Dog Day afternoon!

"Wagon Train"

Alias Smith and Jones

"Laredo"

"Couper on a dog day afternoon"

I love westerns and this afternoon was one of those days that I just wanted to watch the ol' cowboys and the good ol' movies. I really decided to watch "Wagon Train" , "Laredo", and "Smith and Jones"....you know they just don't make'em like they use to.......Couper? you ask, he crashed after playing in the snow today. My boy just couldn't hang with me, them dog day afternoons!

Yes' Mam

As I sit in my home with 4-5 inches of snow out side, is making me dream of our vacation to Florida this summer! My dear friend gave me a website they use every year when they return to Florida for vacation.

The great thing about this website, they are all rentals, not like hotel rooms. They are the same price (and some are cheaper), they are fully furnished, all you need is the food and your clothes! I found this cottage and fell in love with it! The great thing about this one particular cottage, it is privately owned, has its own personal pool, on the gulf, has its own boat docking and ramp, 6 miles from Destin and just minutes from town and restaurants and I LOVE IT!

Problem solved!

Ummmm Ummmm Good!

Homemade Potato Soup

One of my favorite meals, not heavy, but satisfying! I will share my recipe, yes I have modified it (for the better)

3 red potatoes

1-2 carrots (personal preference)

Cut potatoes and carrots up and boil your 'favorite' pan (I use large one). When potatoes and carrots are soft, drain the juice in strainer and keep the potato juice for your soup.

Using the same pan you cooked the potatoes in.

melt 6 tbsp butter ( I use the real stuff)

1 small onion (cut up)

Saute' the onions until they are soft. Then add

6 tbsp of flour

1 1/2 cups milk

salt

pepper

when the lumps are out and the flour is thickening add the reserved potato water to this until thick.

Add the potatoes and carrots

I also add about 1/2 cup or so (I never measure it) of sour cream to soup. This gives it a great taste and texture. Top soup bowls off with crumbled up bacon! YUMMMMMEEEEEEEEEE

The answer is Snow!

Snowing and gaining ground

While on my front porch, this is the view I had

Corner of my drive way flower bed

Couper is begging B to go outside and play in the snow!

From my last post until now, we have gained at least 2 inches of snow! It is beautiful, but you are limited what you can do! By Sunday I can't say where I will be, just not locked up in the house, I love my daughter and we have watched 2 movies, but it is time to go......hubbie, omgosh this house is too small for all of us locked up for 2 days!!! LOL

Ice? Snow? Mix?

Well it could have been worse, but it is still coming down! Most of the south is under a storm warning and watch. We didn't go to school today because we are rural and our buses go to the mountains to pick up students. Today is when it is actually suppose to hit, rather than yesterday! The Bball game was cancelled last night due to the weather coming in! Road conditions, I have no idea......but enjoying time to do all my work for school! Taking 3 graduate classes this semester has been challenging!

Weather and meteorologist: Don't you hate when there is a big IF lingering? They are guessing like we do, LOL I didn't even sleep well last night! Time to hit Florida! :)

PLEASE keep this student in your prayers

This is a very difficult post! My heart is still in pain from an incident that happen in my classroom this morning. Things were going normal on Monday morning and working on getting students motivated to work after returning from their weekend, when a students screams in desperation, "Mrs. A come here quick", from the tone of her voice I knew it was serious. I ran to her when I noticed she was holding her best friend in her arms and holding her up. She was saying, "something is wrong with .....!" I started talking to the student and realized she was in a full blown seizure! I was OK, until she stopped breathing! My students you could tell were starting to panic and feel helpless, so I sent one to get the nurse, her best friend to the counselor because she was very upset and a couple of the boys help me place her on the floor ready for CPR.

Without going into private/confidential details, I sent the rest of the students to another room, the ambulance was called while still working on the girl and until the nurse arrived! When I checked on her at lunch, her vitals were back to normal but she was still not verbally or eye contact speaking. Which seems to be normal for her. She has a rare disease that mostly shows up in older people, my understanding is she probably will not live out a normal life, and she is working with Mayo since they have never known a young person having it and to help prolong her life. They have great physicians there and are well educated on this disease, just more difficult since she is so young.

I was able to see all my students during lunch to visit with them and make sure they were OK, plus let them know she was doing better and her vitals were good. We can't forget what they witnessed and what they are feeling, so please keep them also in your prayers!

Please pray for her, she is a precious, smart, wonderful, girl who has the fight to stay here and with us, as she was wheeled away toward the ambulance, I kissed her on her forehead and told her I would see her soon!

I am so thankful the good Lord gave me the knowledge to know what to do and that He was with me through this! Praise God!

Florida.........HELP!

Where do I begin? My daughter is graduating in May (tear), I will be graduating the end of June with my masters in Counseling. I thought we could take a small family trip to Florida to celebrate our l-o-n-g hard, consistence studies and both of us having good grades, celebrate by taking a fun filled trip to Florida.

I have found some places to stay on the Beach, we are looking at Destine, Ft. Walton area and I can't always believe the feedback on the websites. I heard they post their own feedback so it is hard to believe what you read on the net. Can someone give me some positive places to stay that are not out of this world expensive and are on the beach so I can walk out without crossing roads? I wish I could take my dog, but I am now thinking I will let one of my students from school take care of him! My dad can feed my horses (girls). July is the month we are looking at!

My dear bloggers, any suggestions?

What is a girl to do?

In the last three weeks, I have successfully completed some tasks that I have been stressing out about! One is our taxes......I have all the farm and personal paperwork completed and ready for our CPA. I have 80% of my daughters paperwork ready and sent to her top 3 colleges she would like to attend. Just need our tax info (yep, waiting on hubbies W-2 Form) UHRRR

I feel that I have accomplished so much in just a few weeks is because back at Christmas I was successful in changing my hubbies eating habits. How did I do this? Well let me tell you how and he can't argue! I have always been conscious about eating healthy, I usually had to fix two meals, one that he ate and one that I ate.

Secret: Come in one day and empty everything out of the cabinets and refrigerator that is not good for you, replace with everything that is healthy for you! Example: My hubbie is eating peanut butter on wheat bread now, something he said he would never do! But when you have no other bread but wheat, what choice does he have?

I truly believe healthy is best way to go. I have not placed my body on the scales yet, I personally would like to wait another month. Even though I always ate healthy, in the last 3 weeks I have eliminated more or should I say weaned myself away from other things one being anything that has sugar in it, and I do not crave it!!!!!!! I know my girls out in the pasture will sure be proud of me, since they will not have to carry that extra weight this spring when we start running barrels again!

So, what is a girl to do now?

See why you 'DON'T' need best friends!

Me and Bec

They sneak around when you are together and take pictures and the worst part of it, this was at 11:30 at night!

We had been together all day! David is my best friend who I love so much, I can talk to him about anything and everything! We grew up and went to school together, he is an Architect in Little Rock and owns his own firm, we get together as much as time allows us, texting is a must for us, and often we visit on the phone. You see we email each from the picture above (?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?) He emails a picture of my other sweet dear friend who is now a "Bama" fan (probably cause she moved to Alabama) , but we still luv her too, we both look like we are "3 sheets in the wind"!

Thanks David, you know I hold a box of ol' goodies that soon could appear on the world wide web! :)

Hearty Man's Lunch

Sunday lunch consisted of some uummm ummmm good food! I have been really watching what we eat and today I had a craving for some protein! The whole family has been eating so well, that I thought they deserved a 'hearty man's lunch'! "Enchilada"

I can every year, so I was able to use most of my canned veggies. I love pepper jack cheese, so I grated the cheese before I went to Church, well prepared most of the ingredients prior to Church then all I had to do is come in build, bake and eat!

I also order my spices freshly ground from a company called "Townsend Supplies"! Makes the food taste so much better 'cause they are fresh ground!

My homemade salsa is always a must and yesterday craving jalapenos, so each plate consisted of enchiladas, lots of melted cheese, salsa and jalapenos, with a side order of chips!

The Wronged Man and many more

I have finding more movies that I want to see during my busiest time of the year! Tonight "The Wronged Man" is showing on T.V. Yes you do not have to pay the $7-10 for a ticket to see it! The 'got to see' movies for me is Extraordinary Measures, The Lovely Bones and The Edge of Darkness! I love the actors in each and the story line, well for some reason this movies spark my interest!

Tonight I will be watching The Wronged Man!

http://www.mylifetime.com/movies/the-wronged-man?cmpid=Consumer-TheWrongedMan-BlogHer

I wish...............

I wish that I 'loved' to read! I enjoy reading, but I do not have time to sit by the still waters with the breeze blowing through my hair, sun beaming down against my book as I sit sipping my coffee. My leg kicked up over one side of the chair and I lounge back with this luscious, love story novel resting on my thigh. I love my solitude, many people do not understand my love for the peacful and soft country air and just being with my animals. There is nothing like getting on one of my girls (horses), riding this big black beauty across the wide open field, free of being locked into anything that I feel squeezed, dreaming of going to the next barrel race and seeing all the friends you have not seen since last season.

I feel that riding is the best therapy I can have, no need for drugs, I have my horses! The only problem, riding doesn't stimulate my brain as it gets older like reading, so my girls and I will just continue to be free and sometimes envy the ones that love to curl up with a good book!

Back to the books!

Hummmmm, tomorrow is the big day to return back to college! It just seems like yesterday I completed fall semester, where or where is the time going? Teaching during the day and going to college at night is going to be tiring, especially now that I am taking three classes so that I can get through this summer! F-i-n-a-l-l-y......... and my daughter is a senior and this is her last year for high school basketball, so I can't miss her games.......oh my! When am I going to sleep? So bear with me if I do not post often!

Don't forget to say your prayers daily!

I got the bug.....

After dodging the bullet this year, I finally got the nasty ol' stomach bug! I have been teaching in the education system for 13 years and have caught just about everything that runs thru the school. we like to call it "sharing"! This is the one thing I disagree with, 'sharing' everything! :) Gotta run, still having the side effects of 'the bug' (headaches, weak)! Stay well!

It's Snowing......gonna be one of those winters!

Couper taking time to go outside

What I woke up to this morning

"Was" getting ready for school, when they called

This is so not funny! LOL but I am laughing!

My problem? This is my last summer for summer school, I will be completed with my masters in counseling! So you say, "What is the big deal?"

Our school district did not build in snow days in our calendar this year, so we tack our days on at the end of school. Summer school starts just a few days after our school is out, "why" you say? College does not go by High School calendars so they do not understand if our snow days have to be made up when their school starts.

Good thing I have "plenty" of built up sick and personal days left! I have a strange feeling I will be using them! My ol' farmer friends have said it is going to be a cold wet winter from the persimmons that read in the fall!

What better way than to spend the day with your besties?

JD starts out driving us for the day!

Me and my ol' high school bestie (she lives is Alabama)

"My BIG Daddy", Linda and Gary
Teri, Steve and Adell

Bec and David (also my bestie)

the one and only awesome JD

For the past few years my ol' high school friends got together during Christmas and summer when all were in visiting. I know what you are thinking, but we really have ssssoooo much fun when we are together. NO, spouses are NOT allowed on this trip! We all meet at JD's, cram into a vehicle, go eat lunch, start our rounds visiting all our ol high school teachers, lol the ones we loved the best and then that night others who are part of our class get together and we meet either at a restaurant! During the day, I hate to say, it is a selected few that go and visit, we love doing this and we also take time to go visit the cemetery of all our classmates that we have lost over the years!

Last night we decided to go our friends home, she volunteered ok? We had potluck and it was the best! JD put an old video in that was made 30 years ago, it was made in Drama class at CHS with class of 1977 and I laughed until my gut was in knots!

I have to say, I look forward to this day every year that we can get together and go over all that we use to do and got in trouble for! As a teacher now, back then what we thought was 'bad' was noting compared to these days! WE all decided last night that we are so glad we grew up in the time (70's) we did! It was the best! Now I am putting together more video and I have already starting cracking up over some of our pictures! Hopefully, I will be able to post them, I promise you, you will even laugh at our dress, hair and gestures.

Stay tuned!

THE WINNER IS

LLL with Leslie "CONGRATULATIONS". So Leslie you need to email me at this address: carnoldcowgirl@yahoo.com give me your mailing address so I can send you the wonderful "McCall's Reed Garden". If I do not get a responce by January 8th, I will have to draw a new name! :(

AND THE WINNER IS.....................

going to know today! My daughter will be drawing while I take pictures and post the winner! We will know soon who wins the Reed Garden!