Its almost over...

Travelling marathon almost over.

I've been on the road for 3 out of 4 weeks and the week I was in town, I had to take the kids at church camping at the beach. Next week is the last major trip for (hopefully) the Summer. I'll be working the company's charity music festival for 4 days. Its being held in the middle of No Where Texas. I have to drive 30 miles to the nearest town every day for a shower.

In other news, on the way home today I found the liquor outlet store.

Crown Royal
Cruzan Coconut Rum
Tequila Rose
Envy
Krugy
and the bartender's bible.

$63

How awesome is that?

Its not what you think...

We teach JAM.

Which is the 4th thru 6th grade Jesus and Me class.

Today's Sunday School lesson was the wrap up of the 10 commandments. I did the first 4 dealing with our relationship with God last week. We played a game where only half the kids knew the rules but held all the kids accountable for the rules. "Hey, that's not fair. I didn't know I could answer the question if she got it wrong." Well kiddos, that's why God gave the Israelites the 10 Commandments (not suggestions).

I saved the rest (to include the adultry one) for my co-teacher cause I knew he could handle it better than me. We spent a lot of time on lying and stealing. One child wanted to relate a story of a time when she stole something. She saw a friend's pencil and wanted it, so she took it and when her friend asked her if she had it, she said no. We explained that she violated 3 commandments, not just the stealing commandment. Another child said she couldn't come up with one time she had ever stolen anything. Knowing her older brother, I suggested maybe there was a time she "borrowed" something of her brother's with his permission. "Oh, that's stealing?"

I told the class, "Yeah, according to little princess, she has never stolen anything, only borrowed stuff."

In worship service our row went Big Daddy, me, Adopted Princess, little princess, a girl from my Sunday School class "Blondie". Blondie goes up to the front for kids' story time and when its over she comes back to our row. She looks at little princess and says "you stole my pen and paper."

To which little princess looks her in the eye and says, "No I didn't, I'm just borrowing them."

Blondie looks at me and I just shrug and mouth the words, "I told you so."

Help, It's broken and I can't shoot crap!

So it's T-minus 5 days until the big skeet shoot. I'm not a bad shot but I've never shot in front of a crowd. Heck, I've never shot in front of anybody but a couple of friends and family. Oh, and I've never shot skeet in a professional format. I'm a little nervous about looking like an idiot in front of, oh, 50 or more co-workers.

I call my workout buddy and see if he'll pull targets for me on Sunday afternoon. I pack up and head to the range. I take about 15 warm up shots, taking my time, calling for the targets, and hitting probably 12 of 15. I'm jazzed. I'll be fine. I give my buddy a turn and then I set up and load. We discuss the format, 30 birds in 60 seconds, 2 shooters, 15 shells apiece, can only load 2 at a time. After we work out the math, we realize I'll have to fire 2 rounds in 4 seconds, load 2 shells in 3 seconds to give me 1 second to aim for the next 2 rounds. Holy crap!

I give it a shot. This is way hard. I fumble with the shells, dropping some on the ground, taking too long to turn them the right way. I may have hit 1 bird out of 10 before I had to stop because I was totally worn out and breathing hard. I let my buddy try. Then the shotgun jammed. I was a little freaked because we couldn't get the live shell out of the chamber. I knew we weren't supposed to leave our lane with ammo in the gun. I sure as hell didn't want to drive home with a shell stuck in the chamber.

We managed to jimmy it out and tried again. Jammed. "Screw this, get it out and let's go home," I told him. We went back to my house and tore it down, cleaned it and put it back together. Buddy says, "Let's try loading it with the safety on and see if it still jams."

"Ahhh, not in the house dude. Let's take it out front." We go to the front yard and try to load it. It jams. We jimmy the shell out and try again. It jams. I realized this might look bad for my neighbors to see us standing in the front yard, loading and reloading my shotgun. "Let's call it a day. I'll have to take it to a gunsmith tomorrow. This sucks!"

I run up to the gun shop early this morning only to be told the turnaround time is 10 to 13 days. No good I tell them. I need it Friday. They say Ok and I ask if I can pick it up Thursday, close of business. "No, I meant Friday 3 pm." "But the event starts at 9 am Friday morning in a town 3 hours away from here." I'm told sorry but they are already rushing it for me.

I go back to the office and start calling every gun shop within 60 miles of town. I find one that says their turnaround time is just 3 days. Perfect, I'll have it back in time to attend on Friday. I just won't have any time to practice or test the gun.

So I head back to the gun shop around 3:30 pm to retrieve my shotgun and get it to the new gunsmith before they close at 5:30 pm. A guy asks if he can help me. "Yeah, I dropped my shotgun off this morning but I've located someone that can look at it right away. Can you get it for me." I hand him my claim ticket. He heads to the back and doesn't reappear for like 10 minutes.* I was starting to wonder where the hell my shotgun was when he comes out and lays it on the counter.

"It's done."

"Excuse me?"

"It's fixed."

"Are you SHITTING me?" I practically scream it at him.

"Ahhh, no ma'am... I'm not shitting you."

"It's FIXED? What was wrong? See I was going to have to cancel.. What happened? They told me 10 to 13 days this morning... I have a company skeet shoot on Friday and I wasn't going to be able to shoot... What did he find? It's fixed? Really?"

"Well, you must have impressed someone because its fixed. There's no charge, its still under warranty. He adjusted blah, blah, blah." (I quit listening after the "its free" part)

"It's fixed? There's no charge? I can shoot stuff? Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

I've got my baby back and time to blow stuff up before the big day (T-minus 4 days and counting).

*Of course I'm totally convinced that they fixed it during the 10 minute period that he was "looking" for it because they knew it was under warranty and didn't want to lose the money if I took it somewhere else.

I'm must post quick like

before blogger crashes.

I can't post from home and at work, blogger just hangs there. Its very frustrating because so much is happening that I want to get down before my mind dumps the data.

I have 2 huge projects at work that are causing me to lose sleep, SARA Title III reporting and the inaugral issue of the company newsletter, both due Feb. 28th. To top that off, I'm taking 15 youths from church on a 4 day retreat to Dallas this Friday, thus shortening the available hours to get both projects done.

Meanwhile, back in the rest of my life...

Things are piling up on my desk while I focus on the 2 projects and home life is less than perfect with Big Daddy being grumpy from going back to double shifts this week and little princess is on a lying jag. She is lying about everything and anything. I asked her last night if she had given her friend the permission slip for this weekend, if not I'd run it over to her house. She assured me that she had indeed given it to her. This morning at 6 am the phone rang. (I figured someone must have died because my phone does not ring at that hour, ever.) The girl called to ask little princess to bring the permission slip to school today or she couldn't go this weekend. I want to beat her hinney (I'm giving up swearing for Lent).

No one's moods affect me like Big Daddy's. If he's grumpy, I walk on eggshells. I don't know why I let it get to me. My mom can't get to me, not my brother nor my boss. If Big D is in a mood my heart pounds and I start looking for a hiding place. Now don't get the wrong impression, I have NOTHING to fear. (I could probably take him in a fight.) He doesn't seem to understand it either. I hate my response to his moods.

I will back date the stuff I've been trying to post when blogger decides to allow it.