Reflections...

Sometimes, I wish my brain were a little more like a computer. You know, so I could just remove the programs I didn’t want to use anymore, things like anger, selfishness, and negativity and get more programs that are useful for positive things. It would be right nice if I could just remove a section of memory or erase my hard drive to get rid of memories so I couldn’t bring them back to mind later. If I could just shut it down when I got tired of dealing with it, I might just get more sleep! If I could always keep a happy and meaningful picture on the “desktop” instead of allowing frustrations and anger to cloud the everyday things, it would be sure to help my mood and improve my interaction with people around me…
Well…its never going to happen, I suppose I can always dream, but for now I’m stuck with this normal human brain that is bound to remind me of things I’d sooner (or at least be better off to) forget. I must be thankful however, since this is also the human brain that somehow tells me that something isn’t right when Lolo is too quiet for a while, reminds me of that appointment I forgot to write down and helps me recall my forgotten grocery list when I get to the store. I guess I should be thankful for the emotions that I’m capable of experiencing, even if some of them are not what I would like and seem very hard to control. I am thankful for the nudges and reminders from the Holy Spirit to keep myself in control…I can’t imagine what kind of a person I’d be without that…I’m sure I’d have pushed many a person away from me permanently by now with my impatience and short temper. Why, I often ask myself, am I more patient with a frustrating person at work than with my own family or people I care about more closely? Why do I care more about preserving client relations than family ones? Is it because I love them more that I expect them to be better people? Is it that I spend more time with them so their quirks bother me more? I’m not sure any of that is a good excuse…and I’m sure I’ll never understand my brain…so for now, I’ll just continue to go chop wood when I get really frustrated, pretty soon it doesn’t seem worth being frustrated anymore!

On a lighter note, we had quite the blizzard here this weekend! It was just snowing, without the blowing on Friday night and when we went to leave the house on Saturday, Trevor almost got the car stuck, just getting it out of the garage, so we decided to take the truck. I am SOO more then ready to get a crew cab truck…stuffing the baby and all our stuff into the regular cab truck was not so fun (we were going over to the in-laws to grind hamburger and make sausage). The day went quite well, we ground up some meat into hamburger and then made about 30-40lbs of sausage using our deer from November as well as some bacon, ground beef and ground pork, it worked quite well. Poor Lolo was not the happiest camper, with a fever and sore teeth the whole weekend, but a day out of the house was good for both of us, and having Aunty Julie and Grandma around to give her some attention didn’t hurt either! She finally slept through the night last night, for the first time since Thursday…I know its not so bad, but when you’re not used to getting up in the night, it seems pretty crappy! On Sunday we had the whole family here for lunch…I didn’t end up going out on Sunday morning, since Lolo had been quite crabby and needed to nap, so I guess I haven’t left the yard since Saturday and haven’t been to town for a week almost! Trevor didn’t go to work yesterday since it was so stormy, and we both kind of sat around and didn’t do too much all day besides the outdoor chores and entertaining Lolo… I guess he did adjust the brakes on his truck and I did some sewing and baked a loaf of bread…mmm…fresh bread! I just started using the no knead, fresh bread in 5 minutes a day method! I want to get the book about it, but for now I’m just using the free recipes about it that are on the Mother Earth News website and in their magazine, yummy! Last night we had to go rescue the chickens from the snowdrifts that had accumulated inside their pen in the barn….yes, inside…it is a 100 year old barn after all! They were all cold and snowy and starting to pile up in a corner, so we shoveled out some snow, but down more bedding and cleaned off the roosts, with the heat lamp on them all night, they looked much happier this morning and even laid 4 eggs!! This morning is cold but sunny! I was experiencing much frustration and cursing the fact that someone managed to convince me that feeding and bedding animals with large square bales by hand was a good idea…..I’m afraid I beg to differ even more now than I did last fall! Give me round bales or small squares any day…at least you can peel the frozen outside layer off a round bale and then have decent straw/hay underneath, on a square, if one end is frozen, its almost impossible to get the stupid thing apart! Not to mention how hard it is to handle the flakes once you DO get them apart…they either fall apart so they’re not pitchfork worthy or manageable by hand…agh…no fun! Oh well…next year…maybe! To burn off that pent up angst, I chopped some wood…