Today I went to the library and it completely made my day.  I had a busy day with work and errands and the library was the bright spot of my entire day.  I have lived in Sharpsville since July but I have never been to the library...until today.  While running my errands I found myself in Tipton at the bank, which is only a block from the library. I could just hear that place calling my name.  Sidenote - yes it is the Tipton County Library... you know you live in a rural area when the towns don't have their own libraries and it is the county that has one library.

So I left the bank and made the short trek to the glorious house of books.  Right when I walked in I felt all stress just melt off my body and my to-do list just floated away.  I got lost in the card catalog and thought of all the books I want to read and haven't yet.  I only checked one out for now, but you know what was even better than checking that book out?  It was the fact that I was holding a brand new, shiny library card in my hand and the possibilities are endless!  Okay...maybe that was a little dramatic, but seriously...libraries are awesome and I am planning on putting a lot of miles on this new library card of mine.  Hopefully this means our Amazon line-item on our budget won't need to be used so much anymore =)

You know what else is AWESOME about libraries...the way they smell!  Read more about this on one of my favorite blogs - 1000 Awesome Things by clicking here.

Now I am off to cook dinner for my hubby, then clean, then read!

Until next time,

For the month of January I wanted to learn more about marriage and being a Godly wife.  For those of you who don't remember, one of my 2012 resolutions was to research one topic a month...you can read that blog post by clicking here.                                             

A couple days ago I finished reading "Love & Respect" by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs.  I enjoyed this book, but didn't completely love Emerson's writing style.  If I had to you tell what I thought about this book in one word it would be overrated.  This is a book that tons of Christian couples have read and recommended, and I have even been told by multiple couples that it was this book that was the curriculum for their pre-marital counseling. 

The whole book is centered on Ephesians 5:33 where Paul writes "Each one of you must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband".  The book talks about how women have a huge desire to feel loved by their husbands, and men desire respect from their wives.  The book goes even further to say that husbands should give their wives "unconditional love" and wives should give their husbands "unconditional respect". 

Unconditional love...we have heard the term, read the term, and seen the term a million times in books, ads, and chick flicks.  But unconditional respect...sounds weird.  Isn't respect something that we have to earn?  Emerson says no.  I agree and disagree.

I agree that many women are too overbearing, bossy, and disrespectful to their husbands.  But if my husband was some low-life, wife-beating, cheating jackwagon then he ain't getting no respect from me!  Good thing Brady is amazing and nearly perfect =)

The words unconditional respect sound like an oxymoron to me...but maybe I am wrong, and it just sounds weird because this isn't ever a term we hear in society.  But right there in Ephesians 5:33 God clearly states that a wife must respect her husband. Period.  That's it.  It doesn't say respect your husband only when he deserves it.  If God says it then it has to be right...so I have a lot of work to do in this "must respect my husband areana".  Good thing the only person I must respect is Brady...and my elders...is that in the Bible? 

Sometimes...okay pretty much all the time...it can be difficult being a respectful wife in America.  We see TV shows that completely disrespect men as fathers and husbands...think Homer Simpson.  And there are many men who aren't fulfilling their roles as spiritual leaders in their homes, instead they go to the office and work 40, 50, 60+ hour work weeks and then come home and don't connect at all with their wife or kids.  Women only fuel this fire because we live in a country of overbearing feminists who have their own money, have their own job, their own friends, and their own life.  God calls us to be united as one in marriage.  This means one bank account, one house, one bed, one heart, and one sex partner. 

God never makes mistakes, His ways are never wrong. In fact, His ways are always perfect.  So join Brady and I as we strive to have a marriage that makes God smile every day. 

Back to the book though...I liked it, didn't love it.  I would check it out from the library but not buy it...but if you do want to buy it, then just click on the picture of the book above and it will take you to amazon where you can purchase it new or used.

I have started reading Mark and Grace Driscoll's new book "Real Marriage," so expect a review of that in a few days.  And at the end of the month I will recap all I have learned about marriage!

Thanks for reading and sorry I kinda jumped around!

Today was a busy day on the farm filled with many great opportunities.  The boys and Aunt Jenny spent the morning in the hog barns working over litters and feeding all the pigs.

I spent the morning at the Fort Wayne Farm Show listening to Rich Morrision give a presentation on "Market Strategies in 2012".  Rich works with me at Diversified Services, he is a Risk Management Analyst and I am a Crop Insurance Specialist.  The Farm Show was a great opportunity to see everything that is up and coming in agriculture and also to network with farmers and people in the industry. 

When I got back from the Farm Show I met Brady and Billy at one of the hog barns to give a tour to some visitors.  These weren't just any visitors though, they were from the International Food Information Council.  They flew all the way from Washington DC to central Indiana to get a view of farm life.  This included a tour of one of our confined hog operations...made us feel special!  

Our farm, especially the hog operation side of it, is always welcome to visitors, tours, and anyone who has general questions about pork production.  We feel this is the best way to show that we raise healthy, happy, well taken care of hogs.  There are zero animal welfare issues, no animals are in distress, and all the hogs are treated well and respected as living things.  Yes hogs are money makers for us, and that...along with the grain operation, is how we support four families on the farm. 

Us having the farm open to visitors and tours often answers many questions and stops negative comments about livestock farming before they even start.  The animals are treated well and we have nothing to hide...so come on over!

We have a farrow to finish hog operation - meaning that we have boars and sows who do the hanky panky. The sows then have piglets after a gestation period of three months, three weeks and three days (114 days).  These piglets are cared for and fed for 6 months until they are market weight (250 - 270 pounds) They are then sent to the slaughter house to meet their maker and get butchered for delicious and nutritious pork.

The Peters/Mundell hog operation is a 300 sow outfit and we ship just under 5000 hogs to market annually.  It is a confinment operation, which means the pigs are kept indoors at all times.  This keeps the hogs at a comfortable temperature all year long, they live in state of the art buildings where the air quality is constantly monitored.  The confinment operation model of pork production is often criticized by animal welfare groups who say that hogs should be able to run wild and free...but tons of research has found that the pigs stay much more healthy and happy when they are inside during the freezing cold winters and scorching hot summers.

The International Food Information Council is a non-profit group based in Washington DC and their mission is to "effectively communicate science based information on health, nutrition, and food safety for the public good."  They are independent, not-for-profit, and they aren't on anyone's side...they just want the facts and thats why they fly places like our farm to get them.  They "do not lobby or further any political, partisan, or corporate interest"...they simply collect information and pass it onto the public so we can have educated consumers.

They got the whole tour and nothing was hidden from them, because there is nothing to hide.  We even discussed "controversial" issues such as farrowing crates, ear notches, teeth clipping, tail docking, and confinment hog barns.  I already touched on confinment and the positives of that.

Farrowing crates are crates where the mama pigs are kept when they have their babies.  Many animal welfare groups have the information about farrowing crates all wrong...saying that a sow spends most of her life in a crate.  When in fact she only spends a few weeks in a crate, these few weeks happen a couple days before she has a littler of piglets and a couple weeks after so she can nurse them.  The crates allow the sows to take care of here babies without laying on them (too much), and also the sow doesn't have to compete with all the other hogs for feed.  She is fed all by herself and can eat whenever she wants and she gets plenty of feed to support her health and the health of all her newborn piglets.

Ear notches are simply a means of identification for every animal.  Different places on the pig's ear mean different numbers, and these notches tell us the pigs age.  We use ear notches instead of ear tags for the well being of the animal - ear tags are often chewed on, played with, and ripped out by other hogs, where as ear notches are a perfect solution to this.

Teeth clipping is a practice hog farmers do for the health and comfort of the sows.  Baby pigs are born with super sharp "eye teeth", which are very comparable to a puppies teeth. These teeth will often cut the sows teets and cause infection when all the piglets are biting and sucking on the open wound.  The solution to this is clipping off the tip of the teeth so they aren't so sharp.  This is virtually painless to the pig because the nerve of their tooth is much further down from where the tip is clipped off.

Tail docking is done because pigs like to chew, and when they get older they will chew on anything that is available...this includes their little buddies tails.  We cut the tail off close to the base so the other hogs dont' have anything to chew on.  This process takes less than one second and most tails never even bleed a drop.

To find more information about the International Food Information Council just check out their webpage at www.foodinsight.org and to find out more about pork production and farming just ask me or Brady. 

Thanks for reading!

There are days when we can't even handle two dogs, and I am on the verge of giving one of them away.  I hope I never want to give one of my kids away...even though I am sure it is a good possibility.  Having the dogs gives Brady and I a little taste of what it will be like to have a baby...even though we won't just kick our baby outside in the snow to take a dump =) 

But in all seriousness, dogs are a huge responsibility!  You have to feed them - make sure each dog is eating his own food, bathe them - this usually consists of me in the tub with Gus wearing a bathing suit and Brady playing defense on the outside of the tub making sure he doesn't jump out, give them toys to chew to deter them from eating things like blinds, furniture, and doors - yes Gus has destroyed all those things, give them flea, tick, heartworm meds, get them a babysitter when we are out of town...yada yada yada.

Well now with our newest addition to the family comes another challenge...doggie potty training.  Gus was trained when I got him and I didn't realize how amazing this really was.  Dale is pretty good but he still has a few accidents in a week...and they are always on the carpet! 

So on to the part about why we aren't ready for kids...this weekend Brady was out of town with his man friends and I was here in good ol Sharpsville, IN with my girlfriends.  Brady and I both had super fun weekends with our old college buds but after a couple days apart we were really missing each other and couldn't wait to be reunited...for multiple reasons =)

Well the girls had all left and after a little snooze on the couch I was up and trying to get everything spic and span so my hubby could come home to a stress free, clean house just like he left it.  Well Dale crapped on that plan when I was napping...literally.  I walked into the dining room and there was a little goldmine just waiting for me in there...ugh.  So I showed it to Dale, yelled at him, smacked him on the nose, and put him outside.  Then I proceeded to clean up the mess.  As I was cleaning it I didn't notice that Dale left a secret little turd a couple feet away from the original crime scene and I stepped in it...on our nicest rug, wearing my favorite slippers. 

Fast forward a couple hours...Dale has just been outside with Gus running and playing in the snow for about 40 minutes...so surely he has gone to the bathroom right?  Wrong.  He came back in the house and five minutes hadn't passed and I see him squatting on the same nice rug starting to take a huge crap.  I picked him up while he was in the act, did the yelling/smacking routine, and was livid!  Not only did he crap on the rug twice in one afternoon...but he interrupted my TurboFire time with Chalene.  As Stephanie Tanner would say, "How rude!" 

At this point Brady was less than an hour away, and my excitement to see him had been replaced by feelings of murder towards Dale.  So of course I texted Brady to tell him how mad I was, how he better get here soon before Dale gets turned into a puppy bomb (Krista, Megan Erica, Brittany, Chelsie...hope you read that, haha), how if Dale isn't a perfect dog just like Gus then we are getting rid of him in a month, etc. 

So what I did was let Dale's crapfest, turn Brady's homecoming into a crapfest.  There was no passionate kissing and or can't keep your hands off each other sexy time becuase we have missed each other so much moment...there was stress, silence, and angry feelings towards each other and Dale.  

I can see how easy it is to make mistakes raising kids because I have made plenty just being a fur baby mama.  I have a favorite dog...*cough cough* Gus.  And the biggest thing I see is that when either dog does something bad it adds stress to our home and puts strain on the marriage relationship. 

Needless to say we all kissed and made up, we forgave Dale and decided to be better trainers for him, and we did have our can't keep your hands off each other sexy time later that evening.   

Until next time,

Does anyone else feel sad this time of year?  I am a complete lover of the holiday season...the food, family, friends, time off work, and happiness all around.  So when Christmas passes and the new year begins I always find myself feeling kind of...blah.  Don't worry...I am not depressed or anything, just singing the "blues" a bit.  So this year I have been really concentrating on trying to enjoy the time of year.

Winter does offer a lot more than Christmas and New Years.  There is the Superbowl, Valentine's Day, and best of all my birthday!  Looking forward to these dates keeps things exciting because I never have to wait more than a month for any one of them. 

I also just try to stay really busy...which isn't hard because right now is "sales season" for me so I am starting to get really busy with work.  Things around the house of course are also constantly keeping us busy...we just finished remodeling the master bathroom this week. 

Another thing that really helps me to stay cheery is always looking forward to the next fun thing going on.  If nothing really fun is going on, then I will take it upon myself to plan something.  Like this weekend I am having a "girls weekend" with my favorite girlfriends from college and in a few weeks Brady and I are traveling to sunny Florida to visit my Grandma.

I am really looking forward to Florida because I am just craving that sun!  Even with all my "happy boosters" this time of year, nothing can replace the complete the wonderfulness of summer sun, balmy air, long walks with the pups, windows down, sunglasses, shorts, and being a tan black woman.  July please get here fast!

How do you beat the winter blues?

On October 31, 2011 I must have been drunk or something because I made the commitment to start a workout program that many of you have probably heard of…Insanity.  I spent quality time with Shaun T every day for the next two months.  It was hard but it was definitely worth it.  On January 1st I finished the two month program and have never felt more in shape.  I actually weigh pretty much the same as I did when I started the program but I feel awesome.  I just feel a sense of accomplishment that I finished the entire Insanity workout program.  This means working out six a week, some days up to an hour and a half, and I didn’t miss one day, one workout, or one dreaded “power jump”…okay maybe I missed just a couple of those.  

Insanity is a program based on the idea of “max interval training” which means that instead of short bursts of high intensity cardio followed by a longer period of rest or low intensity cardio, it is long bursts of maximum-intensity exercises with short periods of rest.  The workouts were a mix of strength and cardio exercises and they always included lots of jumping. 

The best part of Insanity was that after the two months were over, even though I was exhausted and sore...I was craving more!  Don't ask why...I must be crazy or something.  Knowing that I was a bigger fan of the cardio than the strength I felt like the all popular P90X wasn't the answer for me.  But I wanted to step it up with an intense at home cardio system.  Well that is when I found TURBOFIRE!

I am so freaking excited!  I start this workout tomorrow and I honestly wish today wasn't my day off so that I could just do it right now.  What attracted me to TurboFire is the intense cardio, fast moves, great music, and the fact that I looks more like a cheerleading routine than a workout.  Random sidenote...one thing I hated about Insanity was that it wasn't "real" music but rather Nintendo like beeps in the backround the whole time, and at first it wasn't so bad but after two months of that every single day I wanted to kick Shaun T in the face. 

TurboFire was made by a girl, Chalene Johnson, so its gotta be better right?  One crazy thing about this program is that it is twenty weeks long...yep you heard me right...TWENTY WEEKS...aka FIVE MONTHS...working out six days a week.  The driving force behind the results given by TurboFire is an idea called HIIT (high intensity interval training)...this is supposed to produce the "afterburn effect" that leaves you burning calories for hours after the workout is over.  If I am not a supermodel on May 28, 2012 then I want my money back! 

So today I am saying goodbye to Shaun T and Insanity, and hello to Chalene Johnson and TurboFire!  Please pray for me and wish me luck that I don't die.  If you want to see a YouTube video about Insanity or TurboFire then just click on the pictures below.  Shaun T for Insanity and Chalene for TurboFire...obviously!

One more thing...as I sat here and wrote this blog I ate leftover bisquits and gravy for a SNACK!  That should explain two things...why I didn't lost any weight with Insanity and why I NEED to workout!

2011 was honestly the best year of my life.  I got engaged and married the the most wonderful man I have ever met, we waited till our wedding night to make love (best thing I have ever done), we went on a honeymoon to Hawaii, we bought a house, and we remodeled that house.  Yeah...you could say it was a pretty big year.  So now I am sitting here thinking, how are we ever going to top that?!  Well we are going to work hard in growing our love for one another and in Christ every day.  Our wedding day wasn't the end of the road for us, it was just the beginning and we have so much to learn, so many places to go, things to see, and so much growing to do in many areas of our lives.

For those of you who know me well...you know that I am a planning/list/post it note Nazi.  So I made a list of resolutions in the beginning of December.  I heard from a friend that "Writing down one's goals and dreams makes them a priority.  Sharing them with others makes them possible."  So this is my way of sharing my resolutions, I hope everyone who reads this will keep me accountable.

2012 Resolutions
1.  Read the Bible in a year.  Brady and I are doing this together.  We are following a chronological reading plan that goes through the Bible in the order that the events happened.  We are both using the New Living Translation. 
2.  Mail two cards a month.  Getting mail that isn't junk or bills has always been very exciting to me, so I want to share the love.  Thank you cards, birthday cards, and Christmas cards don't count.
3.  Blog twice a week.  Get excited to read =)
4.  Research one topic a month.  Every month I am going to pick a subject that interests me and devote the entire month to learning more about it.  I will read at least one book, and also try to use blogs, podcasts, and articles.  At the end of every month I will write a blog post about what I learned. 

Some topics I am planning on researching are vitamins, natural childbirth, and coupon clipping.  This month I am going to be focusing on how to have a Christ-centered marriage and how to be a Godly wife.  I have started reading Love and Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs, I will be reading the God Centered Marriage blog,  and I also downloaded a few podcasts today.

I can't wait for 2012 to unfold and I am so anxious to experience all that is ahead.