My Part of the Conversation

I have been working on my truck.  For about 6 weeks now.  Yesterday, I finally got all the old paint stripped off and prepped for new paint.  I started painting, laid down a nice primer, then had my base coat make runs and sags.  After a little research, I found that the paint gun manufacturer suggests air pressure about half of what is really needed.  They recommended 29 psi coming into the gun, when in fact it needs closer to 50.  Ugh.  I’ve started stripping off the paint to do it all again.

I’ll be glad when this is all over.  I do plan to show all my work on here.  I’ve been taking pictures and everything!

Peace.

Lately, I haven’t really had time to post.  I’ve been crazily balancing between these things:

1. High School Spring Retreat.  It’s this weekend.  It’ll be a big group, and I’m excited about it!
2. Youth Banquent.  Next week!  We have to send our seniors on with style!
3. Honduras fund-raising.  Lots of little details to keep up with.  I’ve had some amazing volunteers heading up different individual fund-raisers, but I’ve had a lot of little details to keep up with.
4. Selling my car.  AHHHHHHHHHHHH.  This has been tough.  I sold it, and it broke down.  Twice.  The whole thing is still in limbo.
5. Painting my new truck!  I’m learning a lot, but can only work on it a little at a time.  I have taken pictures and hope to post all about it, showing my work in progress.  After a week, I still don’t even have all the paint stripped off.  I should finish next week.  Or the week after that.  After that, forget it, it’s too hot.
6. Spending time with my little family.  My little girl is sweeter by the minute.  Hudson will talk your ear off.  And hit you with a plastic golf club if you’re not watching.  He started running up to me, handing me a plastic golf club, running out of the room for another one, and starting a sword fight.  He says, “You’re Captain Hook.  I’m Peter Pan.”  I still want to be Peter Pan.
7. Kate’s been healing well, and it looks like we’re getting back into a normal routine.  Thanks all of you for your prayers.

I haven’t given up!  I’ll be back!

Dear Self,

Congratulations on replacing your brake pads all by yourself!  Sure, you crammed a one hour job into 3, but look at the money you saved!  For your hard effort, I’m writing you a $100 check for the money you saved.  What will you spend it on?  Groceries?  Electricity?  That never-ending student loan?  It’s all yours!  Spend it as you will!

Sincerely,

Me 

I just made $900.  Not really, but in a Benjamin Franklin sense.

After 4 trips to the autoparts store, 8 days of headaches and frustration, 3 nights under the hood until 10 PM or later, 4 bottles of soap, a week driving the church van, and numerous calls to my dad, I finally got my car fixed.  I can see why they wanted to charge me $1100 to fix all the things they needed to.  However, I was able to do it all for less than $200, and a big chunk of that was to buy tools I can use again.

The whole project was one headache and barrier after another.  It seemed like nothing would go smoothly.  But, I feel pretty good now that everything is fixed and nothing leaks (so far).  It was also nice working on something where the effort I put in can have direct results in the outcome.  Ministry and working with teenagers rarely works that way.

Yet while it feels good, I hope I don’t have to do that again for a while…