March 15th & 16th

Thursday night I took the kids by myself to Springfield to get some things for Cade’s party.  Actually, we ended up spending more time at the mall.  Cade wanted to wear shorts on Wednesday and we discovered that he only had a couple of pairs that fit.  We were on a mission to find him some that fit.  We found one pair of jeans shorts.  In the entire mall.  Cade also decided to buy a Chiefs jersey with a Christmas gift card.  I was sweating profusely from bending up and down…take Camryn out of the stroller, put Camryn back in the stroller, repeat continuously.  By our last stop I didn’t care any more.  I was so so hot and sweaty.  I was looking for a shirt.  I let Camryn crawl around on the store floor while Cade chased her.  Then she stood herself up on the mirror in the store and started beating it.  I’m sure the store people loved me.  Camryn was dirty, Cade had used his shorts as a napkin when we ate dinner and I was so hot my hair was sticking to my head.  We looked really nice.  We probably drove everyone in that store crazy.

On Friday Cade wanted to wear his new jersey to school.  I told him that was fine.  When they got home from school the first thing Jay said was “they had pictures today”.  Cades said “don’t worry mom, I filled the form out myself”.  Then I realized I don’t think I’d checked his backpack since Christmas break.  I used to think those people who didn’t look at their kids backpacks were terrible.  Five years later I’m worn down by the backpack junk.  There is so much stuff in there!  So we are officially the parents that the other parents will look at the class picture and say “well the Shepherds must have forgotten it was picture day”.  Oh well, A Chiefs jersey will be ok.  Really, how many pictures can we have of Cade wearing a polo shirt?  Jay asked him about filling out the form….Cade said he had to mark what pose he wanted taken and fill out his name and stuff.  Luckily they take these pictures and then you buy the ones you want later….obviously Cade wouldn’t have had a checkbook to pay with.   Jay and I were a little embarrassed about it.  We asked him if other kids had to fill out their own forms.  Cade said he was the only one. 

Oh, and we started out the day by having to call Poison Control before we could even leave for work.  Camryn decided to eat a Peace Lilly leaf.  The girl won't touch food, but give her paper, a toxic plant or a dried up leaf from someone's shoe and she can't stuff it in her mouth fast enough. 

We were supposed to go to Wal Mart before we came home Thursday night.  We didn't make it. 

March 13

I really didn't plan to write a post every day about March, but the thrills are non-stop around here. The office is still an absolute mess. We moved computers around on Monday. Today we kept throwing a breaker. It's like being in Disneyland all day long (not!). Then today Pam and I had a meeting in Springfield (I left her drive, great decision on my part). After the meeting we decided to stop for a drink. We got rear ended. Thankfully no one was hurt and the vehicles weren't damaged too bad. Just some scrapes. Since Pam's husband is an auto body teacher it was for the best she was driving:) It wasn't too big of deal....we just got quite a jolt in more ways than one.

The other bit of excitment that has been talked about a lot in the last 24 hours is our cattle. Buttons, Cade's first bull has some sort of infection. He doesn't have any problems breeding cows but his tests don't come back good enough to be sold for a bull. That was disappointment number 1 for Jay when he found out about that yesterday. Disappointment #2 was about Jewels, Cade's other show heifer. At least I think she's still a heifer. I'm loosing track of what ones have had calves previously. Anway, Jay thought she was bred to another bull. He even sent blood samples somewhere to make sure she was bred and they came back positive. Apparantly she lost her calf somewhere along the way and no one knew. But a vet checked her out last week and she is pregnant....and if you count back from when she is due to when she would've been bred that makes Buttons the father. Buttons and Jewels are full brother and sister. We may have a three headed calf come June. Jay is sick about it. I've had to laugh about it a little....Really, Jay and I are total reproductive disasters. If it's not us it's our livestock. I mean we have a bull who has a terrible sperm count but manages to get his full sister pregnant. What are the chances? Cade has been the only thing we've had turn out reproductively speaking in the 12 years we've been married.

But our reproductive disasters are ok because it did help to bring this sweet baby girl into our lives. Tonight we went to the park for a little bit and I put her in a swing for the first time. She liked it for about 10 seconds and then she was through with it. I was looking back on the blog and a year ago was the start of some very rough adoption months for us. I think from the middle of March to May 17 we were shown about as many times as we were the other 3 years we waited. We were getting No's right and left from both agencies. Last spring was a very frustrating time. I still get overwhelmed when I think about all that we went through and how God turned it into way more than I ever could've hoped for. Life is so different than it was a year ago....




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March 12

I don't know why, but the 6 weeks that I'm older than Jay seems to be a big deal around our house.  Jay loves to rub it in.  Since he makes a big deal about it Cade is picking up on it. 

Cade spent the weekend with Jim and Sharon and we forgot to pack his Singular.  We missed 2 doses of it and it is not quite a sinus infection but it looks suspicious.  Since they were out of school today Jay took Cade to the doctor so he wouldn't have to miss any school later in the week.  Which as a side note Jay thought it was a travesty they were in the doctors office from start to finish for 70 minutes.  I told him that was a good day :)  Anyway, Cade doesn't have a full blown sinus infection yet, but the doctor gave him a prescription for nose spray to use now and an antibiotic in case he starts running a fever later in the week.  After the appointment they picked me up for lunch and then we dropped of the nose spray prescription.  One of Jay's former students works at the pharmacy so she took the prescription.  As we were pulling away we had this conversation....

Cade:  She looks familiar
Me:  Yeah, she went to Miller
Jay:  She is a former student.  There are a lot of those around any more.
Me:  Cade your dad is so old he's got a lot of former students around town
Cade:  Yeah, but mom you're older than him

March 10th

Miller's contest was held on the 10th. It was huge. I did end up going to the school, which I knew I would. I went mostly just to see it, but I ended up helping Jania at the registration table. That was fine with me. Jania and I can work well together and I wasn't around Jay at all, since he and I don't work well together :) I can't say it enough....the contest went really really well. There ended up being something like 65 schools and almost a 1,000 kids total. Jay figured there were at least 100 volunteers.

I had never been to a contest before so I had no idea what to even expect, but this was more than I expected. To start out with all of the kids were put in the gym and then each contest group was dismissed. The gym was full. You couldn't fit anyone else in there. The person taking pictures for the paper said her lens wasn't big enough to do it justice because it was so full. I wanted to take some pictures to post but I ended up helping and didn't have time. Looking at all of the buses parked in the front of the school was unbelievable.

It ran like a well oiled machine. There were so many people who put in a lot of time for this contest. Not just parents even. Lyle and Jay had a lot of former students come back to help. I think that says a lot for the type of teachers Lyle and Jay are - they had so many past students willing to give up a lot of time to help them out. And it wasn't just yesterday that they gave up their time. The Alumni group has been working on this since last summer. I think this week there were a lot of them that lived at the school. Every room in the High school was used and most of the elementary.

Some of the contests had to be held at other areas...Ag Mechanics was at a tire shop in town, all of the livestock contests were held at an Arena that isn't too far from our house and Soils and Forrestry was held at a Conservation area outside of town. The bus schedule was unbelievable. I think it was Jania that figured out the timing and number of kids that needed to be delivered to all of these different places. I had to run home after it started to get Jay some clean jeans (he sorted hogs that morning) and it was pretty neat meeting the long line of Miller buses delivering hundereds of kids to where they needed to be.

Again, I'm overwhelmed with the community we live in. When stuff like this happens I think about how I didn't want to move here and God knew what He was doing. Jay and Lyle have made a great team over the past 11 years. Then There are so many great people who live here and they've helped Jay and Lyle so much to build one of the best chapters in the state. Yesterday was definitely a good way to showcase all of the strenghts of Miller's program. It probably also didn't hurt that they were able to display a National CDE trophy on the registration table....

I wish I had some pictures to post because I know that a lot of people who read this don't understand what I'm talking about. Hopefully I will get some eventually.

I really didn't have a babysitter yesterday. Jim and Sharon took Cade to a Civil War reinactment in Pea Ridge Arkansas and everyone else I knew was at the school. Camryn went with me and she was absolutely perfect. Plenty of people were more than willing to take her from me. It was kind of funny because she'd leave with someone and the next time I'd see her she'd be with someone different. Typing that out sounds like something some might worry about, but I never did. I knew she was in good hands all day. And for a good part of the day she was just like this....



She was such a good baby all day long.  And of course she had to wear blue and gold.

March 9th

This post will probably be long.  I'm sorry for that, but Friday was one of those long days.  Lets just say that what I witnessed today makes me want to shut our water off any time we will be away from home...like evey day.

It's about 10:30 this evening and I'm trying to stay awake waiting for Jay to get home.  He's still at the school (been there since 8am) setting up the contest.  The total registered number is 1680 students.  Jay said they say to take 20% off of that number for no shows.  Still 80% of 1680 is a lot of high school kids floating around Miller, Mo.

I had an exciting day.  Probably the most exciting day in all my adult working years...heck, probably in all my years.  Up until this point my most exciting day was the time I walked in to see a co-worker staring at a snake on the office floor.  Today didn't cause me to almost faint like the snake did, but it was definitley a wild day.

So to set the stage of this story....Darrell (the loan officer who used to be my boss until we restructred the company last year) is on vacation....fishing...in Mexico.  Even though Darrell isn't technically the boss any more we still function like he is.  Really, the whole thing is a messed up deal but I could fill every page on this blog with the poor decisions made the last two years.  I will stop with that part of the story or I'll be here all night...  Thursday was our Customer Appreciation Day.  I was the same as there by myself.  Since Darrell was gone our receptionist covered the Cassville office Thursday afternoon, but she came back later to help clean up. We had 90 people come in between 8am and 6pm. Pam and I left the office right at 7pm.  I was exhausted, but I knew today was Friday and I would be leaving early to take Camryn to her 9 month check-up.

Pam was going to come in a little late today.  There were supposed to be 4 of us in the office...Me, Pam, Hailey and Connie (They work in our office two days a week on crop insurance stuff).  Are you following me ok?  I know it's confusing but stick with me....  That meant that I was the one who would be there first.  I unlocked the door and immediately I knew Camryn would not be going to the doctor that day and I would not be leaving early....

There was several inches of water standing in half of the office and I could hear more pouring in from somewhere.  My first thought was "Did Pam and I leave something running last night"?  I ran to the bathroom between my office and Darrell's office and could see water running from under the sink.  I opened up the cabinet and it poured out like a flood.  As I was racing back to call Pam to get our landlords number Hailey walked in.  

The next several minutes are a blur....thankfully a customer stopped in right after Hailey came in and they got the water turned off.  I was on the phone off and on with Pam and two of the guys "in charge" out of Springfield.  Hailey and Connie were checking out everything and reporting back to me....Darrell's office floor had several inches of water standing in it.  Mine was sloshy but not standing.  Pam's area was wet, but not sloshy...then they went to the basement.  Pretty much everything down there was ruined because the drop ceiling had fallen through and the water was ankle deep.  I'm trying to convey all of this mess to the guys in Springfield and the first thing they could ask was "could I get to my computer to work".  I finally had to say that I could get to it, but there was no way I was sitting in water to work.  Sometimes I really wonder about these "smarter" people I work with.  Then they kept asking me about the filing cabinets in the basement.  Lets see....we have a fridge plugged in, the ceiling is falling through and the water is ankle deep....excuse me for not trotting through it to check your precious 10 year old paid files.   What was on the tip of my tounge was to tell them to drive their happy butts from Springfield to Mt Vernon and check it out themselves.  But I contained myself.

While all of that was going on I remembered Camryn and her doctors appointment.  By this time it was about 8:30, which is when you can start calling her doctors office.  But the line is always busy so you have to try over and over.  I knew things were going to be a mess and I couldn't rely on myself to remember to keep calling.  I knew Jay was extremely busy but I figured he was probably in a touch better place stress wise than I was at that moment.  I think our conversation went something like this.....

I know you are busy but you need to call Camryn's doctor the office is flooded and the ceiling has fallen through on the basement we probably need to see if your mom can pick up Camryn because Stacy needs her to be picked up early but now i can't remember if she said 3 or 3:30 I'll have to call her and find out and then let you know and your mom will need to stop by here because I have her car seat (notice no periods in there - I think I said all of that in 3 seconds).  Jay had to tell me to slow down because he didn't understand anything I said.  Finally I got it all spit out in a reasonable speed and Jay took care of calling the doctor.

By this time the Landlord's wife showed up.  Let's just say she was not very nice at the beginning.  In fact she was quite hateful.  Later during the day she was much better so I know it was just the overwhelming mess that made her mean to begin with.  But the first thing she asked us when she saw it was very hateful "how long has this been happening"....Let me see....when Pam and I left last night at 7 the pipe was spewing and we locked up and said we'd deal with it in the morning....Good grief woman - we opened the door at 8 and found it like this. 

Finally about 11 Service Master had showed up and they were starting to get things cleaned up.  Darrell had left his laptop so I was able to move it into another office and at least have a computer.  Except I think not having one might have been better.  I guess the combination of me logging into Darrell's laptop on a different monitor freaked the resolution out on the montior.  The print on the screen was so tiny.  I had to get my nose right on the screen to read anything. Thanks to LASIK surgery 7 years ago I have near perfect vision, so I know I wasn't the one with the problem. When I tried to type emails a whole paragraph stayed on one line across the entire monitor. I know some of the emails I sent were jumbled messes.  By 1:30 pm I was completely worn out.  I think it was 25% excitement/stress and 75% straining to read my computer monitor...but by golly I was working!  Oh, and I did try to call our IT department to fix it but because the call is routed somewhere else they didn't know how to fix it.   I finally told them to forget it.  I didn't have the patience to stay on the phone with them for an hour to figure it out. And they've locked down our computers so we can't even fix simple stuff like that on our own.

When I got back from lunch about 2:30 ( I just sat at Sonic for almost an hour because I didn't want to go back) Pam told me Service Master needed us to go to the basement to tell them what could be thrown away.  I went down and pulled out some Christmas decorations that would dry and a couple of boxes of envelopes.  Other than that it was all wet nasty junk that needed to be trashed.  Pam looked horrified.  I went round and round with Pam over stuff that needed to be thrown away.  She kept thinking we could get it dry.  I kept telling her that printers we haven't used in a hundred years and a typewriter circa 1965 needed to be thrown in the handy dumpster the landlord put out back.  I kept explaining over and over how when things get wet they really have to be thrown away because of the risk of mold.  Pam, who you'd never guess to look at her is one of the most stubborn people I've been around.  I almost lost my temper a couple of times.  At one point she was digging through a box and I said "Pam, when was the last time you even looked in that box"?  "If you haven't opened it in the last 6 months WE DON'T NEED IT".  She laughed and told the Service Master guy she knew we needed to wait for me to get back from lunch to go through the basement.  Pam went back upstairs and I told the Service Master guy to not ask her about anything anymore, just come to me.  He said "yeah, we need to keep her out of it". 

What I don't understand is why we would need to keep anything from the basement.  It would be one things if we were a small business and ordering new letterhead and envelopes would be a hardship. We aren't one of those companies.  We are a large organization covering all of the state minus the bootheel.  We made millions of $$ last year.  We are building new million dollar buildings.  FCS can definitely afford to buy us new envelopes.  I don't like to be wasteful either, but if it's wet it's ruined.  End of story.

It was probably a good thing this happend on a Friday.  We have the weekend to recover.  Except Monday may not be any better.  My office and Darrell's is a mess and we've got 6 fans and a humidifer blowing.  You can't talk above the noise.  The fans are also putting out hot air.  The temp in the office from the fans is 92 degrees.  Next week it's supposed to be near 80 outside all week....Pam and I may be working in shorts and tank tops.

March 6th

Today is March 6th so the month is rolling on by. Of course not without a nasty cough from Cade. Last night he told me he felt like he was getting bronchitis. He wasn’t running a fever but he did have that cough. This morning he was even slower than normal (which means he moved slower than a snail’s pace). He didn’t look good, but we sent him on to school. We’ll have to keep our eye on him. At least if he does get it sick it appears to be hitting a week earlier. Hopefully he’ll be over it by next week, or better yet he won’t even get sick at all. Maybe he’s just tired???


He really wants to go on the school’s perfect attendance party to Incredible Pizza. That is a goal he’s set for himself to accomplish sometime before he completes the 6th grade. Luckily it’s only a semester at a time, so he might have a chance. He gets so down every year when some of his friends go on that trip. The first time he got upset about this trip I totally reverted back to my own school days. I remember those kids who had to have perfect attendance. They were so annoying! They also would come to school puking and snotting and laying all over their desks for the day just so they could say they had perfect attendance. They passed their crud on to the rest of us who had parents that kept us at home when we got sick - like parents are supposed to do! (just ignore my previous line of where we sent Cade to school today). Anyway, when Cade was going on about missing the trip apparently I’ve got some unresolved issues with kids who have perfect attendance. Before I could stop myself I blurted out “Cade, only nerds get to go on that trip…do you really want to be a nerd”. You should’ve seen the look of horror that came across Jay’s face. For several months later, completely out of the blue, Cade would ask why I said only nerds went on the trip. Jay would roll his eyes and tell me I should never had said that. Probably not my best mother moment.

I really hope Cade doesn’t get sick because this will be a bad week for it to happen. Kids can be so inconsiderate! Don’t they know they should check your schedule before they decide to start feeling bad? (I’m totally kidding). But this is a crazy week for both Jay and me. The loan officer is on vacation this week so we are short handed covering two offices and hosting our customer appreciation day on Thursday. I really can’t miss work Thursday. Miller now has over 1600 kids coming to their contest on Saturday. Jay really can’t miss work this week. I’ll need to have a talk with Cade and if this is going to blossom into a fever and full fledged bronchitis he will need to do it on Wednesday or wait until Friday. Again, I am kidding….sort of….

In other news this week….Jay is going a little crazy with this contest thing. He talked to a guy a month ago about borrowing his goats and the guy said it was fine. Jay called him this week to confirm and the guy sold his goats. I think that caused a moment of stress….luckily Jay tracked down some more. A cattle person would’ve said upfront, “hey, I’m thinking about selling all my cows”. It’s a decision not taken lightly, there is lots of thought that goes into it. I guess a goat person wakes up one morning and decides to sell out? Between my job and going to college to get my ag degree and being raised on a farm there is one thing I’ve learned. There are different types of farmers and there are different ways of thinking between the different types. A row crop/cattle farmer does not think like a horse person. A horse person does not think like a goat person. A typical beef cattle farmer does not think like a steer jock, etc. Jay has the Ag Teacher/Beef Cattle mentality. He’s trying to talk to all of these different types of livestock personalities and mesh it all together to get the animals where they need to be Saturday morning. Then he got a phone call from the sheep guy who decided to back out because his sheep were “too wooly”. Figure that one out.

I know there are other things going on that I don’t even know about. Actually I don’t know much about what is going on Saturday. Except that Miller’s population will be almost tripled from 7am to 2pm. I may drive around and gawk at it. Of course I don’t want to actually help. Well I should clarify…it’s not that I don’t want to lend a hand…I just don’t want to be around the nervousness. I’m sure Jay and Lyle will be wound tight. I really don’t want to be near that. Too bad I just can’t seem to find a sitter for Saturday….gosh darn…looks like I’ll just have to stay home…

March 1

Today is March 1. It is looking like this month will go about the same as the other March’s since we’ve been married. The month starts out with Jay going to an Ag Mechanics workout and State FFA Officer Interviews in Sheldon tonight and the month will end with District Contests in Springfield. Between those two events will be many other workouts and contests, including a contest in Miller this year. So far there are over 900 kids registered to attend the Miller contest on March 10. Columbia is even sending some kids and so is a school in Arkansas. For those who don’t really understand FFA – this is a huge deal. Jay’s already warned me I’ll be single parenting next week while they get set up. They will be taking over both the elementary and high school, a tire shop, a rodeo arena, and someone’s dairy farm…just to name a few. I’ve been out of the loop so I don’t even know all of the details. I’ve had some people talk to me like I know what’s going on. I just smile and nod.


Between all the FFA stuff we also have to squeeze in two birthdays. Really…it’s more like 1 birthday since mine isn’t a big deal, but I would like to maybe at least go out and eat all together. This year we are all having somewhat monumental days….Jay and I turn 35, Cade turns 10 and Camryn will be 1. So we have to celebrate! I think we already make Cade’s birthday’s pretty special, but I’m going to add a few things this year. Since we will make a big deal out of Camryn’s 1st birthday, I don’t want Cade to feel left out….and he is hitting double digits. Wow!

This year Cade is going with a Lego theme. I already checked with Janella and the cake is in the works. Jay makes fun of me because I always check with Janella way ahead of time. Since Cade’s birthday falls during spring breaks I’m always afraid she will be on a trip. BUT then I chuckle to myself because I know that’s not going to happen. Janella’s husband does the same thing Jay does….there’s not a chance any of us will ever leave town during March. In an Ag Teachers world Spring Break isn’t a time for family vacations….it’s more free time to work on contest stuff. Even when they retire I doubt we will ever take a trip in the spring. They will end up helping with some contest team or judging a contest or something. I doubt too many retired ag teachers give up the March “thrill” cold turkey.

Jay always says there should be some sort of Ag Teacher Wive’s support group. That’s probably true. Only another wife would understand how you can love your husband, but yet not really like to be around them when you have to help judge a district contest. Or how you totally block them out when they say ridiculous things like…We got 3rd place but we were only 50 points out of 1st. That statement makes no sense to anyone who hasn’t been around an Ag Teacher. And I know that at least for Jania and I, we hear it all the time in March. All. The. Time. Or phone calls at work asking if I can pull up Judging Card because he’s can’t get it to pull up on his phone and they are slow about posting the results and so and so said that another team won it, etc.

March also brings sickness to our house. I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining because it’s never serious which I’m thankful for, but it is definitely a fact of life for us. You can look at my March timesheets for proof. Poor Cade is always sick around his birthday. One year he ran a high fever for days and I think it shaved a few years off of my life. Jay was saying things like “we almost won, but we got 4th place” and I was a wreck because Cade was so sick(again, why there should be a wives support group). Good times, good times. But this year I am prepared! Cade’s doctor thinks he’s allergic to something that comes out this time of year and then before we know it, it blooms into a nasty bacterial thing. The Singular is out and ready to be taken this evening. WE WILL NOT BE SICK THIS MONTH. I repeat WE WILL NOT BE SICK THIS MONTH.

So I guess I’m ready for March to bring all that it has in store for us. I better be ready, because I really don’t have a choice!

And as a totally random side note because I thought it was funny….Camryn was kind of mean when we picked her up last night. She likes to shove Cade’s face away very roughly and she did it several times then she tried to grab the sitters cat. When I didn’t let her grab it she got mad and kicked at it. When we got home Cade very seriously said to me “Camryn is very snotty tonight”. I don’t know why but it has cracked me up. I didn’t say it, but I was thinking “just wait until she can talk”!