Little Mister

Hi guys! I hope you are all enjoying your fall. Here it's been acting more like summer for the last few weeks. We had thunderstorms, hail, tornadoes...not winter weather at all. Until this morning. This morning it turned cold. BAM. And it even flurried a few snow flakes.

I've decided that I need to acquire a Christmas tree, as we don't own one, and I should probably get all of my ornament collection from my mumsie whenever she gets their tree out and ready to go.

I've acquired seven chickens. They were all layers, but I haven't gotten any eggs yet. But, like I said, crazy weather has been happening, and that will mess them up, plus traveling to my house in the back of a pickup probably rattled them a bit, so it might take them a couple days to get back in the swing of things. They are named Agnes, Florence, Edith, Margo, Dorothy, Alta, and Irma, and no, I don't have the slightest clue which one is which. 

We moved Scout's doghouse up to the porch, because he only wants to sit on the porch when we are home, and he looks so pitiful when its cold and wet. He's thoroughly enjoying it. Mostly he sits on top of it a lot. When he's not dragging things into the yard from who knows where. He found a big like gym bag the other day....No clue where it came from. It's not like we just throw gym bags out in the weeds around here. And he has decided that the wood shouldn't be in a pile, it should be in a maze on the front walk. But oh well. He's a puppy. A massive, nearly knock you over puppy.

'Im the turtle is doing really well. We got him his very own aquarium, and he still looks cranky, but I know deep down inside he's happy and actually likes me. Even if he does tear holes in my sponge if Jarod tries to give him a bath.

Thanksgiving went well. We went to see Jarod's mom's half of the family, so there were lots of people I've never met. The food was good, but I'm really missing getting to eat Thanksgiving leftovers for a few days since Jarod's aunt handled all the food prep.

Minion #1 and Daddy-kin had birthdays back to back last week so we had to go celebrate with them. We played Pinochle and watched miserable football game losses.

With Thanksgiving gone I'm getting super stoked for Christmas. I've heard a few Christmas songs on the radio, and I completely approve.

So, the original point of this post and the whole reason for the title has nothing to do with any of the stuff I just rambled about, and much more to do with the fact that we found out that our little bambino is a boy.

We are absolutely thrilled. Not that a girl wouldn't be thrilling, because it would. But you have to understand. I come from a family of three girls. My mom is one of three girls. And both of her sisters so far have had girls. So...a boy is kind of like a rare discovery around here. 

Now the really difficult part is the naming of the little fella. We had a girl name picked out for like, ever, but that doesn't do me a whole lot of good now. You would think a name wouldn't be so hard. I mean, I'm a writer. I name people for fun. But the difference between naming a character and naming a baby is that the baby isn't solely yours, whereas the character is. So the other participant in the venture may not approve of Cannon, or Talon, Tell, or Riley. 

But not to fear. We've got a book of 60,000 baby names. 

That's a lot of different options. Odds are, one of them will appeal to the both of us.

Hopefully two, because it would be odd if our baby was the only person around to not have a middle name. 

So there you have it! That's a rundown of what I've been up to lately.

What about you?

My Nano

Hi guys! I thought I'd tell you a little bit about my story for Nanowrimo. First off, I'm not going to win. Not even going to come remotely close. But that's ok. I was aware of that when I started. I have however, been doing more writing than I have in the last year or so. So its a win, for me. 

What I titled it on the Nano website is Light the Stars. It will work for now. Not sure if I'll keep it. It's better than the title of its Pinterest board, Little Boy Story. 

This is the synopsis I've come up with:

Aiden is seven years old, and lives with his mommy, and his daddy. Mommy is very sick, and lots of times she has to stay in bed now. But that doesn't stop her from telling Aiden his bedtime stories every night. They put on their jammies, climb into Mommy's bed and snuggle down into the pillows, and together they draw pictures while Mommy tells her story of the little creature Gus and his adventures in the land of Aisling. But suddenly, mommy is gone, and Aiden doesn't know what to do anymore. Daddy tries to help him, but he's not having any easier of a time coping. Aunt Cindy comes to help them out and try to keep them busy, but she's not mommy. She cant tell bedtime stories. Aiden starts having bad dreams that wont go away. Upon waking from one of these dreams, Aiden finds Gus perched on the foot of his bed with a worried message. Aisling is sick and turning dark, and they need Aiden to help save it. 

I let Jarod read the notes I had with all the random plot lines and ideas I had. It confuzzled him a bit, so he said to write a few chapters worth and then he would look at it. Which is giving me incentive to keep writing. I'm like the story quite a lot. It's fun to be able to write the perspective of such a young character. It makes the details I include or leave out interesting for me. I've been studying my little Sunday school students a lot to really get a grasp on how they process things. It's been fun. 

On Deer Hunting

Hi guys! Probably my all time favorite part of November (or else a very close second to Thanksgiving) is Deer season. Most other hunting seasons I could take or leave. Dove hunting is fun, if the migration is just right, and pheasant can be fun if the population is up for the year, but deer hunting is always a good time. 

This year was my first time hunting out of a tree stand. Typically me and my dad or sisters just kind of hunker down in some tall grass at the bottom of a tree or something and that's how we hunt, but Jarod has lots of river ground where the trees are thick, and he's got quite a few tree stands set up. 

So, season started on Saturday morning. We got up at six and got dressed head to toe in camo. Which was really fun. I'm pretty sure deer are color blind, because my whole life I've never wore anything special, and have been successful, but full camo is always fun. 

We parked in a little clump of trees and hiked across the pasture up to the river and climbed into the stand. It was cold, so I had on two pairs of socks. My cowboy boots wont fit with that, so I had to wear my snow boots, which didn't feel good, since they are pretty much shot and do more harm than good. But I survived. 

It was definitely a different experience hunting out of a tree, and I can't say I necessarily love the idea. My rifle has a scope on it, so there were a lot of branches to contend with while trying to sight in on anything. Not to mention you're in the heart of the Nebraska jungle along the river, and you can't see a deer coming until they are right underneath you. I prefer some forewarning. That morning we saw four does, and two little spike bucks. Nothing very interesting. 

When we were done for the morning and heading home to do chores we got a call that one of the guys who was hunting on their land had fallen out of his tree stand. Apparently he has a habit of doing that. 

He was fine, but he wanted help dragging his deer out of the brush and loading it in the pickup, so we went and helped him out. It was a pretty nice buck. 

After chores we went and hiked into some of our pastures and crept up to some ponds and such to see what we could see. We saw some does. Nothing very interesting. 

At about three o'clock we went back to sit in our tree. For some reason, this time we parked at the gate to the pasture, and walked, not through just the one pasture, but two. Apparently there was a deer stand further in than the one we sat in that morning. 

Lemme get this straight. I'm four months pregnant, almost fifteen pounds heavier than I've ever been in my entire life, bundled up in like 93 layers of camo stuff, packing a gun, with boots that weigh thirty pounds and don't fit, and we're going to walk across two pastures???

Jarod likes to hunt 'the real way'. That translates to lots of walking. I like to hunt the fat old person way. Which means you drive as close as you possibly can to where you are going to set up, park behind a tree or a hill and go with it. It is just as successful. And quite a bit smarter, in my opinion. 

Anyway, we hiked in, crawled in the tree, which oddly had some old deer bones at the bottom of the ladder, and settled in. I traded guns with Jarod since he didn't have a scope on his, and this was much closer quarters than the first stand we sat in. And we waited. And waited. I saw a deer cross the river a long ways away from us, but it got into the trees before I could see what it was. It was heading our way though, so we kept waiting. We heard it long before we saw it. I've never heard a deer make so much noise and I was starting to think that it wasn't a deer at all but some city slicker crashing through the brush like a bowling ball,

but finally a little spike buck popped out of the bushes. The reason he was making such a racket was he was down to three legs. Looked like he had a wire scratch on his leg, so he was pretty ginger with it, which made him a bit clumsy. We watched him for a little bit, and he meandered around down below us for quite a while before hop crashing his way back into the trees. I could hear him on his way out for a long time, so it was hard to listen for anything else that might be coming.

It was starting to get dark, and we were thinking about heading back, since you can't hunt at night, when I see a deer off to our left just walking along, about a hundred yards out, along the edge of the trees. It was dim enough I couldn't count the points, but I could see his horns reflecting and knew they were tall. Jarod looked at it through my scope and said it was big, so we hurried to trade guns and I shot. I was shooting across Jarod, trying to get the deer before he got back into the trees behind us, and I must have flinched, because I hit him but not dead center. So he ran a little ways, back into the open thankfully, and turned back and looked at us. I shot again and that time he went down for good. 

That's the picture of him up there, once we got him gutted. He's a five by five, and the biggest deer I've ever shot. His brow tines are huge, and his base is about as big around as my fist. I was thrilled. 

We hung him up in the shed before hurrying home to watch the Nebraska Huskers lay down the laws of football to the Minnesota Golden Gophers. Sunday after church we went and skinned him, and cut up the meat. That was totally new to me. A little bit icky, but not bad at all. So we made steaks out of him, and then the meet that doesn't make good steaks we put in a grind category. Later this year we'll grind it up and make jerky and hopefully bologna, and hamburger. So yummy. 

Sorry, Not Sorry

So, just a quick update, we get to find out baby Wilson gender on the 18th. 

Deer season starts this weekend. 

I actually signed up for Nanowrimo. 

I am not on schedule.

I really don't care. 

 I'm writing. 

AND

and, And, ANd, AND

IT'S ELECTION DAY IN THE USA!

I'm just a little bit anxiety ridden, pumped up, and crazy about that last fact.