A short Thanksgiving romance by Maude

Maude writes romance stories under a pen name.  Please check out a short Thanksgiving romance she wrote at:

http://www.aletheiavongottlieb.blogspot.com/

Happy Thanksgiving!

Revolutionary War Re-enactment

Recently, we went to a Revolutionary War Re-enactment. www.battleofthehook.org  It was SO much fun!

Some Revolutionary War reenactors watching a skirmish.

The re-enactment was very large with over 1,000 re-enactors, 6 historically accurate boats, a field with battlements, and a cabin that was torched the last day (I was told  about that but didn't see it as we went on Saturday).  I have been to one Civil War re-enactment but this was my first for the Revolution.  There were people from all over the world at this.  Some of the re-enactors were actually from Great Britain and Germany and came across the Atlantic solely for this event.

Upcoming Fantasy Novel (by me!!)

I am just now starting to get my fiction stories published.  I write fantasy and romance.  The romance blog has already been announced on this blog (www.aletheiavongottlieb.blogspot.com) but nothing has been mentioned about my fantasy work.

That is because my FIRST fantasy novel has just been announced (and I don't have anything up yet blog/website/etc for this genre)!!!  I will be writing under the pen name Bryen O'Riley.

Here is the link to the announcement that my editor wrote up about my fantasy novel, The Stone.

https://www.facebook.com/LuthandoCoeur/posts/517816861635255

Please check it out!!

The Farmer's Dozen

It has been nearly 11 months since we bought our hobby farm.  We have 2 sheep, 25 chickens, 16 guinea fowl, 1 pig (the other one was recently slaughtered), and 1 farm dog. 

We have put up paddock after paddock of fencing.  We have build shelters and aviaries.  We have cared for and wrestled with our various animals.  We have plowed with a tractor and sowed with our hands.

Why God Made Men

My lower back has been bothering me so I (finally) decided to put cold or heat or something on it.  I put a cold pack on the first day, which was nice, but after talking to my husband about it he recommended I use heat.  The next day I put a warm rice bag on the area for twenty minutes and started feeling better.  The next day (because I can only manage to heat my back  once a day - twenty minutes is a long time for a mom of little ones!!) I put the warm rice bag on again and could feel a real difference.  So I stopped.  The pain wasn't terrible anymore so the twenty minutes disappeared.

Anyway, today my back started really hurting again so my 3 year old daughter asked if I wanted the rice bag.  I said thanks and helped her to put it in the microwave flat.  I told her to turn it on for 45 seconds then we would turn it over and push the 45 and start again.

She tried and tried and started to get frustrated that it wouldn't work.  She normally doesn't have any trouble pushing the buttons on the microwave so I went over to help.  She had successfully entered "45" but the "start" button wouldn't push.  I tried several times and couldn't get it to work either.

I took the rice bag out of the microwave and told her it was broken and we'd have Daddy look at it when he got home.

My daughter diligently told him about the problem when she saw him and when he came in from farm duties he immediately went to start working on the microwave.

It wasn't even 2 seconds later that he had the microwave happily humming away!

I was astonished!  How on earth had he managed it?

The Importance of Fathers

Last month my husband was out of town for a few weeks.  Of course I missed him but for the first time I saw beyond my missing my best friend and beyond the extra chores that fell upon me in his absence.  I saw the absence of the father of my children.

He wasn't there to wrestle with Milton, to snuggle with Maeva, to read books and play outside.  He wasn't there during bathtime or to give goodnight kisses. 

In fact, while he was gone Milton, who's been potty-trained for a year, started having accidents (yes, that is plural - I probably should have made it a capital S!) and Maeva, woke up screaming with night terrors several times. 

Sheep-Shearing

My family is currently reading Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder so I know for a fact that Almanzo says that sheep-shearing is fun...

So naturally, I was expecting sheep-shearing to be fun.

Nope, it wasn't.  It was crazy, hard and scary.  But mostly crazy!

Here I am with our half-sheared Leicester Longwool sheep, which is a critically endangered heritage breed.

We went to a sheep-shearing party at the farm where we bought our sheep and watched a man from New Zealand who had been brought in hand-shear the 20 or so sheep.  He sat the sheep down on their rumps and sheared them each in about ten minutes or less by himself.

It was our first time so we erred on the conservative side and figured with electric shears, two people, and a whole afternoon (for two sheep) that we would be fine. 

We weren't.

We're Back!

After an 11 month hiatus, we sisters are dusting off our keyboards and are ready to start posting to The Sisters O'Brien once again!  This time, however, we are setting no rules for ourselves.  As busy wives and mothers we are unable to commit to a Monday - Friday posting schedule as we did previously.  We will post when we post.  We hope that you enjoy our blog as we continue to share our lives with you. 

Thank you for taking the time to read our thoughts and please check back often (or follow us) as we continue The Sisters O'Brien.

p.s. We would love to hear from you so feel free to comment anytime!

Maude's writing blog

Maude has started a blog under her pen name:

http://aletheiavongottlieb.blogspot.com/


Feel free to check it out!!

A Sad Goodbye

Today I am tasked with writing a sad post. A goodbye post. It has been nearly a year since we began this blog and we have enjoyed it and been challenged by it. We have loved having the chance to write, and we have sure appreciated each person who chose to read what we wrote. Unfortunately, the time has come for us to end this endeavor. We each have our own reasons for stopping, but we are all in agreement that it is the best action to take. There has been no dispute between us! We largely took our other responsibilities and family time into consideration when making the decision.

Thank you for "following" our blog. Thank you for caring about what was happening in our lives and for appreciating our take on life. We have loved this experience as sisters, and we have treasured the time shared. If you are interested in keeping up with us in other ways, you can follow Esther's personal blog at: http://estherbeard.tumblr.com/ and find out more about Maude's production company here: http://ehrenkrookentertainment.com/. As for me (Lizzi), I guess I'll just have to be in touch.

Sisters Chat about 4-H

Maude: This week I thought we would talk about 4-H. I am not sure if you all heard about the announcement from the Dept. of Labor who is revamping child labor laws but they made it illegal for kids to work on anything but family farms (most family farms are legal entities and therefore would not be considered "family"). In addition there was language that would make 4-H and FFA illegal.This has been rescinded because there was such a big stink.
But it got me thinking about 4-H.
Esther: That's crazy and dumb!
Maude: I know, it is ridiculous!!!
Esther: like we need kids to be learning less. 4-H and helping on farms is such a great way to learn.
Maude: And it teaches them hard work. Plus there is something of a catastrophe looming for farms because around 80% of small farmers are set to retire in the next 10 years and there is no one to replace them.
Lizzi: Wow. That is certainly a catastrophe!
Maude: All the big farms will continue but small farms are the backbone of this country. Imagine the countryside without small farms!!
Yuck!
To those reading this who aren't familiar - What is 4-H?
Lizzi: I don't remember what the 4 h's stand for! Isn't that terrible?
Maude: head, heart, hands and health
Not sure why I remember that...
Lizzi: I was close! I was going to say head, heart, health and home. Close, but no cigar!
Maude: haha, Liz!
Esther: 4-H is an opportunity for young people to learn how to work, farm, build, sew, cook, and lead.

Mornings At My House

My household (other than my husband!) usually wakes up between 8 and 9 in the morning.  I am not a morning person and so I normally sleep in until the kids wake me up leaving my "quiet time" for night.  But this morning I was awake before 7 am.

I decided to surprise my husband and have breakfast and spend some time with him before he went to work.  I was thwarted as he had to go in early and I just missed him.  As I came downstairs, he drove off.  So I had some toast and read my Bible.  The house was quiet; the deck was cool; it was lovely.

Then at 7:30 am Maeva started fussing so I got in bed with her and snuggled down.  She was sweet and we both fell back asleep.  I felt like this waking up early thing had some potential.

Gardening - Asparagus Success!

We planted our asparagus early.  We dug holes in our red, clay soil, mixed in some black soil for good measure and watered faithfully.  After a month of nothing happening we decided that we would rather use that space in our tiny garden for our tomato plants so we transplanted out tomatoes from their starter pots in the house and put them in the section where we had just dug up the dud asparagus and we put the asparagus into the started pots and put them in our front window.

The general plan was to water the asparagus if we thought about it but otherwise to not waste anymore time or thought about the dead asparagus crowns.  We placed a spray bottle next to the plants and let the kids squirt (or sometimes drown) the poor little plants as they wanted to.

What a Girl Wants

It is funny to think back to what I wanted in high school and compare that to what I want now as a woman.

I wanted to be living in Europe with a career in something international, business suit required.  I did not want to be married and most definitely did not want children.  I wanted to be able to travel on a whim and see and experience whatever culture I found myself in.  I wanted independence and importance.

That is not what I want now...

The Most Important Job

"The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world."

My sisters have both written on motherhood this week - I guess their minds are focused on it from the celebration of Mother's Day last weekend but that isn't what I mean to write about.  Not exclusively, anyway.

Of course, as the above quote implies, it is about those people who are raising up children.  Those people who are impacting the next generation each hour, each day of their lives.  I want to celebrate mothers but also fathers, grandparents, babysitters, whoever is pouring themselves into children on a daily, usually hourly, basis.  Whoever the primary caregivers are.

I know of kids being raised by gransparents, aunts and uncles, or foster parents.  I know of a particular young single woman who has become a foster parent en lieu of the as-yet-future family she wants for herself.  She is taking the opportunity to give love and care to someone else's child for whom she holds no responsibility - what a blessing she is being to that child.

I am convinced that these people have the most important job on earth.

Sisters Chat about the Institution of Marriage

Maude: In light of the marriage amendment that just passed in NC, I wanted to talk about the institution of marriage.
Esther: good idea
Maude: Clearly, marriages are falling apart all over the place. Why do you think that is? What is causing that to happen do you think?
Lizzi: I think people don't know what it's supposed to be about. They have faulty perceptions of fairytale love and don't see the necessity of commitment and self-sacrifice.
Esther: I think a lot of it boils down to selfishness. Marriage is work, is sacrifice, but putting the other's needs before your own - that is not easy.
Maude: I think it is selfishness. I think people are increasingly self-centered and don't know how to put others first.
Haha!
We are reading each other's minds, Es!
Esther:  Great minds think alike.
Maude: I read an article recently that said a scientific study had proven that selfish behaviours and attitudes increase before divorces occur. I thought, "You need a scientfic study to show that?!"
Esther: It is really easy to love someone who is loving you. But, when they're mean and not being lovely we want to kick them to the curb. No one is perfect but is much easier to shrug off my own selfishness then to forgive my husband's selfishness.
Lizzi: So true. We only feel content when we are getting what we want and when times get tough and people act human, we want to stand up for our "rights" and give up.

The Difference Between Boys and Girls

Okay, I am not going to talk about the obvious difference here!!  I just mean the differences any mother of both sexes can tell you.  It is fascinating.

The other day I was vaccuuming after we had finished working on a creative project and there were some sticky foam circles under the table.  I asked Maeva to come over and pick "some things up for me"  she picked up the circles as well as a chunk of cookie that she found on the floor and threw it away.   If I had asked Milton to pick them up he would have either picked up every miniscule little crumb in an effort to be helpful or would have wanted more precise instructions of what I wanted.

TransAtlantic Differences

When recently staying at a hotel in America it reminded me of something new that I experienced at the Bed & Breakfast I stayed at in Germany a few months back.  It was a recently built B&B and even though I was staying in my room with a girl I didn't know they would only issue us one key (a card key - which is easy to dupicate!) to share.  When we got to the room we found out why.  In order to use any electricity in the room one had to put the card in a slot on the wall which actuated the electricity.  This meant that we couldn't leave lights on when we left the room - makes sense it saves money for the B&B but it meant that my roommate had to sit in the room and wait while her cell phone charged and we had to really coordinate going to and from the room with each other which was a big pain.

That would never have worked in the US - especially for the rates we were paying.  But that difference made me think of some of the other differences between Europe and the US in my experience. 

The Beach Boys are Back!

When asking a woman in her 60's once what it was like to grow up back then one of her comments was that all the young people listened to the same music. It wasn't like today with a hundred different genres. Regardless of race or economic status, everyone knew the same songs. I think that was part of the magic of the 60's and 70's. Music really was unifying (at least among the young generation!).

Just in time for summer, the Beach Boys will be releasing a new album on June 5th!  They are celebrating their 50th anniversary with a new album and a tour.  Three of the original members: Brian Wilson, Mike Love and Al Jardine, and two other members who were a part of the band as well but not founding members, David Marks and Bruce Johnston.  The other two original members, Carl and Dennis Wilson have passed away.

Of course, I was not yet a twinkle in my father's eye when the Beach Boys were hot in the 60's and 70's but, nevertheless, I feel a thrill of excitment at their reunion.  Who doesn't like the Beach Boys?

Sisters Chat: Dealing with the Elements

I have entitled this chat 'Dealing with the Elements' because we will talk about our responses to factors (exhaustion, anger, stress, excitement) that are simply part of living this life.

Lizzi: We all have full, busy lives. This can mean that at times we suffer from sheer exhaustion.

What do you do when you need to relax?

Maude: I have 2 main things that relax me - reading a good novel and laying down (that's important!). And listening to music.

Esther: A bath with a book.

Maude: Yuck. I hate baths. I tried that once - a bath with a book - I found it stressful, or at least irritating.

Lizzi: I like baths and books to relax, but not together!

Esther:  Really? I think it is wonderful.

Maude: Ugh. To each her own.

Lizzi: I'd just end up dropping my book in the water or catching it on fire with the candles and I'd be stressed out again. BUT I do love them both at separate times.

Maude: How do you turn the pages with wet hands?

Lizzi: Exactly!