Alright all you people that told me to START WRITING THIS STUFF DOWN...here you go :)

I'm sitting in my office...which used to be my daughter Tara's bedroom. She got married last May and I am trying very hard not to refer to the GUEST bathroom as TARA'S bathroom and call the office...the office and NOT Tara's room and not call the GUEST room "Trevor's room". Sigh. It is hard to know how to adjust to this time in my life. I'm enjoying it...it's just...different.
   It is hard being a poultry princess and having an empty nest. My chicks flew the coop. Insert any chicken joke you know here to save me from typing it. Why did the chicken cross the road? To get away from Ms. Soggy Bottoms. (the name of our farm, and yes, we named it while watching "O Brother, Where Art Thou?"
  I am:  a Christian.41. Former nurse. Married 23 years. 2 kids, Trevor and Tara, both grown and married. Blonde. Constantly trying to lose 15 pounds. The pounds are winning. I unapologetically wear entirely too much eye makeup for my age and my hair bears a strange resemblance to Loreal 9/12 Color Supreme.
  I'm also a chicken farmer. I could bore you with the details of how this came to be, but suffice it to say at the age of 32 we built chicken houses on our 56 acres and it seemed to make more sense financially for me to stay home.
  Bets were taken on how long I would last. Mostly that prissy, lipglossed Lichea Bottoms would tire of being dirty and turn her nose up at dead chickens and maggots and hard work.
  Poo I say to that. Poo again. Like any good southern woman with Jesus in her heart and a good man at my side, I don't mind getting dirty...I just don't want to STAY dirty. There's a place for grubby, a dear place in my heart made by growing up with no running water and outdoor toilets and wringer washers and clotheslines and baths in zinc tubs.
  So I left my pristine, sterile job in surgery and took on farm life and it has been a blessing from God. I got to spend time home with my children as they made their way thru high school. I became a better cook, seamstress, wife, and friend. I would say "mom" but that seems a teensy bit arrogant and perhaps someday you can ask my children.
  There is much in life, dear friend, that is like working in chicken houses. It's hard, tedious work, often frightfully boring and nasty. There is death and storms and the occasional broken water line, flooding all your good work. Lightning DOES strike twice in the same place, just ask Chicken House 3. You have to cull the ones who don't measure up...just as you would rid your life of a toxic "friend". They are God's chickens, I tell myself that everyday...God's chickens and NOT mine, I am only here to tend and care and work. Sometimes, in His wisdom, He may choose to call them home early, leaving us with dead chickens as far as the eye can see and a smaller paycheck. I try not to question and just start grabbing dead chickens by the legs and carrying as many as I can to the front end loader.
  This is my Poultry Princess life and this is my story. I invite you in :)