Transplanted in Texas

Two thousand seventeen was a year of ups and downs. It was pretty good in the first half, but it pretty much just went downhill after July was over. Here are the last twelve months. January : I edited "A.P. Indy", D got his license to carry, and I had a couple midwife visits. Read more here . February : We worked on the driveway and house, got a washing machine and dryer, and also I decided that D is awesome . March : I had a birthday, and Yance was born!  Also we had our first anniversary . April : Yance went to his first reenactment, he got a new uncle when his aunt got married , he met Nana and Pop, got to ride a horse for the first time, and I ended up with a bit of PPD while working on Camp NaNoWriMo. May : Our second and final reenactment of the year! And Yance got to meet my grandparents. We traveled a lot , and I did my first feature as an Amazon affiliate. June : It started off terribly. Storms came through and took the power out for five days, and...

Well, it's here again. Christmas. On Sunday, we will be an hour away with extended family, and Monday we will be home and with close family opening gifts. I am excited. We even got Yance a gift, and paired it with another thing we bought for him in July or August 2016 that still hasn't been opened. I know, that was before he was born. D has gotten all my gifts in, and I have all of his. All of our presents have been ordered or purchased, but we're still waiting on one final one to come in. It's finally on its way, but it's cutting it close! This year, we will be celebrating without one family, who is celebrating elsewhere like they do every other year. And we will be without D's favorite second cousin (and mine!) who is working at a hunting lodge place somewhere in Louisiana. The biggest absentees are Pop and Caleb, who will be sorely missed. Who are sorely missed. Nana is pretty much done with life now that her beloved soulmate is gone, but she is st...

Well. It's Friday again. And that means it's time for another blog post. This week, we got to experience life with a wood stove in our house for the very first time. Over the weekend, the installing process was finally finished (thank you, Daddy and D!), and it made its debut on Sunday evening. And I like it. We will be getting a screen   to put around it so Yance doesn't burn himself on it, but other than that we're done. And he's been good about avoiding it. My family had a wood stove for the last several years of my life with them, so I am used to life with them. And I prefer them over other methods of heating because they're generally cheaper. And besides, there's nothing like the sight of a warm fire on a cold day. The horses have a suitable winter coat, and I chopped off our stallion's tail because it was basically a log of hair. It looks funny now being really short, but it's a lot cleaner! Just so you know, it's a bad idea ...

There are no words for how much I love this girl. She is second only to my sweet husband, who by the way surpasses everyone and everything, and in some ways we could not be more different. That includes our politics, though in some ways we are similar there, as well. I tend to dress plainly, and although I do not love shooting as much as D, I don't mind it, either. She is more fashionable and extravagant, and less likely to touch a gun, let alone shoot it. But when it comes down to it, we are both introverts, we love horses, and we love Star Wars and Star Trek. Yes, that's possible! She battles depression and anxiety, and this past week has been extremely rough on her for a reason I would rather not say. If I wasn't tied down with a son and a husband who needs me, I would be up there now with her. But she has an amazing best friend of her own and a fantastic boyfriend. In three weeks, my beloved and I will be up in the area to see my family for the final time this y...

Thanksgiving day started off the Holiday Season of 2017 for us. D has worked a total of four days since then, counting today. Thanksgiving Day kicked off a four-day weekend, and then he took his birthday, Wednesday, off. Thanksgiving wasn't as bad as I anticipated, though no doubt Ma was feeling a rollercoaster. We celebrated D's birthday with cake that day as well, and it was good to have most of the extended family there. The following day, in early afternoon, we started out for Mama's parents, as has been done annually for many years, with few exceptions. It was my third appearance there. Yance seemed to love it, but all the travel being confined to the car seat was pretty upsetting for him. He's had it with that thing for a while. He absolutely loves travelling, but the eight and a half month old has never been one for sitting still. Saturday was Thanksgiving at D's other grandparents, and then that night we were in a hotel by the Texas Motor S...

My recap of D's birthday and the events surrounding the 2017 Thanksgiving celebrations comes next week. We're on our way to Hico to see more family, as D and his parents have done annually for the past while. Yesterday, Ma's family all gathered at her place to give thanks for all God has given us - each other, homes, good lives, and our friends. 2016 Hico Thanksgiving It was the first Thanksgiving without Caleb. But we were and are thankful for the time we did have with him, and thankful that he is in Heaven. This year we got two little boys to play with, and next year at least one more little one will join in the fun. Yance's very first first  cousin is due early May 2018. In the holiday season, we get to experience everybody's love. We had an overwhelming amount of it twice this year already, what with losing Pop and then Caleb. But this time we were not gathering to mourn. Yesterday we were together to celebrate what freedoms we have. I don't ...

This picture was taken early in our honeymoon. It was unique because I had never been out of state without an "adult" (aka someone in their 30s or 40s), and because D and I were actually alone, hours from home. We'd gone to local places by ourselves, but stayed within half an hour of our parents. It was fun simply to go someplace and explore on our own. Just 364 days after we had our first conversation, and really got to know each other, we married and set out on an adventure that will span the rest of our lives. The first week was spent in Arkansas, but the honeymoon really lasted for several months. I'm not sure when it ended - if it was before or after Yance was born. My beloved and I are learning more about each other by the day. And, in a way, ourselves. Because we have to explain different things to each other, and in vocalizing our thoughts we realize various traits we never noticed we had, or other little things we notice we need to change. As for me,...

When I see pictures of Thoroughbred yearlings and weanlings in my Twitter feed, I marvel at how large and mature they already are. Dingus, nearing a year and a half in age, is the size of a weanling bred for the track. His three year old sister was ready for training a year ago, at two, not as a yearling like most of the horses I see across the racing world. I'm not knocking the racing industry. Instead, I am simply marveling at the variety in horses. Dingus will be ready physically for backing at two and a half years, in the winter of 2018/2019. I have a year to make sure that he is mentally ready, too. Thoroughbreds are often backed between the ages of one and two, and are already galloping and doing more finesse maneuvers by the time their second birthday rolls around. Some, especially precocious ones with birthdays later in the spring, are nearing their first workouts. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Lippizans often aren't backed until fully mature...

It was the middle of January 2016, almost two years ago. Kmarie lived in Lubbock, starting her first semester at Texas Tech there. And J and I took a trip to go see her. At the time, she was leasing a Thoroughbred ex-racehorse, a tiny mare that was jumped some. The New Mexico-bred was a lovely thing, and to date is the only Thoroughbred I have ridden. This picture was taken of me riding in the arena where horses owned/used by Tech students were boarded. More specifically, it was the indoor arena. Missy, registered as Starrcliff, was foaled April 7, 2006. A dark bay or brown mare, she never won in six starts. Instead, she finished second the second time out, and third in her fifth start. Beyond that, she has a fourth place finish, as well as sixth, seventh, and eighth place finishes. She is by Seacliff, a stallion that swept the 1995 Florida Stallion Stakes series for juvenile colts, and out of G. Starr, a stakes-placed winner by Earth Star. Earth Star, by Deputy Minist...

I laid out the plots for my book and had all of my blog posts prepared so the blog could handle being virtually abandoned for 30 days. And then it hit me. I simply can't do NaNoWriMo this year. I have a house to maintain, a baby to watch and make sure he doesn't hurt himself or anything else, and keep random things out of his mouth. There won't be enough time, between feeding my husband and my son, the horses and holidays, to get fifty thousand words in. And if I don't think I have a chance of winning, I'm not inclined to start something. So NaNoWriMo 2017 is a bust. No, less than a bust. It never began. We'll see about next year. I might have enough time. But November is an awful month for it, because of Thanksgiving. In other news, I am releasing my book, "A.P. Indy", on November 11! It has over 200 pages and will be available on Amazon and CreateSpace, among other places. I can't even write a blog post without the kid climbing u...

Wednesday evening, I had a random idea to do a shoot while Jack was eating. So I tied the dog up to keep him from doing anything to ruin the shoot or clobber my son, and brought my son out with a picnic blanket (aka quilt by Ma) and a couple of his favorite things. I wanted to show how much my son loves to be outside at the age of seven months. As soon as he could crawl proficiently, he would beeline for the door as soon as it was opened. It is the only place he enjoys more than my lap. It is getting chillier, and so he'd been wearing pants and socks all day and there was no worry about getting him all dirty. So once the horse was tied up and eating, I set him down and let him go. Of course, I made sure he didn't go too far, for he was bent on going to see the old gelding for a little while there. The blanket was obviously abandoned in no time, and only once was he placed back on it. I got a few pictures of him sitting gnawing on his Nuby cup, which he loves, and one o...

This is the essence of Cookie. Ever since he was a kitten (shown here at six weeks of age), he has been a lazy, sleepy kitten. Too lazy to fend off the dog, and sleepy enough to be lying on the chair right now by the table, fast asleep. It's Duke who drags up mice and rats, among other things. The cat wanders around, fends for himself at night and while we're away, and then stays inside during the day while we're home. Because he won't keep the dog away from his food, so he has to have it inside or starve. He's a gentle soul, but still a kitten. He can be crazy one minute and asleep the next, crashed on the floor. And he is quite lazy. He's not very good at cleaning up in the litter box, often scraping the wall instead of the litter. It gets pretty annoying. Cookie enjoys curling up on or beside people, and does pretty well when Yance wants to clobber him. He also likes to knead us and has a terrible time getting the hint when we want him to leave. B...

This month I'm getting down to the crunch of preparing to release my book (yay!) and put down the first words of my next one. Both of those are happening next month. I am also trying to decide what to do for my sweetheart's birthday, which is at the end of next month. Fortunately, I have given myself plenty of time to figure that out, so that's not too rushed. This year I will be working on my first draft of a book full of short stories and poems. All brand-new. Yeah, it's going to be fun. November is turning out to be even more hectic than last year, which had NaNoWriMo, a reenactment, Thanksgiving, and also hubby's birthday - and I still got nearly 90,000 words in on my A.P. Indy book (it's not that long anymore). This year I'm adding a book release to that list, and also will be keeping track of a seven to eight month old baby boy at the same time. Yikes! By the way, we're expecting a tooth at any moment, he crawls, pulls himself up, ...

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 ...

My husband lost his hunting buddy. Caleb hit a semi truck head on in a treacherous stretch of road (lots of winding curves in a short stretch) on his way back to school from visiting his girlfriend in his home town. This happened between 11:00 and 11:30pm on Wednesday (September 20), and he was killed instantly. The truck driver is unharmed. We were notified by D's parents at 4:30 yesterday morning. It was the last thing we expected, and my beloved crumpled. When he came back to bed, the tired face had transformed into grief itself. My first thought was that Jack, his horse, had died, but my next one was, "That doesn't make any sense!" Because unless he got out and was hit or something, we would be the first to know, and his parents wouldn't come tell us. We'd go tell them. And then he told me that Caleb was killed in a car wreck, and the world stopped. My sweetheart did not go to work yesterday. He did manage to go today, but we still can't believe ...

Next Wednesday marks two years since my D asked my father for my hand. This picture was taken the evening before, at a reenactment ball. If we were in love then, we're nuts about each other now. That was the first of only two reenactments that I have participated on the field at. At that one, I rode Jack and was first guarding the cannon D was on, and then the following day was sent off with a cavalry group. My future sister in law and I rode a couple horses on the empty battlefield while the others were prepping to pack up, and while we were gone my sweetie asked Dad. The answer, of course, was yes. That ball was the first where I wore that gown. Today, it is packed away in a box, because I can't wear it. I fit it, I'm sure, but you can't breastfeed with it. Next year I will wear it again. Without my man, I would not know about reenactments. Sure, there'd be a basic knowledge that they existed, but I wouldn't know a thing about what to do with the...