WHAT WE DO WHEN IT WONT STOP RAINING

WHAT WE DO AROUND HERE FOR FUN IS

NOT YOUR ORDINARY FUN:

BUILDING A RETAINING WALL TO DIVERT THE WATER

SURE BEATS STAYING INSIDE!                                                                                                                                                         

IN THE END.....A GIRL HAS TO FIND SOMETHING TO WASH HER HANDS IN.

Feeding Time

Feeding time at our place is no ordinary undertaking. We have four horses, three of which are ours, two big labs, and multiple barn cats. The whole feeding routine is kind of complicated right now because we are attempting to get something green, other than four foot tall weeds to grow in our front pasture area. So feeding involves a lot of walking because we have to go to the back pasture to get the two that come up at night. When the four wheeler is working it goes pretty fast. I turn waters on, zoom out and make sure the hoses are all connected, grab one horse, lead him up by four wheeler, and let the other walk up on her own ( she is old and goes straight to her stall.) However, right now the four wheeler is dead so this means a lot of walking time. Average dry walking time is pretty quick, I can move right fast with the right motivation. But, lets forward to this week in Texas where the rain has been fairly noticable as of late. There I am in my lovely camo waders (it isn't pretty but cuts down on the messy) wading, quite literally through four feet scratchy weeds, sweltering heat, one cat that refuses to get more than a couple of feet in front of me and is also well known for plopping down right in your path, and a couple of large dogs darting in and out of the weeds. All considered I can still make fairly good time slipping and sliding my way there. Now add one little tiny girl who is desperate to help you feed to the mix. She carries the scoop with feed in it. She will not let you put it in the bucket you carry, she does not want you to help her in any way, she trips through the weeds and  spills feed out of her scoop, but refuses to move on until she has picked up what she has spilled. At last we are back on track but I have to frequently stop on the way so she can catch up. Right when you are satisfied that she is almost caught up she sees a grasshopped and more feed spills as she tries to get a good look. At last we make it to the back pasture where the other two horses stay out for the night. She insists on dumping the feed herself. The reward for doing all that work? Getting to sit on the horses back for just a few moments while she eats her food is all it takes......oh yea and knowing that momma will feel sorry for you and carry you all the way back to the house.

A Walk Across The Desert Can Get You Bit By Sharks

Life has a way of being funny even if you aren't aiming for funny. Sometimes things happen that don't seem so funny at the time and then looking back later you see the humor. Sometimes I don't really see the humor, but others around me think it's a hoot. Infact, I had a friend tell me the other day that I really need to write down the things that happen to me on a day to day basis. Frankly, I don't think my life is interesting enough for a daily dialogue. However, I do realize that I have more than my fair share of "odd" happenings.
 For instance, one day last week, a friend and client of mine came out to ride her horse (she keeps him at our place) She had just been out three days earlier to ride. When we grabbed her saddle I noticed a little web on it. I really didn't think much of it, I mean it was in a barn. Suddenly there were spiders crawling out of her saddle all over the place. Now, I may be a country girl, but I am not big on bugs. One spider that came out went back in the saddle kind of under the fleece and horn. So now we are trying to figure out how to get the spider out and make sure there aren't more before we put it on the horse. Our only thought was to grab a bottle of fly spray and spray it down in there. We did and sure enough out comes that spider and another one. Finally we had managed to rid the saddle of spiders, but not without covering ourselves and the saddle with flyspray. Really I thought I don't know anyone else who has had something so dumb happen. The thing of it is I have stuff like this happen all the time. My old boss used to say I could be walking across the desert and get bit by a shark.......you know I'm starting to think he might be on to something.

Let Spilled Be Spilled Milk

Today I went to my bible study I go to every Wed. It's a woman's bible study and really covers every single topic that you could think of that relates to women and the different struggles they face. It's all about the bondage we put ourselves into and how much more free we would be if we let go of some of the things that keep us from enjoying freedom in Christ. The bondage today was time. I know this is a big thing for me and a lot of women. You only have to look at my earlier post to see I am trying to find ways to stretch the hours I have. I actually feel guilty taking the time to write this because I could be folding a load of laundry, or watering the garden, or sweeping the floor.We, as women, put so much pressure on ourselves that it is no wonder we can't ever find quiet time.
As I was running out of the house to get to my bible study on time and rushing the kids, I thought I am yelling at my kids so I can make it on time to learn how to be more Christ-like. If only I can apply that in my everyday life it would make a difference. I don't have to have anything miraculous happen, I just want to be able to remember in the heat of the moment how to respond in a better way. We get so wrapped up that every day inconveniences become emergencies. I see that response in me a lot. I wanna let go and enjoy these tender years some and not get worked up over the small things........let spilled milk be spilled milk.  

Organization Is The Key.

Often times it takes doing things the hard way before you learn. Some of you, who are organized by nature, may wonder why this is such a revelation. This is written for those of you who are not naturally organized and are learning every day how much it pays to be so.

 I, for one, am tired of running around in circles and being stressed by trying to keep up with it all. If you are not a naturally born organized person you try adding a few kids to the mix and see if you don't lose your mind. I have seen people with large families who run like a well oiled machine, and large families who don't. In comparing the two, it is the families who are organized that operate the greatest.

I have a long ways to go in getting organized, but one of the biggest things I can do right now is to be a better manager of my time. The other day I was giving my eighteen month old a bath. She likes to play for a bit after her bath. Since leaving her in the bathroom by herself is not an option, I found myself sitting on the toilet and feeling like I was wasting time. One day while sitting there I looked around and saw how terribly messy my bathroom is. It truly is one of the messiest rooms because most people don't see it so I don't clean it as often. I decided from now on while waiting I was going to make it a habit of cleaning or picking up something as I waited. Suddenly, on a consistent basis my bathroom is looking much better.

Why has this not crossed my mind before? Being neat does not come natural for me. This is such a small thing that requires no more than about fifteen minutes. However, when you are spending fifteen minutes in an area on a consistent basis, it is amazing how much cleaner the place becomes.

I was talking with a friend of mine the other day, who also has really young kids, and is not naturally neat. Both of us have the same problem. We clean all day, feel like we never stop working, yet the house does not look clean. She said to me that she starts all these things, but rarely finishes them. I realized that is the same thing I do. All day long I work, but I do not follow through or finish the job very well. I may wash clothes all day, but then they lay on the bed waiting to be put away or folded. At the end of the night when I am ready to fall into bed, there is the mountainous pile of clothes. By this time of night I just move them all unfolded over to my little table. In the morning I start washing again, adding to my already huge problem. I have started forcing myself to fold and put away the ones I get out of the dryer. If you actually turn on the timer, it takes less than ten minutes to fold and put away. It is silly that I can not stick to something for fifteen minutes at a time.

I take on projects that are too big. The other day it was so pretty outside I was itching to get out there and work. Rather than set my timer for fifteen or twenty minutes, I just went to work. I decided to weed all the thistles in my back yard. I went to work and weeded for an hour an a half. ( had no idea that much time went by as my daughter was sleeping and my son was happily digging in the dirt as well) Suddenly, I realized I had thirty minutes before I needed to leave to give some horseback lessons. I flew around trying to gather snacks for my kids, get my daughter up and shoes on, and get out the door to make it on time. Two hours later, when my husband came home, he surely wondered what had happened. The back yard looked like an armadillo had been digging all over, with weeds strewn every where, inside the dishes were all over the counter because I  had not cleaned up our lunch dishes before I went outside, there was stuff flung all over the living room as I had been racing through the house gathering things to take, and piles of unfolded laundry on our bed. Does this sound familiar? I had truly worked hard all day, but if anyone had walked into our house it would look like chaos.

From now on I have to make myself set the timer. If I had pulled weeds for fifteen minutes, I would have also had time to wash and put away the dirty dishes, fold the laundry, get the kids ready and not been rushed. The house would have looked neat and I would not have been all stressed out and yelling at the kids to hurry out the door.

I can look at these patterns of behavior and see that if I were more organized my day would feel and look more productive. It doesn't take special containers or gadgets ( although those might help too) but simply following through and finishing one thing at a time.....little by little.

Enjoy Your Kid Moments

Today started out like an ordinary Monday. My son after sleeping for twelve hours woke up horribly grouchy. First, he wanted cereal for breakfast, then he wanted left over pancakes. After I heated the left over pancakes he started crying because he wanted cereal. Momma  doesn't play that way so he ended up having neither. So we both started out the morning grumpy. How is it, I thought, that he can sleep for twelve hours and wake up grumpy? 
 My next thought is do I want to stay home all day and try to come up with ideas for entertainment so I don't have to hear myself saying "No leave that alone, quit that, stop being mean to sister". No I decided I did not have the energy for that so we loaded up his bicycle and his sister and away we went in search of something cheap and fun.
 We ended up at a little park that has quite an area of sidewalk where he could practice riding his bike. It also had a little playground too. I thought on a holiday we might encounter some other kids, but we had the place to ourselves.
 We had a blast. He got lots of practice riding his bike, I got lots of power walking in to keep up. My daughter got some super fast stroller time. We also had a great time on the playground. Once we got back home everyone was tired, but in much better moods. So enjoy your kid time because it changes from minute to minute. Try to remember next time your kid is having a hard moment that it will be over before you can blink. As for me I am going to try to remember that next time I feel my blood pressure rise........maybe counting to ten does work.  P.S. He ate a super big lunch!

Children Who Struggle To Pay Attention and What You Can Do To Help Them

Does your child have trouble paying attention? Do you find yourself repeating directions over and over?Do you hear teachers saying your child has difficulty staying on task or following directions? 
Being the mother of a very active four year old boy, I have heard and witnessed this behavior.
   First, I do believe that this is normal behavior,especially for boys. I am not stressing out about this. However, if there are things I can do to help my son learn to pay attention it will save myself and his teachers some frustration.
  Here are some fun ideas you can do at home that will improve listening skills. I found a cool website that had a lot of games to play with your kids. We modified it a little to work on listening skills.

Make A Trail of Shoes-

The game involves you using a laundry basket and all family members shoes.( you don't have to use all just some) You make a trail out of shoes and then gather them one pair at a time and put them in the basket. You can count how many pairs there are or gather them by color. We actually got a piece of paper and made a chart. Each family member had a certain color and we made marks for how many shoes each family member had. At the end we would see who had the most. Now here comes the paying attention part. When I explained the game to my son he got so excited that he would not be listening. First he started just grabbing shoes and throwing them in the basket.......wanting to get to the end of the trail to see where it went. I had to direct him to slow down and chart each pair of shoes on the chart. This meant he had to take time to look at the color of each person and mark the chart with the appropriate color. It was all he could do to slow down long enough to make those marks. I also told him from the beginning that he has to make sure he took the laundry basket with him as he moved. He would get so excited he would move on without it. I would say what did you forget? The first few times he would look around until finally he remembered to move it along with him. It was fun to watch him process. 

Picnic Time

This was another really fun thing for us to practice his listening skills. We had an indoor picnic because the weather was so nasty. he was in charge of setting things out. I was very specific with my directions. I had him get out four pieces of bread. It took him a while to get the bread open and by the time he did in his excitement he had forgotten how many pieces I told him. Rather than just tell him I would have him think real hard. He remembered on his own. I asked him to put the bread one the counter when he was finished with it. He tried to put it in the pantry. I stopped him and asked him if that was where I had asked him to put it. He had to think before he finally remembered. Every time I explained why it was important to listen so you could follow directions. I had him set the tablecloth a certain way and put the food a certain way. I wasn't trying to drive him crazy, just get him to listen to what I would say. If he got it right at the first I would praise him for using his listening ears. He never got frustrated because he was so excited about the activity and it was a lot of fun for me as well. 
   In the future we will doing a lot of these type activities to help with his listening ears. I'll post on here if I start noticing whether his attention and listening skills have improved.