Ruminatings of Life

Ruminatings of Life

What ho! My dear followings! (Forgive me, I've been reading far too much Shakespeare for my own good...).

Dear, dear me; how I've missed you all so much! So much has happened, and is happening in my life that I can scarce formulate my thoughts in an orderly manner. But, I shall try my best to catch you up on what has been transpiring in me' life.

First, I don't believe I announced it on my blog, if you follow me via Facebook or Instagram, you would have already heard of these sad tidings, but our dearest Rusty, passed away in July. I won't go into the details, but lets suffice to say that my heart is still broken into teeny, tiny pieces and will never recover from his passing. ever. period.

Love you sweet boy! Momma misses your big, furry mess snuggling with me in the covers and your silly tail twitches! <3

*grabs handful of tissues...sobs..sniffle* On a happier note, I would like to introduce our new, sweet Aussie pup, Steele. 

6 weeks old-the day we got him:

Aprox. 12 weeks-several days ago:

He is helping to mend the gap that we all felt with Rusty's passing, and is already part of the family. You can find him about any time of the day on my bed, or asleep with me, biting my toes and chewing on anything and everything that comes into contact with his needle point teeth.

The last few months of summer have been spent in the company of good friends, and adventurous gallavantings of all sorts. I'm so blessed.

As summer steeps into fall (insert happy jig!!!) and the days are (sometimes) cooler, its makin' my little ole' heart right glad! I've only been looking forward to fall/winter since last year. *ahem*

Tail gait star gazing-the finest seat in the house! I saw over 50 shooting stars that night. It was gorgeous!

Or that exciting time when your family leaves you home alone and you busy yourself with singing opera, crying bitter tears of emotion over a wonderfully sad movie, and trying not to burn the house down.

(FYI. I successfully managed not to burn the house down...).  

We've started school back up; I'm busily working on finishing up my last few projects. Such as literature, science, learning to speak Irish, and a few other odds and ins. 

I'm not a multi-tasker, I prefer to tackle one project at a time, hog tie it and knock'er out, and then start on the next thing. Currently, I'm trying to balance my love of literature with my other assignments. Yah. That pretty much ended up with my going through one of my two literature study books in a week; which, is supposed to take several months to go through. Oh well! That's the joy of homeschooling, you can do it on your own time, however fast or slow you want. 

So, the past few weeks I've pretty much immersed myself into Shakespeare, his works, world, and history. 

I've read almost over a dozen of his plays over a week and a half span, wrote more papers, sonnets, ballads, and poems than I care to mention, as well as watched a production of one of his plays. 

Tom Hiddleston reading sonnet #18, which also happens to be one of my favoritest of Shakespeare's sonnets. So. Lovely! 

 *sniffles..* Wasn't that beautiful?!

Or watch this wonderful performance of Hamlet's soliloquy:

I believe I could happily be a poet and do nothing except watch excerpts from Shakespeare plays, spout poetry, read and write.

My mind has adopted sixteenth century dialect, and my brain speaks it fluently. I catch myself throughout the day just talking to myself in Shakespearean English, making up ridiculous rhyming poems, and creating (laughable) dialogue between unknown characters that could easily be found in one of Shakespeare's plays. So yes, at just about any hour of the day you can find me tucked in my room, in my rocker reading Shakespeare. 

So yes, the goal is to be done with school (completely) by spring, or possibly sometime this winter. I don't plan on taking any breaks--so we'll just see how it goes.

 Can you peeps believe its actually mid September???

 I'm still trying to get my head around't. I'll be turning eighteen next month, and all I can say is wow! Where did the time go?

 Adulting is a lot more than I bargained for, and while I'm in a philosophy mood, I'd like to share a wee bit of advice for all those maidens out there who are waiting for their Prince Charming: don't rush it. There. I said it. 

But it's true.

 I know waiting is hard (tell me about it!!), you want to start your own life full of exciting adventures with your future husband-to-be, but don't rush it. Embrace all those God given talents that you've been given, right now. 'Cause trust me girlies, time flies by quicker than quick and before you know it, *boom*, its here. God's timing is the best, so just wait on Him and don't try and make things happen yourself. God will give your handsome prince a steed and a leg-up when His timing is right. OK, I'm done with my philosophying. 

So besides the ever-active school duties I'm trying to keep up with, I'm desperately trying to put into motion some long term dreams of mine that have been in the making (some of them) since I was a little girl. 

In the next month or so I hope to have my Wildlife Rehabilitation license in hand. I can't even tell you how excited I am! This is something I've wanted to do ever since I was 7. But, when I was told you had to be 18 to apply for it, I stored that dream for later. And now, here we are, 11 years later, and I'm fixing to make that dream reality! 

A rather recent ambition of mine, that was placed on my heart, is becoming a herbalist. I've always loved plants and nature, and the idea of nature as your doctor and administering homemade remedies to yourself, family, and others, just makes a heap of sense to me. So, Lord willing, as soon as I save some pennies, I'll be taking that online course around mid-summer.

 The main reason for doing so, is stated above. I do not plan on using traditional medicine or doctors now, or in the future. So having the 'know how' stuck up my sleeve, is very important to me; as I know I will be using this on myself, my future family, as well as my friends. I'm already known as the crazy health nut, and have people come to me for health advice (with which I am a complete amateur), so it makes double sense to actually have the knowledge to back up the name. Yes? Of course yes!

On another note, does anyone know of any online courses that teaches basic (or extensive) vet skills? Or any books/sources that you'd recommend on the topic?

You all know I have a love for writing; so I thought, why not use that in making some money? I submitted an article to a website several weeks ago. Something I've never, ever done before and I was quite terrified to be honest! Unfortunately, it was no published, but Rome wasn't built in a day, so I shall try, try again! 

Speaking of writing, in among all these other things, I've been trying to find time to write one, of my many, many, books. So far, I haven't been able to work that into my busy schedule, but we're gonna make it happen.

  On a very muchly, and extremely exciting note, I'd like you all to know that my dearest brother, Laredo, is engaged to a lovely, beauteous (< there's another Shakespeare word...) young lady, Andrea. Of whom I already consider and love as a sister. <3 You may go stalk her blog, here.

I feel like one of my theme songs currently is, 

"Gone." by the Montgomery Gentry. 

 Seriously, so many things have changed over the past few years and the good times really do fly by like a freight train! Now, I'm not saying that good times aren't gonna happen in the future, not saying that at all. Rather I really miss having all five of my siblings at home. Being the oldest single, at home is something I never thought I would experience. Let me explain...

I told my two older brothers that they were not allowed to get married, or even look at a girl for that matter, until I was gone and married. That a-way, I wouldn't have to be an emotional mess and deal with them leaving my the eldest at home. And now look what has happened! :0 

ANDREA! COURTNEY! Y'all ruined my plans! And I'm so very glad you did.
 I've never seen my brothers so happy, and it makes my heart happy to see them so happy. Phew, that's a lot of happies! Are we all happy, happy, happy now? Good, good. Let's run after a fresh rabbit trail, shall we? Of course we shall!

I know the next question in your head: "Whats it like being the eldest sibling at home?" Well, I'm glad you asked me! 

My life as the eldest at home is promptly summed up with this quote from "Brave":  

There you are. A perfectly accurate description of Aspen, as the eldest sibling at home. However, I do in fact want to get married--just waiting on that good ole' God timing I told y'all about. ;) Until then, I have every intention of riding through the glen, letting my hair be a messy-tangled wreck, and shooting arrows into the sunset......

As we fade into fall, I find myself pining to go to another civil war reenactment. And dance. Mostly dance. What can I say? I'm a dancing addict, and even saying the word 'dance' to me will have me in a spazzy mood where I commence to hop around my room in excitement. Yes, I know. I'm a commited nut.

 I've never been a huge workout person, but somehow or another I got drug into it by, they know who they are, *ahem* and here I am running a mile almost every morning, as well as other simple (and intense) workouts. Still not real sure how that happened, but I'm really glad it did. Being able to finish chores in the morning and take a run while the sun is coming up is one of my favorite parts of my morning. Not to mention I feel (mostly) amazing afterwards. And, as an added bonus, I get to watch our young heifers and their newly born calves frolic around the flat whilst I run. Pretty awesome, if I do say so myself.

 My favorite heifer, who actually just had a calf this morning!

If you want to know what I look like running, just picture a hobbit trying to a marathon. Or a penguin trying to keep up with an elf. Yep. Not much of a runner, but its called determination, and it helps to have some motivating friends who constantly inspire you to do better.

Nan is consistently giving me about a quart (or sometimes over) of milk every morning, then Cassia gets to enjoy her bounty for the rest of the day. After November, I have plans on getting her bred. So if my plans work out, we'll have ourselves some goatlings (stealing Reyna's term..hehe) before too long. I'm excited!

 Now, then. Onward to several delightful and newfound movies and songs that just make me all happy inside!

First, is "Gladiator". I'd recently become semi-obsessed (OK, I lie. Full blown..I was full blown obsessed) with the Roman time period in which the gladiators existed. Now, even though this film isn't fully grounded in history, it is sprinkled with historical facts, names, and events. And man, oh man! This movie..bring tissues and lots of them! I bawled like a baby all during this movie. Call me sentimental, but this movie tore me up inside and....made me feel happy. Figure that one out. Yes, yes, I know...how is that even possible, but trust me, it 'tis. 

  And the end credit song...*faints* it gets me anytime. I just loves it! So, if you ever catch me singing in another language, chances are, its this song:

And, if you want to just bawl your eyes out, like me, for the thousandth time-thanks to this movie, then watch this music video from one of my favorite artists, Peter Hollens; who recreates "Now We Are Free", beautifully:

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't crying at the end of this video. The amount of emotion and depth that is packed into this short video, Peter's voice, and this song-wow! 

And, I finally jumped on the band wagon and watched the fabulous, new "Cinderella" movie. I'm only going to dip my toe in the waters of the fabulousness of this movie, and will save my all-out review for another post, but suffice to say I love it! Here are a few snippets from the movie...

First, I'm just going to say, I adore this quote and am going to hang it from every wall, and maybe even my ceiling.

Her dresses. Can I please make a wardrobe of her dresses? They were so, so gorgeous! And, by the by, I happen to know of a dear friend of mine whose sister recently recreated Cinderella's ball gown, go see it here and try not to swoon with envy! Put me on the list for a dress, Bella dear!!

Her horse. Can I please have her horse? 

And...her good fortune to find a prince while riding said horse? Please and thank you!

Us girlies in the family, loved this movie! It's such a perfect film; just the right mixture of fantasy, romance, love, forgiveness, kindness and just a scosh of magic!

Love and Rich Blessings - 

~ Aspen (a.k.a Merida)