Life goes on... and on... and on

What a huge football weekend coming up. Should be a fun day of football viewing.

I’ve been out of town all week. I spent 3 days in Opelika doing electrical work. I enjoyed it. I didn’t enjoy being away from home, but I did enjoy being out of the office working with tools.

I’ve been doing electrical work for quite a few years. I am by no means an electrician, though. I don’t get out and work with tools all that often, which I think is a good thing. I still get a little thrill when I install something, turn it on, and it works. I spent part of yesterday and the day before putting up ceiling fans. Every time I finished and flipped the switch to turn on the fan I had a little moment of doubt. Then the fan would come on and I did a little internal victory dance.

Not that I didn’t have my moments of misfortune. I shorted out a couple of circuits and shocked my self once. But only once! I had one fan that threw sparks when I turned on the light. But each time, I found the problem (someone hooked up the wrong wires, or the insulation on a wire was damaged, or my strippers touched a screw while I was stripping the hot wire) and I fixed it. All in all, good times.

We sold our house. Actually for real sold our house this time. We signed the contract this afternoon. Then we made an offer on a house. Misty just called me and it was accepted, so I guess we bought a house today. The house is just blocks away from some of our kids’ best friends (the two sets of parents are friends of ours, too). It is right across the street from my brother’s house. Exciting!

I realized last night that I probably write better than I talk. Several people were sitting around at church telling funny stories about themselves and/or their kids. I listened to some great stories (some from people reading right now). Try as I might, though, I could not come up with one of my own. The tales I did remember were things I’ve written here. Half of the people around the table read this blog, so they already knew them.

Of course, then there is the fact that I do embellish just a tad when I write. I hope this fact doesn’t lower your opinion of me. I have not made up any story written here. Most of them, I’ll admit, are stretched a little. It’s all for dramatic effect. My life is just not that interesting.

To demonstrate, I will tell a previous story as I actually remember it with no embellishment or hyperbole:

Once I went on a Boy Scout reunion camping trip with my Dad and Granddad. My Granddad told us he could pop the head off of a snake by cracking it like a whip. The next day we were walking down the riverbank. Someone (I can’t remember who) flipped over a rock and a snake was under it. My granddad grabbed the snake and cracked it like a whip. The snake’s tail came off and the snake flew out of his hand toward me. Luckily I was a good distance away and it landed several feet in front of me.

Did anyone else fall asleep while reading that? That’s why I don’t tell stories. If I tell them like that, they are boring. If I tell them the way I write them, well, they are a little long winded. So I’ll stick to the written word. Hopefully I can create some suspense, maybe a little anxiety. In the process I hope to entertain you. If nothing else, it will be a treasure trove of stories for my kids to someday tell to their kids. I just hope they exaggerate!