Blacksheep Speaks

Welcome back!

I don’t get the urge to gamble very often, but I really need a vacation. Between getting two kids off to college and prep school, and with the other two in junior high plus various practices and meetings, plus dealing with the condition this farm is in, the best I can do is dream about just taking off for somewhere like the Excalibur Las Vegas and just spending some time relaxing. There are times when the idea of just sittig and pulling the arm of a one armed bandit is VERY appealing:)

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Anybody else having problems with people spamming comments with irrelevent ads and links? As in, you get notification that someone let a comment, but when you go to moderate, instead of a real comment, you find that they have left a link laden Viagra ad? Or,even if it’s not that obnoxious, it’s still some company you did an ad for (paid or not) that is trying to get a couple more links out of the deal by using your comment section? I don’t let those make it through, but I bet people with unmoderated comments really get hit hard. It’s just about the rudest thing I can think of… well, maybe not. But it IS rude. I’m getting sick of it.

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Have you tried running a business from home lately? It’s not easy. You can open the best store on the web, but you go broke waiting for the search engines to notice you, and even when they do, it can still be a while before you show a profit because no matter what you do, someone else has it cheaper. It doesn’t matter that yours is higher quality, the pictures are all your customers have to go on, and it can be rough. Running a home based business has become a whole new art form, thanks to the internet.

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It’s Friday night, and that means it’s time for high school football on the radio. There is no shot I am going halfway across the region to watch in person, so radio it is. The rest of the family is out watching “The Aristocats” on the VCR (yes, we DO still have one for the VHS tapes we still have that we love). Apparently even the kids that GO to Highland High in my family couldn’t care less. (mutter)

Problem is, I can’t blame them. We are, in all liklihood, about to get our butts kicked. We’re playing one of the top teams in the conference. Our team is unbeaten, so is theirs, and they are fighting it out for top spot n the conference. But we play on their field, and thsi is always a hard game. Think I’ll go listen now:)

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I wrote a post a while back about how my husband and I are needing to get this farm up and running like it did in the good old days. Well… I just looked into what it is going to cost to redo the fencing around this place, and it’s staggering, even if we do all the labor ourselves. There is some land for sale next to ours on one side, and I caught myself honestly wondering if it wouldn’t be cheaper to buy the land than to repair the fence between that lot and this one. That’s pathetic.

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I’m not going to get into what event in my life is making me write this post, and I am really not trying to be cold or hard hearted about it, but…

Okay, a guy commits suicide, for whatever reason. Someone puts up a memorial page online, on MySpace or wherever. Anyone who was ever even in the same room with the guy chimes in about what a great friend, how nice he was, and, my personal favorite, how he always gave great advice and they will always do things the way they think he would have.

Ahem… including commit suicide, people? Face it. This guy did NOT have all the answers. At this point, personally I would be rethinking taking all that great advice.

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Every now and then, we hear from an old friend of my husband’s from high school. Under normal circumstances, I would say that hearing from an old friend is a good thing. However, this guy is a Phoenix real estate agent, and no matter how the rest of the conversation goes, it always winds up with a twenty minute dissertation on why we should relocate, the great house we could buy, what a deal, you get the picture. This has been going on for over fifteen YEARS. Now, if i pecked at someone about something for that long, I think I would probably get a clue that they weren’t going to do it. Wouldn’t you?

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Okay, I have four kids. Two have moved out. Bedroom shuffling has occurred, so as to make the remaining inmates here more comfortable. Problem? The two that moved out didn’t see fit to remove their stuff from what is now child number three’s closet. This was supposed to have happened WEEKS ago. How do you convince these people to take their stuff and go? Don’t get me wrong, but we are a little cramped for space, here. Anything they didn’t take was supposed to be packed and stored. So why am I still dealing with a room full of boxes and a child with nowhere to hang her sweaters? Hmmm?

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Our farm is in sad shape. When I was a little girl, it was a full working cattle ranch, with my pet horses thrown in alongside, plus chickens and a goose or two. I hate chickens. They are THE nastiest creature that ever walked, I swear. But my husband and I are in hopes of getting the place back to working status again, hopefully soon. But first, we have to do SOMETHING about the outbuildings. One of the pole barns is still good, and the hay barn just needs minor repairs, but the feed barn is falling down and there is no longer a building for equipment storage. That one is probably the most pressing problem, and in all liklihood we are going to wind up going with one of those modern preplanned steel buildings that are being offered. But it’s all going to have to be done before we can put any stock on this place… and then there are the fences. Well, they USED to be fences. We have to fence two hundred acres, and we are going to be doing it ourselves. Just thinking about it makes me tired:)

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My oldest daughter attends Arkansa State University as a freshman this year. She’s suffering a few setbacks, mostly the normal stuff for kid being away from home for the first time. The University has changed an awful lot since I attended it twenty years or so ago. And I mean a LOT. Yesterday she got a letter in the mail from the oofice of… er, well, I forget what office. Anyway, the letter said she had been randomly selected to participate in a two hour evaluation on a specified time and date. My daughter has a class at that time which she cannot afford to miss. But the letter, in candy sweet words, says that if she does not comply, her registration for next semestr will be in jeopardy.

My question: WHEN did Arkansas State University become the Gestapo?

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