Throwback Thursday #39: Puking My Way Across Kentucky (The Finale)

“Courage is the discovery that you may not win, and trying when you know you can lose.”

~Tom Krause

In case you missed the first three parts of this miniseries, you can read them here, here and here.

Well, if this were a movie, I would be able to tell you that despite the food poisoning from (you know where), we won the National FFA Livestock Judging Contest. But we didn't. Just wanted to get that out there right now so you can overcome your disappointment and read the rest of the blog. Don't feel too bad for us....we would end up Reserve National Champions in Dairy and Poultry, and I'd finish my career with 4 gold emblems from National FFA Convention. Not too shabby. But winning livestock would have been awesome.

Anyway, back to where we left off, because one of the boys, KP, shoved the horrible soup down my throat, Mr. F did not take me to the hospital the night between the two contest days. As I said before, he was more competetive than any of us.....he was bluffing. Instead, we finished up the contest the next day and all survived.

At the awards banquet, they served chicken. I will never forget that because here we were, at a livestock judging contest and they served us chicken (ironically at the Poultry awards banquet two years later, they would serve bacon....go figure). KP had several comments to make about that. He did not eat chicken. Ever. Under any circumstance. So that night, there were two of us at the table not eating. Mr. F didn't make threats this time.....but he did go to the coke machine and bring me a 7-Up for dinner. I think he felt bad about the soup incident.

Anyway, when the results came back, our team finished 6th, which was a Gold Emblem, but not what we had hoped for. KP and I finished in the top 10 individuals and both won scholarships. And, I ended up second high on the test, which, as you will recall, was the whole reason we were up late and went to eat at Arbys in the first place. Was being second on the test worth it? Not a chance.

Anyhow, we trudged back across the country and I think for the only time in my life, I was really happy to see that old school station wagon parked at the airport.

The next week, Mr. F finally did take me to the hospital. I was still feeling terrible and we were in the middle of ag class. Out of nowhere he said, "Tiff, get your stuff. We're going to the hospital. I'll call your mom." I guess maybe he felt guilty for not making me go a week earlier. Whatever it was, he loaded me up in his grey truck and hauled me to the nearest hospital. Turns out, I was dehydrated and my electrolytes were all out of whack. Oh, and I passed out when they took my blood pressure. Yea....the traumatizing moments just kept coming.

So, in the first blog about this adventure, I told you that this story seemed to follow me everywhere. It came up in my State Star Farmer interview. Here I had been preparing by memorizing feed tags and conversion ratios....and they just wanted to hear about the Livestock trip. It comes up every time I see Dr. Wagley or the college judging coach who traumatized the poor women in the bathroom.

It came up most often anytime I was hurt or sick and told anyone I was fine. Mr. F always felt the need to immediately interject that I was lying and tell them the livestock judging story. "You've gotta watch her. She'll lie right to your face, but she's a tough one." Yea, it's true. I think he used that as one of those ag teacher badge of honors we talked about before....crappiest car, crappiest hotel and toughest girl. Was that worth it? Absolutely.

Gooooo Pokes!!

"Football is only a game. Spiritual things are eternal. Nevertheless, Beat Texas." ~Church billboard in Arkansas prior to the 1969 "Game of the Century.

Well, as you know by now, I'm a very proud alum of Oklahoma State University, home of the Cowboys. If you don't follow college football closely (and obsessively like some of us...) you may not know that my Cowboys are leading the Big 12 South with just 3 games to go! Woo hoo!!

I decided that covering the blog in orange today was appropriate to celebrate.....and fortunately, I failed to blog about my trip back for homecoming a few weeks ago. (If you want to read more about OSU homecoming, check out this blog from last year!) That means I have lots of orange pictures to share. Isn't it a beautiful color?!?

And, before I left, I hoped to get a picture with the cutest boy in Stillwater. Clearly, I was successful!

Keep it up Cowboys.....bring on Texas!

Lucky Small Town Kid

"I'm not afraid to admit, I'm that small town kid!" ~Eli Young Band

Bullying is a hot topic right now. It's all over the news and in the last couple weeks 5 different bloggers that I follow posted a blog about bullying. As I read these stories, it made me realize that growing up, I was pretty lucky.

When you grow up in a small town and go to a small school and I think bullying is far less common. Don't get me wrong, we didn't just sit around holding hands singing Kumbaya all day. There were some kids who were popular and some who were not. There were a few fights, snide comments and hurtful rumors over the years. I found out who I could trust and who I couldn't really quickly, but I was never really bullied.

I'm talking the physical violence-go home crying-think about killing yourself-type bullying that I keep reading about in the news. And I don't think (maybe I'm just oblivious to this, so if you went to high school with me feel free to correct me) that kind of thing ever went on in our school.
In fact, I think if something like that would have happened, another student would have stepped in and stopped it. That's the beauty (and sometimes the curse) of a small school. Everyone knows everyone. An everyone knows everyone else's parents, and siblings and where they live and pretty much everything else going on in their life. Because of this, I think that there is a bond between small school kids that doesn't happen other places.

I think that kids in small towns grow up with a sense of community that larger schools just don't provide. When you have known (just about) everyone in your school your whole life, I think you look at them a little bit differently. I think that small communities still have the "we're in this together" mentality, and that can't help but spill over into the schools. I've written before about lifelong friendships not only with people I went to high school with, but people from the surrounding small schools as well. It just happens.

After hearing the horror stories on the news and on other blogs last week, I was sure happy to have grown up where I did. No, we couldn't run to Sonic for lunch (because there wasn't one), and we didn't have softball or band or drill team, and we couldn't take French or Forensics.....but we had something that a lot of big school's don't. We had a student body who knew each other and cared enough about each other not to treat someone in a way that they would go home one night and kill themselves. If you ask me, that beats French class any day.

And FYI, in case you were wondering, these pictures would, indeed, be my ENTIRE graduating class. When I said small school, I meant it.

Running, Jumping, Thanking

"Love with your whole heart. Pay attention. Get off your phone and be present. Appreciate your health, tend to it. Make the plan you talk about but never follow through. Taste your freedom." ~ Kristin Armstrong

I read a lot of different blogs. It's sort of an obsession. Every morning, I start my day checking out what's new in the blogger world. One of those blogs is by Kristin Armstrong. She's an amazing Christian woman. She's a mom and a marathon runner and a motivational speaker and writer. And yes, she is Lance Armstrong's ex-wife. And while I do love me some Lance Armstrong, I'm just as impressed with Kristin!

Anyway, last week she wrote this particular blog, that really touched my heart. Most of you probably know that about a year ago, I dealt with someone very close to me dying from the same disease that Kristin writes about. No doubt, that is probably the biggest reason that I was so impacted by this blog. But it was not the only reason.

I recently blogged about trying hard to be thankful for the little things in life....the things that we take for granted every day. Like being able to stand, or to walk, or to speak. Every week at hot yoga, the instructor talks about dedicating your yoga practice to something...and she suggests that we dedicate our class to those people who are physically unable to attend. Now, let me be clear, I am not good enough at yoga to decicate it to ANYONE...it would be much more of an insult. But, when she says it, I do always think about how fortunate I am to have a body that allows me to run and jump and (attempt) to do crazy yoga poses.
So I'm thankful today. Thankful for a body that allows me to do so many amazing things. And thankful to be living my life. Maybe those aren't such little things after all.

Family Farm Friday #34: They Don't Understand

“Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.” ~ Oscar Wilde

I've sort of been on a roll writing about ag kids (here is one or two in case you missed them.)


Now that I'm living in the city instead of on the farm, I've been around a lot of people who are not ag kids. Not only are they not ag kids, a lot of them have never even set foot on a farm or a ranch before. And the question that I get more often than any other is "why?" Why would anyone want to live in the middle of nowhere? Why would I want to spend my money on buying cattle or sheep of my own? Why would I want to get up in the cold or be outside in the dirt all the time?

People don't understand the connection that ag kids have with our families' farms. They don't understand because they have not experienced it. They don't know what it is like to live on your own land---land that your grandparents or great-grandparents bought decades ago. They don't know what it is like to get up at 6:00 in the morning in a foot of snow to go check on new baby lambs at the barn. They don't know how it feels to jump in wool sacks or play in a grain truck full of maize. The don't know.....but we do. We love our way of life in a way that they will never understand, because they have never lived it.
Anyway, here is a great article and even better slide show of a teenage boy, a third generation farmer, who dreams of taking over his family dairy farm in Michigan. I think that this article does a great job of explaining how farm kids feel. I'm sure glad I grew up on family farm....and that I understand.

Throwback Thursday #38: Puking My Way Across Kentucky (Part 3)

"When the world says, 'Give up,' hope whispers, 'Try it one more time.'" ~Author Unknown

Here goes part three. If you missed parts one or two, read those to get caught up!

Luckily we all made it to picture time. The boy in the hospital arrived literally with about 10 minutes to spare. And considering the last two days, I'd say that we looked pretty darn good in the team photo! (We also look pretty darn young....but I guess that's another blog for another day).
Anyway, I don't remember exactly what we did on day one and what we did on day 2 of the contest. I think that the first day we took the test (which ironically, as you will recall from part one of this story, is the reason we were in this food poisoned state to begin with), and then we did cull/keep as a team, and then we did grading. Then on the second day I think we actually judged classes and gave reasons.

I do remember having to leave the area where the livestock was twice on the first day because I was still sick. And let me just tell you, a whole day of being outside, in the dirt, standing up, wearing the awesomely hot FFA jacket and black pants was not what a girl needed on a sick stomach!

Anyway, somehow we made it through the first day. By this time, the boys all felt a lot better and were back to eating. I was not so quick to go back on feed, which lead to several references to sick cattle and discussions of what needed to be done for me. Mr. F decided that the answer was to drive around Louisville until we found soup for dinner. Now, the last thing I wanted to do was crawl in a van and drive around a city that we were not used to.....hello car sickness! But when Mr. F had an idea, you just went with it.

Finally we ended up going into somewhere like an Applebee's or Friday's. Mr. F asked the hostess if they had soup. She said yes. And he said, "Give us a table." What he forgot to ask was what KIND of soup. The options were something like spicy corn cowder and seafood gumbo. Not the chicken noodle that I had in mind.

Mind you, when you go to a restaurant and Mr. F knew what you should order, you didn't get other options. For example, had I wanted a sandwich instead of soup, he would have said no. He was famous for this. Several times he would line up the boys basketball team and make them all drink Theraflu, whether they were sick or not. Other times, he would take a basketball or a judging team to The Fontier and no matter what you ordered, you had to get orange juice for the Vitamin C. (FYI--green enchilladas and orange juice are not the best combination).

Anyway, back to the soup, I don't eat seafood whatsoever, so spicy corn chowder was pretty much my only option. I honestly tried to eat it. I sort of poked around, and then excused myself to the ladies' room. When I came back, Mr. F announced to the group that if I didn't eat all of that soup, we were going straight to the hospital.

I was game to call his bluff---I had known this guy my whole life, and there was no one more competitive than he was. He was not going to haul me to the hospital with a day of judging left. One of my teammates was not as confident. The meal ended with that scared teammate LITERALLY shoving soup into my mouth with a spoon. How I survived this meal is beyond me.

Anyway, the next day we made it through the rest of the contest. Up next was the awards ceremony.....the moment of truth. Would we even place? Would I get sick at the awards ceremony in front of everyone? Could some other sort of disaster occur?

Stay Tuned for the Conclusion of Our 4 Part Miniseries Next Week!

And....last reminder....enter this month's giveaway....click here!

October Updates

“One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure its worth watching.” ~Unknown

Another month down....time seems to be going by like crazy!

Coming Full Circle.
A while back, I mentioned that I attended the Junior Livestock Sale at the State Fair. It was really fun to be there as a buyer--it felt like things had really come full circle for me after having sold animals there for several years growing up.

I still maintain that the 4-H and FFA show programs are the very best activity that a kid can be involved in. I love that the program helped make me the person I am, and I love being able to give back to it now!

My Blog Could Save a Life.

Hopefully you remember my blog from last month reporting on my Happiness Project goal of volunteering. Well, last week I got a great suprise that seriously made my day. One of my friends, Colorado Girl joined the National Bone Marrow Registry after reading my blog!

Now, I write this blog for myself mostly---to get my thoughts out and to have somewhere to look back on my life and see what was going on. But the fact that my blog convinced her to join the National Bone Marrow Registry, and potentially to save someone's life is so exciting and humbling. Thanks, Colorado Girl for making me feel like there is a chance I could make a difference! If you are interested in joining the registry, click here.

Wedding Bells.
Happy news regarding my blog about the 33 rescued miners in Chile. A couple of weeks ago, 5 of them proposed to their girlfriends. You can read the full story here. Apparently sitting in a mine for over two months makes you realize how much you love someone. (Perhaps that's where Mr. Right needs to be hanging out.....)

(Photo by Hugo Infante)

Quote of the Month.
The trend of two quote winners continues. The Blonde Oklahoma Girl continues her reign, but we have a new addition to our list of winners.....Coach McCain. Well, he didn't actually say the words, but he found them and sent them my way, so he gets credit.

First, the Blonde Oklahoma Girl. You may or may not have heard, but there was an earthquake in Oklahoma last month. Insane, right? Well, we were discussing how stressful that was and about whether tornadoes or earthquakes were worse. She decided earthquakes were. First, you have no warning that they are coming. And second: "How's is a doorway or desk really going to help you when the freaking earth cracks open?"

Second, McCain was reading an old brief (legal document where lawyers make arguments to the court) and came across this line: “Defendant's counsel is not behaving like a member of a learned profession, but more like a caged monkey flinging crap.” He claims that this statement was not written about him, but I have my doubts.

(And, in case you are curious, the worst name I have been called so far in a legal document has been a "circus gypsie.") But I've only been practicing for a little over a year. Give it time.

DON'T FORGET.....enter in this month's giveaway....click here and leave a comment by Thursday at 9:00 pm!

Life Metaphor.....and the November Giveaway!

"Each of us in our own way can try to spread compassion into people's hearts." ~Dalai Lama

I am re-reading The Purpose Driven Life and apparently that was a good idea becuase this is my second blog (click here if you missed the first one) about it and I'm only on Day 6! The author asks an interesting question. "How do you see your life? What is your life metaphor?" For example, do you see life as a roller coaster, with lots of ups and downs and twists and turns? Or do you see life as a game or a puzzle?

He explained that however you view your life greatly impacts how you live your life. So, for example, if you see life as a race you are probably constanty blowing and going and need to learn to stop and smell the roses. If you see life as a game of cards, you're likely to feel like you have to play the hand you are dealt.

I realized that I'm not sure what my metaphor is. (Maybe this is why I feel like I'm pulled in all directions like I've explained before!) I have been thinking about it all week.....and after talking with one of my guy friends on the phone, I at least have an idea.....My friend told me that he always loves talking to me because I just make him feel better about everything in his life. That was a compliment that really touched me....because I think that loving people and making a difference in their lives is such an important thing to do.

So, based on that, I tried to come up with my life metaphor. I have an idea....but I'm not sure this is exactly right. I guess maybe I see life a little bit like a triage nurse would a battle field. It sounds strange, I know...but I picture a triage nurse running around through the field trying to help as many people as best she can. I would at least like to think that my life is that way---that as I go through life, I try to meet and befriend and help as many people as I can. The I love the thought of viewing life as a chance to make a difference in the life of someone else, a chance to be kind and loving and friendly....a chance to do something to bandage a wound or fill a need.

I'd LOVE to know... What is your life metaphor?

I really want to hear your thoughts on this. So.....I'm tying it into my GIVEAWAY for November.....you coud win a pumpkin spice scented candle. I will select the winner by random drawing.

You have two ways to enter.

1. Comment either on this blog, or on my facebook post of this blog and tell me your life metaphor.

2. If you become a follower of my blog (you can see instructions here) I will give you 5 (yes.....I said FIVE) entries! Can you tell I really want to increase my number of official followers?

We'll leave this contest open for 3 days (because The Bride almost went crazy when it was a whole week last time), so get your entries in by 9:00 pm this Thursday (November 5, 2010)!

I will announce the winner on Friday....good luck and I can't wait to read your comments!

Margaritas, Field Goals and Marshmallows

"A good friend is a connection to life - a tie to the past, a road to the future, the key to sanity in a totally insane world." ~Lois Wyse

Well, today is the big day.......as I mentioned in a prior blog, I have moved into the "late" category of the twenties. (I know Texas Lawyer disputes this, but I still maintain that 27 means late). In light of this, some celebrating was in order. And instead of celebrating one birth day, I celebrated a birth weekend. The theme of which was: Margaritas, Field Goals and Marshmallows. Here's a recap.

Margaritas

So on Friday night the Loud Oklahoma Girl flew in for the weekend!

And to kick things off, a whole group of my absoultely fabulous friends went to dinner at El Pinto....a great Mexican food restaurant. People from the home town, people from college, people from law school, and even post-law school friends showed up....they are all pretty darn great if you as me! And, despite my initital fear that I had gotten lost on the drive, that I would miss my own birthday party, and that we might get killed, everything worked out quite well.

Field GoalsYou all might not know this about me, but I really like football. Shocking that it would be part of my birthday, I know.

Anyway, the Loud Oklahoma Girl and I hit up hot yoga at 7:00 am. This was us leaving the house at 6:30. I was about as excited as I look.

After hot yoga, we invaded Brett-Brett's house because of his incredibly comfy couch, big screen, and Direct TV Sports Pack. Oh yea, and because of his company too.... Anyhow, we spent several hours watching games (including my Cowboys beat up on K-State!!)
And, while we were there, Brett-Brett's brother came by. He happened to have been a football star at UCLA and he let me try on his Rose Bowl ring. Looks good, no?
Then, it was time for the "field goal" portion of the birthday weekend. My friend McCain happens to be a high school assistant football coach. And he agreed to get us onto the field to play football for my birthday. Now, at the risk of sounding like a 13 year-old boy, let met just tell you, that I could not have though of a better birthday event! I'll let the pictures speak for themselves, except to say that I made the VERY FIRST field goal that I attempted. Yea.....someone has to introduce me to Dan Bailey because we could be raising some future college kickers!

Marshmallows

After a long afternoon of hard football workouts, we hit up College Roomie's house for dinner and smores in her new fire pit! And in honor of Betty White and Sandra Bullock in the Proposal, there was some dancing around the fire...

The weekend ended with a 5K.....let's just say that all of the exersion at football practice combined with all of the eating I did proior to the run on Birthday Weekend was NOT conducive to being successful at the 5K. However, it was technically a "run/walk" and we did exactly that...so maybe it wasn't all bad! And Cousin W finished her first race ever! ConclusionI'm so lucky to have such amazing friends who participated in the birth weekend. My birthday is always a little hard for me....you might remember that I lost friends in two car accidents this time a few years ago. I'm so grateful to have people in my life who help me focus on the happy and who help to make my birthday so great!