How Long Has it Been?

WOW - my last post was in April, and here we are approaching the end of June!
I woefully underestimated the asset I gave up when we packed up Rachel and sent her off to become part of another family for 6 months. In my mind I tried to prepare myself for 'forever' because I was fully expecting them to love her just as much as we do. True to my instinct, they have asked her to stay with them when they move back to Georgia in October. I am excited for her, but sad to think that things will never be "the same" again. Welcoming a new little one into the family is a miniscule adjustment compared to the emotional roller coaster you ride when they try out their wings and find themselves flying for the first time. Word of wisdom that I myself would do well to heed: Enjoy the time you have with your kids. Eighteen or so years may seem like forever on the front end of it when you are up all hours of the night, changing countless dirty diapers, and constantly trying to keep up with the workload of wearing 10 hats at once, but it seems like a breath in the wind in hindsight when it is too late to rethink how you might be able to find more hours in the day. So why is it that experience is called the best teacher when in reality by the time you have 'experience' and have learned, you are beyond being able to do it better?

Yesterday was a day of celebrating for Hannah and I as we reduced our milking herd by four, sold three puppies, and reduced our kitten population by half. After seeing the monthly feed bill, I am considering selling one or two more! We now have seven goats in milk, but we are only milking 3 of those twice daily. Two of them are nursing babies, one is being dried off, and one is down to being milked just once per day. We still have four or five more goats to sell, but at least the chores are now more manageable.

We are still praying for more rain. We had to move Hannah's pony, Taffy, and her baby across town until we get some grass growing. We planted 150lbs of grass seed, but unless it rains soon it will be very expensive wild bird feed.

Clay has a job interview in Denver on July 7th. It is funny - I can remember as a little girl wanting to live in Colorado, but for the life of me I don't know why. It would be a neat place to live, but I never visited there as a child. My prediction has been that we will move about the time Rachel returns to Georgia. Colorado would be good though, because as part of her Parelli program she will have to train for several months in Pagosa Springs. If Christopher can ever connect with Brandon, he might be able to get a job as a farrier there too.

Chistopher got his forge yesterday, and is already trying to talk me into buying him a 100 gallon propane tank. He is offering to trade knives for it. LOL I think he would do better to continue with his custom hoofpick idea. He is fabricating hoof picks from old horse shoes. I think if he customizes them with personal names, and markets them as 'green' he would find a market.

What other news in the Shaw household? Hmmm.... We have our vacation scheduled for August 22-29 in the Orlando area. Hot, I know.... but there will be water, and it will be an opportunity to get away. Clay and I are going to Cancun in November. I won the incentive trip with Mannatech again. I am excited. We were supposed to go several years ago when the hurricanes took out the entire coast. I have already told Rachel I need her back at least for that week. :)

I would love to know I have friends who actually read this thing. I think the title of my blog was a bit of a plea from my heart. I feel like all my dots have been disconnected. I so miss my long distance friends. Locally, my life is wrapped up so much in my family that I don't have any friends that I spend much time with. For the past week I have been without my computer (my laptop literally crashed to the floor) and I realized how much I turn to the 'net' to read blogs, emails, stay connected. I started blogging as a way to keep in touch. However, I am not sure if anyone actually sees this but me. Please leave me a comment, send me an email... let me know I am not talking to myself!