and now, for the rest of the story....

(Anyone else listen to Paul Harvey on road trips growing up or am I the only one who will get this post title?)

The Babe's social worker came to our house to give us the news that he would be going back to his family.  We had a pretty good idea that it was coming; the social worker seemed enthusiastic about the Babe's family's efforts over the past few months, and had told us the judge would not consider his foster family at all in the court's decision.  But still, we held on to a little bit of hope.  When we heard the decision, I lost my breath and felt numb at the same time.  So you can imagine we weren't really in the right state of mind for what she told us next.

Social has been inundated with children this month. We need homes.  Are you interested in a newborn?

My husband and I are Catholic, and believe that marriages should be open to new life.  Our situation has turned out a bit different from most families who have to consider adding another biological child to their family, but we try and follow the same guidelines.  We have actually never "gone looking" for babies (besides signing up for fostering), but somehow babies keep coming.  When we get a call that there is a baby that needs a home, our question is: do we have any grave reason not to accept this child?

We need a little time to think about it, we said.

To add to our emotions, in December we had been in the exact same situation.  We got a phone call-- there is a baby due in a week and the people who were going to adopt have backed out.  Would you be willing to adopt this baby?  At that point we had a 2 1/2 year old and a 7 month old.  I had a ticket to go to the States a week after the due date to take my boards.   We took 2 days to decide: Yes.  We will take him. 5 days later he was born.

He was with us for 2 days, we gave him the perfect name and admired his 5 dimples and fattened him up.  Then we got a call: his birth mother changed her mind. We had to give him back.

In Belize, the mom has 90 days after the child's birth to change her mind about adoption.  In that time, the adoptive family can care for the child, but has no right to keep the baby if the mom decides she made the wrong decision.  We knew this, but were still quite blindsided by her decision.  No one had been given any indication that she was uncertain about her decision at any time.  But we had no legal rights to him, so the day after we got the phone call we handed him back to his mom.

So as you can imagine, we had a lot to think about when the social worker told us about the newborn.  This new baby most likely would eventually be up for adoption, but there is always a chance it won't happen.  We will be sad about our little Babes, and oh by the way we have an 8-month old and I babysit a 2 1/2 year old 5 days a week.

And.... a week after our Babes went to his family, we went to the city to pick up little Lu :)

So this is our life right now.  It is crazy and I seriously question my sanity at least once a day, usually when everyone is crying at the same time.  The pace is a lot different, more "I-need-more-hands" then "little-boy-with-SO-MUCH-ENERGY." Another challenge has been getting out of the house with three under three.  The current solution is front pack, stroller, and leash, although sometimes I end up carrying the stroller occupant....while still wearing the baby in the carrier.  I'm getting a good workout.

 Lu and Miss M are 7 1/2 months apart.  Hopefully both of them will be with us forever.  I can't wait till they are old enough to play together, I am so excited to have 2 little girls who are almost-twins.

I hope this explains a bit also why we don't let friends know ahead of time our plans.  It can be so uncertain, and it just makes it that much harder to have to send emails and explain that we don't have our baby any more...  we are excited, and want to tell everyone, but we need to be sensible.  With Lu our parents didn't even know till the evening after we got her! I can't imagine we will be adding more kiddos anytime soon, cause two babies and a toddler seem to be our limit.... give us a year or two to recover.

catching up, and a story

So many things have happened in the last few months that getting stung by a scorpion, something that should rate an epic post based on my past history of talking about every critter I encounter, seems unimportant.

So let's start.

I passed my boards in December (thank goodness, now I have another 10 years to forget everything I learned again).

We also learned in December that our little Babes, who had been with us a year and a half, would probably be heading back to his family soon.  Then early in January we got the call, and he headed to his new (old) home.

Because of privacy concerns, I have never talked about being foster parents here on the blog.  We probably won't be getting into another long-term fostering situation any time soon,  so I feel like I can be a bit more open about things.  And maybe I can be a source of information for others who are interested in learning more, because there really isn't a lot out there about Belize's system.

Belize's foster system is probably a lot like every country's, in that it is government run and holy cow it can be super frustrating to try and work with the system.   It's just a fact, and anyone who wants to get into fostering needs to know that up front, and have a really solid reason to become foster parents, because sometimes you will need to repeat that reason like a mantra to keep from poking your eyes out with a spoon in frustration.  We decided to become foster parents as a sort of ministry, I guess you could say.  I am trained in health care but am unable to work in Belize, and I wanted to find another area to serve.  I've already worked with teenagers, and I felt like my husband and I could offer something to the littlest needy ones. So we signed up to foster children two and under (we figured we could squish a couple of tiny ones into our tiny house :)  There is a process of interviews and paperwork to go through, and then they called and asked if we could take our Babes.  We said yes.

We saw him grow from a shy little baby, to a giggling crawler, to a tantrum-throwing 2-year-old, to a confident, crazy, athletic, and caring little boy.

And then we had to let him go.

In Belize there aren't enough foster parents, so those kiddos who can't stay with their families are put in children's homes, which unfortunately tend to be overcrowded. I can't imagine the challenges of running a children's home, and I'm sure those in charge do their best.  But I believe that if it is possible, a child should be with a family.  That is what we think about when we are sad about our little guy.  We gave him a family when he needed one.  We accept the sadness as our price to pay for his comfort and safety and happiness.

We are still foster parents, but we have chosen to move towards adoption and foster-to-adopt for the moment.  Perhaps in a few more years we will go back to long term fostering.

As for the scorpion sting.... short story is it was in my closet, on my skirt, and stung my STOMACH when I went to put the skirt on.  It felt like a needle punched into my belly.  I panicked and googled and then was quite relieved to find out that scorpions here aren't much more dangerous then a bee sting.  My lips did go numb for 4 hours though...

This update is not over, more to come....

how we fit a toddler into our tiny house life

Our house is just under 500 square feet.  But due to an uninsulated roof (and no desire to spend money insulating it, as this house was never intended to be permanent and we want to save our money to build another house) the upstairs gets way too hot to use during the day.  So during the day the babes and I spend our time in a 10X20 room.  This is challenging, to say the least.  The biggest struggle is at nap time, when I can’t make any noise because the babes sleeps in a portable crib right in the middle of the room.   Other than that, I have been surprised at how few “accessories” our little guy needs.  I’ve also come up with a few really helpful space-saving solutions, which I thought I’d share.

1.     Pack and play crib-- This is his playpen, nap spot, and time out spot.  It’s a playroom/nursery that we can fold up and move when we need the space.  He does have a regular crib, but that is upstairs so he only uses it at night.

2.     Chair-top highchair—This is awesome.  It attaches right to a regular chair, which can be pushed under the table when not being used.  It also converts to a booster seat when he’s big enough.  And it’s super portable; we bring it with us to family dinners.

3.     Changing pad set up—we got a changing pad from Ikea, and set up an area around our washer as a changing station.  When I need to change him, I set the pad on the washer, which happens to be the perfect height.  Then it goes back on the wall when we’re done so I have access to the washer.  The big downside here is that there is no way to strap the babes in for safety—I make sure I’m always standing right in front of him and I never leave him laying alone.  It’s worked for him, but I don’t know how well it would work for a younger baby.

4.     Carrier instead of a stroller--  He loves it, and Daniel has lost like 15 pounds since he started toteing the babes around during chores every evening.  So it’s actually a baby carrier and exercise machine in one.  Total space saver.

all his clothes fit in the red bins

5.     Clothes/ toys-- honestly, the babes spends most of his days in a diaper and a shirt.  It’s hot here.  He has maybe 7 outfits total?  That is more than enough for him, although I do have to keep on top of laundry.  As for toys, he has a few but they really don’t keep his attention for long.  He prefers to be outside playing with dirt, rocks, and sticks.  So we put up a gate around our back patio and now that is his domain.

6.     Baby-proofing-- This is something that realistically we just could not do.  There is no way to put up obstacles and nowhere to move all of our bookshelves/ pantry items/ etc; our kitchen cabinets don’t even have doors to secure.   We have a baby gate on the stairs and covers over the outlets.  For the rest, we use the method from the book Love and Logic Magic for Early Parenting, by Jim Fay. A friend recommended it and it works super well for us.  Basically, we started very early training the babes to recognize a cue (we use “uh-oh”) that signals stop/don’t touch/don’t continue with your activity.  If the babes doesn’t stop, we immediately pick him up and move him to a time out spot.   This method seems too simple to work, but I was shocked at how quickly he started to understand.  It did require a LOT of attention and dedication for the first week or so, but it was worth it. At this point, he doesn’t even bother to get into our cabinets, pantry, or bookshelves.  Best of all, we can use the cues wherever we are, which is a life saver when he is at granny’s house and makes a bee-line for the crystal vase. 

Any more suggestions?  I'd love to hear them!

Slices of life

Benque fiesta* roaming chickens supervised by fat cat* birthday present making for soon to be 10 year old niece* naughty baby goats* road to home

what I have been up to

• The computer problems have mostly been resolved.... except, of course, for my pictures. All 10,864 pictures (no exaggeration) have been transferred onto my new hard drive, but due to a software glitch I can't actually see them.  Hopefully I will have it sorted out soon.

• Daniel and I had a wonderful, short visit up to DC for Memorial day weekend.  We met up with my family, and I got to take Daniel to a few of the Smithsonians and the zoo.  We definitely need to go back and spend much, much more time there.  
• And now I have a new smart phone, courtesy of eBay, and I'd feel really smug about it if I could get the dang thing to actually do smart things, like take pictures and share them online.  Any fun app suggestions while I climb up the learning curve?
• Yesterday when Daniel came in for lunch I asked him what project he was working on.  He said he was building a chicken coop, which I thought was nice but rather overkill for our 3 chickens.  Then I went out to see it and discovered we now have 13 chickens.  And then we were obligated (no idea why) to go over to our neighbors last night and pick up 4 more chickens.  I'm still not quite sure how this happened....

a guide for a new farm girl

So my hard drive crashed last week... things are backed up, no worries, but I will be using my husband's computer for a few weeks which means no pictures.  Instead, I've decided to write some lists.  First up:  things you should know about if you suddenly find yourself living on a farm.  Useful!

1.  Close the gates.  ALWAYS close the gates.

2. Both male AND female cattle can have huge horns.  Use other....signs... to tell them apart.  Or your brothers-in-law will never let you forget it.

3. To catch a chicken:  wait till they are roosting somewhere at night.  Grab them by the feet and hold them with their heads hanging upside down.  For some reason this calms them and they hang there quietly.  My theory is the blood rushing to their tiny little brains allows them to become suddenly philosophical.

4.  Never learn how to do the following: drive a tractor, use a lawn mower, milk a cow.  If you don't know how to do these things, no one can make it your job.  This theory was confirmed when I found my poor nine-months-pregnant sister in law milking the cow one morning.

5. Rubber boots are essential.  They may not look super cute, but I am always thankful when I am wearing them.  This has been a hard lesson to learn.  It goes something like this: "walking in my cute new shoes, la la la... SQUISH!  #*%& COW!"

6. To herd cows/ goats/ chickens/ horses in the direction you want:  stand in the place you want them to walk away from, wave your arms around in the air and make SHH SHH SHH sounds.  You only feel like an idiot the first 50 or so times you do this. 

7. To hold a baby cow while it's mom is getting milked:  Grab it's head between your legs and hold on for dear life.  Be warned: it is very hard to hold a calf once it is older then 4 days or so.... and if you don't know this, someone will try to get you to hold an older calf and then fall down laughing when you get tossed by a tiny little cow.


8. Learn the differences between these: cow, bull, steer, ox, mare, gelding, stud, foal, colt.  Lesson-- a cow is not always a cow.

9. Close that gate.

A short history of me

I started keeping this blog to give my family some idea of what my life is like, but now it looks like more people then just a few friends and my mom are reading, which is great! (Thanks Grace for the link!) And I bet people are wondering, why does this girl keep talking about goats?  And where the hell is Belize anyways?  Below is a bit of a sketch of my life, to catch everyone up.

-I grew up in a small town in the States, but NOT on a farm.  The last few years have been a bit of a crash course.

-I went to college at Franciscan University of Steubenville, which is an awesome place. (And for FUS grads, cause I know you are wondering, I wasn’t in a household.  I was in Honors, though.  That’s probably why I still feel compelled to read books and then write about them.)

-My senior year, I went on a medical mission trip to Ecuador.  It was the first time I had ever seen extreme poverty close up…. and when I got back I knew things had changed, and I couldn’t keep living the same way.  I decided to take a year after graduation and do mission work.

- But Hey!  It turns out it is really hard to find volunteer positions abroad in medicine (my preferred field) when you just have an undergrad bio degree.  Luckily, my friend Alison also had a life changing mission trip experience and was headed to Belize… and asked me to think about coming along.

- Yeah, the Belize thing is a teaching position—like teaching actual high school students.  I was not very interested, to put it mildly.  But nothing else came through, so I decided to try one year.

-I’ll give you a sec to google Belize.  I didn’t know where it was either.  I was told everyone spoke English, so I figured I was set!

-Haha.  My first semester was spent teaching 70 sophomore boys biology.  Much craziness ensued… and then I decide to commit to a second teaching year.

-Later that year, all the teachers in the entire country went on strike, and school was closed.  Bored, a bunch of teachers and I start spending time at the farm of the agriculture teacher… named Daniel.

-We start dating when I return for a second year.

-I went back to the States for 2 years, and we dated long distance. Then we get engaged.

-In one week, I graduated from my Physician Assistant program, move to Belize, and got married.  That was quite a week.

-We built a tiny, tiny house on Daniel’s family’s farm… and over the years have acquired cows, horses, chickens, guinea hens, rabbits, and an obnoxious amount of goats. Life here is very, very different.

-And that brings us to now….

So any more questions? Leave a comment  and say hi…. I’d love to know who is reading.  And if I know you already, what's new?

well, I married a farmer....

so what did I expect?

When I got my new car,  two rules were immediately instituted:

1. no borrowing by (crazy driver) brother-in-laws

2. NO ANIMALS in the car.

Yeah, that didn't last long.  The list to date:  3 rabbits, a rooster, and a goat.  Who screamed bloody murder the whole way home.  We put all the windows up when we were driving through town because we were afraid we would get stopped for kidnapping.

snapshots

A few days ago I felt the first trace of briskness in the air.  For a few minutes I was able to pretend that fall was coming, and that I can go apple picking and wear cardigans and long jeans.  Maybe this weekend I will get my jeans out of storage-- I haven't worn long jeans since last February, I think.  We probably have another month of heat before we get into delicious 70-degree-and-perfect days, though.

custard and funfetti cake: 5 eggs used

I have this wonderful Gourmet Cookbook from the 1960's where I get all my egg-heavy recipes (sponge cake requiring 9 eggs,  check).  I love it so much because 95% of the recipes call for alcohol of some sort.  I was testing this theory the other day and tried the vegetable section.  Cooked carrots with vodka, anyone? Other most frequently used ingredients: eggs, butter, and cream.  And aspic. (no carrots? How about beef tongue in aspic?)

There has been a profusion of babies locally, and I have sneakily integrated my unending craving for cupcakes into the celebrations.  Hey, want some christening cupcakes? Oh, I'll make some coming-home-from-the -hospital cupcakes.  Wow, it's amazing that I have all these cupcakes left over, guess I need to eat them...  This has also been helped along by the fact that I found a recipe for frosting that DOES NOT MELT in Belize weather.  This has revolutionized my cupcakes.

Continuing on my challenges challenge, I took a trip across the border to Melchor, Guatemala.  For various reasons (mostly that I am cheap and used to have to pay to cross before) I haven't spent any time there, even though it is about 7 minutes from my house.  Anyways, there is a thrift store.  What does it say about me that a Guatemalan thrift store makes me so excited?  I got a lot of funny looks, but there are lamps! And clothes for 50 cents! And hundreds of belts!  All items that are mysteriously absent or ridiculously expensive in Belize.

Not a thrift store purchase, I made this. 1/3 of the way through I discovered I hate embroidery.

We have a three day weekend.  Like the last three day weekend, I will spend it trying to bat-proof my house.  Google says that bats can get in spaces the size of matchbook, so I'm thinking of just shrink-wrapping my whole house.  We have some bat problems here.  Locals (including Daniel) suggest garlic for bat-repulsion, but I think this is coming from a misunderstanding of vampire bats/ actual vampires.  Any tips?

snapshots: visitors

So like I mentioned, my parents came for a little visit.  It was hot, but my car is air-conditioned.  We spent a lot of time driving around :)

 We found an old steam engine in the jungle, which amazingly was made in Pennsylvania

We attempted to go to a cave, but it was flooded....

This is Daniel's "caves are scary" face.  We also went to the inland blue hole, which normally has quite stunningly blue water.  Unfortunately the water was brown (it rained a lot).

We played scrabble by lantern-light.  Daniel beat us all, repeatedly.

And a cool sunset.  That shiny white dot is the moon.

Benque Fiesta 2011

Ok so this happened a month ago, but it was pretty much the perfect Saturday.  Market in the morning, fiesta in the afternoon-- specifically to buy Pibil, the best pork and tortilla combo ever, and then watching the last Harry Potter movie that evening.  I even think there was some lime juice thrown in there somewhere.


ps photo edited with Picnik, free and very fun.

life in a country with only 2 main roads...

It is hot here.... the usual April/ May melting temps, but this year there have been a lot of fires, so the atmosphere is heavy with smoke.  Hot, smoky weather does not create a good environment for ticking off entire segments of the population, as the government has just discovered.  Earlier this week, someone in the government decided to take a privately owned bus route, and give it to a relative to run.  Nepotistic things like that are all too common here, and mostly get a little comment and then everyone moves on.  But in Belize... you do not mess with buses.  A few years ago the bus companies tried to raise the ticket rate, and a riot broke out culminating in someone being shot.  This time it is the bus company owners that are rightfully upset.  Their livelihood was suddenly taken away from them, because of a government official's whim.  So they protested, by parking some buses across the Northern Highway, blocking the whole two lane road.  Anywhere else, this would not be a big deal, because cars would use an alternate route.  In Belize, however, there are only 2  main roads.  The roads run North to South, and East to West, forming a cross through the country.  There are plenty of smaller dirt roads, but these don't connect.  So blocking one road effectively cut off the entire northern part of the country.  The people up North probably don't mind much, cause they can just hop over the border into Mexico and go to McDonalds if they want.  But it is a pretty good way of calling the entire country's attention to your cause.   At one point this morning the East/ West highway was also blocked, which gets a bit more tricky for us because we live on that highway.  I've heard the government has agreed to negotiate, and the roads are now unblocked, so hopefully all the return volunteer teachers who are flying in for graduation this weekend will make it!

snapshots

we hung up the hammock on our back porch, there is a crazy breeze in the afternoons

I've been doing some tin can gardening, which resulted in miniature zinnias.  No idea how that happened.

A visitor to our back yard

this new baby has HUGE ears!!

my nephew, reading a story to the fish my husband keeps in the bucket.  What, you don't have a bucket of fish in your kitchen?

visitors

March is a busy time here because people have spring break in the States, which is prime mission time.  We’ve had three groups come since the beginning of March.  I’ve been working at the parish, and one of my jobs is to help with mission groups-- help the trip organizers plan the trip, and then when they get here show them around and be available if they need anything.  I realized that without really noticing, I have become quite accustomed to living here, and I’ve forgotten a lot of things that to first time visitors are new and strange.  One night I stopped by to give a newly arrived group my standard ‘safety’ talk (If a kid gives you sticky candy or peeled fruit, don’t eat it unless you want worms! Mangy stray dogs are not cute, don’t pet them! No wearing tank tops and shorts, you will scandalize the old ladies and draw the unwanted attention of all males for miles around! ).  I noticed that everyone’s fascinated gaze had drifted to the window behind me.  I was kinda nervous that a tarantula had wandered in, but when I turned around, all I saw was some chickens scratching in the dirt. ‘Look,’ said someone in a rapturous voice, ‘chickens!’

the group from Benedictine, on the bridge on the way to Cala Creek to celebrate Mass

One day I was privileged to have the Franciscan group’s priest visit me at the farm.  He is a very holy, gentle person, and I was surprised when he mentioned that he had always wanted to be a long term missionary in a foreign country, but didn’t think he could do without the conveniences of the States.  But, I said, you took a vow of poverty.  He replied that in the States, he can run to Wal-Mart anytime he needs something.  That made me think, because although there are many things I miss, I have never missed running to Wal-mart. I hadn’t realized this until his question got me thinking. I don’t miss the endless running around doing errands that seemed to take a lot of my time in the States. There are times I have to do without—right now I would pay an obnoxious amount for a good mop, but there are none to be found, and I can make due with what I have for now.  A lot of the time here, availablilty has nothing to do with if you can afford it—things just aren’t available.  This can be a good thing and a bad thing; on one hand I’m not running to Wal-mart to get some small direly needed gadget for my newest big expensive gadget, but on the other hand it takes me hours to make dinner and clean up because I don’t have a microwave or a dishwasher and most everything is made from scratch.  But when I was in the States I rarely had time to make whole meals from scratch.  I think my answer to the Priest ran something along the lines that living here teaches me the difference between wants and needs, and surprisingly (to me) I have found a lot of what I thought was need was just want.  Life here certainly is not convenient…. but your mentality shifts away from the rampant consumerism that is the States after a while and most of the time the lack of convenience really isn’t such a big deal.

living in a small country

the old gas station in Benque.  Any customers I’ve ever seen here come on bikes.

I’ve been in Belize a little over two years this time around and have started to notice that everyone knows who I am.  Not just former students or people from church, but random store employees and taxi drivers.  I do not know who they are, but they tend to know my name and where I live.  I grew up in a small town, but it doesn’t compare to here.  I think in the States people almost consider it impolite to be friendly and find out if you are connected somehow.  Here, I get scolded by Daniel if I walk by someone on the street and forget to say good morning or good afternoon.  When you get in a shared taxi, you say good morning to everyone else.  Often people say good morning when they get on a bus, and everyone choruses back.  The thing is, in this country you are bound to know someone on the bus or be related to them, so you might as well be polite all around.  People tend to strike up conversations with me when I am on my own, and inevitably they are friends with one of my brother-in-laws or a former student of Daniel.  Or a cousin.

Anyways, yesterday was a good example of what I mean.  I was waiting by the side of the road for a taxi, and one of the off-duty buses that parks in a lot across the road stopped to pick me up.  I started talking to the driver, who was from Corazol (about 4 hours north), filling in for a colleague.  We are good friends with one family in Corazol, and it turns out the bus driver lives across the street from them.  Then I went to the phone company to ask about internet for our house.  Before I could give the sales lady any info, she calls her boss and asks if they are offering service yet at Nabitunich (where we live).  I don’t know this lady.  Next I went to the post office, where the worker greeted me by name.  One of our farm workers was hanging out watching football with them.  Finally I headed home in a taxi, and the driver says, “Nabitunich, right?” as I got in. 

I like it. It's easy to be mistaken for a tourist here, which means higher prices and rude comments a lot of the time, so I'm usually glad when I am recognized. I’m still waiting for the vendors to stop overcharging me at the market, though.  That might take a few more years.

A day in our life

April is my least favorite time of year in Belize.  As one creole speaker succinctly put it, "sun HOT."  April is mostly about survival for me, which consists of long periods of lying in front of a fan drinking iced tea or lime juice.  We were brain storming at the clinic, trying to come up with any restaurant, store, or public venue within a 20 mile radius that had air conditioning-- and came up with 2.  TWO.

Anyways, here are some random shots of our life.

Sometimes our patients are a little unusual. 

This is what my cat does all day long, except when she is begging for food.

Any resemblance to the cat is purely coincidental 

When Daniel drives up, all the animals come running- because noisy white truck = food soon!

Line drying clothes: always a gamble when you have a cow who likes to scratch her back on the clothesline.

Things I have done in the last year and a half

Graduated PA school

Moved to Belize

Got married.

Zip lined through the jungle

Volunteered to teach high school biology to sophomore boys.  Much worse then last time.

Went for a month without a washing machine.  After it rained for 2 weeks straight, watched everything, including clothes, mildew.

Got a sheep instead of a washing machine.  Named sheep Isaac Washing Machine.

Watched as husband chased runaway sheep all around town.  Tried really, really hard not to laugh. failed. 

Got a washing machine.  Discovered that tree frogs enjoy living in washing machines. Found that tree frogs are much easier to catch after stunned into submission by spin cycle. 

HAD A TARANTULA IN MY BEDROOM

Cooked cupcakes from scratch

Cooked bagels from scratch

Cook pretty much everything from scratch….

Designed a house

Watched as the top story of my house (pre-built) fell OFF the truck that was carrying it to our building site. Used it anyways.

Built a house.

Painted ceilings, painted walls, grouted tile, used a power washer, discovered that whitewashing things will burn the skin off your hands…

Moved to the farm.

Lived for a week without running water

Acquired:  cows, horses, goats, chickens, and rabbits, all of which have wandered into our house  uninvited at some point.  Discovered the wonders of fences.

Tried to learn to drive standard.  Failed.

Worked, cried, fought, bullied, pleaded, bribed, and shopped until my little house became liveable.

Learned that city bugs have nothing on country bugs.  We’re talking spiders AS BIG AS MY HAND

Killed a (small) snake that was in my house.  Had a (small) nervous breakdown.

Watched a cow being born

Wake up with the sunrise.