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'...

Last week, I started noticing unusual things again.  These were the same things that led me down the path I've been walking for almost the last four years.  Almost five years ago, I made a very bad choice.  I forced someone out of my life that God told me just to love.  I've blogged about this before.  Of course, I'm talking about the Who. Anyway, I was doubting what I saw until I got stopped behind a car when I was leaving for work on Friday that had an Oregon license plate with a Raiders plate frame.  The Who is a Raiders fan from Oregon.  It was the climax of the weird stuff I saw during the week and I no sooner spoke the words to God that I was skeptical of what I'd seen that I got caught behind said car in the parking lot at work.  No escaping it.  I saw it and I was supposed to. On Saturday, I woke up early and told God that if this was just a lesson, I'd already learned it.  I told Him that if it was just to reinforce the choi...

When I got my new toolbox at work, it came with a top that was never going to hold up to the things aircraft mechanics subject their toolboxes to.  I chose to paint mine with chalkboard paint.  It's black so it hides dirt, grease, and hydraulic fluid stains well.  It also functions as a way for me to leave notes on something I'm working on that the other shift has to finish.  I also have the words to the title of this post written on my box, and change the word every day. Today's word was:  Unusual. I had a really weird day today.  It was like I was there, but not all there.  I've been under the weather lately.  The cause of my ailment finally showed itself, and now it's just a time of recovery from it.  But today, it was like I was really tired.  I got through the day, but I was clearly not myself. As the day went on, I got better, but I missed seeing a nut I was looking for on the end of the clamp I needed to install.  Or ha...

It was very kind of Google to text me a photo I'd taken two years ago today while camping with the boys in Montana.  It was of a hot spring in Yellowstone National Park, on a trip where rain ruled the day.  My kids, I'm sure, will never forget their dad cooking sourdough pancakes on a Coleman stove in a drizzling rain.  Nor will they forget the dutch oven ribs we had that night in a rainstorm.  The trip was memorable.  What they remember is the food and their dad. Something else happened that day.  The youngest of the people who live downstairs was born today.  They're pretty much downstairs now.  The physical distance between us right now, if you drew a straight line through my floor and their ceiling is about five linear feet.  That five feet away might as well be a million miles away. Been thinking a lot about my NO! lately.  I wonder why we do that.  I recall a camping trip 20+ years ago where I had a cell phone and service ...

A lot of crazy things happen to me.  And from an outside-looking-in perspective, it must look like I'm some sort of raving lunatic, or I make bad choices, or any number of things on that spectrum.  From my point-of-view, though, I see my life and circumstances as a life out of control. And it hit me the other day. My life is out of control.   And it's supposed to be.  Because I'm not the one in control. I heard from my friend who I was dating at the beginning of the year the other day.  She wanted to check in and see how things were going.  I told her, and I also told her that I was glad she didn't get caught up in it when things went crazy.  My life was pretty normal there for a minute.  Empty house, just me here, and a whole lot of stuff and pussycats that weren't mine, but for the most part, it was normal.  I was dating a nice woman who had her own place, a job, and that didn't need rescuing from anything.  I liked normal. I...