No, that 2014 wasn’t a mistake… I’m talking about last year… finally.
Last year’s hay season sucked. I’ve grown up on a farm and I know that farm life throws curve balls at you all the time. I guess if you add in the fact that going into haying season I was 9+ months pregnant and had hormones running through my body, well maybe that made it suck worse… but our hay season started out like this last year…
Now you might be looking at this picture and thinking… what’s so weird with that. Well, first off notice there is no driver… which means the tractor isn’t moving. If you caught on to that, good job :).
So the tractor broke down on our way from my parent’s house to my mother-in-law’s house where the mower was sitting. Like it died… dead… no more moving. I was supposed to meet my dad and hubby at my MIL’s house so when I get there, they call me and tell me to come meet them on the road and bring tools. Not a good sign.
They beat and twist and cuss and discuss and whatever it takes to try and get it to run and it was a no go. So we had to call a tow truck. Again, NOT. A. GOOD. SIGN.
Lately I have been going through old photos and scanning them in to my computer. Wow, how did we survive before digital? I swear!
Anyway I scanned in photos a couple weeks ago from my trip to Washington D.C. with FFA the summer before my junior year of high school. Now this story could be about all the complete strangers I met because I met a lot. We all left friends but this is about one stranger I met in particular.
My aunt and uncle live in southern Oklahoma and at the time had a set of twin boys that were working for them. My aunt had told the one brother about me and possibly even showed him a picture, I can’t remember. Anyway then she told me about him. She said he was cute and we were the same age.
When she found out he was attending the Washington Leadership Conference and so was I, she checked with each of us as to what week (there are multiple weeks). Turns out we were going the same week. My aunt told us that we should look each other up.
I was one very lucky kid growing up. Both of my parents worked but that allowed me to spend a lot of extra time with my grandparents. My one grandma didn’t work outside the home and other than odd and end jobs I can’t really remember my grandpa having a job. They raised Arabian horses and that was predominately what they did.
My other grandparents, my grandpa retired when I was like 2nd grade or something and my grandma retired when I was closer to junior high so I really was lucky in the fact that I got to spend a lot of time with all my grandparents.
The fun thing about my grandparents, both owned horses and both owned cows, but to me one was known more for their cows and the other known more for their horses :).
Anyway driving into my my Grandpa and Grandma J’s place there was a cattle guard and gate you had to go through. Growing up we just lived down the road (next house down) so I used to walk, ride a bike, ride a horse, drive, whatever to their house a lot. And I used to leave the gate open when I was there which would drive my grandpa absolutely nuts.
He has since passed (November 2010) but baby girl goes and stays with my grandma on Monday’s. When I’m just running in and leaving, I am lazy and leave the gate open. A lot of times, like yesterday the wind blows the gate closed but every time I just smile and swear that it is my grandpa playing tricks on me because I left his gate open, AGAIN.
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!
Welcome to the final round of the Review Extravaganza! If you’re still wondering about the rules, check out this post, otherwise grab the button and let’s get to this thing now! 🙂
October 2014
I did the Blog Everyday in October so there should be something for everyone, right?
You have the rest of this week to follow/like everything, so get crackilacking to get all entries possible. Note: The rest of the the entries don’t unlock until you recap for the first time.
Welcome to the third round of the Review Extravaganza! We’re quickly winding down on this year but you still have time to link up with the fun!! If you’re wondering about the rules, check out this post, otherwise grab the button and let’s get to this thing now! 🙂
July 2014
From the time I had baby girl on the 26th, I don’t really remember much… I’m so glad I have this blog and I forced myself to keep blogging so that I wouldn’t forget. Come the 3rd of July we went to our first Fourth of July celebration at Dive Club meeting. Again I vaguely remember everything but I’m soooo thankful for this blog and the fact that I forced myself to blog about it so I can remember. I was in such a sleep deprived phase for a while.
We had the worst luck this hay season, tractor broke down completely, borrowed a tractor and had 2 flat tires on it, the mower broke a few times, the baler caught on fire twice within 20 minutes, you name it, we probably had to deal with it. Hubby took 2 weeks vacation around the time baby girl was born to help out and spend time with his new baby and instead he spent that whole time in the hayfield dealing with these issues. I grew up on a farm and know things happen but at that time in my life I hated farm life, I blame the hormones. Toward the beginning of July we FINALLY got all the hay mowed and I was never so happy in my life. Like I said, I blame the hormones.
I made baby girls hand and feet prints in ornaments. I still need to finish painting the hands and I need to hang the ornaments on the tree still. I’m a slacker!
And then there was the night I came home from Lit Theory so upset and frustrated because the theory we were talking about wouldn’t let my head shut down. Don’t worry, it happened almost every Wednesday night for the whole semester. We learned New Criticism, Freudian, Marxist, Feminist, and many others.
I finally got my Birthday present and my Camera Bag. So the story on the birthday present is my husband ordered it, it got lost in transit and we had to turn a claim in on it and it finally arrived almost 2 months after my birthday!
You will have all month to be able to follow/like everything, so plenty of time to get all entries possible. Note: The rest of the the entries don’t unlock until you recap for the first time.
Welcome to the second round of the Review Extravaganza! If you’re wondering about the rules, check out this post, otherwise grab the button and let’s get to this thing now! 🙂
Pregnancy wasn’t always easy on me, but I was given one heck of a man to go through it with! Then I pondered where we’d be had we not gotten back in each others lives.
I changed my blog title from Life’s a Beach to Midwestern at Heart this month. It was a big step but I feel more at home under this name… I liked the other but when I wanted a .com, lifesabeach.com was a realtor in California.
We took a class trip to Oxford, MS to check out William Faulkner’s old stomping ground. I also left my pillows at Comfort Inn down there and it would have cost me $30 to ship them home :(.
The end of school stressed me out with the amount of work I had to finish at the end of the semester, but I did find time to participate in Tbug getting scuba certified and I made a Kentucky Derby Pie, hello YUM!
A story about “I don’t dance” and we’re not talking about me.
Mother’s Day 2014 and I got my Cherry Pie.. YUM! Actually I think I made it but maybe not, I can’t remember… maybe we should both go read this post?
Baby Squirrel got a party in her honor! (That would be baby girl in case you you were curious :)) She had the absolute best party thrown by 2 very close friends of ours!!
So I should mention that I ate a lot of Cheeseburgers right before baby girl was born. That was the only thing that sounded good.
We celebrated Father’s Day. Hubby actually got his present almost a month before Father’s Day because I had 2 different coolers picked out but wanted his final decision, plus I needed the truck to haul it and while I was at it I made him carry it too.
All that bad with the pregnancy didn’t matter as Baby girl finally made her appearance, right on her due date (by our calculations not the doctors. And we told the doctor my due date all along…)
You will have all month to be able to follow/like everything, so plenty of time to get all entries possible. Note: The rest of the the entries don’t unlock until you recap for the first time.
The start of every year brings new hope and new light. You have a brand new slate to write your story. I’d love to say 2014 was an easy year, but it hasn’t been, instead though it helped shape and mold me to who I am at the end of the year. Now is the time to reminisce about the first 3 months of the year. The joys, the trials and everything in between.
January 2014
At the start of the year, hubby and I had been together 4 1/2 years.
Hubby and I went on an emotional roller coaster ride this year. Not only were we having this baby but we got some really upsetting news and to top it off insurance became a pain in the tookus. It turned out to work out for the best. Just thinking about this has me in tears. I cried a lot this year, wow!
So I sit here today writing this post, listening to this beautiful baby girl snoring away beside me, watching another Christmas movie and crying my eyes out remembering the good, the bad and the ugly the first part of this year has brought. I hope that you’ll join in with us on this journey of reliving/recapping the year! If you have any questions, here’s the rules post, check it out and if you still have questions, please by all means let me know and I’ll try to answer!!
Here’s to the count down to the New Year, wait, where did this year go?!?!
You will have all month to be able to follow/like everything, so plenty of time to get all entries possible. Note: The rest of the the entries don’t unlock until you recap for the first time.
So one year ago today my life changed… more so than I realized. First I realized I don’t know how to pee on a stick… How hard can it be? Oh, I messed it up…
So hubby went and got the kind that I couldn’t screw up, then read the directions and told me how to do it just so I didn’t screw it up the second time… I didn’t screw it up this time. We also knew I was pregnant way early! It might have had something to do with cussing and screaming in a cabbed tractor at full throttle with the baler running and hubby heard me outside the tractor about 15 feet behind me… maybe… (more…)
So when I was a little kid my dad built a hay barn on our place. It had dirt floors and it sucked when it rained. So Dad finally decided to put concrete in the floors to avoid moldy bales that were against the dirt floor. The concrete truck came to pour the concrete and then dad and a couple others were going to spread it out. I went to help my dad spread it out with the boys and I had on my dad’s mudboots. My boots got stuck in the concrete and I fell backwards on my butt in the concrete. All the guys laughed and I was embarrassed. I was only like 6 or 7 at the time. I ran to the house crying my eyes out.
Too bad I don’t have any pictures of that…
Or how about the time we were in Duncan Oklahoma at a horse show and I was trying to qualify for the AQHA World Show. This was the last weekend to be able to qualify so I had a lot riding on this. I went out to show and won. When I heard that I won my dad said something to me and as I went to crawl off China (my horse) I fell off. Yup, it happened.
