When You Leave, I Miss You

Sarah is in Nashville for the next two days. I can't remember exactly when she moved to Memphis so I won't lie and throw a date out, but it's been over six months. We've been engaged since late December, and have enjoyed seeing each other nearly every day. She often travels past my apartment on the way too and from her various appointment and she teaches private lessons at a school near my office.

A two day interruption is thus a major change to the status quot, and I find myself already missing her.

I woke up very early this morning. 5:30 AM early. Sarah had planned to wake up at 4:00 AM and I was surprised she hadn't called me like she normally does. A frustrated nervousness immediately crept into me, and I couldn't help but worry that she had forgotten to plug her phone in and hadn't been woken up due to a dead battery.

So, I called her, and her phone went straight to voicemail! Ruh-roh. Several phone calls yielded the same result. At that point, it became clear to me that I had a duty as a man to drive to her apartment and wake her up. I grabbed the dog, ran to my car, and drove to her apartment. No car. She called me back as I was leaving her apartment complex, informed me that she had gotten my voice mail, and was driving through an area with bad cell coverage.

She then told me that she turned her phone off because she knew that in areas with bad coverage cell batteries were drained more quickly (due to them trying to find a cell tower). It then hit me: She listens to what I say! I told her that a few years ago and she remembered! And that feels really good. So thank you, sweetheart, for making my morning.

Maybe, Just Maybe, I've Found a Church

When I moved to Memphis, I didn't look for a permanent church home since I didn't think I would be here long term. I've visited a lot of churches (probably over 70 since I've been here), and had one that I spent more than my fair share at, but it just didn't feel like home at any of them. Ironically, there was one that I thought about trying at first that I didn't because a girl I knew from Minnesota moved down here and went there. Silly, huh?

Well, Sarah and I tried it out today, and we're going to attend again this evening. I'm thinking of making it my church home - it is First Assembly of God of Memphis. At least I think that's what they call themselves!

Anyways, here's hoping I can get plugged in.

Mississippi Burning

Saturday, Dad and I went down to the plantation to watch prescribe burning on the farm. We have a very healthy pine forest, but we haven't burned for a while. The fuel load was getting a little high, putting the forest at risk should an uncontrolled fire break out, and running burns kills the brush and leaves more food for wildlife. It's just a good thing to do from a conservation point.

Dad has only been to Weir (the town he grew up in and that the plantation is closest to) two times in the last decade. Interestingly enough, the funeral home buried my Grandfather in the wrong plot, and rather than exhume him just put a new tombstone over his grave. Dad saw the tombstone for the first time - which is strange, since Grandpa died 17 years ago.

We visited a man named Sambo, who maintained the homesite after Grandpa died and is very dear to our family. I had always heard about Sambo, but never met him until yesterday. He worked doing very manual labor well into his 70's - he was mowing our yard at the plantation until about five years ago.

Seeing the farm was just strange. Katrina created winds which knocked several trees down on the house - we had to have it torn down. Only the concrete slab from the car port remains of the house my dad grew up in. The picnic house and several storage sheds have all been rummaged through by thieves, and all the roofs are starting to have damage on them. Dad and I decided that, since we want to hunt and fish on the farm, we're going to fix up the picnic house. We plan on putting a tin roof on the picnic house, cutting the branches away from it, digging underneath it, and putting bars on the doors and windows to keep it nice once we get it the way we want. There is a nice pond there with good fishing (Grandpa actually dug the pond himself). We're going to cut back the trees, leaving several around the pond for shade, and burn around it. Basically, we can fit three people in that picnic house comfortably as far as existing bunks go, so we just want a nice place to hunt and fish out of.

Above are some pictures I took from a fun Saturday. The great thing is that I wasn't really cost a lot of work by being down there - the wireless card we picked up for my laptop gave me plenty of opportunity to get work done in the car on the way down and back!

Back to Blogging

I woke up this fine Saturday morning and realized that I miss blogging. Blogging is, in a way, therapeutic for me. I'm able to sift through the torrent of thoughts I have and figure out which ones are important - even if I don't write about them.

So, a few updates.

The car situation in Memphis is going both good, and bad. The mechanic I really want to work with, and that I worked with at first, just flat out isn't getting my stuff done anymore. In fact, I send customers to him, and he's not getting anything done for them either. He's literally the best mechanic I know - when he works. It's like a month ago, he just decided he was done. So, I have a few vehicles over there, but I'm sending all of my new stuff to a mechanic we've sent engines to in the past, that customers have been very satisfied with.

Organization of all of this is fun. Tracking parts throughout the country, planning work timelines, creating profit estimate spreadsheets - I love it. It's a lot more fun than organizing my own life, to be honest.

On that note, my financial situation is greatly improving. I have good cash reserves, which I have to have to do what I'm doing with cars, and that reserve is growing. Bills aren't dreaded now - I can pay them without worry. Hopefully, I can get out of here and get on with my life on my planned timeline!

Connecting with Cousins

One thing I'm doing right with this move is taking the travel light. I'm hoping that unlike other moves, I won't feel like I should take a nine year nap when I reach Roosevelt. In the spirit of that, I called my cousin and her husband (I guess some would just say "my cousins") to see if they wanted to have dinner. Not only did they end up not letting me buy (rascals), but they put me up in their very nice home as well! I'll have to remember to grab a picture of their house in the morning. They've got a nice place - when you drive on the main road by their house, there is a breathtaking view of the Rockies!

We ate at Thai Basil. It was a great meal. I had a beef dish which was cooked, in regards to hot spice level, exactly where I ordered it. This is really a rare treat. The muchrooms in the meal were a bit... spongey. I think I like that though, but I'm not sure.

The best part though, was getting to connect with my cousins. Amy was much older than I growing up, so I never really got to know her. And I really had only spoken for maybe five minutes with her husband since they got married last year... so it was a great time! I got to find out about their lives out here. The cool thing is that it sounds like they are looking to find a church similar to the one I come from back home. I really would love to see them get plugged in. They're such a nice couple, it would be great to have them in a place where they could go to the next level in their spiritual lives and then continue to grow more like Christ, whatever that looks like for them!

I even showed them some of the videos River Valley has done - they said that it looked like a church they could plug into to, which was cool. We talked till past 10:30. I'm looking to get a 6:00 a.m. start from Littleton so that I can grab some good light for pictures on Pikes Peak... so I had better get to bed.