Introducing Jasper

Hey Ya'll! Sorry I kinda fell off the face of the earth for a while. We've been keeping super busy canning corn, green beans, etc... I'll post pictures of all that fun stuff soon. In the meantime I thought I'd post a few pix of Timothy & Crystal's new little whipper snapper. We're a "big dog" family so it's pretty interesting to have a little guy visiting. The other family critters like him with Bago (the devil cat) being the only exception. Jasper is a lot smaller than Bago so that makes him fair game. It's funny having to protect the dog from the cat. LOL!

I'm packing my bags and heading for Missouri today. My friend's son is being baptized tomorrow and I wouldn't miss that for the world. It'll be a six hour trip to Columbia but I'm kind of excited to finish listening to Harry Potter 7 on CD. I be there for about a week so I can visit all my central Missouri peeps and I'm excited to have a little vacation. It's been a while. :)

My New Favorite Thing!

Heads up for all the guys... This post is about moisturizer and it's gonna be just as girly as the one about flat irons vs. curling irons. So be prepared!! ;)

Several weeks ago I launched a search for a new moisturizer. My time in the arid Southwest was taking a toll on my face. Hence Moisturizer Search 2009 was underway. And as any girl committed to flawless skin will tell you...switching face creams is a huge undertaking fraught with peril. So of course it would require research and my new moisturizer would have criteria to meet. There are things that I would not be willing to compromise on.

1. We all know how much I LoVe animals so it had to be cruelty free. A lot of companies try to get by saying that the finished product isn't tested on animals but that's not good enough. Read those labels closely... My new moisturizer had to be 100% Cruelty Free

2. I wanted a moisturizer from a line that had other products such as makeup, lotion, etc... This is a personal preference because of my severe allergics. I once mixed a moisturizer with a lotion from another company & the results weren't pretty. Hives everywhere!!! Itchy, Itchy

3. A recent consideration was a desire for the product to be as natural as possible. Some of the ingredients in cosmetics can only be pronounced by chemists. For example: diethanolmine (commonly abbreviated DEA) If I can't say it I don't want to wear it on my skin for 15 hours a day.

4. There could be absolutely no petro-chemicals in my new moisturizer. Crude oil may be natural but I do not want to smear it all over my face. Yuck!

Once the criteria had been established I started the search. I typed "natural cosemetics" into Google and up came a link for 100% Pure. On their website I found everything I was looking for and then some. I ordered the Tomato Lycopene Face Cream and the rest is history. This stuff is hands down ThE vErY bEsT cream I've ever put on my face. My skin was soooooooo dry yet in one day that changed. Literally one day! I love this stuff!! I went back and bought lip gloss and body lotion. Everything in these products is natural. I can pronounce everything on the label which is a first. I can't wait to try fruit pigmented cosmetics. Believe you me it's all on my wishlist!

So here's a shout out to all my girls living in the desert! We talk about moisturizer a lot! lol!! Several of ya'll have tried products that I've recommended in the past & I just want to say... 100% Pure is so much better than anything else I've ever suggested. I guess everyone knows what they're getting for Christmas...

Lots of Love!!!!!!

July 4th Weekend

I spent the better part of Saturday repotting plants. All three of the nephews were here for the weekend. Here's Jonathan & Miles helping out. Then they found the waterhose. A water battle to end all water battles ensued.

No one was the clear victor & since they were already soaking wet why not put 'em to work... :)

General hates bath day but he was a good sport.

Here's Lyra taking her turn.

Miles did a great job!

Justin did a lot of the grilling. He's quite a good cook!

The little boys will only eat hotdogs & icecream. :)

Jonathan's favorite... The Sandbox!!!

Inside activities included building pyramids. Aunt Dana scored a BiG hIt by picking out those toys!!!

Close up of the best pyramid in the holler

Everyone caught a fish but only Justin would pick 'em up. Here's what Miles caught.

Here's Jonathan's catch

Justin caught the biggest fish of the day.

This was an especially fun July 4th weekend because we had the boys. There is always so much for them to do & they seem to have a truly good time. No worries about the fish. We released them all back into the pond. :)

Then the rains came...

Rain isn't unusual so we weren't too worried. 15 minutes of rain 20 minutes

40 minutes

The creek running along the front of our farm had more than it could take.

We had never seen water this high in this field. EvEr!

It actually had a current.

We had just finished planting the garden about 36 hours prior to this...

Yeah there should NOT be water there!!!

It rained. It rained really hard for about thirty minutes & the lower fields started flooding. Usually it takes a good three or four hours of solid downpour to start flooding the fields and then only the bottom fields. Well this was quite a doozy & it hit just as we started to feel done with planting. I dont' think it's all a loss but I'm sure there's gonna be plenty to do over the next couple of weeks. The important thing is not to get down about it. These things happen. We'll just have to regroup & replant!

In other news... I will not be returning to Utah in the fall. It's possible that I'll have to have my gallbladder removed & there's no way I'm going through another serious illness alone. I'm thinking while they're in there I should just have every non-essential organ removed...gallbladder, appendix, tonsils, adenoids, and maybe a few extra ribs. lol! The surgery should be outpatient but considering past life threatening allergic reactions to medications they're going to be extra careful. Despite that I'm going to continue on with school here in Kentucky. I have very little left (about 8 months) so I can't really see waiting. Unless of course there are major complications during surgery, treatment, etc... in which case at least I won't be alone.

I'll be going back to Utah to get my things. I'm not sure of when that'll be exactly but I should know soon. I'll want to see everyone so I'll tell ya'll as soon as possible!

The Most Important Picture Ever Taken

I saw this picture quite sometime ago and I've not stopped thinking about it. I'm not exaggerating when I say that it has changed the way I think about the universe. When discussing this photograph online the conversations have turned to God, Aliens, math, and even chocolate. It probably is one of the most discussed photos ever taken. It's also one that makes me question my own choices. Every time I see it I really wish that I'd taken that internship with NASA.

The presenter of the video does an excellent job of breaking it down on a level that middle school students can understand. Yet this short video is also used in many college classrooms.

Yeah today is one of those days when I'm thinking about the choices I've made wondering if I should have taken different paths. Ya know like what would have happened if I had worked for NASA, married that one boy that I didn't even realize I loved til years later, dyed my hair pink... Ya know the normal stuff. :) I don't usually think along these lines. Actually I think this is the first time I've ever seriously done so. It's strange. I'm wondering if it's normal to think about decisions made in the past. I'm almost always present in the moment not wandering through the past or looking to the future. What an odd place to find myself in today! I guess it's a new adventure without having to leave my home. Saves on airfare I reckon!!

Holy Cow!

Cows don't like to stay where they belong. When they decide the grass is greener on the other side of the fence we have to drop whatever we're doing & put them back. Luckily the last time this happened I was already dressed for the job. (See I'm wearing my Cowgirl Hardware cap.) Here are a few of our offenders. There are not where they're suppose to be. Here are a few more that we had already put back behind the fence. Where they belong.

Or they can way mosey along to the field waaaaay back there.

Or this one closer to the house...

Or this one even closer... The garden is fenced off although they'd love to get to it.

Or they could go here to one of the bottom fields... Or one of the back fields...

But no... Cows want to be where they're not suppose to be. I'm fairly certain that the first person to eat a cow was just fed up with 'em not staying put and decided to make dinner out of 'em. lol!