Christmas Break

Christmas break is still on so I have another week off of work! The boys are gone until Wednesday and I am enjoying the time to myself during the day. I get to buy some new books for the library on Wednesday and that will be fun. I will have to get busy and take down the tree and all of the Christmas decorations sometime this week but don't really want to yet! Christmas has always been my favorite time of year. It brings such joy to me, the lights, the joy of giving to my family, and this year we have snow so that is wonderful as well. The thing I love the most though is celebrating the birth of our Savior. I love the music and the sermons at church. I love being with the saints and celebrating with them. I love the Christmas program at church and all of the joyous music we hear there. So I do love Christmas. I love the break from school as well. We all need it when it comes!
Till next time....

Merry Christmas!

Today is the last day of school before the Christmas break. We all need the break. Everyone is tired but we are all looking forward to our new school next year. I am thankful for the break! I am mostly grateful for all of the many blessings this year has brought. Our little grandson, my precious family and church family, my husband's joy with being back doing the work he loves to do, my wonderful job. So even though I am tired, I have a heart full of joy and I thank the Lord of all creation that He cares for me and that He is making me into the person He wants me to be!

Merry CHRISTmas and a Blessed New Year to you all!

Till next time....

10 perfect little fingers, 10 perfect little toes

My second grandson went home to be with Jesus on Monday. He was this perfect little sweet infant. He was only 4 months in gestational age when he left us. He had ten perfect little toes, ten perfect little fingers and left two precious hand prints and two precious little footprints. We could see his little eyes and his little ears as well.

Question: If he wasn't a baby, why did he have all of these?

Answer: He was a little person from the minute he was conceived, known by God and planned for by Him. Every life is precious and I praise God for them.

To God be the glory, forever and ever, AMEN.

A Good Horse

Saturday was difficult day for my husband. We had to put down our good old horse, KC. We bought this horse as a yearling for $400. He was one of the first horses my husband trained and fine tuned on his own. Our daughter was barely toddling around when he broke the horse. The first picture we have of her on a horse is on KC. Both of my older children learned to ride on this horse. We were calculating his age and since my daughter just turned 20, he would have been between 22 and 23 years old. He was stove up and looked awful for the last couple of winters but would always come back and look better in the summer.

I can remember a couple of funny anecdotes about KC. The first was when we were gathering cows from the irrigation meadow on one of the ranches and my daughter was riding KC. It was a frigid day and down on the creek and on that meadow it was about 10-15 degrees colder than anywhere else. My daughter had on her snow suit and was well padded because of that. The cows started to trot and as they did, KC began to trot also. My daughter had never been out of a walk and she bounced right out of the saddle. She hit the ground and when she did, KC stopped and looked around at her as if to say, "Why are you down there?" Of course she was crying and very upset and wanted to quit for the day and go to the house. After that we practiced a lot and she got better at riding. But she still had a HARD time getting him kicked up out of a walk! I don't know if he ever did trust her riding ability!

Another time our church was having a rodeo just for fun and I did the barrels and the poles on him and we were flying. I did the barrels in about 17 seconds. The same with the poles. I tried to get my friend to use him to participate and she didn't want to because he was too much horse for her. When it was the kids' turn we put my daughter on him and he did both events in that slow and easy rocking horse lope that is good for little kids. After my friend watched our daughter do the events she asked me where we got him and when she found out that it was the same horse I had ridden she was amazed.

Horses like that are few and far between. We wouldn't have taken $10,000 for that horse. My husband and I both got a little tearful about losing him. He was a good old horse. Now we begin the search for another for our youngest son. I hope we can find another just like KC.

Till next time.....

Submission

Once again the word submission is on my mind. I even went online to a dictionary to look it up. It means:

1. The act of submitting; the act of yielding to power or authority; surrender of the person and power to the control or government of another.

2. The state of being submissive; acknowledgement of inferiority or dependence; humble or suppliant behavior.

I found these definitions at define.com. This quote was also included; No duty in religion is more justly required by God...than a perfect submission to his will in all things.--Sir W. Temple.

What does that quote mean? Who is in perfect control of everything that happens in my life? Is it me? Am I the master of my own destiny? Or is God in complete and perfect control of all of the circumstances of my life? Do I have the duty to submit to God?

The answer to that last question is of course. I belong to Him and so my first duty after loving Him with all of my heart is to submit to Him. This doesn't just mean on a Sunday morning when I am at church, it means in all areas of my life. When I am at work if my boss asks me to do something I don't really want to do I need to remember that He is the one who put my boss in the position he or she is in. It was God who gave me the husband I have, the church family, my earthly family, all of it.

There are so many times I am tempted to become angry at work when I feel I have been used unfairly but I must remember that God gave me those circumstances. I have watched so many Christian coworkers become angry and bitter because of decisions made by the boss. Their lives have become so difficult because of that. We all have a tendency to blame people when something doesn't go the way we would like it to go but we must ALWAYS remember that God is always in control. He doesn't make mistakes. The circumstances of my life are always for His glory and for my good.

I have noticed that the times I forget that He is in control of all things are the times that I tend to refuse to submit to those who surround me at work, at home and at church. I am learning more and more to rest in Him as He teaches me to submit more and more fully to His will. Thank you, Lord.

Till next time....

PS I rode my horse last Saturday. I did fine and managed not to fall off, get bucked off, stampeded, or embarrassed in any other way!

Horse work

Well, I have to admit that I'm a little nervous! All of my Saturdays and Mondays through October will be taken up with cattle work. The typical fall work; weaning calves, vaccinating, preg-checking. All of the work I haven't done in over 7 years. I stopped helping when I got pregnant with my youngest. I haven't stepped on a horse since then! Will I be able to get on? Will I be able to STAY on? I am looking forward to it. This will be the first time that the little one will be able to help like this. When my two other children were little they came with us all of the time. While it seemed hard at the time to work while taking care of them, it was so good for them. They loved going along and helping Dad. When they were little they would ride with us and we would spend all day together. It was such a blessing to have that time with them. There were other people who had more money and more things than we did. Now that my kids are grown, that time has become even more precious. We appreciate those things we did together. I didn't realize how much until my son shared with us how disappointed he was when his dad lost his job at the ranch. He had big plans to be out every day helping his dad with the ranch work. Truly, I think I was so wrapped up in my own fear and disappointment that the trial the situation was to my children didn't really register. Of course they were 10 and 12 when my husband lost his job so I was guilty of not realizing how hard it was for them even at that young age.

I hope that I remember not to discount the trials of someone just because of their age. I hope that I remember to pray for them.

I can't wait to help out with those cattle. It will be fun. And challenging! I'll let you know how it goes.

Till next time...

My Colorado

I grew up on a ranch/farm out in Eastern Colorado, in Lincoln County. After my husband and I got married we lived on a ranch in Eastern Colorado, near the town of Karval. I loved living in those places. We lived for about 9 years in Western Elbert county (El Paso County was across the road from our house!). It was pretty there. We were right up the hill from a beautiful creek. We saw all sorts of wildlife and loved the life there. After that we lived in El Paso County for 7 years until last July when we moved back into Lincoln County. I didn't realize how much I missed Lincoln County until we moved back there. Each day, I admire the view as I drive to school. As we leave our house we have to pass through a place that they call Stony Point. Stony Point looks out over a valley that runs northeast to southwest and is breathtaking. My sons and I climbed up to the top and took school pictures from there. I cannot drive through that country without praising God for bringing us back to that part of the state!

I have heard people talk about how boring it is in that part of Colorado. There are no trees, no wildlife, no scenery. When you top the Genoa hill and look down and you can see that huge expanse of land, when you are traveling from Karval to Highway 71 and you can see Pikes Peak jutting up like a huge sleeping dragon, you know that there is beautiful scenery out here! Your heart just has to be big enough to take it all in. When I was a child summers were spent on horseback, checking cattle; we watched for lizards, horned toads, snakes, baby antelope and occasionally a deer. We looked for rocks and if we were lucky we would find an arrowhead or a piece of petrified wood. No scenery in Eastern Colorado?! AS IF!

When I travel east, I can feel the "scenery" closing in on me. The closer we get to Kansas City the more closed in I begin to feel. I think Western Kansas (from about Russell on) is my favorite part of any trip. When we cross the state line into Colorado, I can breathe a little easier, I can feel my heart expand, it's good to be headed home.

The Rockies are beautiful. But I like looking at them from my beautiful prairie. My beautiful "Home on the Range". I am thankful to be living in this place!

Till next time...