As I'm sitting here in The Milk House waiting of some butter sticks I made this morning to firm up in the freezer so I can package them, I get to thinking just how busy we are and how much we pack in to our lives. Thinking to myself, "This seems like a great time to sit down and get another weekly blog put together!"

Love Where You Live. That's the theme of this years Harvest Festival Parade in Gothenburg to be held at 10:00 on Saturday, September 20th!

Of all the things we could do to represent our awesome community, I just keep pulling unimpressive ideas from my mind. I usually have some inspiration and creativity when it comes to these things! This may partially be a little overwhelming in my thought process because The Milk House isn't all I have to worry about. I have the Smilin' Ranch float to put together also and am helping to get the 4H Group, Antelope Livestock planned out as well and helping with a dash of the NE Draft Horse Associations as well.

Desperate to get some inspiration I reached out to my social media world and got so many great ideas from my trusty followers! The thing that surprised me was how many people reached out to ChatGPT! What... the... Heck?!?! This is not something that had even crossed my mind. I will admit that I do have the app downloaded on my phone from people encouraging me to make my life easier and use it... but have I ever used it... NO.

I can't believe the ideas that it tossed out that people were able to contribute ideas for the parade floats! Because of this help, it did help me land the ideas for both The Milk House and Smilin' Ranch Co to help show why we Love Where We Live! Now we just have to get everything put together and hopefully its not too much work to get everything to town!

Within that planning and building of parade floats we are fitting in football, cross country, doctors appointments, celebrating the in-laws 46th anniversary and even some grocery shopping. This isn't even mentioning keeping the day to day ranch life going and animals taken care of and daily operations of The Milk House/Milking Cows!

It seems as though everyone is busy these days! For us it really just depends on how we coordinate our life and the sacrifices we have to make in areas to make things flow! Some days do I have to milk extra early or a little late to make a kids event, Yes. Is there times that a kid has to step up to make sure their siblings chores are done, Yes. It's all a balance and as a ranch family of five, we have found a routine within "Mindset and Sacrifice" that works for our busy lifestyle... AND... we still have FUN doing it!