Well, what do you know!

So that's how you add a picture! Meet Prince, K's pony. Isn't he cute? He's kind of stubborn, but people tell me that's just a pony for you. K loves him - she was pretty excited to get a riding crop and saddle soap for her birthday. She recently brought her saddle and bridle into her room and cleaned it all up with her new saddle soap. I love the smell of tack - right now it smells great in her room!

Prince is 5 years old and 10 hands high. A hand is 4 inches, and you measure to the withers, so he's 40 inches tall at the base of the mane - he's a little guy! He's a real people pony. K loves to play hide and seek with him -he follows her everywhere. She's able to ride him, but sometimes he doesn't follow commands. Right now he's at the neighbor's, because he escaped the electric fence because it wasn't working at the time.

A definite chill in the air!

It's a nippy one! I believe J said we have a windchill of -39 Celcius this morning, and she was HOPING that there would be no school, but alas, her wish was not to come true!

Just got in from feeding the dog - it's absolutely stunningly beautiful outside this morning. The sun just came up, and the trees are all frosty. Snow covers the fields surrounding us - no dirt showing anymore. Crisp. Clear. COLD!

Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? Job 38:22

I often wonder how the pioneers did it, with their primitive housing and hauling water, etc. Winters must have been truly brutal. I always think that the Lord knew what He was doing when He put me in this era. I'm such a wimp!

Life is in the details . . .

Well, I don't rightly know why I'm doing this, because no one even knows I blog yet, and no one reads it, but hey . . . it feels kind of good to get thoughts to "paper". :o)

I am reminded lately that the Lord's will for me is in the details that make up my life, not in big life-changing experiences or mysterious light-bulb moments where everything suddenly becomes clear. I should be taking the little things that normally would grate on me from Him, my loving Father. He desires to shape me through them, but sadly, I'm often irritated by them instead of exercised by them, and miss the blessing. "He doeth all things well."

I just got in from throwing wood on the fire (cough, cough) and shoveling until I couldn't do it anymore (I am so out of shape that it is pitiful). Funny thing is, I felt the best all day while I was shoveling! It was strangely invigorating. The snow IS beautiful - I think we've gotten at least 6 inches in the last 18 hours.

We've been having van troubles. Sometimes it won't downshift when climbing up to highway speeds - you have to pull over and turn it off and start it up and try again. Except that sometimes it still won't downshift, so you just drive 70 km/hr and put the hazard lights on and hope there's not much traffic. So - no trips to the city or anywhere else far away, for now. The van has high miles and is a '94, so it doesn't seem to make much sense to throw so much $$ into a new transmission. The Lord must have a different vehicle in mind for us. Old Nellie has served us well for several years, without many repairs, so I'm very thankful for that.

Unwinding

Here I am, unwinding, after another evening of work. I was called in today, as they were unable to find anyone else. They know I don't usually pick up extra shifts, so she asked if I would work tonight in exchange for getting another evening of my choice off. Sooooooo - I asked for K's birthday off, and got it! Also found out that I can have the vacation day I asked for (Dec. 15) in order to take J to the airport, as she is going to visit a friend and on to LA conference from there. AND I also traded a shift on Dec. 14 in order to be able to go to J's candlelight Christmas concert. So I was pretty happy to get those 3 days off! It often doesn't work out for me to switch shifts, and I just have to miss lots of things.

Hmmmmm - what else did I do today? Spent time with Buddy, of course, as we are homeschooling. Went to the MCC thrift store, as it is Tuesday. Found 3 books for a grand total of $1.10 (I love MCC). One is a big atlas - looks like a nice book (50 cents), one was about Pocahontas, and one was an old Moody Press book - missionary stories. I also got a big pan of Chicken & Rice ready for J to pop in the oven when she got home from school. I had to do it without the recipe, as I couldn't find it, but I think it turned out. At least it looks like it turned out, and it smells yummy in the house.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz - really MUST go to bed. I think I am unwound now. :o) I feel quite the opposite of wound.

P & P & Baby B are coming! I'm so excited!

Got a call the other day from P & P saying that they want to get flights to come the end of this month. They booked flights to come from Nov. 23 to 28! Can't wait to see them and their precious little girl - so far we've only seen pictures from the hospital, so I'm sure she's really changed since then. We're so glad that little B is doing so well - no problems at all! What a mercy of the Lord.

What is blog-worthy?

J thinks it's really quite amusing that I have a blog. :o) As if I would EVER have anything blog-worthy to write about. Yeah. She's right. But here I am . . .

I'll write about something really mundane, like vet care for our ever-expanding brood of animals, which now consists of (in order of coming to us) Rascal, the Mini Schnauzer/Bichon/Jack Russell, who is J's dog; Socks, C's black and white cat acquired from a neighbor; Cowboy, C's 8 month old Golden Retriever; Mooshka, the white and black momma cat (who also happens to be Socks' mother) who moved in during the summer and promptly had a litter of 5 kittens in a tree stump (quite ingenious of her, I must admit); Skittles, her gray and white kitten (born in a stump); Prince, the little Shetland (?) pony that we got for K in July; and now 2 kittens, yet unnamed (as we are NOT keeping them!), born in Prince's haystack. What a wonderful time to have new kittens, just as nights are consistently below freezing. Mooshka and her kittens will be moving to C's friend's house soon. See, isn't this an exciting blog??? ANYWAY, yesterday I had to taxi Cowboy to the vet for his vaccination booster shot (not only do I run a taxi for the kids, but for the pets, too) and was on my way home and thought, "Whew, now I shouldn't have to do any vet care for the animals until spring." And then I thought, "I HOPE!" And minutes later K phoned me on my cell, having just gotten off the school bus. She had run out to see Prince, and noticed that his eye was gloppy, and weepy, and half shut. Great. We know next to nothing about horses, but I Googled up some info that told me what to watch for, and then we prayed about his eye, and today it looks much better (thank you, Lord) so I hope it's okay.

Today I took a trip to Neche to fill up on fuel and pick up a parcel. Lately we've been getting fuel across the border as it's a fair bit cheaper.

Today I was reading about genetically modified foods. It's quite an interesting study, if a little technical. It's really pretty scary, how they are manipulating genes in the food we eat. The Lord created all these wonderful fruits and vegetables, and said "It is good." And then man takes the liberty of reorganizing them at the gene level, and says "It is good" and introduces them to the market, in some cases without even doing proper testing. How is it that man could be smarter than God, to rearrange genes that He created? And the consumer isn't even given the choice to buy GM foods, or not, as they are not labeled as such. Of course, those big companies know that if they are labeled as GM, sales would drop drastically, so lets just keep everyone in the dark, and eating these foods that could be causing allergies, ADHD, autism, fibromyalgia, cancer, Alzheimer's, etc. I would rather eat foods with their genes all arranged the way the Lord intended, according to His infinite wisdom, thank you very much!

Enough said. Sorry for the little rant!

Monday - zzzzzzzzzzzz

Ah, yes, another post-weekend-of-work Monday, which are often spent dragging around tired from lack of enough sleep over the weekend. I get home from work at the care home around 11:45 p.m., and then it takes me a good while to wind down to sleep. If lights are out by 1:00 a.m. I'm doing really well. So if I sound sleepy that is why! :o)

Work was pretty good. I work in a care home supported by the Mennonite churches, and it is a really nice facility. The unit I work on is the Special Care Unit - for residents with behavior problems, such as aggression, verbal abuse, yelling, multiple room entries, exit seeking, self abusive, etc. They come to the unit in order to try to get their behaviors to a manageable state, with the help of drugs and behavior care plans, with a goal of retaining quality of life, and are only there temporarily. It is an interesting place to work, and not without it's hazards! It's also a place where there are many opportunities to show love to those who are really suffering. Dementia is a very, very sad thing. I have watched my own mom decline physically with cancer, which was incredibly hard, but I would think that it would be even harder to watch a loved one mentally decline. Sometimes it is just too hard for family to bear, which leads them to not even visit. Frankly, I don't know how anyone gets through it without the Lord.

I've never worked with better staff anywhere - there are so many caring Christians that work on the unit, and it's really nice!

J has her Learner's Permit!

She took her learner's test the other day, and passed (with flying colors). So we went to have her eye test this morning and then on to the Autopac agent to get the permit. She's pretty excited! When it was time to pay J asked who would pay for it, and I said I would - soon enough she'll be independent and paying her own bills. She has to wear her glasses for driving, but part of her birthday present was contacts - she turned 16 on Tuesday - she's happy about the contacts.

I have to admit to a little nervousness at the thought of being in the passenger seat with a brand new driver behind the wheel. But at least she's a careful, cautious kid. Right now I do so much taxiing (is that a word?) the kids around - especially J - that I am glad we are starting the process of someone else in the family getting a drivers license!

This is my first-ever blog post. Woo hoo.

Well, here we go. I'm joining the ranks of those who blog. I'm thinking that I won't be posting anything terribly interesting, just the normal day-to-day stuff in my life, and I'm not sure who might be interested in reading it, but oh well!