New Year Thoughts

At the start of every new year, there are so many things to think about! :) First off, recalling all of God's Providences and blessings throughout my last year, and goals accomplished, and things done. The serious business of closing out an old year.

And then I begin to think about this year, and some of the sobriety leaves. Strange thoughts flood my mind. Things like: "Wow! I'll be twenty next year!" and "Should I say "Two-thousand-eleven, or Twenty-ten?" and "Blast, now I'll have to get used to writing 2011!".

And then the remembrance creeps in that Dad asked us to make goals for this new year. I begin to think, and for once, can come up with my list quite easily. I guess I have a lot of things going right now, if I can compile a list with all the proper categories that quickly! :) Dad likes us to make lists like this:
Spiritual Goal: a goal like memorizing Scripture, or committing to personal devotional time with Jesus, or something like that
An Academic, or Intellectual goal: like finishing a certain something in school (for me, this year, graduating! :) or committing to reading a particular book, or something
A Creative goal: Learning a new skill, committing to a certain project, etc.
And General goals: whatever else doesn't fit in the above categories.

The list that comes out now and again throughout the year to make me feel slightly panicky with the realization that, although I've done many other things, I've procrastinated on the very goals I named for this new year. ;)

Nevertheless, I like ringing in a new year! It gives a perfect opportunity for a fresh start. And there are many things to think of. I stand on the brink of the new year wondering what the Lord will have for me this year, how Jesus can use me, and just what will my life look this time next year? And I have no way of knowing beforehand. My life could look much different than it does now. Or it could look much the same. Exciting things could have happened. Or I could have become up close and personal with the steady, simple, uneventful side of life. There's no way to tell! :)
So here's to adventure- the kind that a Christian finds in following Christ, letting Him lead you, and steer the ship, while you simply let yourself be a channel.
And here's to the New Year. May God bless you richly in it, and may you look on it next year, and be able to say in truth that you gave it to the Lord, and He, in turn, used it mightily. ~Rachel

Our Highlights of 2009

As I've been reading about other people's year, I've had time to reflect on how much God has blessed us this year. I decided to list our favorite memories from this year.

January:
Our first official beginning of a year at our new house


February:
The Gentleman from Virginia, Oldest of Many, and Us Two, go on a trip to New York to visit the "laundry fairies" for a week of winter fun!(see below post for explanation of who they are:)
Go cross country skiing for our first time
Watch President Obama's Inauguration Speech


March:
Had first snowfall
Experienced a Ton of rain


April:
Prepped and re-landscaped a womans house for a city-wide garden tour
Planted a 1 acre garden
Went to our first square dance


May:
Started our "farm" with 16 chicks and 2 little piggies
Grandma June got a successful hip replacement(we got a lot of practice with hospice care)


June:
Our good friend's graduation
Our laundry fairies and their 4 nieces and nephews came down
We took a 15 mile bike ride


July:
Rachel's 17th birthday
A huge family reunion/ Grandma June's 80th birthday party
Went to Busch Gardens with the laundry fairies


August:
Sarah's 15th birthday and Leah's 12th
One laundry fairy and nephews come down again
Dad and Mom take an anniversary trip
We have continual volleyball tournaments
We get broiler chicks


September:
The county fair
We enter our broilers in 4-H and they're placed
We see our first live rodeo(and Rachel swears she'll never marry a bull-rider:)


October:
Morgan's graduation
Dad's 46th birthday
A Rejuvenating week at the Daughters of Destiny Camp


November:
Mom and Gracie's 44th and 3rd birthdays
Anna's 10th
The Gentleman from Va's 19th birthday
The Barn Dance


December:
T.G.F.V's graduation
Several Christmas party type things
Christmas



Okay, so I don't have pictures like everybody else has, but I thought some of you would like seeing our year of 2009 summed up!! Hope ya'll enjoyed this!
-Sarah

Hip-Hip-Hoorah!....*zzzzzz*

Hello all you people out there! Right now I, Rachel am almost half asleep. The reason I am so tired? The same that will probably make all you other people grumpy today. :) We had friends over and stayed up till midnight, then had a Bible-reading a sang a few worship songs to start off the new year, so they didn't leave till after 1:00! Then we had to clean up what was left over, and then wrap presents because Mr. oldest of Many and his "family is comin'" to do a late gift exchange. It is slightly more depressing than "Auld lang Syne" to note that we will officially do Christmas with the Walkers twice in 2010! :( But we are glad to see them anyhow. And Uncle Lon and Aunt Heather are here! They blessed us immensely by telling Mama that she could pick out any washer/dryer and they would pay for it!!! Gone the days of running the washer twice to get the clothes wrung out! Gone the days of running the dryer three times to dry a small load! Three cheers for those good, jolly, joyful laundry-fairies that I am pleased to have as relatives! :) Huzzah!! (Really, that "huzzah" with the exclamation point drained the last scrap of energy I had. I hope I can crawl over to the coffee pot and get a cup. :)Oooooohh! I'm the firstest person to write in the catagory 2010 on the little sidebar! Yippee......yawn. Okay. Before I slump onto the keyboard and accidently hit something weird with my forehead, I'll end this blog post with a challenge for the new year: let us make sure that our "New year's resolutions" if they are something God is trying to work with us on, are not shelfed by February. Even if they cause us some pain in giving up something, it is such a very miniscule price to pay for being right with Him! Remember, we are more than conquerers through Christ Jesus! God Bless You in this new year and may it be a year in which you grow ever closer to Him! -Rachel

In Which I Nanny a Calf and Sing to a Captive Audience ;)

Hello to Everyone out there whose hands are as cold as mine right now! (And even those of you who are warm! :) Do any of you people have New Year's Eve plans? We are going to have a family over and they shall most probably stay till midnight! Daniel and I just got back from buying feed. I sound very important. Go ahead and grin all you Alexanders and Wilsons and Graham Donahue when I tell you all that we made the trip for a solitary bag of layer pellets for our hens! On the way Daniel and I stopped to try to herd a calf back into a fence area as it was out and near the road a bit. We didn't want to "pull an Anne Shirley" as Abigail stated, so Daniel went to the house down the road to alert the people, and I stood there: the sole object of interest to 30 big black cows. The calf ignored me entirely, though it was a bit nervous it seemed. As the beasties moved ever nearer the fence,I started singing a song half to myself, half to the cows if they were listening, all the while musing whether they would charge the fence. All the tales of stampedes and gorings I ever heard knocked on the door of my mind but I didn't let them in! So like I said I began singing since I didn't have anything better to do! I assure you, after standing in the cold air for 15 minutes with an enraptured audience listening to my renditions of "Cockles And Mussels", "Danny Boy" and "Scarborough Fair", (and yes, in the cold air, trying to keep from shivering, my voice cracked on a high note in case you were wondering!) I was ready to get back in the warm car. While singing I hoped no hunters were hidden in the woods listening to me standing there with only a shawl to keep me warm, my hands clasped behind my back, rocking back and forth on my toes while I sang to cows.... I think they'd have labled me "eccentric". Daniel told me that the poeple weren't home in either of the houses to which the calf might belong, and the woman in the third house said the cows didn't belong to those people anyhow, so she called the guy who it really belongs to. We continued onto the feed store.
So now we are home and I am writing this to entertain you all. I really need a way to have a reliable income of money so Mama has challenged me to make a business plan. Please pray that I would have inspiration in my business endeavors! Have a very happy new year everyone! Oooo! I realized that if I keep saying "two thousand and ten" as I have been practicing, it will sound every bit as old-fashioned as the people who used to say, "eighteen-hundred and sixty-four"!! Isn't that cool? I hope I don't offend anyone by stating that I think "20-ten" falls in the category with "dude", "Sweet", "Yo!" and every other manner of slang. I abhor it! ;)
Almost in the year of our Lord two-thousand and ten!
-Rachel