Blogging | Midwestern At Heart

Icy Thoughts

Around these parts the last few years, we haven’t had snow. But this year, we’ve made up for that. Even at that, we’re still very dry! We’re kind of working on a drought which isn’t a good thing. Luckily yesterday and this morning early it rained. We were supposedly supposed to be 100% chance of rain today which would cause flooding, but it isn’t raining right now. I do hear we’re in for a good ice storm tonight maybe. Yuck! I hate ice. Reminds me of 2007.

What happened in 2007? well, we were without power for a week because of ice. It knocked out power for our entire area. Dropped a tree limb on the trunk of my car. Caused us to have to bucket water from the creek a mile away. We had ice in the bed of the truck a couple inches thick because it would slosh out of the buckets and into the bed of the truck. The night that the lights came back on I screamed for joy! We were pulling in my parent’s driveway with water and for some reason, I got out and was in the bed of the truck. My dad was looking back at me and heard me scream and I scared him. It was crazy to see the lights flip on in the dark like that. I definitely wouldn’t have made it in the 1800’s. Although truthfully I probably would have because I wouldn’t have known any different…. right? (more…)

Ads and the Weekend

Hello Monday! I’m sitting here, listening to my baby girl talk about packing up to go to the “hotel” for the 15th million time (no joke). She’s obsessed with hotels and staying at hotels and packing for hotels. I think she’s stayed at a hotel maybe 2 handfuls of times since she’s been alive. I’m not talking days, but different trips. But she’s totally OBSESSED with hotels.

Every time we pass a hotel she comments on the hotel. There’s one about 15 miles from here that every time we pass it she comments she wants to stay there. Every time. I’m not kidding. This is NOT an exaggeration. And we pass this hotel about once a week if not more.

In other news, I got sidetracked this morning looking at more recipes that I’m going to save but will probably never make. I want to write a cookbook so bad but I keep questioning it… whose to say that I would sell any. With the millions of cookbooks on the market, what makes a person actually think, I’ll buy this cookbook over that one. I mean have you been to a bookstore lately and seen the amounts of cookbooks on the shelf? Maybe not… cookbooks are becoming a thing of the past these days. It’s really sad.

But I bring all of this up because… I ran across a recipe this morning for Hot Chocolate Dip. As I scrolled through it looking at the ingredients and the words of the blogger, I got tickled by the ad that was in the middle of the page.

Do you see the irony there? It’s a recipe full of sugar with an ad in the middle for the 3Step Sugar Detox. I couldn’t help but laugh about that… seriously. Anyway… moving on…. (more…)

Thoughts…

It’s hard to believe that I graduated from my Master’s Program 2 years ago this spring. Wow, time flies when you’re having fun or as Kermit the Frog says… Time’s fun when you’re having flies. But I bring this whole thing up because of a statement that one of my professors said in my last semester of the program… This professor was a man, he was of retirement age, he had quite the interesting story/past, and more than once he said he was a feminist.

Feminist… That’s a weird, interesting term to me. I learned in one of my other classes (I can’t remember which one anymore) that we’re on the third round of feminism. I just googled it for the fun of it and found out that Feminism was the 2017 Merriam Webster Word of the Year. It seems like right around the time that Trump was running for president, you started hearing a lot more about feminism. I’m not sure if it was because a woman was running for office as well or what… but I have to honestly say, I can’t remember a time when feminism was such an uprise.

I obviously wasn’t around in the 70’s when women were burning their bras. I do have to tell you, I have a large enough chest, let me keep my bra, please! Otherwise, I can’t do much more than walk. Otherwise, I’m hurting and everything else that comes from a large chest and no bra. But the 70’s is when I really remember much talk about feminism. Again, I wasn’t there so I don’t know, I can only read history and learn that way. I also remember a movement in history around the 20’s when women wanted rights to vote. There was a lot of political unrest in that sense too.

There are pictures of multiple crowds of women being battered to keep them at bay, etc. Here again, I wasn’t around in the 20’s either. Not my 20’s but the 1920’s just to be clear :). (more…)

Fear Rules

I show up every day, even multiple times per day and lately am unsure what to write. I start filling the blank white page with garble that’s rumbling around in my head and then I refuse to hit publish for fear. Fear of being judged. Fear of no one reading. Just… Fear.

I have another post sitting in my drafts, titled just that… Fear Rules. I was afraid to post it. I want to say the right words where I don’t sound pretentious. I’m not. If you knew me in person… I would hope I don’t come across that way. I don’t think I do…. Someone, please verify for me!

But fear. Sometimes fear rules. Last year my goal was to work on being happier. There were a lot of days that was a struggle. Life is hard. Wouldn’t it be nice if life was easy? I mean seriously think about that… but if it was so easy, would we get bored? Just a thought… Kenzie just made the comment that life is interesting. I told her to second that and she said she could probably third it even. (more…)

A Birthday that Leads to Thoughts

(more…)

#BlogJanuary

This may not interest anyone else but me, but I wanted to keep track. That’s just how it goes :).

In January this year, I wrote 9 blog posts. That is down from previous years, but I still absolutely LOVE this blog. I write blog posts in my head on a daily basis. Usually, it is when I’m driving down the road and can’t actually blog… In college, I used to write great blog posts… in the shower. I decided then I needed to come up with a writing system that withstood water. Btw, being a farmer, I know that one exists. I went to our local farm store and they have a paper/pencil system that allows you to write in rain.

Now the question is, why would you need to write in rain as a farmer? Well, what if you have a baby calf born. What if you gave one a vaccination to help them with something. What if this what if that. It is always best to write yourself notes so you can keep them in case you need the information later. i.e. birthdates. So they have created a paper system farmers can keep on them that won’t disintegrate when wet and will get those notes from the fields to the house. Very cool, right? Why didn’t I think of all of this? Oh, wait, I did.

Anyway…Back to blog posts… Here are the top 5 blog posts as viewed by readers. The Honorable Mentions catch us up to the top 5 2018 posts 🙂

When things don’t go right…

What is the saying… When things don’t go right… go left.

Is this where I get to yell PLOT TWIST?

A little while back I mentioned that we could use prayers. I mentioned this while also mentioning that I hate when people are so open-ended and vague. Now… the real sucky part is I’m not ready to discuss what they were needed for yet… but I can tell you things didn’t go the way we hoped. To say that we are heartbroken might not even do this feeling justice. In fact, I’m kind of at a loss for words. I will preface by saying this has nothing to do with growing our family… It’s more on a professional level… does that help a little bit?

We could still use those prayers. I know that God has a bigger and better plan for us and that we just aren’t ready to see this yet. I believe that wholeheartedly, but at the same time I always feel like in the back of my mind I’m being punished. God isn’t vengeful. He doesn’t do things like that. Life isn’t easy and that’s all there is to it, but I was a little cocky and arrogant when I was in my 20’s and I swear that it’s coming back to bite me in the ass. (more…)

Gussied Up

Sometimes my husband calls me the queen of random and lately that’s really how I’ve felt. I happened to be watching one of my absolute, all-time favorite movies… My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2. Gosh, I love that movie! I prefer it over the 1st and typically, in my opinion anyway, you can’t always say that about sequels. Usually the first is best and second isn’t worth it. But this one… I actually much prefer the second and want them to make a third!

In this movie, if you haven’t seen it, Tula and Ian’s daughter goes to her senior prom. (No, that isn’t what the whole movie is about, just the part pertinent to today’s post.) Because of that scene, I got to thinking about Prom and real life. A relative of mine’s daughter had her debutante ball this last weekend. We don’t have anything like that around here, I figured it was just a tv thing… but it is apparently a real thing. The girls dress up in beautiful gowns. Prom is the same way and then there are homecomings, etc.

All this getting gussied up young in life and then people grow up and what is there? Maybe a wedding dress here and there, but what else? I grew up in the country. I grew up rural. Even Middle America. Maybe it’s different if you live in NYC or someplace. Maybe people do get dressed up for Christmas Eve and Christmas day… I don’t know. I just know my friends and I don’t. (more…)

It’s Still True

I’m sitting here listening to my husband snore at 6something in the morning. Now… 1) this isn’t an unusual occurrence. 2) If you really knew me, you know I’d be kicking him and telling him to quit snoring. 3) I’m not doing 2 which is odd.

The other day this hit my timehop app. I giggled when I read it, then decided I needed to post it again and share it once more.

I commented, Still True so I hear…

But that’s just the thing. I posted that a year ago when my husband was on a trip to Branson for work. Every year they take off for work for a couple days to have some big conference. And during those couple days, I am “single” again. Now here’s a weird thing about me… I’ve always liked sharing a bed with someone and been a snuggler. Kind of weird when that someone is your best friend and you’re in junior high… Whoops. It wasn’t that I was trying weird things… I just have always liked sharing a bed with someone. Wow, that still sounds weird.

As a kid staying at my grandparent’s house, I never liked to sleep alone. I usually tried to convince one of my grandma’s to sleep with me. Now, at my Grandma J’s, I usually just slept on the couch which was in the next room and that was okay. You can’t share a couch with anyone anyway.

Okay, the more I type on this… the weirder I sound. I guess I am weird so I should just own up to it… NEVER! haha. (more…)

Two Truths

As I lay awake last night staring at the ceiling, trying to get past the sound of my husband snoring, I couldn’t help but think about life… again…

There are two truths I can tell you about myself. These two truths I have heard my whole life.

Truth 1: You have a beautiful smile.
Truth 2: You need to smile more, you look like you’re mad all the time.

I have to say, the latter of those truths I am kind of tired of hearing. Let me explain. There’s a quote that says something to the effect of always smile and make them wonder what you’re up to. You know the one I’m talking about, right?

I have a question to that though… How many people do you actually see walking around all the time smiling? Seriously. If they are, people think they’re weirdos, but in all reality, I hardly see anyone walking around smiling ALL. THE. TIME. Maybe when they’re happy about something that just happened or if they are talking to someone, but otherwise, people don’t generally walk around with a constant smile on their face. (more…)

Top 5 Blog posts January 2018