In April, I had quite an eventful birthday celebration. My dear husband took me to one of my favorite restaurants on a warm windy evening. Reservations for 7:00, a new dress, sandals, curls, makeup. We had just hopped in the car and headed down the road with the windows down and radio blasting our country favorites when we noticed several large furry animals marching aimlessly in the field. Yes, the cows had gotten out. So, hubby jumped out and did his best to corral them back into the pasture – in his dress clothes.
ALWAYS pack backup boots in the car – I thought to myself as I ran home to grab ours. It’s always a difficult judgment call when you have to make a lickety split decision of Would-You-Rather. In this particular situation, boots were necessary due to the amount of rain we had gotten that week. 
It was comically windy, especially with the dress I chose to wear, but I managed to stay modest for those passing by observing the hilarious display. Yes, we did make it to dinner an hour later and debated telling our server why our reservation had to be pushed back…
April was a very full month for our family – we had several birthdays to celebrate, Easter, and an anniversary in the family (making it a month of cake and celebrating!) The past couple months have been full-packed to the brim and have presented quite a bit of change. I have been tested in many ways and stretched in learning how to better prioritize my life to better serve my family.
Farm Updates
Orem Farms is quickly growing! Recently, my husband and I purchased a Kubota RA1042T rotary hay rake and added a gently used (but freshly painted!) chicken coop along with some Easter chicks. We are just beginning the chicken journey, but I hope to learn a lot in the process. We are starting out with Buff Orpington and Silver Laced Wyandotte.
New Chapter
When you are bouncing back and forth daily from learning the duties of motherhood, wife-hood, a demanding job, and then finally get to breathe the fresh, country air when you get home, it can cause you to reflect on what is most important. I found that each piece of my day kept bleeding into the next, making it difficult to truly “be in” any moment. When I was at work, I was thinking about what I should be doing at home and vice versa. After looking at all of the new priorities I have gained in the past year and looking at my goals for the future, I am working on organizing my priorities better and have started using my new 2017 Powersheets Planner, which has been a very helpful in goal-setting.
I have officially placed some boundaries in my day job and only go into the office 2 days a week now, which has helped tremendously with establishing a healthy work/life balance. I am not exactly the type of person that can stay home 100% of the time, so I feel like this works well for me. So often I find that women feel they have to join either the “Working Mom” club or the “SAHM” club. I found I identified with neither, so I created my own club – still thinking of a name for it, but something tells me I’m not the only one out there that fits somewhere in the middle of this scale! I’ve decided Tractor Heels would be a great resource for us non-categorically-confined women who work both at home and an office.
I have always dreamed of having a pair of beautiful Hunter boots because, let’s face it – you don’t always want to wear your muddy farm boots to the office on a rainy day. Hubby got lots of brownie points this year by purchasing a pair for me (and getting the size right)! I’m a huge advocate for transitional workwear and hope to someday design my own (Tractor + Heels sneak peek coming soon!) but I won’t be corralling any cows in these babies anytime soon!
