Best and Worst Wednesday {Christmas edition}

Worst thing about this Christmas? It happened at the wrong time. I know it comes the same time each year, and I can't change that fact, but it was at the wrong time. With my Dad losing his job, the loss of my brother Levi, and my youngest four siblings having chicken pox, celebrating Christmas in the middle of it all just complicated things.

Best thing about this Christmas? Having Christmas in the middle of it all gave us a time to rest, most of the presents were handmade, the youngest four will be immune to chicken pox and we actually live close enough to visit family in Miss'ippi for Christmas. (In case you are wondering, Miss'ippi is how people with a real southern accent pronounce Mississippi.)

Best thing about living close to Miss'ippi? We can drive there in a day.

Worst thing about living close to Miss'ippi? It still takes 14-18 hours of driving, even though Google maps says it is 11.5 hours.

Worst thing about long drives? They take a long time and usually at least one person is very grumpy by the end of the trip.

Best thing about this long drive? Have you seen scenes in movies where the family is singing silly songs during a road trip? We don't normally do that, but as we got tired, rather than get grumpy Thomas and I got silly (extremely unusual for either of us) and started singing The Window by Trout Fishing in America. Soon we were trying to fit the words for The Bear in Tennis Shoes and Bill Grogan's Goat into The Window.

Worst thing about visiting relatives for Christmas?

Best thing about visiting relatives for Christmas? It is one of the few times we get to see them during the year.

Worst thing about making presents for my family? I wasn't able to finish them in time.

Best thing about making presents for my family? Since I couldn't finish them in time, my brothers will be able to help me finish making their presents (which just happen to need a lot of hands-on work).

Worst thing about writing this post? I am up at 11pm and extremely tired.

Best thing about writing this post? The fact that I am able to sit down and write it, even while traveling.

How do I do that? I wait until everyone else is asleep and snoring around me before even beginning.

Merry Christmas!

Losing Sight

It is amazing to me how easily humans lose sight of the final goal. We forget that there is something better than anything we can imagine, in fact, something completely beyond our comprehension, which God has waiting just beyond our sight. There are a few who God has let briefly glimpse this glorious sight, but that brief glimpse can hardly be compared to the actual thing.

This journey in life is like traveling from flat, dry desert land to a lush, green mountain. You hear that there is a better place, but nothing you know in the desert can even be compared to the mountain. You hear that it is is a certain direction, but cannot see it yourself. There are a few who have seen a faint outline on the horizon, and have left to travel towards it, but only a few. When you start in the direction of the mountain, it is not from "believing with your own eyes", but merely faith in the descriptions given by others. As you travel closer, either you lose the small seed of faith and turn back, or your patient faith grows. At times you may be able to see the faint, distant mountain yourself. As you travel closer your faith and vision may grow until you can see the goal, the mountain, clearly most of the time. But it is not always this way. Often your vision is turned toward your direct surroundings, how you will find water, how will you have comfortable lodging on the way, and when you look up again you cannot see the distant mountain. You must continue immediately toward the mountain and leave all other matters behind, or else you will become near-sighted from focusing only on your immediate surroundings.

As humans, we are made of flesh. Our concerns, therefore, are fleshly and perishable. We must keep our eyes on the distant goal, we must follow the path left by Jesus and leave behind our fleshly desires. If we become too engrossed by the things of earth we become near-sighted. We lose sight of what Jesus has given. We lose sight of our Lord.

"I must learn to hold earthly things lightly because if I do not the Lord might have to pry away my fingers, and that hurts." Corrie ten Boom

I Have Seven Siblings

I have seven siblings.

Thomas, who is tender and strong,
Pierce, who is energetic and joyful,
Zoe, who is always so cheerful and thoughtful,
Lucas, who loves to tell us about everything he sees and learns,
Stephen, a quiet, sweet, contemplative boy,
Xiana, a cute little girl who imitates everything we do,

And Levi, who is in heaven.

Best and Worst Wednesday

I've decided to join the Renee Bergeron at Bakers-dozen in her Best and Worst Wednesday posts because:

1. I thought it would be fun.
2. I need to start blogging again.
3. I am somewhat of a pessimist, so this will force me to start finding positive things to think on.

Due to the third reason, rather than being a Best and Worst post, mine will probably be Worst and Best posts, or maybe even Best-Worst-Best posts so that it can end on a positive note. Now I must begin.

Worst thing about this post? I have been meaning to write this for three weeks now.

Best thing about this post? I have finally gotten around to doing it!

Worst thing outside? It is raining slightly and so I cannot do any driving practice today. I haven't had enough practice driving when it is dry to drive safely when it is wet.

Best thing? I have my driving permit, and it is actually raining.

Worst thing about joining Pinterest? I had to get a Facebook account in order to join.

Best thing about Pinterest? Now all those pictures and tutorials which I have been saving on my iPad are nice and organized in neat little pin-boards. (By the way, I canceled the Facebook account. I don't like the whole idea of Facebook, and joined for the sole purpose of getting a Pinterest account.)

Worst thing about finding a good book? I end up staying up late to read... more often than is good for me.

Best thing about finding a good book? I can find what really happened. Staying up 'til 1am two nights in a row reading The Story of the Trapp Family Singers was definitely worth it to find out the real story behind The Sound of Music. "Don't judge a book by it's movie" is definitely applicable. The story was so much changed between the real events and the movie that the movie should have an announcement at the beginning saying, "This story is very loosely inspired by the Trapp family." Truth is way more interesting than fiction.

Are there any Best and Worsts which have happened to you? Feel free to comment them here.

Lauren

I'm Here Again!

 Some of Elder H's children at the Anti-TSA Outrage rally at the Capitol.

A perfect picture of Texas.

It has been quite a long time since I have posted, several months in fact. But what is done is done and here I am to start up blogging again. During this summer there were many things going on here in Texas. Here are some of them:

• Our animal count got up to 18 goats, 9 ducks, 2 geese, 2 cats, 5 chickens and 1 cow.
• I flew to Mississippi by myself to visit my Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles and Cousins for 2 weeks in April.
• We are surviving the longest recorded drought in Texas.
• We attended an Anti-TSA Outrage rally at the Capitol.
• We butchered 1 goat, sold 10 goats, and predators ate 2 ducks and 4 chickens, bringing our animal count down to 7 goats, 7 ducks, 2 geese, 2 cats, 1 chicken and 1 cow.
• Our family and two other families from church started a co-op with my Dad teaching Physics, and Mr. O teaching Singing and French.
• Thomas, Pierce and I were in the Filmmakers Academy for six weeks this summer, making one video each week.
• We are still surviving the drought and temperatures up to 100 degrees every day.
• All of us have grown.

There are many other everyday things which have taken up a lot of time and effort this summer, but these are the ones which I remember the most.

For the next three weeks I am going to be going on a trip to California to visit my good friends Mr. and Mrs. S (or Auntie M). Even though Texas is my home now, I lived in California longer than in any other place (4 years, one quarter of my life) and it will feel like I am going back to visit home. While I am visiting Mr. and Mrs. S we will take a road trip from California to Montana to visit Auntie M's family. I am especially looking forward to meeting E, Auntie M's niece, who I hear is very similar to me (or am I similar to her? In any case we are extremely similar to each other). I will be posting updates here for my family and friends while I am traveling.

Lauren

P.S. Well... I intended to start posting again during this trip, but alas, it did not happen. There were too many great conversations happening in the free time for me to even think of writing a blog post. What's done is done.

Something

Something with a ringed tail has been eating our chickens
Something with a red tail has been stealing our chickens
Something with a ringed tail has been stealing the eggs
Something with a harsh voice has been drinking the eggs
Something with no legs has been eating the eggs
I used to think that little wild animals were cute
But I don't think that
Very much
Anymore

Goat Birth

We knew that our Nubian does were both pregnant, but we didn't know when they were due. So there was a lot of watching. Daphne's belly was so large that I could feel the kids move when I put my hand on her side. I read that the doe's udders would fill with milk soon before she kidded, so on Friday when we saw that Daphne's udders were larger than normal we started to check on her more often. Two of our other does have kidded since we bought them, but both births took place while we were away. Saturday morning we were rushing to leave to the San Antonio zoo, and as we were getting in the car we looked toward the goats to check on Daphne one more time. She wasn't there. I walked along the fence until I saw her through the trees, about to give birth. We watched as the first sack came out and broke with a little baby goat head following. Now this is not the normal position for goats to be born in. Normally they come out with their front legs first and then their head as if they were diving, but with their legs back it makes their shoulders wider and the birth harder for the doe. I helped pull the baby goat out and clean off his face, and after Daphne partially cleaned him off she delivered another buckling, this time with one of his legs folded up by his side. The older buck is black with white ears, a white speckled nose and a small white spot on top of his head, and the younger one is black with a white belly and brownish markings along the edge of the white, and they both feel like velvet. We cleaned up the mess, trimmed the buckling's cords and made sure that they were nursing before we continued on our trip from the to the zoo an hour and a half after we started to get in the car. We have been naming our goats 1950's names such as Nancy, Daphne, Sally, Betty, Lorraine, Mary, George and Jack, so Dad chose the the names Edward and Albert for the two new bucks.



Our other Nubian doe, Nancy, should kid sometime tomorrow. Her udders have filled and we fully expected to come home from church to new goat kids, but it wasn't time yet, so we are guessing that it will be sometime tomorrow. I was the one who was studying up on goat births so I was the "baby catcher" for the kidding and I will probably be the one handling the goat births from now on since everyone else thinks that it is gross, though Zoe will have to help since she wants to be a midwife.

None of our Nubian does are full Nubian; Daphne is 1/8 Nigerian Dwarf, Nancy is 1/2 Nigerian dwarf and our buck Brandon is 1/4 Boer, making Edward and Albert 1/16 Nigerian Dwarf and 1/8 Boer. These are definitely not breeding animals, but we bought them for milk and the fact that they are multiplying is enough. In about two weeks we will start milking them, letting the kids drink all of the milk directly off of them until then.

Soon to come: Butchering our troublesome goat STEWart

Update on Mom

Mom with her friend Amelia

Mom's surgery went well, so well that she was feeling better within an hour. The pain from the surgery was much less than the pain which she had before, and Mom was doing so well that she had trouble trying to rest.
Thank you all for your prayers!

Lauren