Mom is Almost Moved!

This last week and a half has been horrendous. I finally got moms house that she had rented painted. It took A LOT of paint! I had one room that was dark red with black trim and a midnight blue cieling, one room that was pea green with brown trim and a dark purple (eggplant) wall, a bathroom that was midnight blue with black trim, and a living room that was brown with pea green trim and a burnt orange wall. WOW! It took took two coats of Kills2 Primer paint and two coats of regular latex (dove white) to cover all of that garbage. I also had to fix electrical outlets and a few light fixtures.

Jeremy was so funny. He loves to paint! He was one happy camper when I set him up with a roller and a paint brush and let him loose on the closets. I’m not sure whether he got more paint on the walls or on him.

After spending last Monday through Thursday painting and getting the house ready we started the move from San Andreas, CA. to her new home here in Reno. This was a calamity of failures. While I was driving over the pass between here and there towing an empty trailer my radiator on my truck sprung a leak! I had to turn around and baby it back here. So Saturday was a wash. Sunday we borrowed another truck and went after Church. We met a panel truck at her place in San Andreas to load. The Driver of the moving truck was no help as he has bad emphysema, so it was just me and Jeremy. My nine year old son is one heck of a mover. He jumped right in and moved boxes and packed them away with me. If he came to one that was too big he just told me so I could get it. He also learned how to pack a truck using every available inch. I got him to point out where he thought a box should go and we used that spot. If I saw a better one we would put it in his spot and then I would just ask if he thought it might work better in the spot I saw. We worked great together and he learned a lot. I am very proud of him.

He is in that in between stage of big boy and Boy. He’s going through a little clumsy stage and I think it’s funny. Seeing him grow and learn is the best experience in the world.

We got home at 2:30AM Monday morning and I barely was able to get up for work at 5:30AM. After the twelve hour work day I got to go unload the truck! Again Jeremy was there to help. I have tomorrow off and will be leaving EARLY in the morning to get the rest of her stuff, but I won’t have my moving partner with me and I will miss him.

Wish me luck with the rest of this move. My butt is seriously dragging.

Night Eight of Nine

To say I am tired is an understatement. Tonight is night eight of nine nights of twelve hour shifts for me. Normally the max I am on shift is five days, or in this case nights, but I took a couple of shifts overtime so that one of my fellow shift supervisors could go to Hawaii. Lucky guy!

The hardest time is 5:00AM-6:00AM. That is the slowest hour of the night, or the hour that lasts decades. I am sure you all are familiar with this shift in the space-time continuum. Nodding off is hard to fight off and I do a lot of pacing. After 6:00AM all is cool turnover to the next shift is near and I can get busy getting turnover stuff done. Last minute reports and paperwork that could not be done earlier.

For those of you that are unfamiliar with my shifts (I know you’re on the edge of your seat in anticipation of learning this factoid), I work a 5/5/2/2 shift. Five nights on, five off, two days on, two off, five days on, five off, two nights on, two off, repeat forever begin. Is this confusing you may ask? Heck yeah it is. If it were not for my pocket brain (smart phone / PDA) I would be lost. I reference it to see if I have to work and whether it is nights or days.

Back on subject. It is night eight of nine. Every twelve hour shift is energy draining, and I passed empty three nights ago. My reserve is sputtering and I have one more night after tonight. Pray that I make it through the rest of shift.

My job is such that it is like a baby sitters job. Nights are boring as heck. If the kid gets sick or has nightmares you get busy, Otherwise it is SLOW. I get a lot of my supervisory paperwork done at night that I can’t get done on day shift because, well its night shift. During day shift the kid is up and running around, making messes,tripping and falling, and generally driving the sitter ragged. Add to all that the plumber and electrician showing up to fix the house and requiring the sitter to show them what is wrong.

Eight nights on shift the paperwork for the most part is done, so here I am blogging my miseries away.

Recharge

Boy was I tired this morning. I stayed up for church, which was a bit rough since I was up early yesterday to go mini golfing. I planned on this because we had a visiting candidate for our open rector (head priest) position visiting. I am on the search committee and this is one of the three we narrowed it down to. We have one more visit and then we have to make a decision. Pray for us that we have the ability to discern the right rector for our church. It has been a long process and it has been way to long since we have had a rector.

Anyway, back on the topic I originally wanted to write about. I was tired, but oh was it so good to be there with God. I find it very uplifting. I know that there are those that when they walk into a church it’s more of a feeling of geese this building is stuffy. Not me. I FEEL. I mean I truly feel the spirit. It is difficult to put into words and impossible to convince those that do not believe. I hold no animosity toward those that do not, or more to point, have not felt the spirit. It is a fresh breeze; a relief of stress; a feeling of love. All of these things and more. All I can do is invite and welcome those that come and let those that do not see the joy of what they are missing, praying that they too will one day experience what it is like to truly be with Christ.

Needless to say I felt recharged. Still physically tired, but recharged. I miss that when I am required to work on Sundays. I do my best to keep in touch through prayer and sharing with Christ daily. We have interesting conversations, but that is for another topic. There is just something about going to church, I think it is the communion that does it, or the music, or the focused spirit, or all of the above that recharges me.

Thanks for reading my ramblings. For those of you who are not Christian, or are not sure, or have never experienced what I describe, I hope you get the chance to. It is truly special. Feel welcome because you are. If you choose not to come in, that is fine too. You are still loved, even if you do not feel that way, or are turned off by my words.

God bless you all.

DaddyPlace Goes Miniature Golfing

I got up early, 1:00PM, to take the family for a fun time miniature golfing with one of my fellow Daddyplace members. Early? You might ask. Well, yes, early because I am on my night rotation of shift work, so I am working from 6:30PM till 6:30AM.

We all had fun especially paying by Mackenzie (4yo) rules. She showed us all how to play and have fun. Theres the herding method, that’s when you take your putter and kind of push/herd the ball to the hole; the snatch and drop method, done when the ball just won’t cooperate snatch it up and drop it nest to the hole; last there is the toe tap, for when the first put doesn’t quite make it to the green.

The age difference between Jeremy and Mackenzie didn’t phase either one of the kids. They were there to have fun and that is what they did. It was kinda cute how Mackenzie thought Jeremy was the greatest thing since the invention of the all day sucker. They met for the first time today and she ran right up to him and hugged him. He was doomed from that moment on.

Back In The Saddle

I like to write. The problem is I have not been and am out of practice. As you can tell if you look at the rest of this blog, it has been far too long sinxe I have posted. Will I do better? I sure hope so. I find this an outlet that is needed and lord knows there are not enough blogs out there for people to peruse and I would hate to deprive any from reading my fine words of wisdom and whit.

Most of my posts will be fairly boring tidbits from my life. Woohoo! I can feel your excitement bleeding through the ether. I tend to be a tad sarcastic so hold on to your socks.I have no special cause or odd happenings in my life to write, other than being a dad. If you do not consider that odd enough then you need to reassess what a dad is. A dad is someone to lean, climb, hang from, and climb on. He is a hero, a confidant, and best sidekick in the world. He sees things that no other can see and does things no other can. You can laugh at him and he laughs right back. This all can be interesting if it can be written about in a way that makes sense or at the very least is fun or funny to read. Wish me luck.

Looking back at this post I see one thing wrong with it. It is a tad bit self centered. News flash here. Blogs are the epitome of self contentedness. They cam also be fun for those that read them and for those that write them.

I hope I can keep this up and would be thrilled if anyone read it and commented on it.