and bought Quarter Horses that we showed in Cutting events. So I pretty much grew up sitting on the fence learning how to show cutting horses until the day I got to show.

But that’s not what we’re focusing on today… oooo did I mislead you? So I got into 4-H just because I wanted to show at the county fair, but I didn’t show the type of horses that they showed at the 4-H County Fair show, but I went and competed anyway. It still wasn’t where my heart was.

Then when I became a Freshman in high school I joined FFA.

That was my turning point. I got to wear those spiffy Blue Corduroy Jackets with the FFA emblem on it. I got to learn the FFA Creed. And I got into showing livestock, which is what I wanted to show at the county fair.

But FFA gave me so much more. It gave me a voice, it gave me purpose, it gave me everything. I can’t say enough good things about the blue and gold, and that perfect corduroy jacket!

Honor to Veterans – Try Scuba Diving Day

Holy cow, not only is it Monday, but it’s the start of the spring school semester. I’m not going to lie, I kind of wanted to cry this morning, a little bit anyway… because I don’t really care for night classes and I have 2 again this semester. Ugh! But not only that, the worst weather we get here in Southwest Missouri usually happens in January through March and I drive a car. Blech! But whatever… that’s neither here nor there… and I’ll survive!

Now the real reason I’m here today is not to complain about the beginning of the spring semester, but it’s to tell you about my Saturday. We had Tbug this weekend and she made the comment on Sunday that it’s nice to just sit around, especially because we HARDLY. EVER. sit around when she’s at our house… very true girl! very true.

Anyway Saturday Extreme Sports Scuba had a Veteran’s Try Diving Day. It was all thought up because in November (the 11th) is Veteran’s Day but every day the troops put their lives out on the line for us, so why do we only honor the veteran’s in November (and for that matter, why do we only honor the current servers only in May…) so we thought it would be fun to put together a day in honor of them. Allow them to come out to a heated in door pool and give scuba diving a try. And that’s just what happened.

Now I want to tell you, when I woke up Saturday morning and got in my car, the temperature read 13˚F. Yuck! Anyway we dropped baby girl off with my parents and headed on over to the dive shop. Once there, we helped hook up to the trailer and away we went to 5 Mile Children’s Camp where we were having the Try Scuba diving in a heated in door pool! The Pool conditions were 83˚F. Inside the building was great, unless someone opened the overhead door. And I eventually wound up in the pool when the kids “pushed” me in. Okay so I should fess up, I jumped in on my own free will, but allowed them to think they pushed me in.

But because I was already in the water, I borrowed Deb’s gear and proceeded to dive myself. Now the way we handle tanks here is that we always try to do the visual inspections in January when most people aren’t diving so that you aren’t without gear come the summer months. Hubby was told to drain his tank down to get it on their schedule. He tried and tried… but he’s gotten better at air conservation so eventually I had taken Deb’s gear off, took hubby’s main 2nd stage regulator, had him us the backup regulator and let him drag me around the pool so that 2 of us were using up his air. When I finally quit, he was still going… But we eventually got it down and had a blast doing it.

My only complaint for the day, I have really long, really thick hair, and on my back when it was wet and cold outside. blech!

When we brought the tanks in from the trailer, they all frosted over from the cold to the hot.

(more…)

The Saturday Post {83}

Top 5 Posts of the Week
1. 365 – Midmonth photos 62-76

2. Christmas in the Country 2014

3. Tbugisms

(more…)

Tbug's Birthday

In a weird turn of events for us, we were able to see/have Tbug on her birthday. Long story short, the night before her mom asked what the plan was for us getting her the next day so we picked her up at noon. Hubby and I let her pick where she wanted to eat lunch, she chose Logan’s Roadhouse. Then we headed home for the afternoon.

The last weekend she was at our house, we took her around looking for new boots. Her current ones fit her still and are in really good condition (she takes good care of them!!) but it is usually a tradition that for her birthday she gets new boots. We took her to Cavenders, The Justin Boot Outlet and then to White’s Feed & Tack looking for boots. She’s a smart girl, so obviously she probably guessed that she’d get boots but we never let on. We just told her we were looking to try and see what was out there, what size she needed and what she liked. She picked 3 pairs, one at the Justin Boot Outlet and 2 at Whites. Then I sent pictures to my mom, sent her back to pick them up for me once we left their house and BAM, she got her boots. They are Macie Beans and she loves them, although sadly she hasn’t gotten to wear them yet. This weekend!

Then she loves to read and she loves Duck Dynasty. While watching Dancing with the Stars this season they mentioned that Sadie Robertson wrote a book so I figured that Tbug would love reading it so we ordered the book. She was so excited about the book she wanted to take it to her mom’s, which we told her she could but then she decided to send it to our house and she’d read it here.

Since we didn’t think we were going to get her for her birthday, we didn’t have a game plan on where we were going to eat. Once we picked her up she chose HuHot. No problem :). And it just so lucked out that my Mother-in-Law had taken that day off so she was able to go to dinner with us as well as my parents.

My only complaint about the night, the waitress sucked. She totally ignored our table and kissed up to the table next to us. Our table, yeah we didn’t get any refills on drinks or any plates taken away.

But all-in-all, we had a great day/evening with Tbug and no we have one more year before we have a teenager on our hands! Oh heaven help us :). Although she’s a GREAT kid!

Friends Weekend

Sometimes there are people who come into your life that have a very deep impact. One of those people would be Tim. He and hubby (along with Tim’s brother, Greg) have been friends for what seems like forever, long before I dated hubby anyway. And the one true test of friendship is the fact that you may not be able to see each other for a while, and you’re still friends and pick up where you left off from the last time you talked.

Back in October we saw Tim for the first time since our wedding when he and Greg showed up to the wedding as a surprise. (We were pretty sure Tim was coming but Greg was a different story, he flew halfway around the world to be at our wedding which was a surprise for hubby.) Anyway a few days before Christmas Tim and hubby made plans that they wanted to see each other so Tim’s family drove here from Kentucky to spend a few days with our family and his. (His dad’s family lives about an hour from us.) And I can tell you that they geeked out All. Weekend. Long.

Let’s see we had lots of food. Breakfast Potato casserole, Biscuits and Gravy, Ham and Scalloped Potatoes, Poulet Tchoupitoulas and Andouille Pudding, um… and that’s just what I can remember, plus we took them to eat dinner one night at one of our new favorite Mexican restaurants in town.

Taking over the geek-a-thon

Dinner with Tim’s family.

Christmas in the Country 2014

Baby girl had her 6 month doctors appointment and shots this morning so I’m a little behind on getting this up… please understand! but….

Today is the day, the day to reveal my gift from the Country in the Christmas link up.

Hosted by these wonderful ladies!! This Uncharted Rhoade, COUNTRY LINKed, Diaries from the Dirt Road and The Ranch Wife Chronicles
So we were given a person to shop for, by the way, I had fun going to our local Amish store and getting her some of my favorites, including but not limited to: crinkle cookies! and even a present that came from Ft. Worth, Texas. My blog gal I was to shop for was none other than Jent from Jents Front Porch. I hurried and sent my gift off to her and then waited patiently for mine to show up. It’s always soooo exciting to get things in the mail, especially when it isn’t bills… yuck!

So then one night when hubby came home from work he brought my package in to me from the garage. Now I was supposed to be hurrying so we could leave the house but heck, I just HAD to open my present! Leaving the house could wait!

My package came from Rebekah at Cooped Up Creativity. I was soooo excited I had to go hunt her down on facebook and thank her immediately.

So I got Cherry Jam, honey, chapstick, corn, a table runner, a scarf, a Christmas card and a letter.

And one tip to know you have a baby… the first time you wear the scarf, you already have to wash it because baby girl spits up on it. sigh! But I absolutely LOVE the scarf and it washed up great!!

Thank you soooo much Rebekah and to all the ladies who did a fabulous job of hosting this link up! So much fun. Bring on next Christmas!! 🙂

Dive on in…

How did you ring in the New Year? Well we went Scuba diving. I say we loosely because I chickened out this year. Hubby though, he’s a trooper. He jumped right on in. The water was a nice cool, refreshing 48 degrees. Hello fun! Water visibility was great as you can see from the shore and underwater photos. Oh and we had food, but how good do those Oreo’s look? So… Happy New Year!!

5th Annual Review Extravaganza Prize Winners!! #2014RE

The 5th Annual Review Extravaganza is now officially over!

First I would like to thank my co-hosts for all of their work, for recapping with me and helping share the word about this review. I also want to thank all of you who linked up. It has been so wonderful meeting new bloggers. I also have loved seeing the responses and seeing how by recapping and looking at the year as a whole has helped many realize that with time, things do change and can get better.