A Very Sad Decision

I must give up my horse!

My parents decided to sell their business about a month or so ago and since then I have been trying to come up with ways to still be able to support Celene but haven't found anything. :(

At first I was going to try to get a job, but as a family we have always said that us girls would not work outside of the home and so to get a job would be going backwards. We have always wanted the girls in our family to stay at home and work at home until we are married then we stay at home as a wife and hopefully a mother. I wholeheartedly want this, it is just hard when I want to keep Celene! I will be able to work doing small things like babysitting, dog grooming and dog training etc, but not enough to support a horse.

The friend introduced me to her will be the one who will keep her after me and hopefully find her a new home. She will be ready to take another horse in two to three weeks so I have that much time to get ready for her to leave.

I know that this is the right decision, it has given me the peace I didn't have when I pushed my way into getting her. During the time when I was getting her I had many late nights with my head filled with doubts and worries to the point of crying, every time wanting to back out because I had gone over my head but not doing it because I had spent so much money and time already.
This has been a huge learning experience and I hope that I will be smarter the next time something like this comes around and make sure that it is what God wants me to do.

Some things I have learned:

1. NEVER go into debt.
2. Wait for God to tell me yes, no, or wait, and be patient
3. Trust that God will lead me
4. Make sure that I am doing it because it is right, not just because I want it so bad
5. Make sure that it is the right timing
6. In reference to a horse, get it because I connect with it, not because it is costs less than the rest and is pretty.

Please pray for me as I say good bye to her, pray that I will continue to grow in my trust in the Lord and learning to wait for His answer and lean on Him.

A couple of events at home....

I went skiing on Saturday! I would have liked to have gotten some pictures but we forgot :(. I really enjoyed it and got fairly good at it by the end (on the easy spots anyways :). It was interesting figuring out how to turn (I didn't have anyone to teach me), but I had watched an online video and that helped a bit. To turn you have to push on the ski that is on the outside of the turn so as I turned I was saying in my head "right, right, right" and "left, left, left" telling myself which foot to push on :). The first time going down on an easy trail I fell about 7 or 8 times but on the second it was only 3 or 4 and got better. We went further up the mountain and the easy one up there was better (not so icy) and I could go the whole way without falling. When I got home I discovered more than 15 bruises on the inside of my calves from crashing and landing on the other ski :).

This week we have started decorating for Christmas and got our tree up, it is huge, has huge bare spots and is FREE! We were able to get it out of our own forest and therefore it fit our budget :)

The reason for the season! I love these ornaments.

Jeremy put ONE ornament on the tree, he is looking down because he kind of just threw it on and it dropped but hung itself on the way :)

Isn't she just the cutest thing on earth! She even has food all over her and she is still cute!

Here is our "Charley Brown Tree on Steroids"

It fell over halfway through decorating it! It had water in it already so we had to mop it up with towels.

Tomorrow Celene (my horse) is getting her hooves trimmed for the first time, we will see how that goes. I haven't ever watched it being done so I am not sure of how to prepare her either, she is okay most of the time on picking up her feet but I don't know how she does with a stranger. Please pray that it will go well! I so need her to have a good first experience!