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October

Preparing for the flu or a stomach virus works! About a month ago I read we need to have hands on things for anyone that may be ill in your family. As long as you don’t go overboard it works!

Gator had been acting a bit odd on Monday and Tuesday. I did my best mom face to not give in and ask him if he felt okay. I did ask more than a few times if he was okay, but I never said the “felt” word. With Dunk I learned if you give a kid an inch he will take a mile. Anyway the nurse called me on Tuesday and told me Gator will ill and needed to come home.

Today I am happy to report I just took him to school. I will share with you my magic solution to get him over the stomach flu!

Everytime I would think about it I would pick up some illness supplies each time I would pick up other groceries.

I saw a report that said by the time you are sick, you are too sick to do the shopping for the stuff you need. So here is my magic list!

Chicken Ramen Noodle Soup (the broth in it is supreme)

Sprite or seven up

Those plastic Popsicle liquid tubes (freeze a few the moment someone is sick)

Kleenex boxes (didn’t need this but eventually I will use them)

Saltine crackers (perfect to eat with the soup)

straws( yes they are fun, but they also give you protection from spreading germs)

There you go the magic illness supply list is complete. That way you never leave the house, the kid is absolutely to rest, sleep and hydrate until they are perky like Gator was last night. We new he was much better!

I highly recommend this preparation, I usually spend a lot of time worrying about my sick kids plus figuring out what to buy when and how much. This time I just gave what he needed when he needed it. I still have plenty of supplies for the next illness except the Sprite. Gator did not crave rice, but I always have rice on hand.

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Category: kids Tags: budget, kids Leave a Comment

State Fair Memories

October

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I cannot say enough how proud I was of Gator. I saw plenty of other kids doing very little, or following their parent as the parent took the animal to weigh or wash. Gator would take his 90% of the time all by himself, one time he said he needed me to a hold a bucket. I followed so happy behind him and the goat. He would allow every once in a while Sconicle to take the goat out to get ready to feed while Gator would be hanging feeders. Mostly we just got stuff for him, handed him stuff or went where he needed us to.

He is a great kid, that is what his FFA teacher was telling me. Another parent that is a vet tech told me he was a dream kid, I was not surprised. There is a reason why he is the goat breeder and it is his herd not ours. At a young age he begged to do this, there have been days he wished he hadn’t wanted so many goats. Regardless they are his responsibility and we only help out.

Our kids are required to work, it is something that none of the get out of. There is nothing easy about livestock and farming. Those that don’t understand why we do what we do don’t absorb that hard work only makes you stronger and more determined to make a better life. Kids are better off working for it, then being given everything. If it drives them away from agriculture, they will make more money, if not they know first hand how hard it is to make a living.

This is my favorite picture of Gator from the fair. It is after he has showing and he is just chilling. I had tried to take a candid shot from a bit farther when he and Sconicle where standing there talking. But Gator caught me, and the shot was blown.

This is the Gator I know, confident and loose. He is Gator, the little boy grown tall out of biker shorts and cowboy boots. The kid who loves that hat when I saw another hat that I thought looked so much better. He shot that idea down, and picked that hat instead. It was much cooler he said.

Just moments before this shot, is Gator walking Brownspot out of the ring looking like he stepped out of a 20X catalog. Do you recognize that kid?

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Category: goats, kids Tags: goats, kids, personal ramble One Comment

Home Sweet Home

October

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I love seeing Dallas and the State Fair. I love the smell of the barns and the food walk as I call it. I saw, I ate, I talked, I swam (sitting in a heated hot tub), I slept and I am finally back to my humble home. The show goat is back in his pen after seeing the bright city lights of Dallas.

Nobody from our group of local FFA ers made the top lists. The kids all got “participation ribbons”, a free t-shirt and the experience of saying ” I showed at the State Fair of Texas”. Gator worked his butt off, but to be honest the goat was young and the big money goats were beside him on either side. Nobody worked his goat harder in the ring than Gator, but some days it is not meant to be. He came out, fussed for a minute and watched so more goats be shown.

As each kid got sifted out, the trend was clear. We have one Senior showing a sheep, a sheep that hates his ears touched. Which is a challenge when that is how you show them is by touching their faces. She was at the end of the last breed, by that time she was a funny girl. I had told her to smile, red lipstick, flirt and work that wild sheep no matter what. Her being a Senior and having Senioritis (disease that affects many Seniors, not being “full on” in competition). As she made ten feet without the judge pulling her, she knew what we knew she would have to work it. She smiled up and me and winked. I could have killed her, she laughed. She did a good job, but not a great job. Her Senioritis kicked in, she was being not the girl I know to show. She was tired and hungry, with a three hour drive ahead of her with two steers to feed when she made it home. She got her purple ribbon like most in the show and said “let’s go eat”.

She has been a great kid showing two to three steers a year, with a lamb every other time. But reality of sheep being bred to win, versus what you can afford had caught up with her. That and Senioritis, she was mentally done, she had stressed all day about the wild sheep. Gator had no comforting words since he had wrangled him for a 18 hours before she got there, this is a sheep that hates a halter. Unheard of!

We got back late, the goat got back even later. Gator and Dunk went to bed as we unloaded the goat to the pen. They had early class, and we knew it was not going to be hard just a bit of work. Poor goat was as whopped as the kids, he wanted to be in his pen as soon as possible.

Today we will sanitize every inch of him and the poor goat he is sharing the pen with, it was too late to do it. They have to be protected from disease and spraying the pen, the buckets, the clips and the goats is the only option. He will have months before the stress of a trip will happen again, it will much shorter and he will be fine.

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Category: Uncategorized Tags: 4H, FFA, goats, kids One Comment

Headed To State Fair

September

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Gator is showing his goat Thursday AM. Sconicle and I are heading out in a few short minutes. I plan on being back on Thursday, unless Gator makes the sale. We don’t expect to but if we do I will not be back until Friday late, which means Saturday blog wise.

I appreciate my readers but I know this is my time to focus on the boys, and my family I am staying with. Dunk and Hubby have to work and go to school, so we will be without them and the pups for a few days.

Until then I will hang my sign!

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Category: Uncategorized Tags: goats, kids Leave a Comment

The Sock Caper

September

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Gator has been and will always be his own person. He began it young, perhaps as a baby. As he entered preschool at age four, no one including me could have known exactly what Gator would do or not do for that matter.

At about 18 months old he was convinced he would ride bulls the rest of his life. He had a tape he watched over and over on bull riding. While other kids watched cartoons he watched Animal Planet, he just has a rhythm of his own.

Gator started the year fine. I would have his clothes ready in his dresser, yet slowly I noticed there was something about his socks that were different. He loved socks with a stripe of blue, green, black or red around the ankle. I would look down each day, and he would have one red and one black stripe on each foot. He didn’t do it everyday at first, he slowly changed his wardrobe choices. So slowly I would think I had made mistakes in matching socks. Then I started being sure to match all the socks by color with two green and so on.

Every day Gator would bound the door with his two different colored socks. As other mothers were struggling to get their kids out of the car, Gator would leap the stairs up to the small house with a grin and a wave. I had two very different choices to react to his wardrobe choice. I could ignore it, humor him and allow him to be truly Gator. Or I could insist his socks matched, his hair perfect and he needed me to get him in school. The second choice was never appealing to me.

I look at the big battles, socks are a small one. Was he able to get dressed, and up the stairs to class happy all by himself? The answer was yes. Nothing else mattered to me, he was independent and with that million dollar grin who could think he was not perfect with unmatched socks on purpose?

The owner/director one day asked me why I allowed my son to do such a “peculiar thing” like wearing unmatched socks. I laughed, why wouldn’t I? She compared it to being a defiant personality, that I should force him to wear matching socks.

Never did I think a teacher could have been more wrong about a kid in my life. Gator wore lime green biker shorts and cowboy boots at age three, Hubby and Dunk had begged him not to. There was nothing that made Gator happier than those biker shorts and cowboy boots. I told Hubby and Dunk their “sensitivity of unorthodox fashion” was their problem.

The preschool teacher was a controlling mother in my opinion, and I was not jumping on the band wagon. Maybe she forced her son to look picture perfect, but Gator was to look Gator perfect. Some of my best memories today are of Gator, biker shorts, cowboy boots and unmatched socks. She was wrong then, and I could not have been more right then.

You want your kids happy, healthy and functional. She as a teacher was dealing with many kids that would not leave the car, would not eat the food served, would not do the work in class. The fact that the socks bothered her made me happy as well. Gator exceeded all the basics, with a smile and two unmatched socks.

Trust your gut as a mom, I don’t care what degree they have. what business they own or run, you know your child. That is what you need to glean from this story, let a kid be a kid. Life is too short to force them into unnecessary rules.

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Category: Uncategorized Tags: kids, parenting 4 Comments

Laugh Day

September

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I love funny videos. A new person that I found on Twitter had this. It is one of the funniest I have seen in a long time. Her take was “From a badass lifting weights to a clumsy kid yelling for his mom all in 0.75 seconds. Well done”

Nothing sums it better.

Next up is Pixar Humor! It is a tennis commercial!

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Category: videos Tags: comedy, kids, tennis Leave a Comment

Politically Uncorrect Teens

September

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Gator has a buddy. I am going to rename him Scooper, only because any Hispanic name I know Gator has a classmate by that name. Scooper is a latino. That is his heritage and he is proud of it. Gator and Scooper share a love for football, humor and mexican food. Scooper can speak spanish, so Gator has no idea what Scooper orders for him but he eats it.

Scooper has always been one of the funny kids Gator knew. It was during long work outs that Scooper found Gator’s humor engaging. Gator would either work too hard or not at all, that is Gator. All or nothing in everything he does. Nothing like watching Gator try to overlift while cracking a joke. Or watching Gator pretend to be working out the whole time he is telling a long funny story. As Scooper will tell you, running with Gator while listening to his stories can split your side.

Now about Scooper and Gator, they tend to be honest and blunt. Matter of fact there are times the honesty would shock an politically correct adult. I do not know if Scooper comes from illegal parents, no idea at all. What I do know is he and Gator will tease each other about illegals. As Gator says, “You illegal came over the fence.” Then Scooper will say, “Hey Gator I did not come over the fence, there are plenty of places to come across without a fence.”

Scooper points out the differences between the treatment of races by anybody and everyone. I asked him one time why he did it. He said, ” I think it needs to be out there, everyone is racist about something. The question is how much.” He bears no hatred or malice. As he says pointing it out makes everyone aware to act like it is a big deal is wrong.

He has the same problem with boys that talk badly about girls then the girls like them. As he says, ” what it says to boys is treat girls badly and you will be liked.” Scooper will also tell you that is wrong to treat girls badly, but he says many boys do it and are popular. The other boys agreed with Scooper.

The common sense wisdom Scooper speaks with is refreshing. I wish I could bottle him in a jar and sell his takes to think tanks. He sees what is real, what is fake and what needs to be changed. At fifteen he knows he can never be white, Gator can never be Mexican and probably neither will be the most popular boy.

How long do people struggle to figure out who they are? Gator and Scooper for all their warts, know who they are.

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Category: politically uncorrect Tags: kids, Texas 4 Comments

Sleep More Sleep

September

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What What what seems to be the problem? I am sleeping, Dunk is sleeping and yet you want us both to get up! Get a life mom, ain’t gonna happen. Now go away I mean it, Dunk and I could sleep here all day. You want to ruin it, with your ideas of work and school.

Mom come on, Sconicle needs a few more hours of sleep. I am comfortable, now go away and bother somebody else. Yes I know the idea of being ignored by Sconicle and Dunk is not worth it. Just a few more hours of dog dreamy sleep.

This is my life, the dogs revolt each and every Morning. Gator is like me, he needs to get up he does. Not because he wants to but because his clock and my clock actually work. As Dunk said it best today, “if there was a fire I would be screwed. ”

See Gator and I get sick and tired of trying to wake the dead, namely Hubby, Dunk and Sconicle. If there is a fire we would be the only ones to actually hear the alarm and move. It would take a very large earthquake to arise these three.

Gator and I don’t why they are like that, we would love them to be like us. The dogs would love us to be up at 5, then sleep till noon. It will not happen, no matter how much Pancho, Lefty, Dunk and Sconicle wish.

Gator and I will awake and be awake. The resistance we fight by three people and two dogs has to be overcome each and every day.

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Category: Uncategorized Tags: dogs, homeschool, kids, personal ramble Leave a Comment

Did the Tree Win?

August

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Sunday afternoon I headed out to Grandpa’s farm, in total determination to bath, blow dry and shave a goat. Hubby had told me when to show up. What he had forgotten to mention is the 60 plus year old tree they were taking down.

I drove up to see Grandpa sitting in the shade. Uncle T wielding a chainsaw, and ropes every which way you can imagine. Everyone was hot and tired, except the mostly rotten tree. The sweet tea I had made them was long gone, they were full on into ice water and plenty of it. The goats were with no direction eating the leaves from the branches as Dunk was trying to load the fork lift attachment of the tractor with logs and branches. Every cut meant they had to figure out which way to run.

Which is why Grandpa looked like he had been in a bar fight. I asked him what happened, he said in an effort to run out of the way he tripped and fell.

Lefty and Pancho ran off the goats, who had branches out in the pasture but wanted the latest and greatest edition of branches. Dunk was so irritated at them. Hard enough to load branches onto a forklift without a goat yanking them off.

So the scenario was simple. Watch, watch Uncle B cut, watch Hubby yank, watch Gator and Dunk yank then load up logs. Then occasionally you would need to run for your life no matter where you were standing.

Other than Grandpa tripping running for his life, no people were hurt in this operation. Other than neosporin and bandaids no medical attention was required.

Ninety Percent of the tree is gone, 60 percent of the fence is still up. The gate made it, but the fence was not so lucky. Not to worry that will be another day they will work together on.

If I had known Sunday was the day, I would taking before and after pictures but I am the last to know.

Dunk and Hubby argued about who can drive a tractor best, that was fun. Lefty got a chance to chase goats a bunch of times, he just loves that. Gator got to haul and haul and haul logs, well you can’t win them all. Sconicle and I never got close to washing the goat, the stand we use was under the tree.

There were high hopes it was going to be a quick and easy cut down. As Grandpa summed it up, “you know once you see how much work it is cutting down a tree like that now you know why they charge so much.”

Yes Grandpa is right including his glance at me with a scraped up nose!

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Category: Uncategorized Tags: budget, farm, Frugal Living, kids, personal ramble Leave a Comment

Sharpie on Wood

August

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Well how did I get this topic? Experience my good reader, experience with a pink marker on the kitchen table. Sconicle was doing a great Human Anatomy paper when he called me quietly in a panic. Instead of the hundreds of crayons and tens of water markers he used a Sharpie.

Pledge for the loveliness of it doesn’t do a durn thing, do not waste your time. Here is what I found. Alcohol, rubbing and cotton balls do work, but slowly on a pink one. Trust me. Then I found the sentence bicarbonate of soda (ie Baking soda). Then I found try alcohol with baking soda. Which thankfully worked well and quietly.

The trick in this house is to clean up the mess, fix the broken furniture or make something look whole before Daddy wakes up. As Sconicle and I furiously and quietly cleaned we forgot that Nark Dunk was lurking in our midst. He tried to blow it for us but we were finally victorious over the ugly stain.

Hubby will never know we had a stain, even if he does find out we have done our deed well and it is good as new!

Here is the website we found the answer on. Look HERE.

It should be noted that not all Sharpie colors are removed by the same cleaning solution. Pink is a bad color if you happen to use a Sharpie.