Angel Kiss

Once upon a time there a sweet, little boy that was born with a little spot on his right cheek.  The spot on his little cheek was where an angel kissed him when he was sent from Heaven.  The angels would miss him so much when he came to be with his mommy, they couldn't resist a little kiss good bye.

 As the boy got older, his mommy reminded him about his Angel Kiss when he asked.  It didn't seem to bother him too much until he noticed that at school, the other kids would ask him about his angel kiss.

 He was still a sweet boy.  He loved sports and family.  He liked to make friends and spend alot of time outside playing with them.  But he noticed as he got older that the Angel Kiss was getting darker.  And he began to feel different from other kids.  And he started to feel embarrassed to be around other people because they would stare or look away quickly.

His mommy would feel sad because she knew he was special but she did not want her boy to feel bad and feel different.  So she started watching the way he was treated and started talking to the boy about removing the Angel Kiss if he wanted. The boy's mommy saw that he was shy around others.  He was very quite and tried to hide his Angel Kiss behind long hair and hats and he would duck his head.

 He said he wanted to remove it and they went to a very nice doctor who said it probably was a good idea to remove it because when he got much older and became a man, there was a good chance the Angel Kiss could become dangerous.  

 

So after a morning in surgery, the boy's Angel Kiss was removed.  The mommy was a little sad as she remembered when the boy was a baby and she would kiss the Angel Kiss. 

But now the boy is happy.  He is more outgoing, he talks more, and he is joking more.  He feels more confident and in just a short week, he has healed so quickly and clean.  It looks wonderful and when his mommy looks at him, after seeing him for 14 years with his Angel Kiss, she tries to remember what is different because he looks slightly like the baby with the Angel Kiss.  And the mommy is sad for only a moment until she sees how happy the boy is and how handsome the boy is.  And she knows that even thought the Angel Kiss is no longer showing on his face, he still is a special boy with an Angel Kiss on his heart that will never be removed.

The End

This Bucking Horse

 Now that the weather is getting warmer, we are starting to get Buttercup trained.  This is also known as breaking a horse.  She's only 2 yrs so we start by putting a blanket on her and after a while she behaves so well we try a saddle on her.  She doesn't even react to the saddle on her back and after a chunk of time goes by smoothly, we try to a kiddo.  The lightest of us right now is my Trey.

 Little do we know, we have fast forwarded about a month's time in getting a horse ready to ride.  Little did we know...

 So here is Trey riding Buttercup.  She's doing so well!  Nice and gentle.

 They are both doing such a good job.

 Dad is leading and so far so good. 

 Buttercup gets loving and rewards from Dennis for doing such a great job. 

 She did such a great job, we try a little more.  What's the harm?  She's doing great...

 Yay Ryan!!  The wind is starting to pick up a little here.  And so far, everything is going so well.  Usually it takes about 2 or 3 months I guess to get to this point.  Our smart horse is doing so good, she managed all of this in about 4 hours!

 Hi Ryan!!!  Doing great buddy!  So good in fact that we decided to take her out of the corral and into the fenced line. Looking back, that may have not been the best plan...

 The wind blew Dennis' hat off and she missed her footing.  Next thing we knew...Ryan was bucked off!  He's fine thankfully!  And after I assured myself he was fine, I remember to snap some photos.  Cuz that's what I do!

 She bucked, and she bucked, and she ran, and her saddle twisted.  That spooked her even more and she kept stumbling on her saddle. 

 She finally cornered herself in the corral and Dennis calmed her enough to slip her saddle off.

 Poor thing.  She sure had a scare.  And we did too!  Dennis got her settled and calmed a little.  We loved on her and learned a thing or two.

 Bucking horses are not fun.  Bucking horses are scary and powerful and unpredictable.  Don't worry though.  We got her hooves fixed and called in a professional.  Buttercup is being trained and we are also.  As the trainer teaches her, he teaches us as well.  All turned out okay thankfully!

Then a few of us (who shall remain un-named) may have gone inside and changed their pants.

Blessings in Disguise

This blog was created to keep my family updated on the happenings with us since we have moved so far from them.  It was to chronicle the adventures which can be construed as mishaps while our family that has lived in the Big City our whole lives, learns to live in the country.  And when I say mishaps...I mean things that don't go quite according to plan.  Sound familiar?

My point is that if you're a passer-by and happen to be reading this, it may appear to be random nonsense.  I apologize for that and you have the blessed option to hit that arrow or close key.  And if you're a friend or family member, I also apologize for this random nonsense and for the fact that you are obligated to read my nonsense and even like it!!! Muhahahaw!!! 

On to my next point.  It seems to me lately, that there are so many crazy things going on in the world right now.  The future is uncertain and scary.  People around the world are suffering.  War is growing around the world and doesn't look like it will be ending any time soon.  Many families deal with war everyday while their loved ones fight.  I am ashamed to say that in my world, I do not have a personal, direct connection to the war or the sufferings going on around the world. My biggest concern is if we have clean clothes to wear to work/school tomorrow or creamer for my coffee in the morning.  It put some things in perspective for me when I was listening to a church sermon and the preacher was talking about people in another country asking him if it was true that people in America had houses to put their cars in at night.  And rooms to put their clothes in while some families shared one room houses.  I have so much.  I am so blessed. 

So one day after cleaning his room, my son asked me to come see something on his wall.  And this is what we saw:

Some of you may know what this is right away.  It took me a minute.  Black mold (cue music).  It is here I will avoid the embarrassment of telling how long this was covered due to my son's mess...could have been a week (does it look like it's only been there for a week?) or could have been months...and we'll just stop there.

Before I knew it, this is what we were dealing with.  Now, it could have been so much worse.  You hear horror stories of homes that are unlivable due to mold.  I figured the whole wall would have to be replaced and we would be out on the streets or living in the suburban for weeks until they raised the all clear sign.  We had to take a couple days off work while the nice men cleaned it, killed it, cut it, sealed it, built it, textured it, and painted it.  It was a mess...I was a mess.  Dust was EVERYWHERE!!!  And I was stressing out about my boy who has asthma.  Luckily he was not the one staying in the room when the mold was growing for...uh...however long it was growing and no one showed any signs of being sick.

 So it could have been worse but at the time, I was NOT OKAY!!!   "Why me? Why now?" I whined.  "Can't we ever catch a break???"  I moaned.  "Seems like something ALWAYS has to be going on around here" I cried.  Poor me.

What I didn't know, was that while the nice men were fixing the root cause of the problem (inadequate plumbing causing  the washing machine water to splash inside the wall) they noticed one tiny, little insignificant detail about my dryer:

 Can you see that prong?  Can you see how it is burned and melted around the prong?

 What they saw before plugging in my dryer after working on the mold...was a plug gone bad man!  Our dryer plug was secretly plotting on burning my house down!!!  Ackkkk!!!!  I don't know much about cords and mold and fire but I do know that a burned plug is bad.  Very, very bad.  So we cut him loose.  There is no tolerance in this house for dryer plugs-or ANY plug for that matter- gone bad!  My husband replaced him.  Just like that!  Let that be a warning! Us Tarvers are cold hearted!  Ice...

So in the midst of the nightmare mold, and as painful as it was for me to take a day or two off work, relaxing and watching movies while the nice men repaired the wall, I found it to be a blessing in disguise.  My family is safe, my belongings are safe and it's all thanks to some Toxic Black Mold.  See how things work out?

Seriously, in the big scheme of things, I know I am blessed and that I have it good.  And I can't tell you how thankful I am. I haven't always been here, and know it won't always be like this. I have suffered too.  But like I said before, lately I hear strangers, friends, and family suffering and asking themselves (and I'm asking too) why things are happening the way they are.  Why do things go wrong?  Why does it seem sometimes that things just fall apart and never look like they will get better?  Well, sometimes --not always--but sometimes there is a silver lining.  Something that in a moment, gives you chills and clarity at the same time.  A moment when you realize that something happened for a reason.  And that Someone was looking out for you and working for the greater good. 

Amen.

My Pretzel Boy

First of all, let me just say I post this with permission of my Pretzel Boy.  As a matter of fact, I specifically asked him if I could put this in my blog and his response was, "Sure mom, I don't care what people think of me."  Please note no children were harmed in the photographing of this blog post.

Since he was a baby, his flexibility was amazing.  I could twist this child any which way.  I could put his feet behind his head and practically fold him in half.  This would be considered odd because his father, on a scale from 1 to 10 (10 being highly flexible), would range somewhere between a 2 and 3 while I used to be around an 8...emphasis on used to be!

It seems he has not lost that flexing ability at all in the last 13 years...

 He is scooting himself with his feet behind his head.  Now this may make some squeamish,  let me inform you that while he may not sit exactly like this all the time, he does sit with a foot routinely wrapped around his body.  When just sitting and relaxing in the chair watching TV, he does have a habit of contorting his body in unnatural poses but it was not until recently that we discovered this talent...

 It's just not right...

If You Give Teenage Boys Snow...

If you give teenage boys some snow, they'll want to go play in it.  And by play, I mean torture each other by doing everything in their power to ram, throw and smush snow onto their brother's skin.  When The Great Storm of 2010 came 2 weeks ago, it was way too cold to go play in it.  The wind chill was down to negative 17 on some days.  But we had a pretty mild day where we could go outside for more than 30 seconds without feeling like our noses and fingers were going to burn and fall off.

 So we thought we'd get a little play time in before the snow melted.  As you can see, the torture begins.

 Can I just say there is actually very little time in our household currently where a teenage boy is not torturing another teenage boy?  I have 3.  There is very little peace here right now.

 The snow was very powdery and had melted a bit the day before.  That night we had a hard freeze so there were layers of compacted, dry, powdery snow.  It sort of exploded into a powder when thrown.  I have to admit, it was kinda cool...

 Note the two on the right.  Okay...now note the one on the left...umhmmm. I give him props for trying.  A quick, "NO" did the trick and he found another target quickly...

 Unfortunately they were too engrossed with each other to notice him coming...

 Uh Oh!!!  Man down!!!  Man down!!!  Please understand this is a daily endeavor in my home.  I have learned not to panic and to remain calm unless there is blood or a body part bending in a manner in which it shouldn't.

 This is my baby.  Can you see that there is snow inside his hood?  Can I just say he is not happy!!! That is not a smile folks. After I got him up and dusted off, he decided he had enough and went to go thaw in the shower.  Now don't you worry...he's just fine.

 Here's Ryan making a snow angel.  Um...Ryan?  I think you're supposed to be on your other side.  Might work better...

 Okay...try that.  We are from South Texas.  We get no snow.  We are learning...

 TaDahhhhh!!!  A snow angel.

 Now it is big brother's turn.  By this time, we'd been out for about 15 minutes.  We were having a good time but my feet were starting to burn and it was cold!!!  So I made us all go inside. I know...I'm such a buzz kill man!

 I guess they were feeling a little guilty about torturing the little brother so Ryan helps his brother up in a rare moment.

 So this is it for the snow!  It melted in the next two days and we soon discovered that the beauty of snow is but a moment compared to the gray, dirty, slushy, icky, mess of melting snow.  I'm still cleaning my floors...and car...and laundry...

But for a moment, it was beautiful!

Winter Confession

I know you've been losing sleep over the whole frozen water tank issue.  So lest you toss and turn another night thinking about my poor boys having to go break ice and very nearly freeze to their deaths, well, worry no more!

You rememer this?



 Do you see that device in there on the bottom right part of the tank? That's a neat little tool. It's supposed to keep the water from freezing.  The trick is to plug it in without electrocuting yourself or the horse.  You have to sort of hide the cords so she doesn't try to bite through the cord or pull the cord with her hoof.  You know...tricky things like that.

 The other tricky part is making sure you have enough juice to run the hot wired fence so the horse doesn't try to run free and still have enough to keep the water from freezing.  Also, now- I'm not an expert or anything-but not setting it up until the day after the coldest night in history may not be the best strategy.  Maybe you want to have it installed and working on the day of the coldest night in history...just sayin'.

 But no worries!  We...er...I mean, he as in Brandon, had it all set up in no time. Girlfriend got plenty to eat and plenty to drink...


Dang!  Girlfriend's looking a little shaggy.  Girlfriend needs a shave.  I know how she feels...I tend to shave less in the winter too when I know my legs are going to be covered most of the time.  What???  TMI??  Puhleeeez!!!  Don't tell me you keep up with your summer shaving routine throughout the winter!!  Just keepin' it real!

Got What I Asked For!

If you haven't noticed by now, all winter I've been griping and complaining about how we haven't had any snow or real winter-like conditions.  I moved 8 hours north and have pretty much experienced the same weather we had in The Big City...blah, blah, blah.

Well..I finally got what I asked for. On the first day of February, a Winter Storm rolled in and put the whole state in a State of Emergency!  We, being in the southwest part of the state, didn't get nearly as slammed as the central and northwest part of the state...but it was arctic, windy and the windchill was negative 17 degrees F for a time.  In case you're from the southern part of the U.S....that's really frickin' cold!!!

So, the media of course was going crazy!!!  People went out shopping a couple of days before it was coming and emptied the shelves of the local stores for supplies. After all, last year, some people were without power for three weeks!!!  We were also pretty sure we would have a Snow Day so I prepared to make some meals and take advantage of having the day at home with my family.  But just in case, I got up early, jumped in the shower and checked the news for school closings.  Everyone was warned to stay off the roads and to not travel unless absolutely necessary!  Yay!  Snow Day! 

So I checked outside to see what the whole fuss was about anyway...

This was my front door at 6:30 am.  The wind had blown the snow so hard it was piled behind the screen door in between my front door!  I could feel and hear the wind blowing through my door!  Brrr!!

Now this is my back door.  I have to admit that the weekend before we got this freezing blast, the weather was a beautiful, spring-like 65 degrees!  I pulled the glass down on the screen door and opened up the house.  I also forgot to close the glass on the screen door and the snow just came right in!

It's not like we got feet and feet of snow.  I think we actually only ended up with maybe 2 inches.  The problem was the wind was blowing so hard, it caused drifts that were at least 12 inches deep.  Anyone trying to drive would be fine (if you could even tell where the roads were) and all the sudden, you'd be front deep in a snow drift, not going anywhere for a while unless you happen to be carrying a shovel in your car.

We have a garage that is actually a carport but it's more like a garage without doors.  This picture shows how hard the wind blew the snow.  This is the back of our garage with two large vehicles in front and everything in my garage was covered in snow!

It just looks cold and dreary doesn't it?  We were a little disappointed that the first time we get snow, it was really too dang cold to go play in it.  Seriously, you couldn't be outside for more than a few minutes before your fingers and face started to burn.

But we had to at least go feel it for a bit.  Here are my two youngest trying to make snowballs.  The snow was very dry and powdery but they finally made one!

Yay! Even though it was 9 degrees with a windchill of negative 17 there were still outside chores to do.  The poor horse needs to eat and stay warm!

Doesn't she look cold?  Being the wonderful mother I am, I sent my children out with the camera to take pictures for me so I wouldn't freeze.  Well...they had to be out there anyway breaking up the ice in the water tank (which takes more than one person) and make sure she has plenty to eat and plenty of hay.  I'm old and it was really cold! Don't judge me!

Buttercup was really cold.  She had snow all over her.  Good thing she has a winter coat.  It's really warm and shaggy.  We also give her more food than usual so she can eat plenty and burn more calories to stay warm.

The water presents another problem...

Shovels and crowbars usually do the trick with a little elbow grease.  At one point, my Ryan comes traipsing in covered in slushy, cold clothes and half frozen.  I think he was using the shovel to pull some of the ice chunks out of the water and well...sorta half fell in.  I think!!!  Remember I wasn't out there.  So he comes in half froze and after I asked him "Oh My Gosh!!!  What happened to you?"   And he told me between chattering teeth that he fell into the water tank trying to grab a huge piece of ice, I looked for my camera.  I know!  So I didn't take a picture of my half froze boy because I had to get him out of those clothes and into the bath...also, another child had my camera outside...heh.

Cutting up the ice without cutting through the tank is tricky.  Plus you have to get as much ice as you can out so it doesn't freeze deeper and harder the next time...which is does.  This is probably the hardest and worst job in the winter when you have animals. 

Here's my snow dog Buzz.  He's mostly Husky so he LOVES the snow.  And he likes to help the boys with the horse.  I think it makes him feel important.  He also hasn't totally figured out that he's a dog...

That afternoon the wind finally died down a little.  After that it didn't feel as cold, even though the temperature was like 5 degrees. 

It ended up being a pretty fun day.  We got to try alot of things we never have like ice cream snow.  The kids would go out in spurts to play in the snow as much as they could handle and we had a yummy beef stew for dinner and lots of hot chocolate. 

And oh yeah.  I ended up with about 20 loads of laundry! When it's this cold, you have to dress in layers.  And times that by 3...and when you come in, the clothes are wet so the next time you go out, you need clean, dry layers...and times that by 3...

So for a total of 30 minutes throughout the day playing plus another 30 minutes of chores, I spent the next 5 days trying to catch up with laundry.  Not kidding!  And that does not include cleaning the dirty wet floors, and kitchen clean up of having every member of the family home eating all day long!!!  If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go switch the clothes out and dry my tears...