a mixture of emotions...

i wanted this post to be the fun, happy one that i had planned, if only i had done this yesterday. i suppose i might as well start with the fun stuff and then move on from there. alright...so last week i was in madison with my cow k-leen at the world dairy expo. what fun..oh what fun. that is truly what i adore doing. i'll be honest, when i went in on saturday and spent that afternoon and sunday alone, just me and my cow, i was bored. but once i started to find people that i knew, things got fun and i didn't want to leave. i got to hang out with my friends from home who go to school in madison and were either showing or working at expo, and i also go to see stephen, the only friend i made on the europe trip this summer. it was great to see him, but i really didn't have any significant amount of time to talk with him. anyways, the show was on tuesday, my cow looked awesome and i had a blast walking on the 'colored shavings' (that's the phrase of expo cause every year the wood shavings that cover the arena are a different color, so walking on the colored shaving is an honor cause of the caliber of the show). my and k-leen were 6th which made me quite a happy girl. tuesday night i went home, wednesday i was back to school, suffered through till friday afternoon and then headed back to madison to catch the last 2 days of the show. it was really nice to hang out with friends and just enjoy the show and the beautiful animals. i really wish i could just have good cows and show forever. i don't mean that literally, a week at a time is more than enough, but i wish i could go to shows often. i could go on and on, but i'll refrain. ok, on to the next, the unpleasant part. my uncle ben who has been suffering from brain cancer passed away this morning. i didn't go to bed till 2:30 last night cause i was working on a paper, and then i got the call from mom at 7:30 this morning. so that was an unpleasant wake up call...and sadly, as soon as the ring penetrated my dreams, i knew what i was about to hear. so i'm sad, but at the same time i'm so happy for him because right now, my uncle is free from the pain and misery of near death and is sitting with Jesus enjoying an eternity of perfection and i'm jealous. there is NOTHING on this earth that is better than what uncle ben has now. as my family likes to say, he graduated into enternal life...which is the greatest thing a man can enjoy. *sigh* so that's what is keeping me going. the funeral is friday at 4, so this weekend that i really really needed for studying for my history exam on monday isn't going to be available for studying, which means that i have a boatload of things dumped into the next few days. speaking of that...why am i still talking? i haven't the time for this...so until next time....bubye