Past Posts

Toby is taking tomorrow off and we are going to WF to start the packing and moving process at my Mom's house. I may not have much time to blog, but I wanted to tell you that tomorrow is my blogOversary. I have been blogging for three years. Part of my purpose in starting a blog was to keep up with the world of computers and internet. Although I have learned much in my three years, I am still not a computer techie. But that is okay, I have enjoyed my blogging. The journaling has been an unexpected treat. I really enjoy going back and reading earlier blogs and being reminded of past moments. The biggest treat has been making blogger friends. I thank each one of my readers and commenters for their friendship and input into my blog and into my life. You make blogging worthwhile.

I thought I would share some funny stories from that first year of blogging. Most of my early blogs had to do with farm life and construction. Here are a few posts:

Ground Breaking March 12, 2005
Today we are breaking ground on our new house on our new land. We have bought 75 acres not to far from where we live now. The land has a large pond and lots of pecan trees. We are building a "studio" (or as my husband says "the shack") first. We will live in the studio for a while and build the "big house" later. I am just so happy because it will be mine to build as I want, and I do love to build. There is just something about swinging a hammer and putting things together - very satisfying. I am a framer at heart. Unfortunately, my husband thought I was a farmer. We have spent the last 8 years on large parcels of land doing large farming along with our ranching. Going round and round on a tractor does not take a rocket scientist. Although farming has provided me with lots of funny stories, I won't miss it. This piece of land is plenty big for all my critters and a few cows and horses, but I won't have to go round and round anymore - famous last words.

Funny things April 2005
I have heard people say that they would probably get a divorce if they had to work with their spouses on this or that - like building a house. Even Toby and I have our moments, but for the most part we do very well together on making decisions and building the house. One of the things I love about Toby is his sense of humor. He laughs at my silly jokes and my smart-aleck answers. Setting the windows and getting them level was a particularly trying time. Toby was getting a little impatient and irritated with one window and me, and he let me know about it. I was standing inside holding the window which ever way he told me, and he was outside with the level and hammer and nails. When we finally got the window nailed in place, he said, "Are you happy now?" The smartmouth in me answered, "You mean with this window or my marriage?" Toby hooted with laughter. That is why I love him. Later when we got home, there was a message on the recorder from some unidentifiable woman (girl). She sounded very young, and she said something that sounded like, "Toby, call me back at this number." We could not figure out who it was or what they were saying exactally, and there was no number to call back. I played the message over and over trying to hear it better and giving Toby "the questioning eye" since it was a girl's voice. Finally, Jesse said, "Dad, I think you need to get a smarter mistress." We all hooted.


Murphy's Law May 2005
First off, the trailer has to be cleaned out after we hauled cattle to the sale barn last week. For those of you who know cow manure after being on wheat pasture, I am sure you will understand the difficulty. For those of you who don't know cows, you don't want to know. It turns out that we left the good flathead shovel and broom at the new house, but no problem, we can use a hose to get it wet, and then shovel it out. This meant hooking up to the trailer and backing to the barn since one tire has a slow leak (why don't we get that fixed?) to air it up before pulling up close enough to a water hose. Most of these things needed doing anyway. Here is where the mission got impossible. Jesse and I put the special nozel on the water hose to create the pressure needed to wash out the manure, but no water would come out. Jesse unscrewed the nozel and out fell some sort of giant bug. Jesse screamed and dropped the nozel. We got a good laugh out of that, and put the nozel back on. Still no water! We banged around on the nozel, but nothing came out. So I poked a screw driver up in it, and sure enough there was something stuck in the nozel. After I figured out how to take the nozel apart, I saw the bug guts wedged in the whole at the end of the nozel. I poked these out with my screw driver - not so bad. Then I poked the screwdriver back into the nozel - hmm, more bug. It took me quite a while to get the entire bug out of the nozel, and it was gross! As I worked to get the bug guts out of the nozel, I began to think, "Do other wives do this? I cooked his breakfast, packed his lunch, and I am driving the truck to pick up roofing. Did I sign on for bug gut duty?" I was really working myself into a tizz. With all the bug guts out of the nozel I took it the nozel to Jesse who was waiting with her mud boots and gloves to wash out the trailer (she is a good kid). This time the nozel worked great. I told Jesse I was going to clean the kitchen and get the bug guts off the counter. She responded with, "Are you going to put them on Dad's pillow?" Hmm, not a bad idea!