Heading down to Houston in the morning to welcome 409 into the world

Prayers appreciated for Jordan and Mark See their blog for more (Double A Connected. (Link on the left margin on this page.)

It is a gloomy day for me, and I wish the sun would shine again.

My husband's 60th birthday is coming up in April Time is flying by. I had hoped things would be different now. But it is all same ole same ole for us. We planned for him to retire from Yellow on his 60th birthday, and move home and get a local job for the rest of our lives. We have been living away from each other for over 10 years now, and it is not easy for either of us. The place we bought, we planned to share with Micah and Nicole, but they moved to Nebraska, and we took over the payments on their house instead of my building my dream house. The house is right on the road, not even a hundred feet away from the road. If we had not taken over the payments, the house would either be sitting vacant, or be owned by strangers right on top of the property we have, cutting 3 acres from what we hold.

So I will confess I am disappointed in all this. Plus though we(well, I) live about twenty miles or thirty from most of my children, they do not drop in to see me unless I have a job for them. And I had actually decided to live in Micah and Nicole's house because Terry had promised he would retire in April on his birthday and live at home with me. But he had to break the promise because there are no jobs here now due to this ridiculous economy thing. So I am here in this house that is not big enough for my furniture, but too big for me to want to live in alone, without my husband, miles from family.

I also suppose since this economy has caused my husband to have to take a 10% cut in pay on top of having less freight to haul, we will never be able to build our barns, finish the house additions we planned on, or ever get the livestock I had hoped for.
It is a gloomy day for me, and I wish the sun would shine again. Both figuratively and literally.

I know we have our valley times in life, but this valley today seems much deeper and much longer than any I have seen in a long time.
If anyone actually reads this, I could use prayer today!

Cute Dog Tricks

Cute Dog Tricks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejioz8N9h3U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzD1DvhLtRg

Philippians 4:6-9

(6) Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; (7) and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. (8) Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy?meditate on these things. (9) The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you. Philippians 4:6-9

The advice in this section of Philippians needs no extra comment. It is crystal clear. Meditate on the words. Read each part slowly and pray as you read. Meditate on those beautiful things God would have you to meditate on and pray for Him to bring you closer to Him so you can rest in His loving arms. He is so awesome, and He does not want you stressed out. So do what these words tell you to do today and have peace in your heart.

Raised garden plots

Terry was home for a day and we were investigating doing raised garden plots this year, and also trying the hanging tomato pot where the vine grows out of the bottom of the container. The already made containers are available at Home Depot for around $10 and If we do them, I am going to invest in those instead of trying to do the homemade ones.
I sent some seeds home with Nicole for their garden spot. I think Matthew is think ing about growing a garden too. Wondering if any of you are gardening this year? I came across a site (Well, Terry wrote it down when he was listening to the radio, so actually he came across it) http://www.survivalseedbank.com/ that might be of intrest to you if you are gardening. Their opening paragraph saiys:"New “Survival Seed Bank” Produces Thousands Of Pounds Of Nutrient-Dense Food For Pennies Per Pound… Enough To Feed Friends And Family Forever!" The kit costs around $150 (including shhipping) for enough seed to plant an acre garden.
Each Survival Seed Bank has a total of 22 varieties of OPEN POLLINATED “super seeds.” Also included are detailed growing instructions for each variety which includes helpful information on harvesting of seed stock for the following year in a survival situation. With our government like it is today, we might be glad to have some regeneratable seeds for future times. I am thinking I might get a kit this year for us. So if you need seeds, let me know and I will see what you can have from our stock. We should share these with our family and friends. We are going to get either some ties from Orchlens, or use our own trees to build our raised garden plots. I am just hoping Terry can get his vacation figured out soon so we can get started. (since Roadway and Yellow united as one company, many things like the vacation lists have been lost, lots of things are really messed up with this merger... Just glad we still have a job at this point!

OK look at the face of those sheep and tell me you don't think they are the most adorable little creatures alive! I just love southdowns, especially the ones that look like the 50's and 60's models. These are called Babydolls now. They are not really miniature southdowns, they are the originals. I think we will have a lot of fun raising babydoll southdowns. When Isaac got here yesterday he was all about talk concerning the sheep barn we will be building soon. He checked out my plans, and sounds like he is getting anxious to get this project off the ground. I am hoping Terry will be able to get his vacation time figured out so we can make plans. It should be a fun time with the grandkids.

Terry Anderson Head of the Terry Anderson Clan

On April 26, 2009,
Terry Anderson,
Head of the Terry Anderson Clan will be turning 60! We will be having a BIG Christian Celtic celebration to honor him on April 25th all day at the Washington State park. Our sons and grandchildren will be donning their kilts and entering into some fun Scottish games. We are hoping to get a nice family portrait done that day, as just having a great time of fun and fellowship and food with our family and friends. I am starting today to get things organized and planned for the day.
Our son Mark will be getting ordained on March 22 at the Hillsboro Christian church, at 4 in the afternoon. This is going to be just another of the wonderful celebrations we are having this year. God is blessing us a lot in these times of struggle in our nation. We just need to look around and find our many blessings.

God is good, all the time.
All the time, God is good