Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Chickens and Changes



Remember the chickens?

Hen: What are you DOING??  Rooster: I just read this new book by Sheryl Sandberg that says you should lean in.  Hen: That's for HENS!  Rooster: Oh. Sorry.

They are off to a new home!  After I posted about them, a lady from Mississippi messaged me:

I'm an antique person and we are moving our milk and egg business out to the old milk house on the farm. We have a retail market room that we have in a dumpy room at the end of our carport but we want to move it out sooner rather than later. I've been collecting ideas and things to use so as soon as we're able, presto, I can put my stuff up. chickens were on my list but I didn't know where to get them. I thought maybe I'd have to pay and arm and leg for large ceramic ones I've seen in catalogs.

Wunderbar!  She has a niece here in Brownsville.  I dropped the chickens off there on Sunday, since the niece is willing to get them to her one way or another.

We are all happy, chickens included.

Today Shelley the lovely niece was here with her little daughter, Charlotte, and we sat on the porch with Amy and Jenny and talked and had tea.  Shelley asked how long I've been blogging and we figured out it's been over eight years.

Amy inserted, with a bit of amusement in her eyes, that I've had the same layout and background all those eight years.

Well, yes, I have.

I said I'm afraid to change it because I have this fear that, if I change it, the whole blog will disappear along with the 1425 posts I've written over the years.
Shelley said with a bit of amusement in her eyes that that is something that I could get someone to do for me, if I'm not comfortable doing it myself.

See, I'm just doing what all the writer websites say you have to do to succeed in today's market: create a brand and stick with it.

Meanwhile, after all my years of hand-wringing both online and off, one of my children has changed his relationship status on Facebook.  Ben is dating a lovely young lady named Amanda.

Of course my children would not follow any usual patterns, so my fourth child is the first to date.* 

And, we already got to meet her.  Without Ben being there.  In Thailand, of all places.

She had flown over to accompany a friend who was going to be working at a different organization in the same city.  So first Amanda and I met over iced coffee, and then she went up the mountain with all of us, the time we were warned about the possibility of a king cobra.
Amanda and I sat on the round pillows in this lovely little pavilion to sip our iced coffees. We had no trouble filling up the hour with conversation.  My cousin's helpful daughter had brought her over on a motorbike, hence the helmet there on the right.

Amanda was undaunted by both the king cobra possibility and meeting Ben's family without him being there as a buffer.

She's a brave girl.
*i.e. using the Mennonite definition and implication(s) here.

Quote of the Day:
"The main lesson in Amelia Bedelia books is that you can get by with anything if you're a good cook."
--Amy

5 comments:

  1. Over the years, I've often felt inferior to other people who come up with all sorts of fancy "themes" and "Pretty-pretties" for their blog sites. Eldest Daughter would, early on, change mine when she was sure that I needed a face-lift. But if it's up to me, it stays the same. You cannot imagine how comforted I am by this posting!

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  2. At least you started with a layout and background for your blog. Mine has always been sans layout and background, and I haven't given it a second thought. Who knows how many readers were grinding their teeth over my cluelessness?

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  3. I think your blog is just fine, just the way it is! :) Thanks again for taking the time to answer all of my questions. You are a treasure trove of good advice and years of experience, and I only hope to learn from it.

    Blessings!

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  4. Please don't change your nice blog :) Unless you want to, of course!

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  5. Well, you could add pictures of your family, so I can double check which one is Ben, when you reference him. Did you know you can get your blog put into .pdf format and get it bound into a hardcover book. Did mine and I love it!

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