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...

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...

This week is an update on several parts of our lives. Debt: no tax return; had to pay because I screwed up on the paperwork and didn't realize we had taxable income (oops) partly because we didn't last year. Sold cows yesterday at auction and will get the check within the next few days. Praying that they sold for more than expected. Will definitely get the debt paid off by our goal date regardless. Baby: starting to roll around and make its presence known! Looks like it could be a spunky kid and give Yance a run for his money. We're almost at 15 weeks now (June 3), and we'll visit the midwife again on June 12. Marriage: never better. I love my sweetheart! Sneaky: still here. Argh. Nobody wants him. We're making plans for next year should he fail to sell. There is still an ad on EquineNow that will stay through August before it gets taken down permanently. Dingus: it's been too hot to work in the afternoon so I haven't touched him this week. Regardless, ...

We're twenty six months into this decades long adventure called marriage. And what a ride it's been. Here are some things I've learned. Be very, very sure that the person you're marrying is the one you want seeing ALL sides of you. And then be willing to change yourself, without losing that spark that attracted your spouse to you, to better fit your spouse's needs. If you have been dating for more than six months and you still don't know if you want to marry this person, WHY ARE YOU STILL DATING?! On the flip side, if you're of marrying age after six months of dating and you do want to marry this person, WHERE IS THE RING? When your spouse gets angry, don't assume that s/he is angry at you. Remember that all the tough moments will pass. Don't spend extra time moping because of them. Get up, do something, and put a smile on your face! Read/listen to informational books. Especially those about marriage and children....

Finally. Nearly two years in, I get to my one hundredth post. In that time, I have covered love, loss, gain, goals, ups, downs, children, horses, cats, dogs, marriage, and life. And over the next one hundred posts, I will essentially be doing the same thing. For I have a horse to train, a child to raise, another one on the way, a husband to keep, and life to live. This week the cows thought our yard was better than their pasture - and then also decided to go break into the hay field off our yard. So. Now we have finally done repairs on the fence and that shouldn't be a problem. Can you believe it's already been a year and a half? The horses have been assigned the job of mowing our yard since the dogs decided our machine mower was a toy. Really they need 24/7 turnout, because they haven't gotten very far. And the dogs keep pestering them and driving me crazy. Duke in particular likes to annoy the heck out of Dingus. He's been kicked and chased and still kee...

Well, Monday marks two years of marriage for me and D. In that time, we've gotten a colt, gelded the colt, gotten a son, written a book, installed electricity and water in our home (yay!), installed a wood stove, installed a washing machine and dryer, repaired said dryer twice, had several work days, sold a horse, gone through three phones and one laptop between the two of us (and my third phone is suffering... oops), met Dustin Ellermann, gotten two dogs, gone through several cats (but managed to keep one), and gotten two more siblings between the two of us - via marriage and also birth. Our first niece or nephew is due early May. Through it all, we've stuck by each other and look forward to many more years together. We will be out of debt and have at least three months of expenses in an emergency fund by our third anniversary. So here's a selection of pictures from the last two years. This weekend, we're going away. Just for two days and one nig...

So. I am going to be starting a vlog. Every weekend, I'll be posting a fairly long video, on YouTube, about what's been going on in my life. However.... The channel needs a name (I didn't want to just use Transplanted In Texas). And therefore I am announcing a vlog-channel naming contest! The prize is TBD (sorry). This channel will be featuring things like.... Yance's milestones (he turned 11 months old and was weaned two Thursdays ago!) Major events along our financial journey to getting debt free (we aim to be out of debt by July 4) Horse training and riding (Dingus!) And other things that happen with a young family on a cattle ranch The contest ends February 24. My husband is also going to start a vlog about his shooting and guns and holsters and that kind of thing, and I will keep you updated on that. The camcorders arrive today! And on March 1, if everything goes as planned, I will begin training Dingus. Yance turns one year old on March...

Taken on our wedding day, this is the picture I think of when I think of my man, my husband, and the day we were wed. He is the father of our son, and a wonderful one at that. We are coming up on two years since I felt the butterflies in my stomach when he proposed.  Tuesday was eighteen months since our wedding day. D is a hard worker, and an honest one. His integrity is perfect, his work ethic exceptional. My beloved's faith in our Father is among the things that drew me to him, and it sets the foundation for just who he is. We have hard times, and good times, and it seems to me that I am the general cause of tension in the house due to crankiness - which is sometimes hormonal, sometimes not. Yeah, I need to work on that. My sweetheart and I are so much alike in that we enjoy a good action or superhero movie, and love to ride horses. But while he likes to have an organized, neat home, I couldn't care less. Organization and cleanliness have never been ...

" And the LORD God said,  It is  not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a  help meet  for him. " Genesis 2:18. The priority list of a good help meet goes like this: 1. Husband 2. Children (if any) 3. Others When I married my husband, I promised to be a faithful and true wife, to love, comfort, and keep him. I promised to forsake all others and remain true unto him as long as we both live. I have endowed all my worldly goods to him in sickness, health, poverty, and wealth until death parts us. And it's not easy. " Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire  shall be  to thy husband , and he shall rule over thee . " Genesis 3:16. Your man is the head of the household. Sometimes you must step outside of your position to care for him or to save others from him, but those exceptions are rare. Too often in this world, the concerns o...