“Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you are right either way.”
Your AHAmoment of the day, brought to you by Chris Cox.
Tag: Country
Our Love & Our Souls
Breaking news, it is warming up. We are out of blanket territory for a while. Now I can buckle down for Christmas.
Your AHAmoment today is brought to you by Sean McConnell. His song ‘Our Love and Our Souls’ is what IT is all about. He says it better than I ever could. Have a listen below. It is an amazing feeling when a song like this pops up on your shuffle and just speaks to your soul. You may not have been paying attention before, just looking out the window, lost in your thoughts or following that long white line. Then all of a sudden, you snap to and realize He is speaking right to you. If you are me, you listen to it on repeat, so grateful to listen and be receptive to the message.
“Sometimes it all comes down at once
Sometimes when it rains it pours
But I wouldn’t trade my troubles for any one of yours
Cause money’s just money
It comes and it goes
And things are just things baby
So breakable
Ain’t nothing lasts forever except our love and our souls
Cause I ain’t that hungry
And I have a home
I ain’t fighting for my life
And I’m not alone
So may I pray every morning
As I make up the bed
‘Lord, all I need today is my daily bread'”
Thanks, Doug Morrison, on YouTube for the vid.
Walk in love, dear readers.
Grocery shopping today after work for Christmas! Wish me luck! Cranberry sauce, Pomegranate cake, and pumpkin bread. Then wrapping all the presents for my loved ones.
Fear
Fear creates a hole in your heart. In your soul. AHA moment. What am I afraid of? I am afraid of the unknown. Of not being ‘successful.’ Of disappointing my parents. That I am doing the wrong thing. That on the outside, it looks like I do not have it all together. That I will spend my life alone. That I will wake up one day and have regrets. That there will be a time in my life where riding does not fit in.
This is extremely hard for me to admit. I have spent my life, I think mostly unknowingly, trying to convince everyone that I can do anything and everything on my own without help from anyone. Where does that come from? Not the Lord, I can tell you. I can not do it on my own and it is utterly apparent to me now. No one is immune to this. Fears are not conquered alone, no matter how hard you try.
What are you afraid of?
Thanks to Paul Overstreet – Topic on YouTube for the vid.
I am thankful for everything that He does with me, for me, and through me. I know that I am never alone because He is always there, helping me walk my path. I can conquer anything with Him.
Walk in love, dear readers.
Donde esta el sol?
Winter. What is this winter? Tap, tap. Is thing thing on? OK. I know everyone who has ‘real winters’ is rolling their eyes at me as we do not have ‘real winters’ here compared to everyone else. It is also a dull subject because everyone is talking about it. It is just that I am always surprised at myself that I get…surprised when the seasons change…like they do not change every year. It is an interesting conundrum. I also have not seen the sun in DAYS.
I have to tell you though, it was down right cold this past Thursday to Sunday morning. An odd mix of humidity, low temps, solid cloud cover, and wind. A down to the bones cold. We will be lucky if we get any sun in the near future. The horses were feeling it too. They practically never left the barn. I spent two or 3 times as much time mucking than normal. When I was younger, I would have been riding in it, no matter what. What has happened to me? Why is it hard to do? This is one of the most frustrating things in my life right now.
I round penned or lunged everyone on Saturday after I finished a myriad of stacked up chores and my various feed store runs. (Does anyone else have to go to multiple feed stores this time of year to get everything you need???) Also, I spent probably 2 hrs de-burring everyone’s manes and tails. Too bad I do not get paid by the bur. Their bur game is on point.
At least the wind stopped Sunday and it got a little warmer. Here is the real news: I FINALLY RODE! Sorry, was I yelling? I am not really sorry. I hopped on my Cheetah girl for a great bareback ride on Sunday morning. I did not want to waste time on grooming and tacking. She is the best even when my riding is less than stellar, which at the present moment it feels that way. I focused mostly on my seat and position the whole time and staying out of her way. It is hard to do much else when my ridding is so sporadic. Relaxation and consistency is all I can ask of her. Nothing fancy or complicated.
This whole not riding thing is messing me up, both mentally and physically. At least I still get to see them at least once a week. I am hoping that I can get some more ride time over Christmas and haul to some places. I would also like to get to a couple clinics after the new year. I would like to also include some shows in that list, but Lito is just not ready for that. I have not ridden him enough. It hurts my heart a little to admit that. I am going to have to sit down and get a schedule going to get people out there with me so I can ride him and not be alone. I know I have said that before here, but it just has not happened yet. Between work, holidays, family obligations, and my Uncle, it just has not happened. I am going to make it happen. I have to.
We did have three new calves this week. One was born Sunday morning. I watched her labor from a far. New life. It is amazing to me how they just know what to do. Nature is such a beautiful thing. AHA moment.
Anyway, that is my weekend recap. I am sorry for the ramble. The pre-work Monday blues were strong this morning. I would rather be riding, but I also have to pay the bills. I hope all of you got to do what makes your heart’s smile in this wintery weather.
If you did not get to do what makes your heart smile, let these doe eyes warm your heart. The slay me.
Stay tuned for my next blog hop! We are talking off the track Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse pedigrees! It is going to get interesting. I know I am a little late to this one, but I still like it and want to keep it going.
Walk in love, dear readers.
Stewardship
I once wrote a scholarship essay about stewardship. Well, the prompt may not have been directly about stewardship, but stewardship applied and was the point of my essay. Stewardship of the land. I think I was awarded that scholarship. That is not the point of this post though.
The point is, we are stewards. Have you ever thought about it? Stewards of ourselves. Stewards of the land. Stewards of our animals. We are care takers. AHA moment. To me, it is my most important job to be a good steward of my animals and their land. It is not always easy and it is not always fun. It is the price we pay for the great things they give us.
Yesterday, after work, I drove out to the farm in blistering, strong winds to throw extra feed to the horses and cows and to blanket the old man, Apache. I do this every night it gets really cold. Luckily for me, I live in the southern half of Texas and we do not have ‘real’ winters. Did I want to drive out there in less than favorable conditions to be cold and dirty? Then to wake up at 5 AM to feed again and get back to town before traffic and work. Pick hay out of my hair all day at work. Not really. Especially because I could not ride (how selfish of me). I will turn around after work today and do the same thing. However, it did me more than good to see them and know that they were alright, would be comfortable through the night. They needed me. They depend on me, and to be honest, I depend on them.
I am so grateful for Apache. He has taught me so much in my life. Lessons I am not sure I would have learned from any other horse I have come in contact with. He is the one that really ‘got my goat’ when I was younger. He has the attitude and personality of a naughty pony, just in horse size. Anyway, now that he is 30+ years old, I am having a hard time watching him age. We do not know much about his life before he came to be with us. He has been a great horse. He has really started to show his age since we lost Mansebo and that is the hardest part for me. I do not want to think about when his time comes. He will let me know what that is, just like Mr. Man did. Until then, I am happy to do whatever it is he needs. I will blanket him when it gets cold and feed him to his heart’s content. Get the burrs out of his mane and tail. Do whatever I can to make him comfortable and will not always be easy.
What is the most important thing to you that you are a steward of and why? What sacrifices do you make?
Walk in love, dear readers, and stay warm.
Farm weekend with the horses and dog for me. Christmas festivities with the nephew and niece Sunday!
Getting into the Spirit.
I have finally finished the Christmas decorations at my parents house. It took me way longer than normal 
because I have had a case of the bah humbugs. I will not go on about this because I want them gone and I have already versed y’all. I am going to focus on the good and positive right now. One step at a time. I will say the decorating helped along with the Christmas music. I confess, I also had some bubbly. Why not? It is the season to celebrate the waiting for Christ. If you are having a case of the bah humbugs, get to decorating while playing your favorite Christmas music. Baking also helps. Christmas cookies! Pumpkin bread! Oh, and look here for some cute photos of my critters getting into the spirit. I snapped a few photos of the finished look to help inspire you if you need it. I am also going to share my favorite Christmas songs/music if you need or want help in that department.
Let us not talk about how the table is not in the middle. Look at that Darcy dog being fire side bird dog. Such a Llew.
The reason for the season…
Vince Gill (hello, his voice) is a great go to for Christmas music. Chris Isaak (again, his voice. Yowza) and Aaron Neville (is this a theme? His voice. So soulful) are also very good. I first heard Mindy in store while shopping. I went up to the register and asked someone to go find out who was singing. Why I did not use my iPhone I do not know.
Eden’s Edge has a very good version of ‘O Holy Night’ that I can not find on YouTube.
I have many more that are high on my list, I just can not name them all at the moment.
Check out my Spotify playlist for more.
Happy listening. Remember the reason for the season.
What are your favorites?
A Soft Spot For Stars Blog Hop: Location, Location, Location.
This is my first blog hop, and it will not be my last! It has rained basically non stop since Friday, so I have no fun riding stories. I basically did chores and fed while getting wet. Then on Sunday, my parents and I got the family Christmas tree. I finished decorating it last night with the help of wine. The decorating is almost finished. Normally, I would be finished with Christmas deco within a couple days of Thanksgiving, but given the events of late, it just has not happened.
I digress, I am going to jump on the TB pedigree blog hop bandwagon eventually, but I can not remember who started that one? Cheetah‘s dam was an OTTB and has a fun pedigree. I did all the research while I was in grad school. It was great for procrastinating.
Today’s blog hop comes from A Soft Spot For Stars. I already like her because we both have dun mares. Anyway, I too am curious about fellow bloggers locations and what it is like where they are.
No secrets here, I am a Texas gal. I reside in the ‘southern half’ of the state, in a big city. My horses stay at our family farm an hour away. That makes things difficult for me and my fuel consumption. However, it is an easy hour drive and I can go out after work whenever I need or want. The time change makes it hard to ride when I go after work during the winter, but I can blanket the old guy and feed him before it gets dark on cold nights. I will be doing that the latter half of this week.
Demographic? Most people that live in and around the city board their horses if they do not have property outside of town. There are several equestrian friendly communities outside of town where you can live and keep or board horses. We are probably 50/50 mix of western to english riders of all kinds. There are many shows and clinics in the ‘general area.’ Most shows and clinics are just far enough away from where the horses are to not be ‘convenient’ (1.5-2+ hr haul). This is very frustrating for me as I am hungry for more knowledge and do not want to let my riding get stagnant. BUT there are many great trainers and I have a few that I plan to haul to for lessons in the near future. We have a few good tack stores in town (good or bad considering how you look at it!). There is a big tack store in the area. It is generally an hour from town or an hour from the farm, but I ride horses for people out that way sometimes.
Costs of horse keeping in my region of the great state:
- Trim-$35 (Lito just gets a trim, as do the other geldings and Petunia)
- Front shoes-$70 (I keep front shoes on Cheetah Beets)
- Average cost of a month of full time training-$800
- Average cost of monthly pasture board-$400
- Average cost of monthly stall board-$600 (All kinds of board and prices range wildly. These averages might be on the high side, but there are places I have seen that have exorbitant prices. The ones that I have looked at and work for me are not all that much closer than the farm)
- Hay, good horse quality Bermuda-$8.00 (I have not looked at the prices for this year yet)(We high quality pasture and have had good rains this year…I do not think we will need to buy too terribly much this year)
- What I consider priceless? Feeding in my pj’s. That Texas sky. Sunrises and sunsets viewed from the back of my horse. When I am at the farm, I can do whatever, whenever.
Weather? In the summer it is hot and humid. The only ‘good thing’ about the humidity is that it keeps us from generally having too many 100+ temp days. The heat index is the killer…and the bugs. All of our cows have some percentage of Brahman in them to help with coping with bugs and humidity. I ride all year round. In the summer on the weekends, I wake up and feed in the dark so I can be tacked up and mounted by the time I can see with the first light. I generally ride 2 horses (groom, ride, cool out, hose down) and get some chores finished by 11 AM. I do not do much else until 7 PM when I will ride another horse. It also limits when I haul. I do not like to haul during the hot, middle of the day. During the work week, I hustle out there and get 1 horse ridden and get back home late. Sometimes I stay out there for the night and come back super early in the morning for work. Winter is pretty easy by majority standards. It will freeze a few times. Lows are generally in the 40’s. A cold night is in the 30’s. It will only do that for a few days. It is not uncommon to be riding in short sleeves in January.
Lito has what I think is an allergic reaction to mosquitoes or flies. Does anyone else have this problem???
Hot Darcy.
A ‘frosty’ morning ride on Cheetah, looking at the geldings.
Other notes? Hunting season. It cramps my style a little bit because some in the family like to hunt at the farm. That is all fine and good except that requires me to not ride. That bugs me. Other than that it is fine. Our property is on a river and there are some duck hunters that like to come and park themselves behind the barn. The barn is not right on the river, but it is close. Anyway, I can hear them and let me tell you, it is funny. They are not very good at their duck calls and I can hear them talking. That is not how you do it!
Frustrating things?
- The drive. I wish they were closer. However, I like not having to pay board. I have contemplated it so I could have at least a horse closer. I also like them being able to live like horses. It is also simpler to have them at the farm with the others. I have also contemplated moving to a place somewhere in the middle.
- I miss the barn community. It is a great thing. I have horse friends that I ride with, but most of them are not in our neck of the woods.
Join in on the blog hop if you have not already! I have had fun reading them!
Relief
Relieve the pain so the good can grow!
Your AHA moment for the day.
Have a great one.
It is December, y’all.
I know, I am such a Sherlock Holmes.
I started decorating for Christmas yesterday after work. I put on my Spotify Christmas playlist entitled ‘The Reason For the Season.’ It all really lifted my spirits and today is a new day!
For a new influx of happy/fun/positive on this Thursday, I have for you some of my past years animal Christmas photos! It is December 1st after all. I will take some new ones soon. This is to prep you. I know you are just too excited. If you are well behaved, I might rustle up some old Christmas photos of us sisters all in matching outfits…that is a real hoot.
Have you ever taken funny Christmas photos??? Share them with me!
Walk in love, dear readers.
Darcy is a good sport.
Look what I made baby Lito man do. Maybe not such a baby. This was last year when he was 2.5+ yo. Yes, those are jingle bells. He is a good boy. I am mean.
Interesting.
Life is interesting. I have been very introspective as of late. You have probably noticed this. I would say it is the holidays, but really every year it begins in October because that is when my birthday is.
I began 2016 with such hope and many plans. Even with the state of the oil & gas industry and the death of our Mr. Man just a few months prior, I was prepared to make it a good year. Here is a little confession time, I put myself in a safe and protected position. I moved back in with my parents in case I lost my job. Bless them. I am so grateful for my parents allowing me (and my Darcy dog) to move back in. It has not been easy. This was really not something I wanted in my life plan and do not like to admit, but plans change so we change. We accept and move on. It is always hard. It was/is temporary. It was/is the smart thing to do.
I was going to focus on the good and make it good. I still had a job and I was saving money. I worked at a place that allowed me to have a schedule and life and they were great people. I was going to continue going to bible study and start reading my bible daily. I even got one of those read the bible in 365 days deals. Really, I bought it way before that, but I was going to start it. I was going to start riding my Lito man in the spring. I had some goals set for us. My middle sister was getting married in the summer to a wonderful man. At the end of the summer I would find out if I got accepted into this exclusive, ladies group. If accepted, we would go on a week long riding retreat vacation in the fall. I am person who tends to be resistant to change, but I was ready and open for the change that could happen and wanted things to start moving in my life.
2016 has been a hard year. Some are extremely difficult to digest and talk about. Our ranch hand that took great care of my babies and buried Mansebo was tragically killed in a car accident. He worked for us for seven years. We have yet to find a suitable replacement after trying three different people. The river flooded twice, taking fencing, water lines, and water troughs with it both times. Lito’s goals came and went like a flash before my eyes without my say thanks to the weather. We have lost a few big calves for no apparent reason. There have been several unexpected deaths, human, equine, and bovine. Since spring I have only been to bible study a handful of times. I am currently on day 11 of my daily bible reading. Day 11. I read day 11 yesterday. Go me, and I still live with my parents.
Many great things did happen though. I still have my job at this wonderful company with great people. We are hopeful to see this thing through to the other side. I still have two full sets of grandparents. I am a proud new member of an equestrian sisterhood and had a blast on our week long ride. My sister is happily married to that wonderful man. They are coming home for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. My niece turned 1 year old. Lito has been started under saddle and is a great youngster. I could not have dreamed up a better one. I am in no hurry with him and have no reason to rush or get upset if it is not as I expected or planned. This is about him and us, not me. I even got to ride him through the shallows of the flood at a big, floaty, water splashing trot. Think big boy trot down the diagonal and that was only his 4th ride. We had several grass growing rains, even if they did flood. Better than the drought. I am trying to make reading my bible part of my routine, absorbing the messages He is trying to teach, and pray every day.
I feel in some ways very much the same as I did almost a year ago in January, in other ways I am different. I adapted and changed my plans. I moved on. Made new goals and kept some old ones.
I still feel stagnant in my life. Change is happening, but it feels as if it is happening around me. I still am unsure if I am doing what I am supposed to be doing with my life.
I did read my bible yesterday and prayed a couple of times. Here is the interesting thought were I started off writing this post. How it took that many words to get here, I am not sure. I woke up twice last night and remember even though I was not fully awake thanking God for everything I have and everything He has done for me, with me, and through me. Hello Holy Spirit! Something is happening inside me even if it feels like am standing still, my feet stuck in concrete blocks. Today I am praying for intention. To be intentional in my bible reading. To be intentional in my prayer with Him. To be intentional about being open to His will for me. I am going to read day 12 when I get home.
Spread the peace, love, and joy my dear readers. We all need it. Everyone is walking in their own shoes. Help each other focus on the good and the positive.
Tomorrow is Friday. That means the weekend. Then it is Thanksgiving! Then it is Christmas! How is that for positive!