Transplanted in Texas

Well. My first blog post will be up on The Baker's Help Meet on Wednesday. That means this post right here, the 118th, is the final one at Transplanted In Texas. We've covered a lot in the two-plus years I've been blogging here. From my wreck with Sneaky within the first month, to the pregnancy and birth of Yance, the journey to financial security (of which we are on step 3 of 7), the writing of a book, the loss of not one but TWO family members in less than two months' time last year...., and the blessing of a second pregnancy and anticipated birth. The journey continues over at The Baker's Help Meet , where I will try my best to show you how I am a happy, contented, joyful, madly-in-love wife and mother - and how you can be, too (y'know, if you're a woman who wants to be like that). It will be less personal, less scatter-brained, and more focused on keeping the family healthy, learning to handle money, training children, and stealing your husband

This is the second-to-last blog post here. On September 1, I will officially be writing over at  The Baker's Help Meet . And... with that comes new Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram accounts... and a new Facebook page! Those will all be set up by Sept 1, and my August 31 post will provide links to them. The content will focus strictly on motherhood and wifehood, with opinions on various topics and Biblical background to them. Through the new blog, I hope to grow myself and my readers, and by having strict content I hope to also grow my readership numbers. The end goal is to make it a paying blog and business, and the only way to do that is to get more readers, and ones who will be willing to pay to read what I have to say. I will be keeping this blog and Facebook page up so that people can read past content, and the Twitter account will be my personal one - while the new Twitter account will be blog stuff only. In other news, Yance is progressing in his potty-training, B

We got up to my parents' place Thursday night, and Yance was promptly put to bed. He hadn't even bothered to fall asleep on the way up! Wow! So... he was so tired on Friday that he fell asleep during lunch. I can't remember if he's done that before... if he has, it's been quite a long time! Poor kid. Friday afternoon, I was with KMarie. We went to the jeweler's and got her ring cleaned real quick. Then we picked up a petticoat for her dress. And I was there while she had lunch with her fiance. It wasn't too bad, but when she and a bridesmaid got their nails done, it took forever. Ack. Lol I keep my nails too short to bother getting them prettied up, and besides I hate the smell of a nail salon. Ah, well. I did enjoy being with her, though, and helping where I could. Missing Mommy But, we made it to rehearsal on time, and finally got to see my sweetheart and son again at the supper. Yance and D both missed me a lot, which I expected, but I am gla

As of this publication, I am in my hometown preparing for a wedding. Hubby took the day off, and we came up last night. And tomorrow is the wedding that has been waited on for several months. Yance gets to wear a new outfit, I get to actually wear a maternity dress suitable for this, and hubby will look as handsome as ever in his jeans and button-down shirt. This whole week has been busy, preparing for this event and also doing a checkup on the baby. Sunday morning we went shopping, getting home in time to put the groceries away and then go to Ma's for lunch. While there, we finished adjustments on my dress, and spent the rest of the day chill-axing. It was a good ending to the weekend, and a good way to rest for the upcoming crazy week. Plus Yance lost his pacifier somewhere in the house, so now he's officially weaned from that. I was fixing to do it anyway, so that's one way to get it done. Thanks, kid. Monday, I was washing and folding all the clothing we would n

My best friend is getting married very soon. So I have been thinking over my own romance, how things have changed since my beloved and I fell in love and married. And how our lives have developed since she and I met. She is nearly 4 years older than I (and four months older than my hubby!), but Kmarie was the one that I turned to when life was driving me crazy - before and even during my courtship with my sweetheart. By the time D proposed, I had switched over to confiding in him, as it should be, but still Kmarie and I have enjoyed conversing and swapping stories. She was my maid of honor, and there is still no one I would rather have taking that place. We met on an April day in 2009, and immediately I felt comfortable just walking up and introducing myself -- never have I felt that with anyone else. I'm a shy person, in case you didn't know. She was fourteen; I was eleven. We were both homeschooled, horse-crazy girls with temperamental mares. The friendship took o

Yancey Lane has been helping me with lots of things these past few weeks. Laundry, dishes, cooking, and cleanup. So today, here is a photographic record of the little man's accomplishments while helping me. Oh. And he learned a new word on Sunday. "Cracker"! July 20 - licking the fork after helping me during multiple stages of making brownies This is only a sample of what he's been doing. He's been throwing away trash on command for us for a long time now, as well as putting away his toys before bed and assisting me with cooking and laundry (and putting away clean laundry!) many times over the past month. His department in the laundry is to haul small items to the laundry room - and put whites in the white hamper, since it's the only one he can reach right now. For clean laundry, he puts folded socks in the basket and helps me carry baskets of folded clothes to the appropriate room to put away. And for dishes, his job is to put the clean silver

Warning: I might offend some people with this post. That is not my intention. I am simply showing y'all things my husband and I have discovered in our journey to being debt-free. In early-mid May, 2017, D went to a Dave Ramsey Entreleadership 1 day course, paid for by his employers. D and I grew up on Dave Ramsey - me more so than him - and were familiar with his work. We had pulled out a loan for the house (a balloon note? with cattle as collateral) and also paid off a much smaller loan for his gunsmithing school (which he never finished, but that's another story) by then, and were floating comfortably. Or so we thought. While the $4k loan had been in the works for being paid off for a couple of years by the time we finished it in August 2016, the $25k+ loan had been pulled out the January before we got married - so we briefly had two loans during our marriage. Unlike the smaller loan, this one had no regular payments - it just needed to have the interest paid every year

On June 1, I enrolled as an ambassador in the Plexus world. Our first priority: get healthier. So far, so good. Our second priority: earn money. Through this company, many have boosted their incomes or even become entirely self-employed because of it, and since we are wanting to become self-employed, we're going to try this out and see what it takes. We already know the company - my family takes various supplements regularly, and friends trust the products - so it's not like we're going in blind. And if it proves not to be helpful to us health-wise, we will discontinue advertising the products. This post is only to inform you of our first major step toward self-employment, and will not become a regular occurrence - don't worry! I will go back to regular posts after this! In the near future, I will set up a Facebook page to advertise with, and only  rarely discuss it on this blog. Plexus is a company built around helping people get healthier and lose weight, and is c

My husband and I have been married for two years and two months (and ten days, but who's counting.... 😄). When I think about that, it feels unbelievable. Has it really only been twenty-six months? It feels like we've known each other and been married forever! In the short time we've been married - this whirlwind adventure that never seems to stop for a moment - I have learned many things, and matured and grown as a woman, wife, and now mother. I married when I was just a crazy, starry-eyed eighteen year old. Now, I'm a crazy, madly in love twenty year old, but hey. I'm growing up. Even though growing up never seems to end - you just keep on growing mentally in one way or another. So. I fell in love at seventeen, married at eighteen, was a mother at nineteen, and baby number two will be here while I'm still twenty. And I couldn't be happier. I have always admired my man. He is my rock in this world, and it is an honor to be so trusted and loved! I

With the Triple Crown season in the U.S. now at an end, I thought I would make a post about the impact A.P. Indy has had on the Crown. A great-great-grandson won the Triple Crown this year, becoming only the 13th horse to win it in 100 years. A.P. Indy, a 1989-foaled son of Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew, was out of a winning daughter of the famous Triple Crown winner Secretariat. In turn, he was an early betting favorite for the Kentucky Derby of 1992, reflecting his superb racing record at two and three, but had to scratch due to injury shortly before the race. The injury had him miss the Preakness, but he rebounded to win the final leg, the Belmont Stakes. His half-brother, by Storm Bird (who also sired champion sire Storm Cat), won the 1991 Preakness Stakes. The striking bay stallion was retired after a victory in the 1992 Breeders' Cup Classic, and his first foals were born in 1994. He was retired from breeding in spring 2011 after failing to get any of the mares he bred