Ahhhh, what a prompt for this week!!!  So many different directions I could go with this entry!!!

I guess the fact that a friend of mine is in the process of making some of MY “big dreams” come true is a good way to go today!!!

I have ALWAYS wanted to live out in the country and train horses.  I always imagined that they were mine, and we aren’t QUITE to that point yet, but I can see it happening in the next 2 or 3 years, at the MOST, if we so desire it.  Granted, I don’t think I ever imagined starting out like we are now….stalls and pens and buildings needing cleaned out….weeds needing pulled (like the ones that I was pulling last Fall that were taller than I am)….pasture in pretty sad shape, grass-wise….buildings needing lights and repairs and such….NASTY trees needing cut before they take over the rest of the pasture….  But you know what?  I wouldn’t trade ANY of the last 6 months or so for the world!!!  Even WITH all of the hard work that we’ve done…and are CONTINUING to do with the Spring-like weather coming!!!  Granted, it may get to a point, this Spring, where it’s going to be a question of whether we will EVER get the place cleaned up like we want it, but I think it will be worth it.  That’s kind of like the last two days of warm weather….I took it upon myself the day before yesterday when I was out screwing around in one of the pens to take down some hog panels (a fence separating two of our runs), and dump a water trough that Lord only knows when it was dumped and cleaned last.  Well, I got it done.  Yesterday, since I had already started taking down the hog panels, I figured I might as well take the rest of them down.  So I did that, and pulled one of the posts out of the ground and filled in the hole.  I was on a role…the weather was NICE….and Lord knows that there is ALOT to do outside, including cleaning out the runs/stalls, so I grabbed a shovel and started shovelling manure over the fence.  It’s too muddy to get the wheel barrow out into the back pasture when it’s loaded, so I just started throwing manure over the fence, deciding that I could move it further out into the pasture at a later date….at the least stalls/runs would have a START towards being cleaned out.  I was out there for probably 3 hours or so…..shovelling manure over the fence almost the entire time.  I didn’t think about how much there was to do….I just kept shovelling…thinking about one shovel-full at a time.  Today was just about the same way, though I ache JUST a little bit from yesterday.  I grabbed a shovel and started shovelling again….for about another 3 hours today.  Would you believe there is concrete down about 6 inches in places out there?  I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it myself.  I am HOPING that I can work on it some more tomorrow.  I actually got started in the stall area on one side today!!!!  Only 15,000,000 more shovel fulls to go in that one stall!!!  Shovelling sh*t is her “big dream”, you ask?  Well, let me put it THIS way….in a way…YES!!!  It gets me outside…and close to horses (which, with the two that are in our front run area, close is about all you are going to manage at THIS point), and it’s improving the living conditions for these two horses!!!  What can I say?  Achy muscles that aren’t used to being used….sore hands and joints….and a BIG pile of sh*t works for me!!!!

On a more private note, we had one of our ducks eaten by…something….the day before yesterday.  We suspect it was a coyote, but we aren’t sure….the possibilities are endless as to the possible varmits out here…..We are exploring the possibilities as to “varmit” control.

God Bless!!!

Not much time this morning, I’m afraid.  I’m running most of this week…in ALL different directions…but hey, at least I’m earning a bit of money while I’m doing all this running!!!  Getting tired, though, and it’s not even Wednesday yet.

Thank you ALL so much for the notes!!!  I appreciate it, and I’ll get around and leave some….one of these days.  I’d say maybe next week, as I only have one “job” for next week so far, but I KNOW that will more than likely change before next week gets here, so I think I will just say that I’ll make it over to leave notes….ONE of these days, and leave it at that.

Have a GREATLY blessed day, all!!!

I went to church last night and was looking around at the “literature” that they had put out since the LAST time I’d been there, and I found a little booklet FULL of poems and stories…so, of course, thinking that I might find some inspiration in it, I picked one up.  MUCH to my pleasant surprise, I found ALOT of encourage and inspiration in it.  The following is one of the stories in it, sent in by one of the readers.  I hope it makes you stop and think like it did me!!

I dreamt that I saw Jesus the other night!  As a crowd began to gather, Jesus singled out one particular man.

This fellow was nicely dressed in a blue golf shirt.  He stood in amazement before the Lord.

“Do you remember the toolbox I gave you years ago?” Jesus asked him.

The man nodded.  (Perhaps he was too stunned to speak.  I would have been.)

“Do you still have it?”

The man nodded again.

“May I see it?”  Jesus’ voice echoed with majesty, yet it was kind.

“I, I don’t have it with me,” the man said.  “It’s at home.”

“Would it be OK,” Jesus asked, “if I sent a messenger for it?”

“Sure,” the man said.

The Lord flicked His wrist and an angel appeared.

“In my closet,” the man said.  “Top shelf.”  With a beat of his wings, the angel sped off quick as a hummingbird.

Someone brought Jesus a chair.  He smiled and sat, then raised His gaze to someone standing near me at the back of the crowd.  He summoned that man.

That man looked shocked.  He ran his fingers through his hair then wiped his dirty hands on his gray-striped shirt and blue work pants.  I wondered if he was wiping off grease or nervous sweat.  Maybe both.

“I see you still have the toolbox I gave you,” Jesus said.

The man nodded.

“May I see it?” Jesus asked softly.

The man stooped down and picked up an old metal box, dented and scratched.  He moved to the front of the crowd, next to the first man in the blue golf shirt.  He held his toolbox out in both hands, trembling, offering it to the Lord.  Jesus motioned for him to set it down.

“Please open it,” Jesus said.

The man knelt, unhooked the toolbox latches, and flipped open the lid with the skill of fingers that had done so ten thousand times.  He lifted out the removable tray and set it next to the box.  He pulled open the bottom drawer.

Like others in the crowd, I stretched to see inside the box.  An assortment of ordinary looking tools lay there.  They appeared as beaten and battered as the box.

The Lord looked them over.  Pointing to a tool, He asked, “What happened to this one?”

“I use it alot,” the man replied.  “About wore it out, I guess.  But I’ve helped a lot of people with it.”

“And this one?” Jesus asked, pointing to another tool.

“It’s a good tool, found a lot of uses for it.  I guess You can tell,” he said a little sheepishly.  “Just this morning I used that tool to help a good ol’ boy get on his way again.  Didn’t take much.”

Jesus smiled.  His finger picked up greasy dirt as He ran it over the tools in the drawer, but He seemed to think nothing of it.  His gaze moved to the tools in the removable shelf.  “What happened to this one?” He asked.

The man slowly reached for the tool and tenderly lifted it with both hands.  “Broke it,” he admitted.  “Came across a woman and children in distress.  I didn’t have the right tool for the job needin’ to be done, so I used what I had, tryin’ to make do with this.  I got the job done, but I broke it tryin’.  No matter.  Important thing is I helped her get back on track again.”

Jesus nodded, though he didn’t say anything.

“Too bad.  It was a useful tool,” the man said.  “Was my favorite.”

A commotion at the back of the crowd drew my attention.  The angel strode through the drowd carrying a bright, shiny red box which he placed in front of the man in the blue golf shirt at the feet of Jesus.

Jesus looked it over.  The man quickly unhooked the latches, opened the lid, lifted out the removable shelf and opened the lower drawer.  That’s when it hit me.  The other man’s beat-up box had been identical to this one when it was new.

The Lord looked over the tools.  Laying in neat rows they appeared to be in perfect condition.  Just like new.

Jesus glanced at the end of His finger–the one He had run over the well used tools belonging to the other man.  He reached down and ran it over the sparkling tools in the shiny box, leaving a greasy print on one tool.  When He had inspected them, His gaze met the eager eyes of the first man.  “They hardly look used,” He said.

“Oh, I didn’t want anything to happen to the beautiful gift Your gave me,” the man said.  “I kept mine nice.”

Jesus rested His elbows on His knees and nodded thoughtfully.  He reached down and put the tray of the first man’s shiny toolbox back in it’s place, pushed shut the drawer, and latched the lid.  Grasping the handle, He moved the like-new toolbox beside His chair close to His foot.

Jesus motioned an angel to His side then whispered some instructions.  In a flurry of wings, several angels scattered, flying off in different directions.  Within moments, the angels began bringing shiny new tools.  They presented them to the second man.  Worn, broken tools were replaced and several new ones were added.  Then an angel arrived with a new shiny toolbox–much bigger than the old one.  The man looked up like a little boy who had just received all he had ever dreamed of for Christmas.

When the flurry of activity subsided, Jesus looked at the man in the golf shirt.  He reached down, patted that man’s shiny box, and said gently, “I know someone else who might use these.”

Then He turned His attention to the second man.  I had been watching him.  He had not only inspected each beautiful new tool, he was also gathering every dirty tool from his old box that wasn’t broken or worn beyond use and was trying to make them all fit into the new box.

Jesus laid one forearm across His knees and leaned in close to the second man.  When the second man realized this, he paused in his work and peered up into the face of the Lord.

Jesus’ eyes glistened as He looked the second man directly in the eyes.  He leaned in closer still.  Then, barely above a whisper, He simply said, “Well done!”

Diane Butts writes from Pueblo, Colorado

And I think THAT is one story that I am going to HAVE to do another entry with MY thoughts on!!!

Hope you enjoyed it!!!

God Bless!!!

Okay, I’m not sure here, but there seems to be a trend forming for Sunday Scribblings.  This week, it is “When Pigs Fly” and last week was “Ethics”.

You’ve heard the joke that’s been going around about the President and the swine flu, haven’t you?  “When pigs fly, we’ll have a black President.”  That’s why we had a run of swine flu this year, or so the jokesters say.

When I read the prompt for this week and last week, I immediately thought about the political world.  Interesting, huh?

I think people need to be more careful about their words and how they say things.  People say “When hell freezes over” and such lines a little too often for my liking sometimes.  I’m sure there ARE things that will probably never happen, but then again, there ARE some things that will happen sometime in the future.  Back a few years when they were making science fiction movies like “Demolition Man” and such, people would say that “Hell will freeze over before we have voice activated lights” and such.  Guess what, people….that day is JUST about here.  They are getting the voice activated items more and more sensitive and more and more intricate.  A few more years, and voice activated lights and so forth will start becoming a “standard”, I think.

Have a GOOD weekend and God Bless!!!

Message…..BOY!!!  That’s a broad category in this day and age!!!  Give us something to write about why don’t you?

Hmmmmmmmmm….*thinking*….message….

When I think of “message”, the first thing that comes to mind is ALL of the different kinds of messages that are in our lives these days.  We, as the general public, have been bombarded by them in EVERY form imagineable.  There are text messages, e-mail messages, voice messages….messages on billboards, in newspapers and on television and radio….messages in our mailbox…on our bills….on our bank website….and that is just the TIP of the iceberg on the sources of these messages.  These messages have advertising, business news, job news, jokes, bills and pictures…..we receive “nasty-grams” from the bill collectors if we’re late…we receive invitations to birthdays and weddings and anniversaries, as well as funerals….My, my, my….SOOOOOOO many messages to talk about!!!  Maybe I’ll do some more later!!!

Have a blessed weekend!!!

Well, here we are, into another weekend with SOOOOOO much to get done, and SOOOOOO little time!!!

I finally got laundry caught up from being gone last weekend.  We went to an out-of-state wedding.  It was a little different than the other Catholic weddings that I’ve been too, but it was nice!!!  I pray the newlyweds can make it work and be happy together for a long, long time!!!  God Bless you both!!!

Other than that, not much going on here.  Waiting for the weather to warm up a tad, so I can start working with the horses out here.  I still have some of the horses here that were here when we moved in that I would like to get rideable.  AND I have another guy that has a herd of registered horses that would like his gotten to where they are useable.

We will be butchering some animals long about April or May, so that will be bit of a time consuming project for one of the days in the not-so-distant future.  And we are looking at butchering another batch probably long about August or September, if things go right.  It will be SOOOOO different to not have to buy meat at the store!!!

Other than that, just catching up on some stuff this weekend and getting ready for what needs done this next week!!!  Looks like quite a bit of travelling for me, but it will be profitable!!!

God Bless You on this quiet, cloudy weekend!!!  And thanks for reading!!!

It’s been almost a month since a friend of mine died.  I have been trying to figure out what to put in a post dedicated to her, and have yet to come up with anything that I think is suitable.  I’ve been listening to song words, thinking I could post a song for her…..and I’ve struck out there, at least for the moment.  Poems and short stories are the same way.  And as for composing something on my own…..well, let’s just say I think it would be MUCH better it I just added some comments after the song words or whatever.  But, it’s getting to the point now that I’m wondering if there IS anything out there that would do her justice.  Will keep working on it for a few more weeks, and I MIGHT come up with something to post for her.  Only time and patience will tell, I guess.

God Bless Your Weekend!!!

Ahhhhh, what a prompt this week…..milestone!!!  ALL of us have ALOT of milestones in our lives, so it’s difficult to talk about just one.  Forgive me if I talk about NUMEROUS ones!!!

I guess the biggest milestone I can think of right now is that I am working on some important personal issues, and I have come further than I ever figured that I would….with the help of a couple of VERY important people in my life!!  THANK YOU to both of you, for taking a chance to be friends with me…..AND for being there when I need you!!!

Another milestone that we are working on is being COMPLETELY debt free!!!  It will take a couple of months, and it will require some sacrifices on our parts, but it WILL be worth it in the long run!!  I have never really experienced being debt free, except for before I got married and incurred debt, but I am SOOOOOOO looking forward to seeing how it feels!!!  Needless to say, it means working more hours, and another job or two, more than likely, but in a few months, we will actually SEE our progress!!!

One of my other personal milestones is going to be accomplished over the next few months, as well, and that would be the fact that I can actually get PAID to work with horses!!!  I’ve always figured I MIGHT be able too, but didn’t have the connections to.  Now, though, I DO have the connections, and WILL be taking advantage of them as SOON as the weather will cooperate just a little bit better!!!

Ahhhhhh, sooooo many to list!!!!  Sooooo many possibilities!!!  I might just have to do another entry to list some more!!!

God Bless!!!