I’m sorry I was late, but…

We are reasonably reliable people who get most places on time.  Living in the country, punctuality is a bit harder to come by.  “I’m sorry we’re late for church, but there was a rooster in the middle of the road.”  The rooster was also accompanied by turkeys.  We had to stop for the rooster and we had to stop and take a picture of the turkeys, being careful not to hit them, as A. it is not Thanksgiving, so what were we going to do with a turkey and B. since we are under a strict ‘no more animals for awhile’ policy, we all know that the turkeys didn’t belong to us.

Beyond late, the Bride and My Loving Spouse did not even make it to church this Sunday.  They were however, doing a much-needed job called ’tiling the ugly bathroom shower’.  “Tiling the ugly bathroom shower’ has needed to be done since day one.  Trying to find a time when A. the Bride was here to teach how to do it and B. we didn’t have a herd of people needing to shower in it has been problematic.  The work crew decided they had to miss church in order to get this job done.  As they were on their knees to ’tile the ugly shower’ and praying it all came out right, they were connected to us in spirit.  The bathroom now has beautiful tile and ugly walls.

“I’m sorry I am going to be late for quilting the farrier is here.”  There is SO much new in that sentence that if you’ve known me for any length of time, you are probably re-reading it.  My first quilt came out pretty neat and the crooked seams don’t show in the picture.  It will now go to a child in foster care.  It is extremely appropriate that my friend Dawn is the one holding my quilt in this picture, because as she was teaching me how to make it, she got very little work done on hers.

“Sweetie, can you handle the farrier today?” My Loving Spouse said in the same tone my father use to say “Honey, can you pick up my shirts from the cleaners?”  Trust me, this is not the same.  Thinking all I had to do was write the check, point to the pasture and offer him a cold drink, I figured I could handle it.  Our farrier is a gentle and knowledgeable guy, so let me say that we really like him.  I knew we were in trouble when he got here and said, “Do you need help getting the horses?”  We have two horses and one of me.  Even though I have two hands, I wasn’t wearing my Wrangler jeans or my boots and even if I was the answer would still be a resounding yes.  Sometimes horses do not want to be tied up and have a pedicure.  In this case the farrier thinks it would be ‘helpful’ to have someone hold them.  The ‘someone’ in this case would be me.  The horses and I are on a steep learning curve, I have learned a lot, but so far they know more about humans than I know about horses.  Getting the ‘opportunity’ to be ‘helpful’ and hold something bigger and stronger than me who doesn’t want to be held was an ‘opportunity’ for growth on my part and being 6 feet already, I was hoping that I was pretty much done growing.  The good news is that neither the farrier nor I got bitten but it wasn’t for a lack of trying by our little filly.