I'm Going to College

So lately the question that everyone is burning to ask me is 'what are you going to do after high school?' Of course, my instant response is 'i'm going to college.' The conversation usually procedes as follows:
'Well, what college do you want to go to?'
Me: 'well, either the u of m, sdsu, or iowa state, but i can't afford iowa state so i guess the u or sdsu'
'What are you going for?'
Me: 'I couldn't tell you that, i'm not sure'
'What are you interested in?'
Me: 'Something in agriculture or dairy that will make me enough money to live off of and something that i enjoy.'
'That really narrows it down'
Me: 'Not really, but i guess we'll see i still have like 2 years to figure it out'
'i guess so'

This is usually the first conversation I have with a lot of people after the normal 'hey how's it going' part. Needless to say, all these people asking me what i'm going to do with my life is not helping at all with the decision. So I've decided that I'm going to go to college, take my required courses and hopefully by then I will have had enough exposure to things that I might have the slightest idea of what to do for the rest of my life. But then again, apparently the average person changes their major seven times before they graduate. SEVEN TIMES!! Wow! that's alot! So I figure I will get it figured it by that time, (hopefully it takes much less). So for all those inquiring minds out there who are just waiting to figure out what i'm going to do in life next time you see me. I'm going to college!!!

The most wonderful time of the year....

That's right folks: CHRISTMAS!

Christmas is coming soon, and to me that is the best time of the year! Don't get me wrong I like thanksgiving and have a lot to be thankful for but there is just something about Christmas! This year though it will be a little different... of course we are still going to church Christmas Eve and will probably order Dominoes like we have for every Christmas! that I can remember, however, no one seems to remember when that got started my parents came to the conclusion it was back in the days when they were the only ones doing chores in our old barn with 40 cows and they had to get up early.... so why cook a big dinner? I love that we do that though because we go to church come home eat Dominoes, open our family presents, watch a Christmas! movie and go to bed. Then my parents get up at 3:00 to go do chores and Mary and I come out at 7:00 to help. Then when chores are all done we rush to the house to get cleaned up and ready for Grandma Liebenstein's. Now that is an adventure in itself... when we were younger we would get to Grandma's take the Christmas! picture in front of the Christmas! tree then eat brunch and start by opening our stockings. We would gradually move to the bigger presents with multiple snack and potty breaks in there, and then finally 5 or 6 hours later we would sit down to Jesus's birthday party complete with a birthday cake and ham. Now we do all that same stuff but instead of everyone buying presesnts for everyone we draw names, but sometimes the pile is still to the middle of the living room! I wouldn't trade any part of this for anything! I love my family and Christmas! The best is when everyone can be there, but now that everyone is getting old and has to split their time with other family's.

The Byrns side is different but still fun in it's own way.... This year we are lucky that my cousins, grandparents, great aunt, and great grandma are joining us at our house for Christmas! We have some different traditions on that side including eating noodles, yes folks noodles for Chrismas! dinner.... if you know my dad you can imagine how well that flys haha.... then we all sit in a circle and play the greed game where everyone buys a $50.00 present that they would want and we roll dice until everyone has a present, for the most part everyone goes home with something they like.

I have pretty much had a count down going for the past month on how many days until Christmas! (Its 39 days in case you were wondering....) haha and I plan to sneak our little tree from the basement back to college with me until Christmas! break (hopefully Mary won't notice)

So if anyone needs help getting into the Christmas! spirit after Thanksgiving I'm your girl! I already plan to put up Christmas! lights the day after Thanksgiving, take in some black friday shopping, and bake cookies for my friends at school, as well as get a HUGE Christmas! TREE for our house... the perks of having a vaulted ceiling is getting HUGE Christmas! TREES! The only thing left is taking our classy Christmas! Card picture... so watch your mail for that special treat haha Rumor has it G & M are planning their own Christmas! letter too....

FALL SALE

So last week I had the privilege of being the co-chair in training for our annual fall sale, and let me tell you that it was exhausting. The two co-chairs, my other co-chair in training and myself each put in over 85 hours a piece! That leaves us with less then 15 hours of sleep over 6 nights.

We spent all day Sunday the week before gathering supplies and taking them to the animal science arena where everything was being held. That was an adventure in itself! Then that evening we had 20 dairy club members come in and help set up for the sale. On Tuesday the animals started rolling in and from then on we never got to sit down. We spent the rest of the week washing, clipping, feeding, and taking care of the animals there. There were some animals that came in extremely dirty that we worked on in the wash rack for over an hour a piece. I am glad that there are more farms out there like mine that would not tolerate their animals being as dirty as some of the cows that came in. On Friday we started to finalize the toplines for the sale and did the final washing on all the animals. Friday night we had a night line that was in charge of keeping the cattle clean until the next morning. Saturday we cleaned the arena before everyone came and then spent the sale leading cows to water then to the final fitting station and then into the arena. The last animal left around 3 pm and we spent the rest of the evening cleaning up by taking down fences, hauling out straw and other supplies back to the farm. At 10 we were all done!

At about 9:30 pm on Saturday we were cleaning up the last of the straw with the skidloader and rakes and I happened to have my foot too close to the skid loader bucket and one thing led to the next and I now have a big toe that is as big as the big toe and second toe on the other side... let me tell you that REALLY REALLY HURT!!!!!! Luckily my toe is still attached and the sale is all cleaned up, and we had all the help that we did from the dairy club.

This weekend I get to go home to see my puppy and family then return back to school until Thanksgiving, and in case you didn't know Christmas is less then 51 days away and I am already getting excited!