The Art of Listening

How well do you listen?  I’m asking myself that question, not necessarily you.  But, hey, if the question fits…

Seriously.

I’m wondering how well I listen.

The other day, I had a call from a professional friend who wanted to “catch up.”

I think he really wanted me to catch up on all that had happened with him.

We met in a restaurant,  greeted each other, and sat down. He asked me one question about my family and me.

And in the middle of my first sentence to answer him (and no, it wasn’t a run-on sentence!), he took off about something that had happened in his family.

And he never shut down.

Never. Until it was time to go to our next appointments.

I was listening to him, nodding my head, and waiting to see if he needed help, advice, or what.

Nope.

Nothing.

I think he just needed to talk.

So, I let him.

Talk.

I listened.

I had nothing to say, no advice, but that’s good, because he didn’t ask for any.  I think he just needed to debrief.

I’m good with that.

It’s a hard oilfield we work in.

Lord, help me to be a good listener, and a good friend. Give me ears to hear.

It's A Small World, After All

You know what I love about the oilfield?

The thing I love the very most?

The fact that you can meet someone for the very first time, and within minutes, find out that you have about twenty mutual friends.

And those mutual friends are good friends, that both of you have known all your lives.

And still, you’ve never met each other, and pretty much, have lived in other states most of your lives.

Talk about 6 degrees from Kevin Bacon.

It’s a small world out there.

And we’re all connected.  And what we do, matters.  

It really does.

Think about that as you go through your day today, wherever you are, and whatever you do.

What you do matters.  So go love on somebody today, will ya?

Sunset at Seminole, Texas - Pumping Unit - Photo by Janie Snelson

A Story of Sheep, Friends, and Form

I have a friend named Connie.  We’ve been awesome friends for almost 28 years, as best we can remember. (Hey, who counts?) I love this woman.  She puts up with me, ThatManILove, my sons and my dogs and sticks by us closer than glue.  She's amazing.

I also have a young friend named Brooke.  You’ve seen her before on this blog.  She writes cookbooks.  She bakes.  She competes in lots of divisions in her local 4H club in photography, cooking, stock showing, lots of disciplines. She’s 11, almost 12.  We’ve been friends since Brooke was 1.5 years old. Not that I’m counting. Brooke is amazing, too.

Labor Day weekend found ThatManILove working.  Brooke and her family going out of town to a stock show.  Connie, in town.  We made plans to do dinner and hang out a bit.

Add unexpectedly, to the weekend, the fact that Brooke and her family needed a sheep sitter.  And they asked me. And since ThatManILove was out of town, I didn’t ask him, I just said, “Okay.  Leave me a list. Tell me where all the food is.  And keep your phone by your side in case I have questions.”  Elder Son showed steers in his youth, I know the drill.

It’s Friday.  I end up working late, until about 8:30 p.m..  And I’m not feeling very good.  As I leave the office, I thought, “I’d better take someone with me, it’s dark out there in those barns, and what if something happens?”

So, I call my friend, Connie.  And being the good friend she is, she puts down whatever she was working on (because you can bet she’s working) and treks out to the sticks with me.

Now Connie is a teeny tiny thing.  Last year, at the Dillard’s sale, she bought size 0 Antonio Melani pants.  (I’m still pissed about it.  I mean, who wears a size zero? Yeah.  My friend, Connie.  The heifer.) (Heifer is a term of endearment in our house, in case you're beginning to get your panties in a wad.  If you wear panties. But, I digress.)

We get out to Brooke’s, and figure out the automatic gate. We’re in!  We go look at the sheep.

We count the sheep.  I think, no, I know I heard Connie curse, without using any really bad curse words, quickly but profusely, in a very low voice.  And I think I heard my name in there. 

There are 16 sheep and 2 goats.  Two barn cats, and a brand new rescue kitten.  Spread out over several pens, and several acres.  And it’s dark.  Really, really dark. Did I tell you it was dark?

She looks at me, and says, (sounding amazingly like ThatManILove) “Oh...Jaaaaaanie.”

Outside of every pen, there is a white board.  And on every white board, there is a lamb tag number, and feeding directions per each tag number.  Each lamb and each goat gets a different amount, and sometimes, a different type of food.  And then, hay.  And water.

Realization sets in.  Connie and I look at each other, and she smiles and shakes her head.  “Janie, the stuff you get me in to...I swear.”

We get busy.  I go to the feed room, have to call Brooke’s parents to see which feed is which, and start hauling buckets out.

We get to pen one.  I go into the pen, open the feeding troughs, try my best to herd only one lamb into each trough, then close the feeding pen.  I come out of the big pen, and start measuring out what’s on the white board for that big pen of lambs.  And then, I realize, we can’t see the tag numbers.

Because it’s too freakin’ dark.

I start trying to grab ear tags.  As I reach down, the lamb backs up, and I’m trying to catch it, all the while holding my iPhone, for light.  I try, and try again. It’s not working.

Connie’s trying to climb up on the fence.  Remember, she’s little.  Tall, but  way lean. She gets up on the fence, balances her belly on the top bar, and leans waaaaaaay over to try to grab an ear tag, while I’m shining my mobile phone on the tag.

I get tickled.  I know one wrong move, and she’s tumped head first over that fence, right into that sheep trough.

She, then, gets tickled.  And then she realizes we have 15 more sheep to feed, after we figure out which one is in this particular trough.  Connie reaches down (by her looong stretch, she could have played basketball in high school), grabs that lamb tag, and screams “35!  It’s 35!  What’s this one’s name?”

It’s Atlas...or something like that.  (Heck, it was so traumatic, I can't remember now.) So I look up that lamb's feed, measure it out, and pour it into its trough.  And all of a sudden, we’re on a roll.  We're a lean, mean, feeding machine. We go through each name:  Tonto, Mater, Southern Belle, and on…we can't forget Cupcake, who had special food!  Connie balances on the top rail, leans in, I'm shining my mobile phone on the tag, and we’d feed…Blackfoot,  Blue Duct...I can’t remember all their names, but we finally got it done.  

Then, we had to hay.  And water.   And since it was so hot, we sprayed down the dirt in each pen.  Repeated the same thing with the goats.  The cats.  The new kitty.  All.In.The.Dark. By the light of our mobile phones.

We finally finished, knowing I had to be back out there at 8:30 a.m. for a complete rerun.    We backed out of the driveway, closed the automatic gate, and looked at each other and laughed.

We then, smelling amazingly like sheep poop, stopped by the convenience store so Connie could buy lottery tickets.  

It’s Friday night, people.  And there are all these beautiful people, dressed in their date clothes, going in and out of the store. We’re in the “high cotton” part of town.  You can see the customers surreptitiously sniffing the air, like “What’s that odor?”  I thought we were never going to get out of that store before someone we knew walked in and recognized us...and then smelled us.  Or vice-versa.

Yeah.  It’s not a good idea to wear tennis shoes to feed sheep...because sheep poop gets into every crevice of the bottom of those shoes.  

And funny enough, Connie found something she absolutely had to do and I don’t think I heard from her the rest of the weekend.

Now, I want to show you what Connie got me for Christmas.  The heifer.

But before I do?  I’d like to say something.

Connie, I love you, girl.  And I can still visualize your skinny butt and long legs, your perfectly (before this adventure) white tennis shoes, balancing on that top rail, feet angled up in the air, your head pointed down into the feed trough,  and and your arms outstretched like a high board diver, grabbing that lamb tag, then the next...over and over and over again.  

Olympians would pay millions to have that form.  Maybe not the sheep poop shoes, but that perfect form.  I think about it one time, and laugh so hard! I am still cracking up about it.

You Baaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh-d girl.  Thanks for the cool boots…AND the note! 

Life Bites

Last night, we went to dinner with friends to the Garlic Press, an upscale eatery not far from our house. Gary and Kim, ThatManILove and Janie.

The food was delicious.  The company, delightful.

Just to give you a little background, we entertain clients here almost exclusively.

We have an assigned waiter (through no negotiation on our part - we like him, he likes us) named Joey.

And Joey? Knows our drill.

We get the ticket, every time.  No ifs, ands, or buts.

Sometimes, I get out my credit card, and pass it to him.

We were having so much fun tonight, I missed doing that.

So, when Joey brought our ticket, he placed it between ThatManILove and Gary.

Immediately, a scrabble for the ticket ensued.

ThatManILove had his hand on it, and Gary had his hand on it.

Push, pull, push, pull, tug of war, and poof.  It was over before it started.

Gary ended up with it.

But mostly, because he tried to bite the hand of ThatManILove...who jerked his hand back, then looked at me in shock and said, “He almost bit my hand!  I felt his teeth graze my skin!”

I don’t think I’ve laughed that hard in a while!

It’s never boring around here!

Hello, World!

Yikes!  RobBear let me know I’d been a little lax in posting...but we’ve been superduperbusy.  (I know, that’s not a compound word...or adjective...or adverb.)

I can't remember everything, so I'm going to take you on a little photographic journey of the last month…because even if I've not been writing, my camera stays locked and loaded!

I took baby bump pix for friends, who have each subsequently birthed their beautiful babies. We worked.  We had guests for dinner.  We cooked out.  We entertained. We worked. We had a birthday party for ThatManILove.  We traveled. We worked. Bailey the Wonderpup came to visit during Spring Break.  Our friend Tinlee brought her two baby cocker spaniels to see us, along with our friend Raegan.  We worked. Our friend Jenaya cooked birthday dinner for ThatManILove, and everybody came over. Our friend Becky from Pennsylvania came to stay a week with us, while she worked in Midland.  We miss her already.  Our friend Raegan kept us laughing.

My trainer, V'Lesha…at 8.75 months pregnant.  She and her husband had a beautiful little baby girl.

My friends, Jeremy and Jannah.  They had a big little boy, so gorgeous!

Me, and my friend, Becky, from Pennsylvania.  She stayed with us for a week…we miss her already!

Bailey the Wonderpup came back to visit us over spring break.  We love her!

Our friend, Jenaya, who came over to cook for ThatManILove's birthday!  Fun stuff!

Our new friends, Ruthie and Rixie…cocker spaniel pups belonging to Tinlee.

I call this one "Blonde, Redefined."

ThatManILove and one of our good friends, Doug.  Love these guys.

Beautiful Tinlee, owner of Ruthie and Rixie

My friend, Raegan…she makes us laugh all the time!

We've had a busy 30 days, including one trip to Lake Granbury just to sit and look at the water, and a trip to Dallas this past weekend, just to be alone and enjoy each other.

Healing takes time…and love…and friends.

Thanks for your patience…I've missed you, each and every one!