Living here in the middle of nowhere is a lot different than growing up in the surburbs of Chicago.  Life on the farm is so fun, and I often chuckle at things that happen here on a regular basis that I never used to think about. 

Like...

-Gotta go shoot the coyote that is down behind our barn, I think he is sick because he is super skinny and is loosing hair
-Gotta go drag the coyote we just shot into the woods so our dogs won't roll around in the dead carcass and get mange
-Gotta find a home for this dog that someone dropped off in the barn in the middle of the night
-Gotta find a home for these cats that someone dropped off in the barn in the middle of the night
-Gotta go get all the cats fixed so the cat herd of imbreeders can stop growing
-Gotta get to the post office between 8:00 and 11:30 or 1:00 to 3:30 because Linda likes to take an hour and a half lunch and she is the only one that works there
-Gotta get the mail...well I'll just run out in my underwear to grab it because its not like anyone is around here to see me
-Gotta paint the gutters on the house...well I'll just do it in my bra and shorty shorts so I can even out my tan lines
-Gotta call the county highway guy to come out and fix our road because Farmer Jeff just pulled a load of manure across it and it is 100 degrees out so he pulled all the tar and gravel right off our "chip and seal" road
-Gotta plow this snow off our driveway but we will have to wait until we get a few more inches becuase we don't want to tear all the gravel off our driveway with the scoop tractor
-Gotta hire a crew of kids for this summer to help us with derouging and detasseling corn fields
-Gotta pick up all the clay pigeons that we have been shooting over Jay's field
-Gotta watch where you are driving around the corner from our house because Tracy has a horse that likes to jump the fence and stand in the road
-Gotta wake up extra early on Sundays so we can feed the hogs before we go to church
-Gotta wave at everyone you pass when you drive on the country roads
-Gotta call KT's to deliver lunch out to the tractor when we are busy in the fields during planting and harvest
-Gotta keep the windows on the house closed during planting and harvest, otherwise all the dust flying off all the tractors will cover everything in the house

We live in rural Indiana on a road where our only neighbors are two tiny grave yards.  In fact, we are the only house on our road and we feel like we are quite blessed with out quiet county life...well it was quiet until I moved in! 

There goes the neighborhood!

This is what I have been doing on this lovely Friday evening...spending some quality time with Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha.  As always, cheering for Aiden and yelling at the television screen telling Carrie she is so dumb for always picking Big!

And this is what Brady has been up to tonight.  He went to sleep early because he has to haul manure starting at 1:00 this morning. 

There are various times during the year when Brady is in the field all hours of the night; planting and harvest for sure, and I also travel some for work.  This means that there are always a few nights a month that we don't get to sleep together...but that is the life of a farmer and his crop insurance agent wife and i wouldn't trade it for anything. 

No we aren't having a baby...but I do love freaking everyone out with titles like that!  Maybe some rumors will get started?  I am referring to my monthly research topics.  January was marriage and February is babies...Godly marriage and natural childbirth to be exact.  I have learned a lot about marriage and I am exited to learn about birth next! 

I learned a ton about marriage in January and I don't even know how to put it into words (this explains why I haven't wrote a blog about it yet).  But a couple things I learned are below.  I used books, blogs, podcasts, and my life experience as a wife as my resources =)

-The best kind of marriage is one where the husband and wife are best friends with eachother
-A husband's role in marriage is to love his wife as Christ loved the church and a wife's main role is to respect her husband Ephesians 5:33
-Our spouse is to be our second priority after Jesus and our relationship with him, then kids come third, and career and everything else comes after that
-The bedroom is a sanctuary for the married couple...this means no television, no work, and no stress
-Make time for eachother to go on dates, talk, make love, and jsut enjoy eachother's company away from the craziness of everyday life

I have so many things to say that I can't even organize my thoughts...all in all marriage is awesome, it is hard work, and it is the most rewarding and special relationship with another human being on this Earth. 

Well I am rambling...but get excited to hear a ton about babies this month!  I have already read one book so a review of that will be coming up real soon!

Until then,

A couple days ago I finished reading "Real Marriage : The Truth About Sex, Friendship, & Life Together" by Mark and Grace Driscoll.  I am a big Mark Driscoll "fan" so I might have been reading this book through rose colored glasses.  Mark Driscoll is pastor and founder of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Brady and I listen to his sermons via podcast regularly.  His sermons are a breath of fresh air because they push you and make you feel uncomfortable instead of just preaching "Jesus loves you" all the time.  Pastor Mark is theological and everything he says lines up with scripture.  I really enjoyed this book, and I feel like it could be life changing for many couples who would be willing to read it with an open mind.

The book is split into 3 parts...Marriage, Sex, and The Last Day

Part 1 : Marriage
    This section of the book mostly focused on being best friends with your spouse...an idea that I just love!  And it is so true...if you are going to spend the rest of your life with someone...might as well be your best friend right?  The other night as we were going to sleep Brady said, "You know the best thing about being married?  It's like having a slumber party every night with your best friend."  That just made me feel all fuzzy inside because it is so true =)

Part 2 : Sex
    This is pretty self-explanatory - it just talked about sex in the context of marriage.  Certain things in this part of the book have caused some controversy both in and out of the church.  I really don't see what the big deal is...everything goes back to scripture so there really isn't anything to be so prude about.  Topics such as anal sex, oral sex, and birth control are talked about and how these things fit or don't fit into a Godly marriage.  I am a super open person and nothing in this book shocked me but I guess some people have been offended.  Like oh my gosh wives actually give their husbands blow jobs?!  Those sluts!!...haha sarcasm.

Part 3 : The Last Day 
    This part of the book just looks at marriage from a totally unconventional perspective.  It looks at marriage from the last day instead of the first.  There is so much hype about the first day of marriage...the wedding day...but what about the last day?  Will your marriage end in a courtroom in an ugly divorce battle or will it end with you by your spouse/best friend's side holding their hand as they leave this world to spend eternity with the Lord?  The decision is ours and this part of the book gives practical ideas to lead your marriage towards the second scenario.

I really enjoyed this book and I can't wait to go through it a second time as more of a study than just a book.  Brady and I are starting a young married small group at our church and I was reading this from a leader perspective trying to figure out if it was something that could be studied in a small group context or not?  I think YES!

Brady and I have really enjoyed listening to the "Real Marriage" sermon series that Mars Hill is doing right now...to check it out just click here.

Next time I will write about everything I learned in January as we strive towards having a Christ-centered marriage and I struggle to become a Godly wife =)

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?