Dog Days 'n Mysterious Ways

**This one might be a coffee and TWO donut post (oy)**

After last week's positive post (here), I guess that title may sound rather odd, but not to me. I feel almost like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. You know the one I mean. I'm talking about the ten pound steel-toed boot; the one suspended over your head that inevitably drops and beans you a good one on the noggin because you've migrated to LaLaLa Land and weren't paying attention (who, me??). After so many years of struggling so hard with so many things (horrible health, horsekeeping, housekeeping, shoot - just existing, yadda yadda), it is making me positively twitchy that things are going well (though I am genuinely thankful - particularly for the amazing people God has put into my life - which is the point of this post). How silly am I to sit here and worry about it, I ask you? Maybe not so much, when you consider that I just know I will somehow manage to mess it all up. I suffer from self-inflicted stupidity on regular basis. Not to mention being a champion pick-it-apart-er (er). Maybe it's just me, but lately I've been thinking how important it is to simply acknowledge the people in your life; does that make sense? Don't we all have that need? To be acknowledged? To know that what we think or say or do matters to someone? Even here, in the bloggosphere. It's why I asked Carrie to add that silly little sun for comments, and why I try to always respond to them. After all, you took the time to leave one, right? Shouldn't I respond in kind, by letting you know how much I appreciate it? At least that way you know I read what you wrote, right? Of course if I suddenly find myself flooded with hundreds I may have to revisit this topic. HaHa. Maybe acknowledgements can be made enmasse then, eh? Okay, delusions of grandeur aside...

I also struggle with what it is [exactly] the Lord wants me to do about things, and all too often go haring off in the wrong direction. This generally garners me what I call the DHT: Divine Head Thump. (I can hear you laughing from here, Lori ;o) Yep, I earn them all the time. Sad, but true. Sometimes I think I'm the slowest learner on the planet. Gotta be somebody all the way down at the very bottom of that list, right? *sigh* One of my most frequently uttered [and most fervent] prayers is, "Tell me what you want me to do about this Lord. PLEASE make it really, really clear - idiot friendly even - but don't hurt me though, 'kay?"  [above photo inset: A piece of "sackcloth" covered in Scripture (hand written, obviously) and given to me a few years ago by my friend Lori - when things in my life got "move over Job" bad - I laughed 'til I cried, then laughed some more. Only you would think to do such a thing for me - I love you Lori!]

One of the things I've really missed is having a horse crazy friend nearby. Sandy moved away long before the horses came (the heifer), though I visit her when I can, and Lori lives almost an hour away in another state (though I do see her every week at church, but that isn't the same thing at all). Please don't misunderstand me here; I have been incredibly blessed in my life with some truly wonderful friendships (my picture happy galpal Sarah being another recent blessing there). As friends go, I am a very rich woman. What I'm talking about is a local, horse crazy friend; one I could hang out with on a regular basis (sans road trip). One I can carry on important conversations with; the kind where every third word is "horse". I'd been praying away for that local horse-crazed friend to appear for a really long, time (as in years and years). Well, several months ago I finally got an answer. Idiot-friendly, even! I was floored. It came about from a completely unexpected direction too; interpreting. Once a month, I try to go to "Deaf Church" with DD. It's mostly the deaf adults we've known since DD was diagnosed with a hearing loss (forever and a day ago), though there are sometimes students from an area ITP (Interpreter Training Program), as well as visiting deaf from other areas. Anyway, one Sunday an ITP student introduced herself as Kimby and asked if I would be willing to tutor her. I told her I didn't tutor per se, but that I would be happy to help her practice her signing and invited her to come by the house sometime. [photo inset: The steeple on the sanctuary where we go for deaf church taken at daybreak. For some reason the sky came out blue and green (the blue I understood, but the green?). Pretty sure I had the camera on the wrong setting or something, but I loved it. The white streak in the top left is a jet, but it looks almost like a shooting star - isn't that crazy?]

Not long after that, Kimby took me up on my offer to practice her signing and came by the house. She even shadowed me at work for one of her classes. You know how sometimes you meet someone and you just "click"? We seemed to hit it off right away, and we chatted about everything under the sun whenever she dropped by. At some point, the subject of horses came up and she visibly brightened. I asked her if she would like to see them, and she jumped up right away. Note: If you're not a horse person or you're a person who "likes" horses, this may sound a little out there (weird, even) - BUT - if you truly are horse crazy, it will make perfect sense. As we headed out the back through what I call the "Tacky" room, Kimby suddenly stopped and grabbed Champ's hackamore. "I'm sorry, but I just really need to do this." She closed her eyes and took a BIG whiff of horse. And there it was. The answer to my longstanding prayer; my new [local] horse-crazy friend. I just stood there, mouth hanging open, staring at her. I guess she thought I was freaked out by her behavior (and hello? Not even a little ;o) because she blushed and apologized right away - but that wasn't it at ALL. I just could not believe how clearly that dusty old prayer of mine had been answered and completely out of the blue, too (for me, anyway - God knew all along. *laugh*). He is so good; and it was a good worth waiting for! Turned out that she had even owned a horse growing up; and missed just being around them terribly (hence her need for a "fix" in the tacky room). Boy, when You answer, You really answer Lord! [photo inset: Our tacky wall, with Champ's hackamore hanging on the far left]

Not only did I make one fantastic new friend, Kimby came with three rambunctious and totally terrific boys that are a blast and a half to be around. They are definitely a credit to her (and husband too!). What continuously surprises me is that she doesn't seem to notice anything remarkable at all about herself (so see me just remark on it for you there, chickie ;o) She is my twin in many ways; a love of horses (obviously), strong faith in God and strong sense of family, and a really wicked sense of humor. Pretty sure we have a hefty handful of matching neuroses as well because hey, nobody's perfect, right? *grin*  In others, we are complete opposites: she is soft spoken (I'm kind of loud), unbelievably generous (though I'm not too terrible, there), calm no matter the crisis (so sayeth the Queen of Spaz), thoughtful with her speech (I eat my own foot all the time), and she may well be the most gracious person I've ever met. I marvel at the things she gets done in a day; she attends college online, makes and bakes all kinds of natural/organic goodies, cares for critters, home schools all three boys, takes care of her husband, keeps tabs on her mother and extended family, and does a boatload of other things for people she meets along the way. Do you have new friends you are thankful for? What about the "old" ones? Do they know how much you appreciate them? Are you sure? Maybe you should tell them...I bet they'd appreciate it. Sandy, if you're reading this...I love you too-too! *laugh* [Photo inset: Kimby's three boys and Bella modeling their supercool matching sunglasses]

Did I mention she's always calm? Always. No matter what the current chaos, e.g. bickering boys or an overflowing call-her-crazy schedule, she is one of those people who simply exudes calm. It's like having a walking diffuser with you; all that peace and serenity. Me? Ha. Ha. I'd be half bald, with the kids dressed in head-to-toe duct tape and stapled to the furniture, and the husband stuffed in a closet before the end of the very first day. *laugh* If she weren't younger than me, I would say I want to be her when I grow up (and maybe I should say that). I know she's rolling her eyes at this post (caught'cha!) but genuine friendships are such a rare and precious find; I am just too doggone happy to be able to add one more to my life to keep it to myself, so there. [Photo inset: Kimby hiding behind Rina: She's also just a little bit camera shy.] Well...maybe more than a little. I'm right there with ya on that one too, sistafriend! ;o)

You know what? Call me cautiously optimistic, but I do believe the Lord may have simultaneously answered another longstanding prayer: One for some pint-sized volunteers. Somehow, I think they'll fit in around here just fine, don't you? Though now that I think about it I might have a teensy bit of trouble with a certain silly pair, there (I'm talking about those two on the right side... Clyde *laugh*).

I'm currently pulling my hair out working on our website, which has been horribly neglected due to our internet woes (this post). Okay, maybe I'm doing that figuratively not literally, as it has finally started growing back in after I'd lost almost half of it (and thank you, thyroid). Naturally, the design software has completely changed since the last time I worked on the site *blowing raspberry at screen* and, just to add a bit more insult to my injury, I cannot access the existing site to make changes; I have to start completely from scratch. I can't even add a note to the site that's up now to say I'm working on it (so I'm sticking it in here). This has resulted in an extremely tedious game of copy and paste. Meh :oP After giving it considerable thought, I have opted to pull some of my Squidoo lenses (who sold out to Hub Pages) and pull them back to our site. Particularly my Body Language 101 page, which is where my heart lies (horse-wise), and was a humongous labor of love. Hub Pages just isn't the same sense of community as Squidoo (with whom we were a partner charity). It's just too commercial for me, so I'll be relocating most of my work from there to our site.  Anyhoo...with temps in the upper 90's outside and the heat index hovering around 105-109 (it's JUNE, and are you kidding me??) I figured now was as good a time as any, you know? I've still got to finish the pages on here, too.... *head thuds on desk*
[photo inset: A screenshot of our shiny new homepage - it's the only page completely finished thus far. One down, 2,384 cut and pastes to go....]

MAN, this post is really long (profound apologies to all!) - and no, I'm not dying or anything so dramatic. *laugh* Just thought I'd take time to actually share my happy thoughts "out loud", instead of keeping them to myself. Who knows? Maybe it will put a smile in place of someone's sad, or it could even inspire somebody else to blog about their friends and how much they are appreciated (it might even be you!) I'll just bet you've got someone somewhere in your life who could use an appreciative word - or ten - right? ;o)

This Week's Random Moment: Is it just me, or have [the newer] T-shirts hit an all-time low both top and bottom? Judging by the one I picked up (and subsequently dropped) earlier this week, it'll not only take me two days to get it all tucked in (down around my knees, thank you very much); I'm scared I'll have random strangers pelting me with Mardi Gras beads.... *facepalm*

Thank you for reading so [very, VERY] far this time, and have a blessed week!

Has this been some crazy weather this summer, or what? The first part of it we had gorgeous (albeit dry) weather, but this part? Hot-Hot-HOT! I've started to wear a sweatband outside in the morning to feed and groom the horses. Whoever coined the phrase, "Southern women don't sweat, we glow" is an idiot (well it's either that, or I'm "glowing" like my own personal version of the Northern Lights in the South). Growing up I didn't sweat at all; if I got too hot, I just keeled over. From that perspective I can say it's probably a good thing I do now (that, along with my shoe size, changed after I had a baby). It would be nice, however, if I could be just a tad more subtle about it; maybe a nice gentle sheen or something (in keeping with aforementioned glow, you see).

Sadly, I sweat like a welder working inside a big metal tank in Arizona in the middle of August (how's that for perspective? ;o) Happily, however, I don't smell like one (because that would be really icky). I found this marvelous stuff a year or two ago called Chlorella - have you heard of it? I can't even remember where I stumbled across it, but it's an herbal supplement made from chlorophyll that has been extracted from algae and acts as internal deodorant. Isn't that wild? This is just an FYI (I don't sell it or anything), but here's a link if you're interested. Of course if you decide to jump right on it, it would be nice if you went through GoodShop and chose Epic Farms as your charity.
Just sayin'...

Most of you know I'm a Christian (if not, see disclaimer located in my bio ;o) Most of you also know that DH has been making me crazed by taking forty forevers to finish the doggone visitor area (you know this because I grumble all about it on here). Anyhoo, enter the power of prayer and God's timing (which is so rarely the same as ours, right?). I said an extra one about a week and a half ago, because summer is rapidly running out and I have no desire to mix back to work insanity with the domino effect (this post). My prayer was basically motivational, as DH is completely UNmotivated to finish said Project (my apologies for using the "P" word/swearing - I'll eat some soap later). It wasn't too long after my prayer, that the strangest thing happened. The day before we were to close on our refinance, the bank called and said that even though the appraiser had checked "as is" it was against the underwriter's policy to close with any unfinished construction on the property (this being an unfinished outside wall on the "old" patio, which will become an indoor room as soon as the new feed room is finished).

At first, I was extremely upset - I'll interject here that the girl from the bank called me with this news and not DH; because she didn't want to be the one to have to tell him - the heifer. Thankfully, he is not a bad-tempered king of old (kill the messenger, don'tcha know). It wasn't until he stopped shouting and stomping around and started snarling about needing to finish the outside feed room so he could get to that outside wall (the feed room stuff is currently blocking it) that a glimmer of light appeared to yours truly. The bank said they could extend the closing date (and keep our rate locked) for up to another month to give us time to finish the indoor room. Is God awesome or what?!? Talk about providing some motivation. I'm telling you; the man's pants are positively on fire to finish this project asap (thank you, Lord! ;o)

I've been crocheting in the evenings (if I have enough energy left over that is), and found the coolest pattern on Ravelry; it's for a ginormous granny square (here). For my fellow hookers (ha, ha), it's perfect for using up scrap yarn. My grandmother left me about 40 skeins of baby fingering, and almost none of them match. I've had them for several years with no idea what to use them for. This pattern is perfect; I can use several different colors in each blanket. I'm making blankets to give to a local organization that our church supports. They help pregnant teens/young unwed mothers (great place) and have recently started up a program to help the fathers as well. I finally delivered my Mom's birthday present; she loved it. My dad cracked me up by ooo-ing and ahh-ing over it too, which was rather unexpected albeit entertaining. Here it is on her dining room table:

Of course the first thing I did when I got back home was to gleefully shred that mistake-riddled nightmare of a pattern (whatta pain - yeesh :oP It's all good though; I'm happy with the way it turned out in the end.
Speaking of ending, I'd better get back to work on the patio (rumor has it we're in a BIG hurry ;o) Have a blessed weekend everyone!