Winter musings and Etsy goodness....

Winter in the Northwest, what a drag! (???!!)

It always seems like the cool thing to do this time of year is to complain about the weather and about how much winter stinks and how you wish the sun would just come out and stay out but honestly, I REALLY LOVE WINTER!! I love getting bundled up, I really don't mind the rain (although I don't love the threat of the river flooding our neighborhood!), and I seem to get so much done during the winter months. When the weather is too nice during the summer, all I want to do is hang out at the river with my family and the animals, so very little in the way of work gets done. But in the winter, I have no excuse but to get busy.
I think one of the main reasons people in the Northwest (especially the Willamette Valley) don't love winter is because of the lack of sunlight, which can lead to depression. I see it happen to so many people this time of year. They get this wistful look in their eyes and they start talking about jumping in the car and driving south until the sun is warming them and tanning their skin. Tempting as that sounds, it's usually not possible for our family because of all the things that bind us here this time of year (the animals, mostly!) so I try not to start thinking like that. I am always determined not to let the winter blues get the best of me. The way I chase them away is to have a goal or project that takes me all winter to work on. The last couple years have been great because I have had many things keeping me busy (again, mainly the animals). This year my project is training this beautiful lady:


Meet Roxy! She's a 1 year old quarter horse filly and she's got sass and brains to boot! She's incredibly beautiful and has an alpha attitude so all the barnyard friends have been adjusting to that, slowly but surely. She's definitely the largest animal that I have had to deal with yet so I am determined to learn all that I can about how horses think and how to keep them in line. I can see that with too much freedom and too little discipline, Roxy would canter all over me if she got the chance! So next month, I am starting a course on training young horses. I'm so excited!! It's a hands on course that will last 8 weeks with a trainer with almost 20 years experience. I can't wait to get started on training!! My goal for Roxy (which is a long term goal, but I'm willing to be patient!) is for her to be a reliable, respectful, and trustworthy trail horse that I will feel comfortable riding and letting Leona ride. So as long as keep my mind set on that end result and set realistic training goals for her over the next couple years, and invest enough time, patience and effort into training her, I think Roxy will be the perfect trail horse. She's smart as a whip and is super sweet so I'm sure she is ready and willing to start towards that goal.

Ok, anyways, onto business stuff for this week! I am always telling Todd to make more "girly" stuff for the etsy shop and he has been taking my advice lately. Here's a couple examples of what we have to offer this week. Click any of the pics to bring you to their listings:

As far as fabric goes, I've been dying fabric again so I have lots of pretty colors in my fabric shop. Check it out!
I hope you all are keeping warm and safe this winter so far! Remember: chase away those winter blues with a project to keep you busy! That or a good book (I've been obsessing over the Twilight series lately....Don't even get me started on that because it has sucked me in and I can't escape! I love it!).