And Miles To Go Before I Sleep...

So those of you that know me well know that my life took on some pretty significant changes over the last few months. I tend to be one of those souls that, once I have made my mind up, acts without looking back. I like to tell people that I have very few grey areas... I either am or I'm not. In this particular instance it was finally coming to the realization that an 8 year marriage was dead and had been dead for some time. The choice then was simply do I stay or do I make some life changes. At 43 (gack!) I'm getting to the point in my life that life changes are not nearly as scarey. At least for me anyway I realized that it's now or never and I sure didn't want to stay in the quagmire I had been rutted into for so long.

Fast forward now and I'm 800 miles from every home I've known and now living in Wichita Falls, Texas after meeting a truly gorgeous soul that still to this day, takes my breath away. Packing up everything in my little Escape and hauling west was an adventure in and of itself, but it's taught me some valuable lessons as well. New job, new digs, new life... all come together in one big kaleidoscope of activity that has turned out quite honestly, to be very good. Oh, of course there are all the usual concerns about bills and money but I learned long ago that money comes and money goes and worrying about it isn't going to change anything. We have bills paid and we sure aren't hurting in the grocery department. I lucked into an awesome job, have my beautiful (if somewhat smart mouthed) daughter with me, am with a man that I love heart and soul and am looking at moving my two remaining horses very shortly to be here as well. All in all, life is good.

Not to be forgotten of course is the venerable Cookie mutt which also is waiting for me in Alabama. I hope to bring her over soon and she, along with Daniel's pug Gabby, should be quite a site (not to mention cheap entertainment playing together). This is the longest I've gone without dogs or horses and I miss them more than I thought I would. I hope to be in a house with a bit of land within the next year or so with luck and back to a more normal lifestyle. Right now we are content and as I said, overall life is good.

Saying that, one thing that I want to focus on again more heavily is my writing which I have missed in the hubbub of a cross country move. I have been doing more and more ghostwriting for a site called textbroker.com and quite enjoy it, once I got my head around the dry, somewhat silly sounding marketing blurbs that seem to be the norm there. A little side income never hurt anyone and it's giving me some much needed extra income which.. if I continue on track.. will pay for my babies to be here with me. Yay!

In keeping with this returned focus however, much to my daughters delight who fusses at me for ghostwriting when I should have my own name attached, is the chance to do some serious blogging. So bring on the suggestions for topics.. have keyboard, will type! If you follow blogs as well feel free to add me to your list as a follower and I will be happy to do the same.

Anyway, that's the barn goddess life in a nutshell.. quietly living the life in Texas, killing the patio plants in 110 degree heat and missing her ponies and family. I will leave you with a poem that has always been my favorite. It speaks to me and reminds me that our journeys are never really done, only postponed sometimes and roadblocks and crossroads come at the times in our lives when we need them most to keep us on the track we need to be on. I look back at the last few years and though I'm saddened about what transpired, I know it all happened for a reason even if that reason isn't easily apparent. I know without a doubt I'm right where I am meant to be. How can I be so sure? That's easy, because my inner muse tells me I am. :)

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening
~by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
 
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there's some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.