I must confess - I blog a lot more when I don't have the kiddo. We've had her since noon on Friday & just dropped off at 6 tonight. We had a fun weekend, I think.

I have to admit that I've felt pretty good since last Tuesday night. I'm not getting all anxious about stuff that used to get me rattled. I haven't been driving around looking over my shoulder or with one eye always looking for trouble. I think that's been the biggest difference so far, or at least the most noticeable one.

Toni and I are going to take our kiddo to Disney next summer. A part of me is still afraid to write that for fear it won't come true, but instead of focusing on what can go wrong or on what might not happen, I'm (we're) choosing to focus on what can happen, and choosing to believe that will happen, and focusing our energy towards that goal, along with the goal of moving out. And getting out of debt.

Something else I wanted to share with you guys as well. Our plan is to find a piece of land that will support at least two houses, maybe three. Our plan includes building a small house (2/2) to move into initially, and then building the larger "dream" house afterwards. The reason we want to do this is so that we can have a house (or two) for others to live in. We want to be able to provide that shelter for others in the way that shelter has been provided for us, and there's been times when if we didn't have a place to go we'd have been in real trouble, and we wanted to return that favor.

Tonight I saw a commercial for we website that you can go to that'll tell who "who searched for you". I went to it, but the fact that you have to let it invade your privacy and get access to your Facebook account was enough to keep me from monkeying with it. Besides, I know who sort-of keeps tabs on me, and who doesn't. And I know who I search for, and it's gonna be no shock at all to any of them anyway. Let's face it - I have a lousy track record of not snooping.

On a related note, I recently found out that my wife is a talented and gifted internet snooper. I watched her snoop for info on a person several weeks ago, and I was shocked and very impressed at her ability to find what she was after. And man - she found out more than I could have ever possibly found. Learning what a gifted snoop she was is secondary to my first lesson, which is that anything you put on the internet is forever, man. Say it with me.

For.
Ev.
Ver.

I am in need of a new flashlight. My buddy Kent showed me my next one a few months ago - they come in a two-pack for $20, they're metal, have a tailcap switch, three settings (including strobe), will fit on a gun mount, and they're better than the one I have now. AND they run on AAA batteries instead of the CR123 ones, which are stupidly expensive. I just have to sweet-talk my buddy with a Costco account into letting us in with her.

Toni and I are watching scary movies. I think I've rubbed off on her, because she's now

A) shouting advice to the people on TV
B) advising them of the grevious tactical errors they are committing
C) pointing out their failure to properly arm themselves

I am so, so proud.

Also, in the spirit of Halloween, we were discussing the validity of the Alfred Hitchcock classic "The Birds". We decided that we would be able to survive a bird attack for quite some time for a variety of reasons. First, I think the glass at our house is thicker than the single-pane stuff from the 50's. I also think that birds are generally too light to break the glass with their body weight, unless geese or swans or something similar begin diving into them, in which case I'll put on a leather jacket, a heavy scarf, a paintball mask and wade into 'em with my samurai sword. Or a bat. Or a shovel. The point is that I think we can survive a bird onslaught. Birds are far more fragile than zombies, I think. Oh - and I have two boxes of #7 dove shot, too. Just sayin'.....

OK - that's it for now.

Didn't want you guys to think I'd completely changed on ya.

976

Do you guys think I oughta quit counting when I hit 1000?