TexasY'all 🐎 🇺🇲 🙏🏻

Child of the ONE true King ✝️ Proverbs 21:31. God made horses & I love them horses. Bucket list: To one day hear “Well done, good & faithful servant”🙏🏻

[Josh Barzon @JoshuaBarzon]

I calculated what it would cost to replace everything my wife does as a stay-at-home mom.

The answer: $131,130 a year.

Here's how I calculated that amount.

My wife genuinely loves being home with our four children. She homeschools them, manages our home, cooks for our family, gardens, and invests her life in raising our kids.

But every so often, she asks whether she should get a job to help financially.

Not because she wants a career outside the home, but because our culture can make stay-at-home mothers feel like they are not contributing unless they bring home a paycheck.

I always remind her:

“You already have a career. You work for our family.”

She may not receive a paycheck, but much of what she does saves us money we would otherwise have to earn, pay taxes on, and then spend hiring other people.

So I ran the numbers using typical rates in the Des Moines, Iowa area:

HOUSEKEEPER
12 hours/week × $20.74/hour
$12,942 per year

NANNY FOR FOUR CHILDREN
50 hours/week × $23/hour
$59,800 per year

HOMESCHOOL EDUCATOR
5 hours/day × 180 school days × $25.03/hour
$22,527 per year

PERSONAL SHOPPER
4 hours/week × $20.58/hour
$4,281 per year

PERSONAL CHEF
2 hours/day × $38.33/hour
$27,981 per year

PERSONAL GARDENER
3 hours/week × 30 weeks × $40/hour
$3,600 per year

TOTAL ESTIMATED ANNUAL REPLACEMENT VALUE:
$131,130

This is not meant to be a literal salary calculation. Some responsibilities overlap, but that is part of the point: replacing what one stay-at-home mother does would require hiring several different people.

And this still does not account for sick children, overnight care, appointments, curriculum planning, discipline, emotional support, family scheduling, or the constant mental load of knowing what everyone needs.

My wife may not receive a paycheck, but she creates enormous value for our family every day.

A paycheck is not the only proof that someone is contributing.

Thank a stay-at-home mom today.

[Mike Bales 🫡🇺🇸 @MikeBales]

Why must air traffic controllers retire at 56, FBI agents at 57, and pilots at 65—yet politicians can keep making decisions for future generations until 90?

[TexasY'all 🐎 🇺🇲 🙏🏻 @TexasYall99]

@TobyBirdSays Oh dear lawd the comments 😅

[TexasY'all 🐎 🇺🇲 🙏🏻 @TexasYall99]

@TickleTexts She could have been seriously hurt. There is nothing funny about this at all and the horse will definitely test every rider after this

[TexasY'all 🐎 🇺🇲 🙏🏻 @TexasYall99]

@megbasham @HelloFresh Oh dear gawd

[Byron Donalds @ByronDonalds]

To you, it's just a Cracker Barrel parking lot. To me, it's where I gave my life to Jesus Christ.

I was 21 years old. I was working at the Cracker Barrel in Tallahassee after some of the worst years of my life. I'd made mistakes. Real ones.

I grew up in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, raised by a mom who worked hard and didn't accept excuses. But I made decisions that should have ended my story before it ever really started. By the grace of God, they didn't. But every day, I was carrying them.

One afternoon, a church group came into the restaurant, just back from a revival. I served them their meals like I served any other table. But something happened while I was serving them. I can't fully explain it to you. The Lord spoke to me. He said, “Stop running from Me.”

It knocked me back.

I went to find the table, and they were all gone. I could see through their windows that they were getting on their bus, and I knew deep down that if I let them drive away, I was going to keep running. So I went outside. The last woman, just as she was stepping onto the bus, turned to me and asked, “Are you okay?”

I told her, “No ma’am, I’m not okay.” I told her the Lord was telling me to stop running.

That whole bus emptied out, stood with me in the parking lot of a Cracker Barrel in Tallahassee, Florida, and prayed over me right there.

I gave my life to Christ that day. Right there.

I still get emotional about it. Because I know what I was before that moment, and I know what He's done since. He gave me a wife who shares my faith. He gave me three sons. He gave me a career, a community, a calling I never would have dared to ask for. He took a kid from Crown Heights who’d run out of chances and gave him a life that doesn't make sense apart from grace.

People ask me sometimes why I talk about it. Why I bring up the parking lot. Why I don't just keep that part private and let folks see the polished version.

I'll tell you why.

Because there's a young man out there right now — maybe in Tallahassee, maybe in Tampa, maybe in Miami, maybe in a small town in the Panhandle — who thinks his story is already over. Who thinks the mistakes he's made disqualify him from the life he could have had. Who thinks God doesn't want anything to do with somebody like him.

I'm here to tell him: that's a lie.

In life, you're not who you are at the lowest point. You're who you choose to become after.

The Lord met me in a Cracker Barrel parking lot. He'll meet you wherever you are.

You just have to stop running.

[Rodney Smith Jr @iamrodneysmith]

Dear @WhiteHouse, my name is Rodney Smith Jr., founder of Raising Men & Women Lawn Care Service in Huntsville, Alabama. Through our 50 Yard Challenge, over 6,000 kids across the country have signed up to mow free lawns for the elderly, disabled, veterans, active-duty military, first responders, and single parents. With America celebrating its 250th birthday this year and me also being born on July 4th, I wanted to humbly ask if a few kids from our program and myself could travel to Washington, D.C. to help mow the White House lawn for this historic celebration.

More than anything, I want these kids to see how a simple act of service something as ordinary as mowing a lawn for someone in need can lead to extraordinary places. What better lesson in community service than showing them that helping others can take them all the way to our nation’s capital? I’d also love to bring my American flag-themed mower in hopes that the President might sign it, so I can later auction it off and donate 100% of the proceeds to a nonprofit supporting veterans. It would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to highlight the importance of service, patriotism, and the impact young people can have when they choose to make a difference. 🇺🇸

[Michelle Maxwell ™ @MichelleMaxwell]

With everything we are hearing right now about ticks this seems like good information to share.

“Here’s what I’ve learned after more ticks than I care to count.
First, whatever your uncle told you, forget it. No matches. No nail polish. No Vaseline. No soap on a cotton ball. All of those do the same terrible thing, they stress the tick out, and a stressed tick empties its gut back into the bite before letting go. Which, if you think about what that actually means for a second, is literally how Lyme and the rest get transmitted so you’re not speeding up its exit. You’re making it throw up into you.
Fine-tipped tweezers. Grip right where the mouthparts enter the skin, not the body, the head. Pull straight up, steady, no twisting, no jerking. It’ll feel like it’s resisting because it is, the mouthparts are barbed. Just keep the pressure on and it lets go in a few seconds. If a piece breaks off in the skin, leave it alone. Your body pushes splinters out. Digging around with a needle does more damage then the fragment ever would.
Clean it with alcohol or soap. Wash your hands.
Now here’s the part most people skip: don’t flush the tick.
Tape it to an index card. Clear packing tape right over the body, write the date and where on your body it was, and stick the card in a drawer. If you come down with anything weird in the next 30 days, rash, fever, joint pain, that flu-that-isn’t-flu feeling, that tick goes with you to the doctor. Some labs will test the tick itself, which is faster and often more reliable than waiting for antibodies to show up in your own blood. A dated tick taped to a card is one of the most useful things you can hand a doctor who’s trying to figure out what’s wrong with you.
The other thing worth saying out loud: if the tick was engorged when you pulled it, and you can’t swear it was off your body within 24 hours, call your doctor that same day. Don’t wait for a rash. Fewer than three out of four Lyme cases even produce the classic bullseye. A single preventive dose of doxycycline within 72 hours of a deer tick bite cuts the Lyme odds way down, and most docs in tick country will write that prescription without giving you a hard time, especially if you walk in with the tick taped to a card and a clear timeline.”

[TexasY'all 🐎 🇺🇲 🙏🏻 @TexasYall99]

@DoctorMommy401 @_sorrengailll @Apple Yes!!!

[TexasY'all 🐎 🇺🇲 🙏🏻 @TexasYall99]

@USATRUMPMAN1 Prayers said 🙏

[TexasY'all 🐎 🇺🇲 🙏🏻 @TexasYall99]

@outdoorswi1 @Thebestfigen Absolutely when it comes to a horse and their well being. Ride off “cowboy”