Are all addictions bad??

Rebecca made the comment not too long ago that she thinks we are addicted to endorphines. She pointed out that we always end our meals somehow laughing hysterically over things (jokes, stories, comments, songs, poems, whatever we can think of). So, she felt that just like some people seem to want a cigarette after dinner, our family seems to want endorphines.

Sure enough. We have watched our behavior, and she is correct - we end up laughing over something after dinner (and sometimes even after breakfast and lunch!!). It might start out with something mild - maybe telling stories from when they were children or a joke John heard. Then, we have noticed that it progresses to bigger things. Eventually, somebody's giggle box gets turned over, we are all laughing like crazy (some of us barely able to stay in their chairs - and it's not who you think it is), and we all enjoy a good high on endorphines. Why do we do this? We just don't know. We have to wonder if Rebecca is right - maybe we are addicted to that high.

This evening was no different from any other. We had been working very hard cleaning and painting the building where we gather for worship. We dragged ourselves in after chores, hungrily attacked our burritos, and before we knew it........we were chasing our addiction. I decided to share with you these verses that we spontaneously wrote tonight. It is sung to the tune of "One dark night, when we were all in bed"; the song with the old cow kicking over the lantern. We started out singing that song in various tones, keys, and silly dialects. It ended with these words:

One dark night
When Momma lost her head
All the rest of us were headed off to bed,
Because we just couldn’t stand one more of her old jokes,
They just weren’t funny,
Even though she thought so.
Boo, Boo, Boo


One dark night
When Momma lost her head,
All the rest of us were headed off to bed,
We tried to go to sleep but she was way too loud,
She just kept snorting
in her own little world.
Snort, Snort, Snort!

Pretty silly, but we sure enjoyed that high afterwards!

I must confess, if we were going to choose to be addicted to anything, I would choose being addicted to these moments with my family. One day when John and I are just too old to care whether or not we even put our teeth in or get dressed, we will sit there in our rocking chairs and get tickled thinking of these "endorphine" moments. We are constantly told and may even find that we are now the ones telling new parents "enjoy them while you can" or "they grow up so quickly". I've always tried to figure out how to make these times slow down. Much to our frustration, though, we just can't. However, we can store up these treasured "endorphine" moments and just keep hitting "rewind" in our memory banks over and over and over again. Maybe they do go too quickly, but we can play them in slow motion as many times as we like. So I say, addictions are good - as long as we are addicted to our families!

Homeschool blog has a huge giveaway...

Sorry. We aren't giving away any beef (other than the beef we give away when you come join us for dinner ). However, Spunky is. If you aren't familiar with this homeschool blog, you need to visit them sometime. Lots of encouragement and inspiration. Here's what you do to be entered in their contest (where they are giving away a Benz Microscope (worth $259) and an Apologia Biology book set (worth $89). You must post this sentence on your blog or in an email. Better yet, look at this sentence, visit Sparky, find the complete rules.

"Spunky is giving away a Benz Microscope and Apologia Biology Set this week. Click Here to get the details."

For those of you that know me will realize that I have no idea how to do hyperlinks, yet, so I am just giving you their links below. I'll get there one of these days....

Here are the links to those sites:
Spunky - www.spunkyhomeschool.blogspot.com
Benz Microscope - www.benzmicroscope.com
Apologia Science - www.highschoolscience.com

Thank you Sparky!!!

What a fiasco!

I really wish you could have been in the barn this morning or at least had a hidden camera somewhere.......

We have been leaving Princess outside in the corrals, bringing the two calves inside at night, and penning them up in one of the inside stalls. We decided it was warmer for them, and they can't sneak under the fence and get milk before we get out there in the morning. This has been working quite nicely for us except that Princess can't focus on eating and letting us milk while those two calves are begging for breakfast. We decided this morning we would bring Princess in, put her in the stanchion, take the calves outside, and then milking would be a breeze. Right? Well, we came to the barn this morning, and Princess was standing at the door with her nose to the window (it is a fancy barn). We opened the door, and she walked right in. Piece of cake. Rebecca grabbed her halter and pulled Princess right into position. Great! Then, we realized we were out of the feed we needed for her. We had more at the house, but in the nick of time we discovered a stash, and put some in the bucket. Then, we went to take the calves outside. What was I thinking? Obviously nothing because as soon as we opened their pen, they wanted to head right to Mom and nurse. I do think they appreciated the fact that we had her tied up in position for them. :) We tried to head them off but that barn is not really set up for herding calves - they won and began nursing. That then left us with no choice but to try and grab the calves and pull them to the barn. Rebecca, Sarah, and Joshua did everything they could to pull, tug, push, prod, drag those calves away from Mom - to no avail. They may look small, but they are VERY strong! Sarah finally grabbed Rose Creamy Lily (what a big name for such a little calf). She had a firm grip on RCL's ears and was pulling with all her might. Joshua had managed to grab one of Heartbelle's back legs, and he and I managed to drag her outside. Sarah pulled while Rebecca pushed, and they got RCL out right behind us. We all ran back into the barn and shut the door. Dust was stirred up everywhere, I'm having a hard time breathing (I really am allergic to that alfalfa), and Princess turns her head, looks at us, and mooooos!

On the brighter side, we did manage to finally let the dust settle and milked about 1 gallon. We have discovered that we work well with one person on each side. As we get faster (and build up some forearm muscles) we will be able to milk with only one person. We grabbed our milk can, took Princess out to eager babies, and came back to the house - exhausted, dusty, and splotched with manure only to discover that we left the milk in the barn. :)