Stories and other stuff

This is gonna be one of those Because a Bug Went Ka-Choo! stories. We're having a hymn sing/pot luck at church on Sunday.  I've been trying to figure out what to make for said luncheon and I decided on comfort food.  I have to use up some chili sauce I made last year so I decided on meat loaf and mac & cheese.  I have this three hole crock pot, so two for meat loaf and one for the mac and cheese. I was going to buy the burger at the commissary but things like to disappear from the fridge at work so I decided at 1:34 p.m. I had time to run to the Smith's and then back home before work.  But not much time.  I had to be to work at 2:30 p.m. I'm in the express line and there's a woman in front of me.  I wouldn't have paid her any attention but she ran over her foot with her shopping cart.  I felt bad for her and of course, the first thing you do is look down.  The young woman was wearing sandals and for some weird reason I noted she didn't h...

I love surprises sometimes.  Sometimes, not so much but I'm also one to never look a gift horse in the mouth. I wore out my string trimmer.  Flat wore it out.  I may have ruined the engine on the thing, too.  I don't know yet.  I forgot to mix a bottle of oil into the trimmer gas when it spilled out during last week's adventures.  My son used gas from the right can when he filled the thing up.  His old man forgot to mix the oil in it.  I'm always so careful to put exactly one gallon of gas in the can so it can be mixed properly.  And then I forgot to add the oil.  I thought the gas looked a little pale when I filled up the tank.  It quit running while I was at the tail end of finishing up a yard for a lady at church.  I pulled the rest by hand and couldn't figure out why the silly thing wouldn't start.  Now I know. If I can get it running again, it should be OK. I had to tell y'all that to explain why I was at the Ho...

I mentioned this subject to the guys at my Thursday afternoon Bible study.  It's about a verse in Romans 12 that reminds us that God chastises those He loves as children.  It's been a recurring theme and I heard it as recently as today at about 12:40 p.m. When I hear things more than once, I listen closer.  Closer is going to play into this story in a different light at the end and it's building on another recurring theme.  Anyway, back to being disciplined. There are things I don't understand but I don't believe in coincidences.  I'll tell you why: Last night, I was watching a KC-135 bank right after taking off.  I've seen that sight hundreds of times and it still brings out the little kid in me.  I was part of making that happen for so many years and last night it was with a touch of sadness because that part of my life is over.  I loved my job with the Guard and I miss my friends.  But that's kind of looking backward.  Two thing...

I'm almost done at my sister's place.  I finished a project today that I think I should have finished years ago.  I installed a sprinkler timer for her.  She had the valves in the ground already but no timer.  What I didn't know was that she had a timer in the garage.  A hundred feet of sprinkler wire later and the water now comes on by itself. I had to fix a couple of leaks too.  One was fixed with prayer and the tightening of screws.  Prayer came in when tightening the screws the first time didn't seem to stop the leak, but prayer helped because tight screws were able to be tightened just a hair more than before.  Prayer works. Even for simple things. I had a discussion later on in the day with the former Mrs. Cooper.  She got mad at me because she thought I was mad at my son because the lawnmower wouldn't start.  I was not happy the lawnmower wouldn't start but it was nothing my son did.  I explained to her what I was not h...

I was going to take the riding mower to my mother's house today and then let the former borrow it.  That was the plan.  But this morning, after all those years of faithful service, after always being ready to go, for the most part anyway, the tractor was not. I found it with a dead battery and a flat rear tire.  That's no big deal except that I'm crunched for time today and now that's not going to happen.  I have spare tires and a battery charger so both things are easily remedied.  My biggest problem is the two hour commute (hour each way) and the fact that I have to work tonight. It's nice to be in a place where you don't get too upset when things go wrong.  I ripped my arm open last night (not too serious, looks worse than it is)  and just kept working away.  When the job was done, I got some medical attention.  My own doctor was working the late shift at the clinic last night so she patched me up and told me my blood pressure was "exc...

Yesterday, one of the guys that used to work on the fuel crew was walking around in our hangar.  I hadn't seen him in six months or so.  He's a huge Ducks fan and had on all his gear; shorts, tee shirt, water bottle, the whole thing.  He's from Oregon and yesterday he was a walking billboard. Two weeks ago, I was in Salt Lake to look at the car.  Me and the former went to the store by her house.  As I pulled into the parking lot, there it was:  A red car with Oregon plates. I saw three more today.  A small truck at Smith's; a car going down the road, and a truck on base as I was heading for the doctor's office. I have a little boo boo on my arm.  It hurts. Bad. Me and #3 son are planning a bit of a camping trip.  Maybe we ought to consider camping out on the beach for a couple of days.  I wonder if sand really gets into everything.

I have a ton of stuff to do this week.  There's the regular mow the lawn stuff.  Then there's some stuff I need to do for my mom this week.  There are weeds galore in the garden and those will be taken care of in the later course of the week.  A hoe will make quick work of them. Then there's the truck. I took it to the body shop this morning and the damage from the incident last week totals up to about $3,000.  That's only the half of it.  For the rest of it, I had to call my insurance company. In August of 2010 I ran over the front of a BMW.  I never had the deductible to get my truck fixed but I kind of do now.  I figured that if I was going to get part of it fixed, I might as well get the whole thing fixed and Farmer's doesn't have a time limit on repairing the claim, thankfully.  It's just going to take a bit to get the claim re-opened.  That's OK.  I have time.   All of the damage is on the passenger side and it'll b...