Life can be rough, especially when it is below freezing outside and you feeding horses and come in like this...

Yeah, so anyway, I was cleaning out a frozen automatic waterer and then without realizing it I grabbed the metal part on this shovel. So when I walked inside holding a shovel everyone was suprised! There was no way that I was going to leave my awesome gloves outside!!! It has been below freezing here the last couple of days and we have more than a foot of snow, is it cold anywhere else?
P.S. Happy New Year!

Horses

When I got to the land Bailey was standing in a position standing like this except her feet were FURTHER underneath her! So I ran home to get the camera, when I got back she was standing like this, and then I couldn't help myself, this:

And the minis seemed just so ready for a picture:

I love this one's forelock!
Little Star(Ok, she is the biggest one of them all)

And beautiful baby Jo with her mama!

Isn't she just darling! ( you can see the fourth one in the picture)

These four little darling minis board at the land. They are just so cute!

Yep, we're hillbilly...

and proud of it!

All settled...and alive!

I'm blogging! Hurray!!! We are settled and doing well in our new house, it sure is cozy. With internet *very* limited I haven't been able to do any blogging, but here I am alas. It has been super fun to be able to just go across the street and have the land right there, it sure is a change! how did we ever manage?!?!
So yep, I'm alive, how is everyone else in the blogging world???

College for me?

* I do not mean to offend by this post. These are merely my thoughts and beliefs and if you do not agree, you are more than welcome to not read it*  

  People often ask me, where are you going to go for college? It is a fair question, valid and, to most people relevant. But, is it to me? Shocker... no. It is not relevant to me.

     Most people want to go to college just to have fun, to get away from their families and to just mess around. Occasionally they are there to learn because they like it. BUT, what is the underlying reason to why people go to college? I mean after all, if kids just want to go mess around with their friends they can just go and move out and live with their friends in the next state. So, college... why do people go? What is the underlying reason? I believe that it is to get a degree so that they can get a good(or well paying) job.

     So, why isn't this relavent to me? I don't need a good job. I already have one, the job of a wife and mother. Why is it that this isn't satisfying to enough women and girls? It is the highest calling that you can have.

     Most people would then say, well you still should have a job just in case your husband dies or gets hurt. Sorry. but if my husband gets hurt or something, I would go back to my father's household. If he dies, than I would go to my Grandfather, Uncle etc.

     I am to stay under my father's watchful eye until he hands me off when I am married. It's really hard to explain this without sounding bad. I do not mean to sound like women are not equal to men, at all! Women are equal to men, but I do think that the men are the ones who are in charge. The ones that need to be presiding. It is a godly principal.

     Are there exceptions? Of course, but am I one? No. So, what do I do. I learn so that I can teach my children. I learn to can, cook, clean, sew, quilt, etc. These are the skills that women 100 years ago had. Period. The entersting fact is, that even though they didn't all go to school and college, as a whole, they were a much more educated people than we are.

     So, is college for me? No, not personally, but can it be for other people? Yes, I think so.
         

Slideshow

Finally!!!

The rest

We're back now so I can post! So starting where we left off: The White house was really cool, that same day we got a tour of the library of congress as well of the capitol. On Friday we went to Montpelier, the home of James Madison. It was really cool because it was constitution day and we got in free!! There was also a big presentation. Saturday we did Baptisms for the Dead and did all sorts of other fun stuff in D.C. On Sunday we went to Arlington Cemetery and Church with dad's old mission companion and his Family. On Monday we Went to Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home and we went to James Monroe's house because it is literally 2 miles from Monticello and we got done at Monticello before Monroe's Closed. Then we drove down do Virginia beach, and went to the ocean for a while and went to bed, our hotel was right on the beach, you crossed a bike path and the board walk and you were on sand! It was really cool! On Tuesday we played at the beach all day pretty much, Wednesday was that same pretty much but A big north America world champion sand sculpting starting, two hotels down from us! It was amazing what the people could do with just a pile of sand. On Thursday we played in the ocean in the morning and checked out from that hotel, and had lunch at this awesome Breakfast Buffet place then we drove down to Norfolk and saw the U.S.S Wisconsin(there's a naval base there) we didn't go on a tour because it was 90 degrees and humid. But it was really cool to see. So we went back to hotel and swam and vegged. Then Friday Morning we flew out. It was a really fun trip but we are all happy and sad to be home! We came home to a happy dog, healthy horses(besides that bailey through a shoe, she tells you when she needs trimmed!) and cats well, just being themselves. Slideshow coming soon???

Virginia

Our trip has officially started!! Monday we drove down to SLC and spent the nit there then on Tuesday morning we flew out at about 9:45 we had a layover in Atlanta and in the end we were in norfolk va, we then drove up to fredriskburg(sp?) then yesterday we went to mount Vernon, it was beautiful we spent the day touring the grounds and walking around.we got pictures but since we only brought the iPad we can't upload pictures on to it unless we synced them onto it using iTunes and since we didn't bring the laptop we cant, I will hopefully make a big slideshow of everything we did. We had to wake up at 4:30 today (eastern time) because we are getting tours of the white house and Capitol today, our white house tour starts at 7 am!!!! And we still aren't used to the time change so it feels like 5 am!! We are almost there so I better go, On a side note, sorry if there are a bazillion typos, it is rather hard to type it has taken me forever to type this much and im to lazy to fix all the mistakes I made.

Trip

Crazy

Our house has been on the market for about 6 years, and it hadn't ever sold sold(we didn't try all THAT hard!) but it sold on a fluke Monday night!

We live in a town of 400 people, there aren't a lot of rentals their is one across from the land that has been vacant for a few years. When we bought the land we wondered if we would rent it when our house sold until we built, we wondered this repeatedly, but, we, as everyone else in the town thought that it was owned by the bank. We checked on this and it wasn't. A lady up north owned it, it is pretty unlivable right now because there is a GROSS Tub, toilet and vanity along with no flooring in the house. We bargained with her and so we are going to make it "livable" for a 10 month (free) lease! Easy! We move in between October 1-10 of, and we leave Monday for a two week trip. Yeah, we're trying to get as much as possible done before we leave but It won't all get done. We've been busy!

This is it folks, every time I walk in it seems like it is smaller. Its 2 bedrooms so it will be an adventure! We don't even know if mom's queen bed will fit in her room(they kindly gave up the master bedroom so we could get enough beds in, there would be NO was that we could in the other room).

We'll keep you posted on our adventure!!

Just playing around on photoshop!(And being silly)

Poor horse, she doesn't look too good!

My last skirt and somthing else!

So, this is my last skirt, it turned out pretty well I think!!

And with the leftovers from all of them I made this really cute scripture bag I have wanted a new one for a while since my old one doesn't really have enough room for everything I need to take to church. And it is reversible, you can't really see in the picture(I tried!) , but the other side is the pattern from the green flower skirt and the handle fabric was leftover from the turquoise skirt.

I have fabric that is already cut out for another one I just have to sit down and do it! And find something to use as a handle since there isn't enough brown left(I think).

My life...

To spare you all the gorry details I will just say that we killed a ginormous RAT in our tack room today! It was pretty intense.




The joys of owning property! You get skunks eating your cat food and Heifers in you garden and so much more, this my friends is my life!

Cleaning

We've started to clean with natural products and natural ways. We found this amazing book called Green Clean by Linda Mason Hunter and Mikki Halpin. This book is wonderful! It discuses the basic ingredients you need and simple ways to clean it.

Basic Ingredients:

• Baking Soda
• Vinegar
• Castile Soap(made with olive oil)
• Barax
  

And other Ingredients that you could live without but are helpful are:

• Washing Soda(Like really strong Baking soda)
• Murphy's Oil soap(It's made with vegetable oil)
• Club Soda
  

I love how she says that you can buy non toxic cleaners. Her mane attack is on the Chemicals in cleaners. Here's a great line from the book:

"A simple rule of clean up: If something makes you eyes tear, your nose crinkle, or your skin itch, get rid of it. "

I think most cleaning products will do at least one of those!

So, these are just some of my ramblings, what are some things you have found effective in cleaning that are toxin free?

Another Skirt :)

I really love the lace on the bottom of this one.

I love skirts!