Sunday, August 31, 2008

Guess What Time It Is???

Gentry Goat Show
August 30, 2008

Proud Pappa with his goat ropin' girls!

Rendi's all about business going into the ring...game face on!

Set 'em up!

Good form, girls! Good f0rm! And first place goes to.......RENDI DALRYMPLE!!!! YAY!!!

Next up: Good ole' Junior!

She had to dig her heels in seeing as how her goat weighs 70lbs and she weighs less than 40!!!

Flipper did good for the most part, but started "flippin' out" towards the end! Good thing Mrs. Cindy was right there to help! :0) 4th place!!! Way to go Jaslyn!!!! (We'll work on firming up his backside this next week before the fair!!!) :0)
The girls had a GREAT time at their very first show!!! Rendi is in love with the sport of goat showing (although she has already mentioned wanting to show steers-we hope to hold off a couple years for that).

We hope any and all of you who can make it will join us at the county fair Sept. 8-13 in Bentonville. Email me for show times! :0)

Monday, August 11, 2008

Just thought I'd share the 411.

LOOONNNGGG week...but fun, for the most part. We had VBS at our church this week and I taught the Pre-K class, as usual. It was probably the funnest VBS I've ever been a part of. Until Thursday night. A woman yanked my child up out of a chair by her arm, scaring her half to death, for a still yet unknown reason. (a believable one anyhow) Anyway...I prayed and gathered my wits, not wanting to disrupt whatever work the Lord may have been doing in her or her children's lives...this was REALLY hard for me, being the mama cub I can be when it comes to my children. However, I am very non-confrontational by nature. This woman DOES NOT go to my church, and very much needs to. Then it happened. The woman walked within inches of me, crossing my path as I tried to console Junior and convince her to go in the room with me (where my class was waiting to be taught....unfortunately this woman was inside). Junior says, "Mama, that's the MEAN woman....she's so mad at me and I, I , I DDDDon't know wwwhyyyy!" Rut-roh. Woman turns and looks at me. I wasn't going to lie...still being mad deep down. I told her what Junior had said and asked if Junior had done something (you know, like pinched her kid or something). She denied touching her, grabbed her kids and hightailed it right out of the church giving the "talk to the hand" to anyone who tried to stop her. Pastor and his wife followed the woman out and she told them she was trying to keep Junior from falling and I yelled at her. ??? Yet she denied touching her when I asked and then she ran (and I didn't yell....we were in a hall full of people and someone would have known if I yelled). Ugh. Fortunately, I think most of my church family knows me well enough to know better.

Friday had to clean the church and ship kiddos off for a fun weekend with the grands.

Friday night I cooked and canned spaghetti sauce. Yum.

Up at 7 on Saturday for work. Worked in Bentonville all day, got home about 6pm, changed clothes, then left for date with hubby. We went to Osegueras in Fayetteville.....absolute best Mexican food I've EVER had....and I've eaten A LOT of Mexican food. Anyway.....lots of strange "guys" in that town. 4 sat next to us. My redneck husband and I laughed all night at their conversation. They were talking about majoring in "Men" if you get the meaning. Some crazy hilarious stuff there. Stopped by a "unique" little shop on the way home. That made me feel even older, but that's another story not for the semi-public, LOL!

Kiddos came home this morning with the booty in tow. The grands took them shopping for clothes and school supplies.....so spoiled they are! :0) Maybe a little loved, too. I am proud of my girls. When asked what the best part of this weekend was it wasn't getting new clothes or shoes, or fun school supplies, or eating out, or going to a movie, or swimming in the grands' pool.....it was simply "hanging out and having fun" with the grands. I love my kids....and my in-laws. They are really fun ppl to hang out with and my dh and I don't do it nearly enough.

Whisked off to church after that. Junior wouldn't leave my side. I had to stay with her in children's church. That's just not like my Jasi. The "woman" wasn't even there and she was still scared/uneasy. So sad. :0(

Came home and have been pretty lazy since. I'm so tired/sleepy. Maybe it's the weather. Maybe it's the upcoming week of cleaning/organizing/preparing for school. Ugh. I'm excited about starting school, don't get me wrong (we homeschool). I just know I need a clean/organized house to do so and it's pretty much been let go ALL SUMMER. Lots of work. I want to fit in some fun stuff with the girls this week, too....stuff we haven't "gotten to" yet this summer, ya know? Playing cards, pedicures and manicures, girlie movie nights, card making, crafts, sewing, etc..... Oh...and Wed. we have this 4-H thing and they need to have tri-fold presentations of all the projects they are working on or have completed this year to show while they serve the public school employees their lunch. Ugh.

Did I mention I haven't been grocery shopping in over 2 weeks? Yah. Need to do that, too.

Well.....must go. Gonna play some cards before kids go to bed. Have a great week!

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

God's Blessings, God's Timing...

Well, God is good, isn't He? It's been so long since I've really FELT His presence....kind of like the song goes ".....We cannot separate. You're part of me and though You're invisible, I'll trust the unseen. I cry out with no reply and I CAN'T feel you by my side, but I'll hold tight to what I know: You're here and I'm never alone."
I knew that the wall was built by none other than my sinful self and tried many times to demolish it in my own strength. So sad, huh? Why do we do such stupid things? It's like banging my head against a brick wall over and over and over again and then suddenly the bell rings and I get it.....ONLY GOD CAN 'GIT ER DONE'.....ya know? I really need to fine tune my dependency skills. I try to do so much on my own and try to make it happen the way I think it should. How silly! I do pray for help, but then I continue in my self-imposed struggle as though I'm utterly alone. It's like He's been there the whole time and I kept trying to shove Him out of the way and say, "Hey, I got this one!" Who am I to fight with the Almighty? LOL
So today, as I was reading the Bible I realized that I AM FORGIVEN. I can't go back and change the mistakes I've made in the past, but I can lean on Him for every step from this day forward. Past mistakes don't mean that I MUST continue on into this whirlpool until I am sucked down and completely drowned. (which is what I've been feeling like lately) Despite my sin, despite the economy, despite the black hole that this country is becoming....THERE IS HOPE! I realized this morning, there is still hope. No matter how bad things get, I will still see my Saviour face-to-face one day and live in the most beautiful of places forever and ever with Him. Next thought? Do I want to, at that very moment, look back on my life and see it filled with struggles against a sinful nation and money (or the lack thereof)??? NO! I want to see myself not worrying about those things, but the important stuff like how I lived my life, how I was with others, how I raised my children, what kind of wife I was to my husband, what kind of friend I was, what kind of daughter.....and so on.
Blessings. God is so wonderful. Sometimes I look at others and think, "Wow. They are really blessed. How come I'm not blessed like that? What did they do so right that I did so wrong to deserve/not deserve _____?" Again. S-T-U-P-I-D! Those are most often the ramblings of a baby Christian, which I'm not and cannot use as an excuse. How selfish and how utterly stupid. I AM blessed...and He has really SUPER blessed me this week. Ya know what? He blesses me ALL THE TIME! I just don't stop and smell the roses long enough to "count it" as a blessing! Jesus is the only good thing in me....I know, another song quote, but it really tells it like it is.
My MIL is taking my girls school shopping this weekend. That is HUGE! She and dh's dad are treating the girls to a weekend with them as well. They have a pool and every movie you can imagine and their place is beautiful and just really fun to hang out at! (I know, that sentence is about as grammatically incorrect as they come, but it's late, I'm tired, and excited all at the same time!) The girls are SUPER excited as well. How fun! What a tremendous blessing.
Guess what else? My mom stopped by the house after work today and dropped off.....A BRAND NEW PRESSURE CANNER!!!! I mentioned before that I've been canning and preserving as much as possible. I don't own a pressure canner and they are pretty expensive. My parents are not well off by any means...my father no longer works due to dementia, yet hasn't gotten SS yet, so they are living on my mom's income. My relationship with my mom (actually step but really the only one I've had since I was 7) has not always been good and was actually really horrible growing up. We've grown close over the last 13 years, along with some ups and downs, but I just can't even put into words what this gift meant to me, coming from her. All she asks is I give her a can of something I make. It's a blessing far beyond the canner itself....the look on her face and the hug and the "I love you" that came with it are worth far more to me than the canner could ever be. I hope to get to canning some goodies VERY soon! :0)
Another blessing.....someone left a bag of home-grown apples at the church. It had been there 3 nights and the ladies kept trying to send it home with me (asking that I make an apple pie and bring it for us to share ;o) ) so I finally brought it home tonight. I think I'll have enough for a pie and to make some apple butter as well. Yum! Another huge blessing we'll be enjoying with homemade rolls on a cold winter evening someday soon. Mmmmm.
I just wanted to share a little bit and sort of make myself accountable in a way. I am leaving myself with no excuses. God is counting on me to allow His Spirit to guide me, so there's no reason for the continuous wallowing in the pool of bad decisions past. No, nobody's perfect, but I actually feel clean and whole again and am not going to allow myself to treat that flippantly.
If this post makes ZERO sense to you, please forgive me. Just the random ramblings of one radically blessed, released from stress, VBS-ing, exhausted woman!
G'night all!
:0)