I celebrated another birthday.

I did catch Josey's cold, and fear she'll relapse if I'm around her. I celebrated my 57th birthday on January 26, and I received an 8 x 12 similar to the scarf photo here, just beautiful! I've had a good birthday week, though I missed school sick on Tuesday, so stopped up! The best thing about this time of year is that spring is just over the horizon! I bought myself the movie "Bucket List" for my birthday, but I dozed off in the middle and missed some of it and will have to rewatch. My bucket list isn't too dramatic - I'm working on smiling more, I've never been good at smiling at folks, and also working on being more friendly and outgoing. I had wanted to learn to make a good pie crust, and Laney said our family would be more likely to appreciate homemade tortillas, so maybe I'll try that!

I think I've caught Josey's cold, and am afraid to be around her, afraid I'll give it back to her! Woe is me!

ETC.

2009 seems to be rushing by. I missed work 1/15 and 1/16 to keep granddaughter, Josey, who is sick with RSV (bad cold in her lungs). She fought the breathing treatments so badly I wanted to cry, because I'm sure she thought I was torturing her. I hated to put her down the whole time she was at my house. Last night Nathan was out of town working and I spent the night with Laney and Josey. On Friday morning I had a close call when I opened the stock pen gate to let 2 horses from the pen out with the other 2. It was really cold, they were feeling frisky, and one mare, Cookie, was trying to take gelding Casey's hay as she went in the pen. He lunged at her with his teech barred, and she wheeled, ran me down without every seeing me, and rolled me. Thank goodness not a hoof touched me, but I saw her hooves as they passed inches over my face - so I was lucky. The muscles in my neck, stomach, and shoulder are all very sore! I saw some bad grass fires yesterday in Kurten - we are in serious need of rain. Every time we've gotten rain lately, it gets really windy and sucks the moisture right back out of the soil. I get to keep Josey a while again this afternoon - so exciting!

a new year!

It's the 2nd day of 2009 already - and a fall-like day, thank God! The holidays have been terrific, today's the last workday off, with our next day off MLK's birthday. I've got to get busy checking into retirement pay, to make sure I can really afford to say home next year to keep Josey -- I hope and pray!