Note on "How Peculiar Am I Really?" Post

Okay, because I don't quite know how to properly operate all of the features on this blog thing yet, you need to know that there are a total of 12 pictures for the "How peculiar am I really?" post. If you can't view all of the pictures I downloaded on one blog page, at the end of each picture, you can click on "newer post" and it will take you to the next picture posted for this post. You will see the pictures I referred to. It may only show you one picture at a time, but keep clicking on "newer post" and it will take you to the next one until you see all 12. I apologize for the inconvenience, but clicking this feature will be well worth it when you can see pictures of the things I talked about concerning ME in the post.

Be patient with me as I learn more about this blogging thing as I go along:)


At a later date I'm letting you know the following (since I'm slightly more experienced now): Just click on photos, and everything should be there. One simple click rather than what I said above. Boy, the longer you blog, the more you know, the better you do. No wonder I didn't have any readers in the beginning:) I won't delete this post just so I can look back and see from whence I came (besides, it gives you a good laugh at this goof-ball!).

The most precious boys in the world, on the beach in Hawaii

Me and the kiddies in Cali (at a pumpkin patch)

The Godfather (my dad)

Soap I made, selling at a show

Me doing farming with fashion, style, and grace:) I loved it!!

Our Myotonic female goats on our farm, Ebenezer Loop M Farms

An excursion we were on while living in Hawaii

A show at the school my son attended briefly in Hawaii

Our big buck boys on the farm. Do these look like goats? They are!!

Me learning how to handle the big bucks at Goat Camp in TX, no kidding:)

HOW PECULIAR AM I REALLY?

Who am I? Below is a 10 item list. You get to see into my life, past and present (I'll share more with you another time); you get to see who I really am or were, and how peculiar Peculiar is:). Here's getting to know me or know me better:) Pictures of proof are above!

1. I helped run a family farm where we owned and bred Myotonic meat goats, introducing and creating a new market for them (yes, there is a market for them:)). I've even written articles in the Goat Rancher magazine (this cracks me up to this day). Ask me to show you the articles one day. I have copies:)! I also attended Goat Camp in Texas. That's where I was when I was holding horns of a buck in the picture.

2. I lived in Hawaii for a few years (one of the pictures shows my boys on the beach), California, (pumpkin patch picture), Kentucky, and Tennessee.

3. My dad is the real Godfather from the movies (just kidding obviously, but doesn't he look like it with the hat and overcoat?)

4. I can make homemade soap and I did for a while, and successfully sold it. The picture is of a show I did with my sister. Didn't sell anything there, but I had lots of private customers.

5. Testimony: The Lord allowed me to come back to work for and minister in a domestic violence shelter that I had been a client in years before. I now volunteer my time to the agency.

6. I wore a mint green dress to the prom and tore off half of the picture because I didn't end up liking the boy I went with very much. (Can you believe I was 18 yrs. old on the picture?)

7. I worked jobs as a waitress, babysitter, manager, asst. special-ed teacher, small business owner, master engraver, and sales lady at a couple of stores, not in this order though.

8. I am the wife of a pastor. Hubby has been a preacher for a total of 15 years, ordained for 12.

9. I am a member of a Historical Society of a southern plantation where my grandfather used to run moonshine, and made quite a good living doing it, and my great-grandfather owned his own home (quite large) and was not a sharecropper while most everyone else of his ethnic background was (Maybe my dad really is the Godfather --these men are his father and grandfather after all:) ).

and last (for now) but not least-10. I'm making wearing the afro cool again:)!!! But you did already know this about me didn't you?

SISTER SECRETS

I was just sitting here thinking about what to say to my audience today and my two sisters popped into my head. I guess I can assume that it is because I miss them so much. My sisters live in West Tennessee, and I live in East Tennessee now.

I would like for you to get to know them through this post and picture and see why I think the Holy Spirit put them on my heart today. I think about them often, but I've got something special on my mind today, concerning them.

My sisters and I grew up vastly different, personality-wise, and I'm now glad we did. I've learned so much from them, good and bad:).

As beautiful and innocent as they look on this picture, these are some serious chicks (or seriously something:) ).

One will kill me for letting you in on this but, she once beat a girl up in Kindergarten, with a Dr. Scholl's wooden clog (remember those? which color did you have?) because the girl was aggravating her and my sister had asked her several times to stop. She wailed on the girl so hard with the shoe, the school considered the wooden shoe a weapon from then on and literally banned the wearing of the shoe at the school. So because of my sister, we or any other girl for that matter, could no longer wear these fashionable (okay fashion faux pas) shoes to school again, EVER! Guess which of these sweet-looking innocents did this! (I'm the one in the middle, freshly married; the "innocents" are my maid and matron of honor)

The other sister is a loner, but when forced to "take care of business" or react to something, she is a act now-ask questions later type girl. She may not even ask questions later. Just depends. Anyway, her story is that once when we were younger (I won't say when:) ), my parents were divorced and my mom had started to date this man. Keep in mind, we were very protective of our parents and each other, and you weren't likely to get away with mistreating one of us once us girls found out. Nothing would be the same again. No, we weren't trouble makers, or nuts, or gangsters, or heathens, etc. (well...maybe we are nuts), we just simply loved each other, okay!! Work with me here!! Anyway, the man had said something to my little sister that he shouldn't have, and she told my oldest sister and I about it. We decided that that wouldn't work so, my oldest sister suggested that we go to my mom's house, where he happened to be that day (mother didn't know what we were going to be doing) and tell him off. Two young girls taking care of adult business--imagine that!! When we got there we threatened him and told him that we would have our dad come over and beat him up (or shoot him, which is more than likely what my dad was prone to do--wonder where we got our attitudes and personalities from--or I wonder where "they" did--this isn't me people, this isn't me:) ) if he ever said anything out of the way to our little sister again. My oldest sister did all of the talking, but boy was I there to back her up:)!!!! We put the fear of God in that joker that day!! He was scared of OUR dad!! My mom never found out that we did this. (She might now though...LOVE YOU MA!! We did you a favor, don't ya see now? Our intentions were good!)

While I'm just so innocent and never pulled the same pranks and beat people up like my sisters did, boy do I admire these girls' spunk and boy did we have fun!! I'm not sure if we even knew how much fun we were having then, but as we talk, laugh, and reflect back now, we know that THESE WERE THE DAYS:)!!!! WE DID HAVE FUN!!! I wouldn't trade these experiences with them for the world. My sisters' personalities gave my life a quality that I didn't understand or appreciate as much then as I do now. Because we know that all of our life experiences count, (they shape and mold us into the adults we are now) I'm sure that what my sisters imparted to me to this point has turned me into something. What that something is, is the question:), but thanks for your contribution anyway sisters:)! Even with all of your craziness, I think or I seemed to have turned out okay, thanks in part to you! If nothing else, I've got plenty of stored up ideas on how to "take care of business," just in case...;)