Farmers = No Food

Every year since I was fifteen, my parents have actually gone on a vacation!!! Amazing I know it!! This vacation always at the first of January to the American Farm Bureau's Convention. They've been all over this nation and got to tour some neet places, plus go to a convention that is right with what they believe and support one hundred percent. This past year they flew to Alanta and what happened to them??? The city shut down because it snowed. Haha I know it...Well they were able to still do the convention and tour a place or two before the snow hit. They thought they was going to be stuck there till Thursday at the earliest (they were scheduled to fly home Tuesday morning.) Well it worked out that they did leave Tuesday morning thanks to a miracle...(different story). Back to my orignal thought, so yesterday on the Farm Bureau blog was a post about that snow day and how he wishes that there were a few congress members and EPA people there to see first hand what they will cause if American kicks their farmers out. Please Check it out.

If Farmers Left the USA

Mode of Transportation

Right now my mode of transportation that has been with me faithfully for the past four years is, yes, sadley in the body shop, getting its backend fixed. (That just sounds funny! At least its not getting a breast enlargement!) So since this is all being done through the insurance, since I had to fix the other ladies car as well and we have full coverage, my insurance pays for a rental car for me to drive while mine's in the shop. Which is nice.

Well after a few hiccups today, I've finally got my rental...and it was the only one he had in due to a cancled flight and people keeping their cars...and well its a bit small compared to ANYTHING I've ever driven for a great amount of time, really. Its little, blue, and compact. Oh but it has four doors, really... I needed four wheel drive. So I'll be praying for NO SNOW untill I get my truck back. I can go and upgrade, when he gets something bigger in...but I really don't know if I want to go through the hastle.

Well hopefully my truck is not in the shop long, I seen it did go into today! Because I miss it. True, I have to watch for the 'Wait to Start' light, let it warm up, fuel up with expensive diesel...but frankly I like it. Its big, its bad, and its totally mine.

So landing on a hopeful note of no more snow (until 4x4 drive reenters my life) and a quick repair to the truck. So I had some pictures for you...but it being late in the day my internet is not working at top speed. So this is another wordfilled post. But just so you know...Page is a walking girl, she's been walking for quite a while, but now is actually wanting to depend upon it for her mode of

Book Review: Time of my Life

From the outside view, Jillian Westfield has a pitch-perfect life. Her cherubic 18-month old daughter, her wildly successful investment banker husband, a four-bedroom, five-bath, lemon-scented home with landscaping and neighbors to match. But that doesn’t stop her from mulling over the past, from pushing away the “what ifs” that haunt her when she allows them to seep into her consciousness. What if she hadn’t married Henry? What if she hadn’t abandoned her job at the first sign of pregnancy? What if she’d never broken up with Jackson ? What if she answered her mother’s letter? Because underneath the shiny veneer of her life, Jill waddles around in a faltering marriage, brewing resentment, and an air of discontentedness. But after an ethereal massage in which her therapist releases her blocked chi, she wakes up to discover that she’s been whisked seven years back, back to her old life, her old self, back to the moments in which she made decisions that charted her future course. And now that she’s back, she’s faced with the same roadblocks and obstacles, only this time, armed with hindsight, she can choose a different path and finally lay to rest all of her “what ifs.”

Time of My Life is much more than a story about a real life desperate housewife. Instead, it speaks to so many of our tiny, lingering doubts, the same doubts that send us googling old friends and exes or wistfully pulling out pictures of days gone by. And through Jillian’s journey, in which she rediscovers the mother who abandoned her, reacquaints herself with the strengths she once deemed important, and may literally rewrite her future, we all get a chance to peek inside the windows of our own “what ifs,” and consider if the path we took was the one that has granted us the most happiness.

This book was entertaining and thought provoking in the sense of 'what if' this happened instead. I think that Allison did a very good job, of making Jilly go back seven years and getting a second chance at life, where she thinks she messed it all up. Jilly the main character, was in some ways hard to connect to for me, for she seemed to only want to work in the busy advertising world (in her second chance) and was very caught up in the perfect household and mother act (in her first chance). I'm not addicted to work nor do have to have magazine approval house and child.

But I did connect to her in the way that any mother of a young toddler can connect with other mothers in the same boat. I could easily imagine the strees and loneliness she felt when she was in her second chance from not having her baby girl with her or to care for her.

I really liked how the author was able to go between how Jilly reacted the first time to her life and then how she reacted the second time. She was much more mature and sound thinking the second time around, due to hindsight. She is able to make better choices about different relationships and grow the ones that are more important to her. She learns that its not other people are not always to blame for the problems in your life, that most of that blame needs to be placed upon yourself. You have to look at yourself first to start fixing problems in your life and in your relationships.

At the very end of the book, when she is again thrust foward seven years back into the future, you feel as if there is another chapter that needs to be wrote, all about how much different her second seven years was compared to the first. For she just wakes up and her life is similar, but very different because of the choices she made the second time around, and so she doesn't know what happend in those seven years. But you are left with a feeling that she is pleased and happy with her life.

This book was helpful in making me ask, do I have any 'What If's?' Do my relationships need work? Do I need to change something to accomplish this? I think we all need to ask ourselves these questions and at different points in our life, for I bet I feel different at thirty then I do at twenty three.

Some New Acceptances

So since I'm dealing with a limited (clean) water supply, I've had to find something different to clean and mop the house up. I'm sorry there is NO way I could handle going three months with dirty floors and counter tops. So off to some creative thinking.

First off for the counter tops is Chlorox Cleaning Wipes. They do the job and they are supposed to disinfect as well. Not as good as what I normally use, but they do get the job done. My sister loves them, but its becasue her roommate has cats that like counter tops, yucky!

Second is the swifter sweeper. My roommate had one of these in college. I didn't like it at all and my mother in law has one too...still don't like it. But I've accepted that this is the way I'm going to be cleaning floors, so I might as well do it. First off I think I must have a different style then my roommate and mother in law, cause I like it better. It's pretty much just a wet wipe, on a mop, if you stay on top of things it will do the job. Now tough jobs, who knows. The other thing I think it would be good for, is when your something spills on your floor and it's a bit bigger of a job then a paper towel or rag could handle, this would clean it up.

Little Bee Review

We don't want to tell you what happens in this book.

It is a truly special story and we don't want to spoil it.
nevertheless, you need to know enough to buy it, so we will just say this:

This is the story of two women. Their lives collide one fateful day, and one of them has to make a terrible choice, the kind of choice we hope you never have to face. Two years later, they meet again - the story starts there ...


Once you have read it, you'll want to tell your friends about it. When you do, please don't tell them what happens. The magic is in how the story unfolds.


The first thing you have to get use to is the language used. Half of the book is told by a refugee Nigerian girl, Little Bee, and she thinks and talks like a refugee, although she has learned English and she is quite good at it, even if she doesn't understand all that she says or hears. The other half of the book is told by a white Britain woman, so her story is easy to follow, once you figure out where you are picking up at.

Also the ending of this book...is no ending at all...it just ends. My thoughts from this ending is that they learn to face their demons and to stop running from them. Really the only refreshing point in this book is, Charlie, the little four year-old who goes the whole summer as batman fighting puffin, penguin, and all the baddies.

Really I don't recommend it at all, but you be your own judge. It will be interesting to see what this book club says about it, maybe me and Erica are clear over in left field on our feelings of this book compared to everyone else. OR Everyone else has been brainwashed by the Baddies...Erica and I decided to join the Library's Book Club and give it a shot. January's book was Little Bee by Chris Cleave. Frankly I found this book, nowhere near what the outstanding reviews I read or the praise for it. It was a FLAT OUT depressing book. You might argue, well Marlynn you are 6 months prego and your hormones are bouncing all over, but Erica agrees, and she's not having hormone issues like me. Really we can't determine what the point of this book is. It's between: one, all the ways to kill yourself or two, learning to move on or three, to quit running from your demons and face them.

Situtation

I need your guy's help, opinions, and advice.

Heres the situtaion: My sis-in-law is talking like she's going to go start working as a pumper (part-time) more or less. Her husband and her are trying to get things together to be their own contractor and start their own pumping business. So she was telling her mother last night all the people she's going to have to help watch her girls while she does this, for its a long boring day for them (of course). Luckily my name wasn't on the list since I'm pregnant, she doesn't want to give me the extra stress. But that doesn't mean I'm off scotch free later on down the road, (and I'm talking in general). So I'm asking what do you feel the reasonable response is?

My feelings: I feel that a mother should be home with her children while they are young. Once they are in school and the mother wants to work or needs to work she should do it, but to always remember that her family is her top priority. Now if the mother has to work because of finiacial situtation or family circumstances, then I totally understand that. And I would be ok helping someone out in that situtaion. Now a person who is going to work, doesn't need the extra money, so she turns to those family members to help her out and watch her kids with no payment I think is wrong. She is going to work, making extra money, she can pay to have her children watched. Am I wrong and cold hearted?

If I get asked in the future by a family member to watch their kids so they can go to work (circumstance permitting) would I be wrong in saying only if you pay me to do so? Or am I in the right? I have no problem watching the kids when they go to the city, shopping, doctors appointments, etc, they do the same for me.

Whats your thoughts? Seriously I know I'll get asked to do this in the future.

Today...

• I'm starting to feel pregnant...like really pregnant....and I have four more months
• Last night I was up like only every hour...different girl every hour
• Sick of leg cramps...mine and Daisy's
• I swear I vaccummed my floor the yestereday, yet I wake up and it doesn't appear that way
• I need to get finish preparing my lesson and start getting ready for church.
• I'm tired...I just want to read a book or take a nap with my legs UP
• My newest piece of advice for those women not yet mothers yet on their way...take as many baths as possible. The window of oppurtunity shrinks dramastically when you have a child.

One step forward...

...two steps back. Oh man is that how life is going right now in our household. In December we made a major leap forward and was able to pay our tractor off with the first payment due...SOOO nice. Then as you know New Years Day came with a suprise and frozen pipes...but no it doesn't stop there. Our well is done for as in D-O-N-E!!!! Ugh. We was thinking that we could wait until this spring to get on the water connection list and then about June get city water ran down to us.

Like I said before its going to be a pretty penny just to connect is...$3,400....yuck. Plus we have to trench and run the water about 8/10's of a mile...expensive. Well now that our well is no longer working at maximum efficiency...actually not even at minumin efficiency...we have to super speed our plans. So we go to get the paper work and find out how much exactly we need, and find out it will won't be till like March before they can actually dig for the connection. Go figure, its the middle of winter and the ground is frozen solid. It doesn't matter, we have to pay the money to get on the list.

Luckily we have a super emergency fund for emergencies, although I really don't want to consider this an emergency, but really it is. So it looks like we will use that to get on the list and then we will be saving like madmen, Koda will be working like a madman, and I'll be budgeting like a madwoman. In the meantime till March comes around, we'll be showering at unsuspecting peoples places...hehe you might be next...and I'll pack water down to wash dishes in and pack laundry out to clean. Our well produces enough water for us to use the toilet and wash our hands...but thats it.

Oh ya and to top this off...Sunday had a little accident when I pulled into the church parking lot...ya get to fix her vehicle now...fun! Oh well we will go forward and get through these trials. Hey we are all healthy and our house is warm!

Quilt #1 done

Well I've finished my first UFO project from 2010 the other day. Remember my Patriotic Pinwheel quilt that I had a few ladies help me with back in May/June last year. Well I finally took it off my husbands gun bench, quilted it up, binded it, and wa-la its finished. :) Only took me two afternoons to finish it...in all reality less then 12 hrs. Thats actually sad seeing how its been sitting there for oh about six months or more waiting to be finished. But hey I'm starting the new year off good! What do you think? I like it.



Daisy Likes it too.



Book Review Time!!

The One That I Want

What if you woke up one day to all your dreams coming true...but those dreams were more like nightmares?

Tilly Farmer is thirty-two years old and has the perfect life she always dreamed of: married to her high school sweetheart, working as a school guidance counselor, trying for a baby. Perfect.

But one sweltering afternoon at the local fair, everything changes. Tilly wanders into a fortune teller's tent and meets an old childhood friend, who offers her more than just a reading. "I'm giving you the gift of clarity," her friend says. "It's what I always thought you needed." And soon enough, Tilly starts seeing things: her alcoholic father relapsing, staggering out of a bar with his car keys in hand; her husband uprooting their happy, stable life, a packed U-Haul in their driveway. And even more disturbing, these visions start coming true. Suddenly Tilly's perfect life, so meticulously mapped out, seems to be crumbling around her. And as she furiously races to keep up with - and hopefully change - her destiny, she faces the question: Which life does she want? The one she's carefully nursed for decades, or the one she never considered possible?

What if you could see into the future? Would you want to know what fate has in store?


Today I finished reading a book that has been on my to read list for a while. The One That I Want, by Allison Winn Scotch. This book was a good read although I will warn you, it is a bit wordly in its language, as in if you hang out with only toddlers most of your day...the use of the "F" and the "GD" word will be shocking to you.

This story though is very thought provoking and is all about is the life you choose really the life that you wanted? Is it really the life that will bring you the most happiness? And also the age old question of what is happiness. I really thought she did a good job of showing how if we get stuck in the same cycle over and over again how its hard to get out...maybe even a little scary, the older we get. It also shows how if we don't work on our relationships and keep maturing them they will also fall apart and we will drift away from those who we were in the relationship with. This is shown with the characters relationship with her husband, sister, friend, and father.

I did feel that the character, Tilly, was self-centered and was only focused on what she wanted and how she wanted life to go at the very first, but she makes a transition and changes her outlook on life and realizes that there is so much more to life then she thought. She also seems to gain more of a backbone throughout the book and stops being a doormat for people to walk on and use.

I would recomend this book to read for it brings a fresh perspective and thought process to mind. Are you happy with what you chose...would you change it? Like I said, some of the language is all I really had a problem with.

A New Year Upon Us

Isn't it amazing that it is now 2011. The past year has just flown by. But I guess thats a common sign of growing older. Of course the first of the new year is filled with resoulutions and goals for the following year. So of course I've been thinking of what goals I want to set for the new year.

• Get City water to our house. It's only going to cost ten grand....
• Daisy Potty Trained
• A healthy baby smoothly entering our household.
• School loans Paid off
• Some unfinished quilts finished.

Anyways. I had quite the new years suprise...frozen water pipes...if you've never had them, don't ever wish for them. Lucky for me I grew up with this always happening, so really its nothing new. But it seems we have one thing right after another. For its not frozen pipes...its a frozen water softener. We have to have the softener or else we have really hard, dirty water, but no need to worry about that, with one of the pipes busted and spraying water every where in the pump house, so we have the pump shut off, and absoulutly no water running to our house now. Oh and did I mention that Koda just barely went back to work before this all happened?? Of course isn't that how trials work? Oh and because we need more problems, we have to buy two new batteries and a block heater for Koda's truck. Our cows are all over the place and won't stay put. The cows have also ate my dogs nice warm housing areas, so the poor things are making do under the porch, untill I can get them moved to the stack yard, where so far the cows haven't gotten. 

And whats the postive note in all this? At least it is happening in January instead of November like it usually does. Oh and we are all healthy and happy here in our home. Just take a look at my cuties on New Years Day.