November 30, 2004 - 9:26 am
Wow… Where to begin…
Nine days ago, Sunday before last, I headed out on a camping trip with some of the guys from the church youth group for a retreat. We were planning to go to Pedernales Falls State Park near Austin, but it had been raining the whole week before and the forecast was for more rain. We decided to stay closer to home and opted for Mineral Wells.
It did rain every day we were there. It was soggy, but we all still had a good time. We got some good hiking time in and the guys got to spend a lot of time with the Lord.
I got home Tuesday afternoon cleaned up and hung my tent and sleeping bag up to dry. I took my wonderful wife out to eat and then got a phone call from my sister, Sabra. Sabra and her fam were going to be driving through the next day on their way to my folk’s ranch in La Grange and offered to save me the gas of driving down myself. I took her up on it.
They pulled in to Arlington at about 3:30 on Wednesday and I hoped in. (Tammy flew to Amarillo on Thursday morning to spend Thanksgiving with her family. Long story, but it was a good decision.)
My dad was having some survey work done on the ranch which required cutting some paths through the dense woods along the perimeter of the property. These paths revealed other, smaller trials through the woods created by the horses and wild deer. This gave him the idea to buy some cheap paintball guns from Wal-Mart. Thanksgiving was great. We had paintball wars in the woods every day. Oh, and the food was good too. (Thanks, Mom!)
I got back from La Grange around lunch time on Sunday. I met Tammy at the church and we did some counseling with one of “our kids” who’s having some personal problems. We got home in time to catch the 3:00 football game. Then we started packing.
“Packing?” you ask. Yes, packing. The apartment next door to ours is an end unit, thus no neighbors on the bedroom side, thus much quieter. It also has a bigger balcony that’s screened in and new appliances. It’s been vacant for a couple of months now and we decided to move. This is certainly our easiest move ever. Our living room couch is moving literally about a foot, even though we have to carry it out one door and in the other.
Last night (Monday) we started moving and got about half way done by 9:30. We both tuckered out and called it a night. Today we should have 90% of our stuff in the new place. Since we’re not really packing most of it, there’s no unpacking to do. Just take and arm load off this shelf and put it on the exact same shelf next door. We do still get the benefit of moving in that we are going to get rid of LOTS of junk we don’t really need.
Once we’re done moving and cleaning up the old place, we’ve got our usual busy weekend ahead, and next week is going to be the craziest of all. As I inherited the church’s Christmas play, and it is STILL behind schedule, I’ll be at the church EVERY NIGHT next week for tech set up, que rehearsals, dress rehearsals, final run throughs, and finally, three performances on Saturday and Sunday (Dec. 11th and 12th).
So, now you will understand and hopefully forgive my lack of posting the last week or so and for the next two weeks. Hey, at least we’re not bored!