Stories and other stuff

I'm trying to be better, I really am,   Apparently, I need to try harder. If there's such a thing as death by a thousand paper cuts, Saturday's trip to the get my car emissions tested place was cut 998. My truck passed the emissions test.  My truck had a vacuum leak.  A tee fitting that goes to the engine's PCV valve has deteriorated in the 20 years of ownership, to the point I needed a new one.  I have the new one on order.  It's a dealer item.  Most vehicles have elbows on their PCV vales.  Mine has a tee. Because my temporary plates expired on Saturday, I tried the temp repair with electrical tape.  To me, it's a temporary repair.  To the inspector, it's tampering.  He wouldn't re-test it.  Aggravated already, and just beat down by every little thing, and then the look on the guy's face,... (I need to stop here and tell you that I've been warned about what I did next.  I'm trying to work on it.  I'm now trying ...

I've been seeing the month of June as one that's full of answered prayers. It started with the birth of a baby.  My friends took it on faith, and with the results of another, more thorough test to help them with their choice, that their baby would be fine.  They trusted God.  We all prayed.  She's perfect. I told God that I wouldn't believe it unless He dropped her off on my doorstep. He did. I prayed for my friend who has been struggling a bit with scripture that God would open him up to the Word.  I learned this morning that prayer was answered. I'm praying for God's will for me to be revealed to me.  It's been a thing this week.  But each day has been a thing this week. Here's a for instance:  I tend to get upset over things that I shouldn't.  I tend not to get upset over things I ought to be upset about sometimes.  I've realized that I bottle up upset until that one thing sets me off. My kids used to call it "mad face"...

From today's post title, you can imagine that there has been a plethora of activity in my life.  Where to start, though? How about here? We got hit with a plague of bugs.  I should say, I got hit with a plague of bugs.  Some of them just went after me.  We had wee beasties of all sorts.  No more though.  It cost me a bit of money, and in the process I got rid of all of my furniture. ALL of it. I'm down to a folding chair and an air mattress for a bed for now. But when I got hit with the plague of bugs, I knew who to call.  I didn't need to call around.  I met a "bug guy" through my friend, Jim Godfrey.  Jim has gone on to his reward, but because I met Jim at church and because we became friends, I met an exterminator.  He and his family kind of adopted Jim during the last year or so of his life, and that's how I knew who to call when I had bug trouble.  I guess things like this are just part of being a homeowner and now I'...