The Reunion

         

2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV /         

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

    
    
     I got home after a few projects.  
No parties, no big celebrations, just coming home after a season in the Bakken.    I can't describe the feeling I had driving home.   I wasn't coming home to a messy house at least in the cluttery sense or my family relationships.  The kids had been calling and saying, "Dad!  We are coming over."  
So I get to spend quality time with the kids. YAY!!!    I get to see my Bill W. and Dr. Bob friends, and they are ok.    I get to reconnect with my friends at First Lutheran.    Then, I have been making plans with my hunting buddies brad, Ryan and Ralph and a few others, like my brother...  He wants me not to stir the pot with them, especially Bradley who has it coming for getting his name in the paper for doing stupid stuff this summer.
     It's nice getting reacquainted with my home at Penguin Ranch.   I don't like reorganizing my closets, its not easy for me to do.  Its an ADD thing.  I can be putting pants on my shelf and with three pair on the bed, I suddenly realize that I am outside by the well house wiring in the electricity to the well house heater, so I go back in the house and do dishes.  later that day I go upstairs to clean the bathroom, and when I see my pants on the bed,  I say to myself, "Oh yeah,  I need to ...go wash my socks."  Somehow, sometime before bed time, I see that my pants willed themselves to the closet when I was making meals for the kids and doing kitchen duties...  I'm telling you!
     New projects: not at the moment.  But the teen rocket scientists of my residence are building an ice fishing shack out of my camper...  doing a great job too by the way.  My initial doubts have been shattered.  
      Now here is the kicker.  Going back to the Bakken on Thursday.   The puzzled reader would ask, "Why with all this good stuff would he take off and go right away?"   The answer is quite simple.  I leave early Thursday morning on the Empire Builder from Grand Forks to Williston.   There I will reunite with my Williston group of friends and spend a delightful evening with the beautiful Brenda.  Friday afternoon we depart from Williston in her cute little Pontiac to spend an awesome weekend bonding through Christ planning on and deer camp at Penguin Lodge.... planning an awesome life together.   I love her. 

  In one year everything has changed, it hasn't been always easy or fun, or full of laughter, but through the salvation of Jesus Christ it has been worthwhile,  and that has what has made the difference

Open Doors

"For I know the plans I have for your," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."  Jeremiah 29:11 NIV

    Got laid off after a 5 short weeks of work.  Its a long story.  Layoffs seem to put a damper on my plans of prosperity and security, and I must guard my door to let negative thoughts come in.  Sometimes it feels like so many doors are being shut.  Experience shows me that it is quite the contrary.
      I have been thinking about doors lately;  both in a symbolic reference to my life,  and also in a literal sense having installed a couple in my home. There are many doors in my house, but only three of them enter into my home. 
     The first one is screwed shut.  It leads into my basement.  I absolutely hated it as a kid.  It was the one that we carried wood into the house. Its function was simply for work.  And when we opened it.  It meant sweat.  It meant not fun.  It also meant future warmth in the home and a clean aroma of fresh air in the house in the winter months along with aroma of sap  and popple bark.
     The next one leads into my kitchen area from the outside.  I had a pretty nice one there.  But the door jamb was broken.  The latch would lock by itself, and I never had a key.  So people living in my home on occasion would either hope the basement wasn't screwed shut, or a window latch left undone so they could crawl in or stumble down some rickety old stairs into a dark place; and  eventually, through some exerted effort find a way to get in.  I got a new door and frame hung it and finished it off with a modern lock and a handle made of deer antler. 
    The last door goes out onto the new deck. When dad moved in this old rickety house in 1980,  it came complete with an overhanging porch on the west end of the house.  It had an old door. But the only thing missing was the rest of the porch: no floor, no railings..  If a person would open the door and walk out, he would fall about three feet down into a sterile clump of dirt that because of the great overhang never got wet. So nothing ever grew.  But the cats seemed to scratch in it and leave plenty of cat scent.  An occasional dog over the years would dig a hole.  A few weeds would grow on the edge where water dripped off the roof.  When I moved in, I took out the door and covered it with plywood and finished off the inside saying to myself, "Maybe one day if only..."  It seemed like a hopeless pipe dream.  Then one day happened. 
     It started when the weather broke.  I was laid off and had a little time,  so I built a deck under the great over hang. I wanted the house looking better for the new love in my life.  But I finally had the means and that porch had been bugging me since I was a kid.  I wanted this place looking better. I wanted my kids and all who know me that Bunky is back.  I wanted my house to reflect the person I really am.   Its a great pleasure to see the look of approval on Brenda's face when she comes to visit from out west and see things  improving.  After all, this place will soon be hers also.
    Finally after the deck was done, I get laid off again get a little time off and I woke up one day with the determination to get a door in so people can walk right out onto the deck, the deck with an old overhang that had been sitting empty with nothing underneath it for 33 years.
     Here is the thing,  for the last 5 years a small project like this would have been unfathomable.  Overcome with fear, guilt, economic insecurity, resentments, and paralyzed by the depression of alcoholism, the old house with the messed up doors would have remained screwed shut.  The beauty and freedom of a simple home would have remained hidden and just remained barely functional as a sleeping- eating place possibly for another 33 years.  I didn't build it.  I didn't hang the doors.  God did.
    Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.  Matthew 7:7-8 NIV.  It was only the pain of dealing with a great change of life that brought me to my knees.  It was that pain that lead me to recommit my life to Christ, to examine my life as it was and is,  to live in a solution that gives me the power to solve all my problems.   My heart was hard and cold.  So hard and brittle that it was shattered.  And with a hole in my heart, God's love shined through.  John 3:16  For God so loved the world he gave his only one and only Son.   Now Jesus is the doorway. 
     When it seems like doors are being shut in one's life, God opens so many more. 
"In the New Testament, Jesus tells us to knock at the door, but also warns that the door will someday close and shut out the unprepared.  James warns us that the Judge is at the door.  We do not have forever to decide.  And finally, in Revelations, it is He who knocks at our doors, and waits for us to let Him in.    And the final reference in Revelations is of a "door standing open to heaven"  -- Hope is fulfilled." (Willa: Quotidian Reader).  
    People are much like a house.  We also have our own personal doors to let in and out both good and bad.  We can put up storm doors, or leave them unlocked. We can leave them wide open or put on good locks.  We can put decorations on them, or we can smear  lamb's blood on our door post.  We choose which doors we want to open.  Door A: same old blah blah blah!- restless, irritable, and discontent.  Door B: God's world of love and endless possibilities.
       A big door is opening in my life once again preparing a home and planning a life with Brenda.  She enhances my walk toward Christ and encourages my walk toward the narrow gate.  She consistently reminds me of the bigger picture of life, the unseen one that God has planned for each and everyone of us when we choose to walk that narrow path.  That path isn't always fun,  never is easy, but is always worthwhile.  Thank God for doors... may they continue to open and close. As for me and my house and all who enter in it, we will serve the Lord.
  

Of Beavers and Wolves

     In 1996, -97, and -98  I was living an outdoors-man's dream.  A typical day I would wake up at the crack of dawn, and journey out to tend my muskrat and beaver sets.  I would come home at dark and spend hours in a fur skinning shed.   Once a week or sometimes more depending on my catch I would visit the fur man and get a nice check.   I loved the smell of the swamp, the trees, the exhaust from a warm vehicle.  I was subsidized by an unemployment check.  My bills were paid, and I felt I had a purpose in life- to catch and kill and skin and stretch as much fur as a human could.  By most trappers accounts, I was considered good.  I took over 3500 muskrats and nearly a 600 beaver in those years. Foxes, coyotes, badgers, fishers, bobcats, and I even had a wolf in a trap one time, but got it loosed.  I struggled over the idea of trying to smuggle the hide into Canada.  But I turned him loose.
      I remember picking up one of my children just born from the hospital in a pickup loaded with beavers in the round and some put up and hauling them and my family to the fur man Ordean Sunrud in Fosston, MN.  My boys tasted a freshly cooked beaver there, and it was good.
     Life moved on for me, I had a couple of career changes, markets dropped and I sold my traps and some supplies to another guy who wanted to make a go at it.  I was raising turkeys.  One night something got into my turkey shed and killed about 600 birds outright, while the rest piled up in the four corners of the shed.  Tracks left in the mud led certain evidence plus the fact in my alfalfa field I had seen a pair of wolves earlier that summer.  I was angry, financially devastated.  I became consumed with the spirit of vengeance and within a couple days I had settled the score. I encouraged others to do the same , and got on the anti wolf bandwagon.
     A couple years later after moving on from ranching and settling in to another chapter of my life, I was driving around one day.  In a distant meadow I saw two wolves playing around a bale.  My instinct was to grab the gun, but instead I grabbed the binoculars... it changed my heart and my life.
     I saw that the pair were actually hunting mice.  In the grass I could see smaller wolves, pups.  The pair was teaching them how to hunt and feed.  The pups would play and wrestle around. It reminded me of my boys.  When the wrestling got a little rough, the mom would intervene and they would snap back and pay attention again.  They were just doing what wolves do.  They were being a family not much different than mine.
     They were just being the way God created them.  They play and sleep together, hunt together, they encourage each other to grow and become stronger.  They keep each other in line so that their family can function together as a unit.
     Same with the beaver, building a home together, gathering food.   So it is then I realized that as we are brother and sisters in Christ, so too are we brothers and sisters to the furry four legs in Creation.     I will not take any of my fur legged brothers or sisters nor teach the ways of it no more...forever.  This does not mean that I will not hunt or trap again. It means doing only these things for me to provide a meal, or clothe myself.  After all, who can turn down a plate of well prepared venison.
     Who am I to judge one of God's families.  It was on that day, and although possibly distorted at the time, I began my journey back on the Red Road.  A road that has led me back to God's family,  their have been struggles and victories.  We are more alike than different.
     Of wolves and beavers,  I hold nothing against the man who takes the fur as a part of his journey of existence on his life.  I hold nothing against the farmer protecting his crops and livestock.  But I hold in the least regard for men who were takers as I once was "sportsmen" satisfying an ego, .  Using greed as their creed and giving nothing back.  I hold even less regard for a government or bureau profiting from the control of these creatures.        
     Worse are those who wantonly waste the creatures of Creation in the name of satisfying a void in their heart with  the excitement of hearing the crack of a firearm and the satisfaction of an aimed shot.  It matters not what others do though.  And if because of my beliefs the retelling of these exploits brings joy to their hearts to see mine sad;  then... Amen.    I know that it is what they have to do as part of their journey to find their own center.   I will pray to live in the spirit of forgiveness so that I may forgive.
Mitakuye Oyasin
           

Planting Time

     God grants me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change, gives me the courage to change the things I can and gives me wisdom to know the difference.  I struggle with three simple words.  What. When. Where.
     I am glad that i do not depend on farming for a living anymore.  Instead I put in a little seed for the wildlife.  A couple years ago, my cousins Bradley and Ryan  and I just up and figured it was time that we get with the times and start putting in food plots.  Ryan has a little land up north of town in a swamp.  I remember planting trees with his dad Eddie up on that farm.   I don't know how it all happened, but we worked up a little one year and scattered a little soybeans by hand.  While they were growing we got this bright idea to work up a little more for the following year, so we resurrected a few old implements, gave Eddie's WD45 Allis Chalmers a little TLC and went to work.  The next year came and we got a hold of an old corn planter, we worked up a little more.  Now we have about 15 acres to plant, and our conversations each spring are debates and debacles about what to plant, where to plant it, and when.  As of today before this last rain shower we have about 3 acres of corn and 4-5 acres of soybeans.
     So the debate and questions sometimes seem rhetorical for the sake of hearing the answers and opinions of the what, where, when to plant.  Many frustrations and feelings occur arise out of those questions. Sometimes tiffs or arguements. The Bonds of men through hunting and family ties must be considered.  Ryan and his sister own the land and a tractor.  Bunky has the planter.    Bradley has a sprayer.    We all come up with some seed. it seems.   Little chess games need to be played until someone finally goes out and  just starts putting seed in the ground.   It's not anything close to precision farming and by today's standards of auto steer and satellite technology, we are lucky to stay straight for fifty feet in a row (depending on who is driving). The actual money farmers don't get a vote on whether the crop is good or bad.  Only the benefits of wildlife and  hunter's that share the benefits of being in our gang share the satisfaction of coming to hunting ground that has been enhanced for the enjoyment of living an outdoor lifestyle that has been handed down to its benefactors for 5 generations.
     I didn't get to plant last year.  Didn't get to watch the plot grow.  To top it off, I didn't get to hunt.  " How unfair," I thought.  But little did I know that this was the least of my problems.  They did get worse.  Life as it would have it moved from the recreational wa waaas of bickering kids in a sandbox to things that people in a free God loving society shouldn't have to go through.  Many stories of women from the Bible come to mind Eve Deborah Delilah Jezebel.  The reader should get the picture and I choose not to tell thier stories.  My story is of the aftermath and I am a guy.  It reminded me of the Story of Jacob with his dysfunctional family problems;  more so, his son Joseph.  Such is life when times when life doesn't treat a person fair.  Gen 37:23-24, "So when Joseph arrived, his brothers ripped off the beautiful robe he was wearing.  Then they grabbed him and through him into the cistern..."  It got worse for Joseph.  He was thrown in prison, made a slave, but he made his best to serve the Lord.  And in the end things turned out for all around him.
     Oh those brothers of Joseph.  Oh those kids, wives, cousins, friends....  If they....
     Joseph was granted courage to change the things he could.  Serenity?    How could he have that all the time.  We need serenity to accept the things we can not change.  First I cannot change other people's attitudes or their actions.  I have to accept the consequences of my own actions and take responsibility for my past failures.  1 Sam 15: 11 ," 'I am sorry that I ever made Saul king, for he has not been loyal to me and has refused to obey my command.'  Samuel was so deeply moved when he heard this that he cried out to the Lord all night."  I can only look at the decisions that I have made, look at the seed I have sown and say yes.  That was me. I did these things.  This is my part. These are rows that I planted and the seed I used for the ground I put them in.  Try to make them right.
     Wisdom!  What is the difference in knowing between the things I cannot change and having courage to change the things in which I can?  Well for me the answer is  prayer and scripture.  I must pray for God's will to be shown to me and to make me willing to live in the spirit of obedience.  My father a fellow hunter isn't here to hold my hand any more and my children are old enough  that their grip in times of need seem less firm.  Others express their opinions on my future decisions. But ultimately they don't get a vote.   Just as when those questions arise of what where and when to plant in a simple little food plot for wildlife; it is not much different in the question of human life.  The question ,"If" is in the middle of the word L"if"E. It always seems that I find the answers in the Words from the Bible.   Living obedient to those words where I hadn't before is the only wisdom I have found to make a difference.  Praying for God to show me His will and to give me the right seed to plant in others.  I must live in a spirit of gratitude for the lessons and tests in life.  Be where I can live and act in a spirit of obedience and guard it all the time.
      For those who Believe,  Jesus also struggled, but accepted, In Luke 22:42-53  Jesus is met by his betrayer, neither panics nor is frantic ...simply offers a simple question," Judas, did you come to betray me with a kiss?"  Then he healed again a slave who has his ear cut off.  Jesus first asked ," if you are willing, remove this cup from me." Likewise serenity is not simply detachment – distancing ourselves from our dreams and desires. Rather, what we see in Jesus is a continuance of his mission…with hope! It is a trust that God is good and out to do good to us always.
     As Paul wrote, “God works for the good in everything with those who love him and are called according to his purpose.”
     I have planted my seeds now as straight and true as I can in the best places and most ready where God has shown me to plant in this time between the rains. God has shown me many ways in which he wants me to trust Him.  I will continue to plant each year straighter rows with better seed suitable for the right purpose .  I will watch for the plants to flourish , grow and hopefully mature.  And I will travel back to the plots to see where my Faith is good, my Trust is reaffirmed.  And continue to see the good in where my failures of tests have lead me.  And fear not- knowing that in the journey I am doing the best I can.  My Peace.

Another note from Jose

Hola Tomas, Buenos Dias and all that stuff.  You know what I mean Amigo.

Just wondering what you been up to my friend.   Things got warm here in Racine, then they got cold , then they got wet again.   Went and seen my dad in New Mexico.  He just got back from Antarctica, its gonna get cold down there.  He says the penguins are doing good, seems that when all is said and done the global warming is doing them good after all.   It seems that the warmer waters has heated up reproductive activities, and more fish seem to be coming their way, especially the mackerel.

Talked to the boss he thinks maybe the end of next week we go back to work.   Like you say where you come from... Uff Da!
Hope to see you soon.

Your friend,
 Jose Jimenez

P.S.  Hey AMIGO can you bring the potato tortillas that you put butter and sugar on then roll it all up? leftovers or something you called it.  It was good.

Dear Jose,

Good to hear from you.  It sounds like you have the same weather there as we do here.   I may or may not be on your crew, they sent me to the training center to learn how to dig alongside the bomb.  It's a good thing to know yoga when you dig along side of pipe.     But maybe I will get sent back out west.   Hoping to get close to Williston or Watford City.   Do you remeber that lady from church?
Well she is becoming more special in my life, and she is even coming to visit Middle River again.  Seems as though she sort of likes the swamp and welcomes the look of leaves contrary to sage brush.
It's a good thing to have her as a friend.  Hmmmm.!?  I often wonder and hope for a brighter bigger picture with her.

It sounds like Hunter and Gracei had a good Spring season of ball.   Hunter and Gracei are both learning the fine art of throwing a pitch.  Although Hunter appeared to get a good talking to about control issues and beaning other opponents.

Going to pick some mushrooms tomorrow, so I have yo go to bed.
Buenos Noches My Friend

Tom

The Magic of Rainbows Present

   

  I was watching the birds in the yard yesterday.   I have quite a variety of birds visiting lately: blue jays, 2-3 different sparrows, dark eyed juncos, robins, flickers, woodpeckers, and a strange small red bird that i have not yet identified.   But the strangest thing I saw was when I was watching a deer sneaking in to the yard cautious and skittish as if it were being followed.
     I got my camera ready just in case something wonderful and amazing would appear, but just as fast as the deer appeared out of the brush, it got scared and ran off.  I stood and watched in anticipation.  I could just sense that something amazing and wonderful would happen.  Maybe a coyote would come running.  Maybe a bobcat or mountain lion would be on the prowl. Perhaps a timber-wolf or a bear was out cruising.  Nothing appeared.  I put the camera down and continued to do my daily chores.  It began to sprinkle.
     I listened to the rain for awhile, and during the rain times my thoughts seem to drift back to people and places I remember.  It just so happened that that one Beatles song came on the little radio in my kitchen, "In My Life."  As soon as the song was over and a little tear ran down my cheek, the sun came out and to the east across the the willow bog I saw a bent rainbow, faded and colorful, not too far away, and far enough to know that I could not walk there. Underneath this magnificent spectacle I thought what I saw in the grass evidence of stirring critters.
      I paid no attention to the long canary grass matted down at first.  Curiosity stirred the hunter and trapper in me.  Perhaps I would see a glimpse of a predator, maybe a baby predator.  Skunk? Raccoon?  I began to study and focus all my attention and senses underneath the rainbow.  The shifting in the grass was moving toward the yard.  Soon I knew with all the confidence in my heart that this great stirring underneath the grass was what caused the deer to leave.  I just knew it.
     A snowbank  still exists in a little band of trees between my yard and the willow swamp.   The life in the grass slowly was working its way to this snowbank.  I for sure would get a god glimpse of the creature as soon as he got on the bank.  I grabbed my camera. quietly exited my house, posted up for a good shot, and was truly astonished when the creatures appeared on the snowbank.  Click! I got it.

     Immediately I broke down into tears of joy and laughter.  Three winters ago when I moved back to my dad's farm,  his penguins had disappeared.  I put an advertisement in the local paper, but no one responded. "Lost: two breeding pair of penguins last seen heading north toward Middle River."  It was the last time I had seen or heard of dad's penguins since he built the great fence for them.  Yet from underneath the rainbow two baby penguins appeared as if to tell me in person, "We are alright.  Today everything is all right."
     They left, and immediately I wrote a letter to my friend Jose Jimenez.  I told of my kids ball games and how we are finally getting some green grass, and how we would soon be back to work.   I sent him the picture to share with his dad in Antarctica.  I named the two penguins Bobby and Tommy.  The picture should explain why; two buddies traveling along, taking a break on their journey and talking it out whatever matters are on their hearts,  wondering which way to go next.
     Hopefully the two babies will get along with the geese that are making my pond home.

Hillbilly Recipe

     It's been real nice lately being around a kid, not just any ordinary kid, but an onry 15 year old active boy.  One night at supper, he was quite critical and animate about the table venue.   Myself, being perhaps just as onry at times, decided that he could cook his own supper from now on.  I, being a little more accustomed to palatable table fare, allowed only one evening of  chef boy-ar- Hunter with plenty of ketchup. That isn't working very well either. Perhaps it was a guilt complex that maybe I wasn't giving my best, or that maybe a thought came I should get out of the box of  hillbilly cooking methods and try make something  more delictable to the customs of a hungry growing teen. Nevertheless, I found myself looking for a cookbook.  I thought maybe one night tater tot-hot dish would suffice.
     I went through a change of life recently, and for the love of all good things i will not expound on the details of searching high and low in my kitchen, through boxes in the house, through crevasses of the mind and soul, but I could not find a cookbook on my property to say politely as trying not to offend light eared readers, and not to revert to character defects of an untamed tongue and the mind of a uncouth hillbilly; but, I could not locate a cookbook to save my part of the body that cushions a seated pose.  I was explaining this to a friend of mine in frustration and laughter of the details of missing cookbooks from my home.  We decided that cookbooks do not belong to hillbillies.  And either a hillbilly can get by without one, or if he can not then he must lose a degree of status among the uncultured and unkempt life of fellow hillbillies.  After all, it would be poor to admit that we might actually use a written recipe or need one sometimes.
     I must share with the reader our next conversation of oral proportions.  I must also confess that men, especially hillbilly men actually share recipes.  Yes, ladies do not monopolize the recipe sharing world.  Single guys need to eat something different every so often and we do enjoy eating and eating well and we must share something with our fellow hillbilly buddies so that they should not suffer of get bored with with singleness of purpose  food.  So my friend shared with me his recipe in hillbilly dialect his version of potato soup:
     "You take a kettle like this one (grabbing a 4 quart sacepan).  You fill it about up to here( pointing about 2/3 toward the top) with potatoes and onions.  You can add some gralic if you have some around.  Cover with water and boil a long time.  After you boil it a long time, you can add some meat: bacon, ham or sausage.  Summer sasusage even works. Turn the heat way down(simmer).  Then you add a good goober(1/3 to a1/2) of sour cream or chip dip if you got it.  Add a smaller goober(1/4 to 1/3 cup) of ranch dressing.  Add cream to thicken it up, and milk to get it to the consistency that you want. Do not boil! jus let it simmer.  When the meat and everything is good and hot, add a good handful of grated cheese(any kind) on top.  Do not stir.  As soon as that is melted, dish it up."
     Be it male understanding, or hillbilly bonding, this recipe made very good sense to me.  I take no offense to one who whose noggin is baffled or perplexed.  Perhaps the reader is not hillbilly enough to comprehend simple explanations and may require a more scientific standard written down recipe.  And that is ok.  I personally extend my condolences.
     As for supper tonight I can cook using wither the hillbilly method, or a traditional recipe card method.  Either one will get my tater-tot hotdish in the oven.  As long as I mix in a dash of understanding, and a few shakes of respect,  a goober and a half of compassion  and a few sprigs of tolerance,  a bunch of love and a teaspoon of patience,  dinner will go just fine as it normally does.  I have to admit that it would be nice if having a kid in the house came with a recipe that turned out every time.  Bless my table Lord and we thank Thee for Thy gifts.

Laid Off

     Being laid off stinks, plain and simple, especially for me. It isn't the lack of income.  I got a couple dollars saved for a little bit.  It's the ," what should i do now" thoughts that come to my head.  Believe me when I tell the reader that my mind is sometimes not a good place to go exploring.  Here are the top 5 genius ideas I have generated since I have been home.

5.   Kick a 21 year old kid out of my house because he wants to drink beer and won't come with me to church.  No discussion just put on the old size 13. Boot! Bam!  Come back when you want to get it right. 1 John 4: 7  Beloved let us love one another.

4.  Invite some old buddies over for coffee.  Are you kidding me... coffee,  they don't drink coffee, and neither do I.  Better yet invite them all over for some male bonding and see if anything is different this time.  Or how about better yet: Go down to the local watering hole and see what they are still up to!

3.  Take a road trip.  Oh yeah, that might require some planning and a destination. The last time I took a road trip I didn't come home for a few weeks, not that it was all bad, but I just don't remember it.  The movies The Hangover,  Road Trip, and Animal House about sum up that experience.Galatians 5:21 Envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

2.  Tear apart the house.  That's right.  I already did that and put it back together.  I have already completely rid my home of the essence of unclassy femininity with extreme prejudice.  My best friend says I have to say it this way.  Like I am better? Rom 3:23  For all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God.

1.  Overhaul my home with new appliances and gadgets. The kitchen could use a few things. New microwave, fridge, stove.  Oh and I wouldn't be in vogue unless i had a toilet bowl fish tank.  Why not a new t.v. computers. While I am at it, a brand new truck.  Might as well then build a garage.   Since I am at it, I should add on a 3 season porch right now....Romans 12: 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
   
     Differentiating between genius and insanity is hard.  Genius getting the ideas, and insanity would be acting on them and expecting a positive result.    ( Acts 26:24-25And as he was saying these things in his defense, Festus said with a loud voice, “Paul, you are out of your mind; your great learning is driving you out of your mind.”  But Paul said, “I am not out of my mind, most excellent Festus, but I am speaking true and rational words.)  Obviously even great people had problems with thinking too.
    In lieu of the grandiosity, those thoughts come to pass quickly now days.  Thank God!  Coming home has actually been serene.  Card game in the evening with Hunter...  Playing catch with Gracei...Talking of the future season with Skylar...  Visiting with friends...  Visiting mom and grandma...  going through pictures... making plans to visit my lady Brenda...  paying the bills... hauling kids around... Attend church...Swamp time with Ryan and Dakota... Spending time in prayer and meditation feeling God's presence.  Talking things out with like minded people.  Blog.
     Fortunately,  I can recognize my own strange thoughts now, have peace with my life and have something called Faith that just lets me know things are o.k. and as exactly as they should be even when I get toxic thoughts.  (Romans 5:1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.)
     Guess being laid off isn't so bad.  I think a coat of paint in the kitchen will be just fine.  After all in the big picture, I am just living right now in an overgrown hunting shack, on a piece of overgrown hunting land, during another hunting adventure called life.