Mom, Do You Ever Feel Rich...Really Rich?

"...I don't mean money rich, but like in life and experiences."  
That was a question my oldest daughter asked me in the car & was the start of an awesome conversation. :)  

Yesterday was full of rich experiences.  It was a good day in general.  Of course, my attitude & perspective were good, so that does make a big difference, I find!  ;)

Yesterday was the second day in a row that my kids got to ski/snowboard.  A huge blessing is that my husband discovered on accident that the ski mtn offers a very nice discount for police officers & firemen.  Wish we had known about this a couple yrs ago!  :)  But, because of it, we were able to afford a whole season pass for the 3 older kids instead of  6 saturdays for the 2 older kids!  My son is bananas for snowboarding...I'm already wishing we lived next door to the ski mtn.  LOL  
So, I took Jonah to the mtn at 9:30 since my dh had to help at the dairy farm down the road since 3:30am.  After that, he & Hannah went to pick up a friend's 2 new horses from their trainer (their first family horses).  She loves going places with her Dad (Susanna went too)& was pretty peppy when they got back.  My husband is a real smart aleck most days & he was in rare form yesterday-which is usual form for him.  But, anyway she had on make up for some reason.  My dh can't stand make up & I never wear it at his request.  So I guess he said to her something along the lines of, "Hannah please when we get home, take off that stupid make up.  You have a beautiful face, beautiful skin & it makes you look like an oompa loompa."  Did she get offended?  No!  She thought it was hysterical & when she got home, wiped it all off.  She even posted about it on facebook!
I got to have hot chocolate at the ski lodge w/ my best friend (her boys were skiing w/ Jonah).  Alyssa was so funny.  She saw the chair lift & yelled, "Hey, they have rides here!  Can I go on it!"  And then she made a bunch of teen boys laugh by loudly announcing at the table that she had to go poop."  LOL  Yup-that girl was born with surround sound the second she came out. :)
When my dh got back from trucking horses, then he went to get a huge load of round bales for our horses & cows.  Then he went to a neighbor's to help him cut down trees until dark.  And then he took Hannah & Susanna skiing because he promised Susanna he'd go with her.  
He amazes me.  He really does.  He has a gruff exterior & some people are intimidated by him.  But he is all soft gooey mush on the inside.  Hannah's friends call him the bear because he looks & sounds like a grizzly bear, but in reality as they've discovered, he's really a soft teddy bear.
The man works b/w 60-70 hrs/week, yet somehow he manages to be very present in his kids' lives.  He also helps people when they call all the time (I wish they would stop calling, really-but they have no idea how little free time he has).  Plus, he has messed up ankles from being born with club feet, hurt his knee dealing with beef cows & has to have surgery...after he has laser surgery on his neck in 2 weeks.  And he's concerned about plowing our driveway & our neighbors' driveways (which he doesn't charge for-but usually there's a barter of some sort).  I told him everyone can take care of their own driveways & I'll do ours.  It won't be done the way he does it, but we'll be able to get in & out.  Knowing him, he's cooking up some plan, but if he thinks I'm letting him jar his neck plowing after surgery, he's crazy! :)  
He's a hero in my eyes-the kind that doesn't talk about what he does & doesn't care if anyone knows, but just does it because it needs doing & that's what a real man does.  He makes me feel rich, for sure. <3
Off track, there.  Pat said Susanna is a natural at skiing & he hopes to have time to take her back to the mtn today & take her up the chair lift to come down the big trails!  (after working at the farm & felling more trees w/ our neighbor...it looks like he's not making it to church today).


So, while they were all gone yesterday evening, I got to have one-on-one time with my favorite 3 yr old.  She's such a cute funny little package.  She read books to me (she knows them by heart) and was so pleased with herself that after page she'd look at me with the cutest big smile & bright shiny eyes.  Made me want to cry, really.  Making me teary-eyed right now!  After that we washed dishes together.  I wish someone was here to take a pic of that.  I was in front of the sink with her standing next to me on a chair.  She did a great job-paying close attention to details.  She chatted away about all sorts of things & asked me questions like "do fish have ears?"  LOL


During the day while Jonah was skiing w/ friends & Pat was felling trees, the girls & I did stuff around here.  Hannah studied for hippology because she hopes to make it to Nationals-which means going to Kentucky (think Keeneland & Kentucky Horse Park)  I got a bunch of organizing done.  The little girls played outside pretending to be horses.  Hannah eventually went outside & did some work with the horses.  Retro, our oldest horse now, is doing better.  He was detached & not eating much for a couple days after Slugger died.  It took 2 weeks of work & lots of horse psychology to get Retro introduced to the young horse herd.  Retro is an alpha & so is Casey, but Retro was grieving.  Yes, they do grieve.  It's amazing how many people have commented to me that they didn't realize that horses bonded with each other & had friends.  So, they're all together now & no injuries!  But, Retro is not bonding with the other horses much.  He's hanging out with the cows.  The funny thing is the other horses are not shutting him out.  He bonded with all of them one on one separately, but in a group, he is shunning all of them.  So, Hannah took him out for a long walk with her.  He loves Hannah more than anyone else.  All the horses do, except for the Shetland-he prefers Susanna & me. When they got back from their walk, Retro looked like his normal self-head high, tail up, perky & quick stepping.  He gives Hannah these chin kisses.  He puts his lips on her chin & holds her chin for like 20 seconds & then lets go.  It's the funniest thing.  He's one of those horses that makesw you earn his loyalty...and then his loyalty his undying.  The rest of us he won't even let us pet his face over the fence.  He shunned Hannah after Slugger died, but he's fine with her now.  I just wish he'd mingle with the horse herd now!
Then she worked with Red, our Nakota pony, who was born wild & lived wild for his first year.  He's so amazingly smart-in a different way than the rest of our horses-like street smart, but not our kinds of streets. :)
She was doing ground work with him & usually horses learn really quickly what she was trying to do with him, but it wasn't going very quickly.  The thing I'm so proud of her about is instead of getting upset with Red because she wasn't getting the results she wanted, she realized she was doing something wrong with him.  She was doing the same thing with him that she does with every horse she works with (she works with a natural horse trainer during the summer), but getting different results.  She figured out that since he was wild at one point, he's much more sensitive & receptive to her body position & especially where her eyes were looking...and for him, her eyes were looking at the wrong place on his body.  So, she simply looked at him at a different spot on him & immediately got the response she wanted.  Isn't that incredible?  I'm so proud of her for figuring it out & not blaming the horse like most people do for the mistakes that she was making.  She said Red taught her yesterday, not the other way around.
I'm so thankful for the training she's gotten from our horse trainer.  I didn't like what she was learning at the horse stable she used to ride at-rough handling, calling the horses names, acting tough with them to show who's boss, etc.  So thankful we found Don.  Here's his website:   
http://www.warnerranch.net/

Oh, I just have to add what Susanna did yesterday.  She's taken to talking with an English accent.  I think it's from listening to all the Lamplighter stories on CD.  Yesterday, Pat called my phone & she answered it with an English accent saying, "Hello, you've reached the pizza man & you have the wrong number."  And then she hung up.  LOL  Pat called back laughing hysterically.  He said it made him laugh whenever he thought about it all day long.  Of course, I've talked to her about not answering the phone like that & hanging up on people, but it was pretty funny...just this once. heehee.

Wow, I can't believe all the things I had to say about yesterday.  I still want to blog about Hannah's 16th b-day & our last guide dog puppy, but I'll have to do that later.  Feeling rich?  You bet I do!  And you know what makes me feel even more rich?  When my kids feel that way, too!  Perspective & looking at things with what is important (relationship & process, not product) ...I need to keep that in focus.  Washing dishes can go from mundane to magical with the right perspective, you know!  <3