Round and Round

Life keeps on ticking by. Ups and downs. Right now I'm in a high season. It's a refreshing break. It's been a long time coming. Working at home has been great. My most stressful day in awhile was dealing with issues with my 3 trucks yesterday. At the end of the day, I still have 3 trucks running. My business. My name. My company. I'm blessed beyond what I deserve.

I'm loving everything about where God is taking my life right now. I also am really in love with my wife more and more. She's been there through all the chaos, and it's wonderful getting to take a minute to enjoy her when there's a season of prosperity.

I pray I don't waste the opportunity and live in a way that honors God for blessing me.

Oh, for all we know

Oh, the world is trying to show us where we first went wrong

And it's a crime if we don't

We weren't the one, we made it all along

'Round and 'round

Had ups and downs

No, but I can't be without

My love that I have found

Oh, when it fits

It should stay like this

Oh, I can't be without

My love that I have found

Ooh

Oh, for all that we know

Oh, we're the highest bumping rhythms that are not around

Oh, but for all

Oh, you spin me 'round

'Round and 'round

Had ups and downs

No, but I can't be without

My love that I have found

Oh, when it fits

It should stay like this

Oh, I can't be without

My love that I have found

Ooh

Ooh ooh

Ooh ooh

Ooh

Ooh ooh ooh

Ooh ooh

'Round and 'round

Had ups and downs

No, but I can't be without

My love that I have found

Oh, when it fits

It should stay like this

Oh, I can't be without

My love that I have found

No no

No no, no no no no no

Oh, I can't be, I can't be without the love that I found

No no

No no, no no no no no

Ooh

Ooh ooh

Ooh

Ooh ooh

Letting Go

I've spent a lot of time trying to hold onto things. Money. Relationships. Jobs. Habits.

A couple weeks ago, I let go of my truck. I had been trying really hard to hang onto it until October when the last payment would be due. God had other plans. That's the part I've been trying to wrap my head around. I had wanted to be home with my wife and kids. I also wanted to get into a financial situation where I wasn't worried or stressed about paying bills. In my mind, the solution was to stick it out in the truck until it was paid for and then start looking for other drivers to add. Then this happened:

Someone at the shipper I was hauling from decided to knock a big hole in my trailer. On top of that, I was still having issues with the emission system on the truck. It was too much. I had struggled long enough. I didn't know what was going to happen or how it'd work out, but I knew I couldn't keep going. I needed to be home with my family. All the gold in the world wasn't worth the time I was losing with my kids and my wife. And this sort of stress was just more than I needed. I was near the point of cracking. So I gave it to God. 

Now here I am today. The insurance declared the trailer a total loss. I sold the truck for more than I owe on it. I found a replacement owner operator to take my spot on the insurance. I'm going to be okay financially. Most importantly, I'm home with my family every night again. That's a blessing.

Sometimes letting go is what we need in order to see the big picture. I'd never have gotten out of the truck if my trailer hadn't been hit. It was the best thing that has happened to me in a long time. 

I'm ready to give it all over to Him. 

All the gold and the guns in the world

(couldn't get you off)

All the gold and the guns and the girls

(couldn't get you off)

All the boys, All the choices in the world

I remember when we were gambling to win

Everybody else said better luck next time

I don't wanna bend, Let the bad girls bend

I just wanna be your friend

Is it ever gonna be enough

Is it ever gonna be enough

Is it ever gonna be enough

Is it ever gonna be enough

Is it ever gonna be enough

Is it ever gonna be enough

Is it ever gonna be enough

All the lace and the skin in the shop

(couldn't get you off)

All the toys and the tools in the box

(couldn't get you off)

All the noise, all the voices never stop

I remember when we were gambling to win

Everybody else said better luck next time

I don't wanna bend, Let the bad girls bend

I just wanna be your friend

Why you givin' me a hard time

I remember when we were gambling to win

Everybody else said HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

Is it ever gonna be enough

Is it ever gonna be enough

Is it ever gonna be enough

Is it ever gonna be enough

Is it ever gonna be enough

Is it ever gonna be enough

More and more, more and more, more and more,

More and more and more and more, more and more.

Life After Midterms

If you're reading this, you survived the 2018 midterm elections. I had my doubts. It has been ugly. Really. Ugly. I've never seen our country so divided. It's disgusting to tell you the truth. I suppose that's why the steam had gone out of my blogging. Looking at everything day to day was making me feel like isolating myself from social media. Can you blame me? Most of it is cancer. Sometimes I get sucked into it. It's hard not to. I'm not proud of that. I'm just being honest. It's the realization that I was getting upset about it way too much that made me take a step back. Life's too short to get upset about politics when there's only so much I can do about it anyway. I voted. Did my part. That's it. Otherwise, I can talk to people who want to listen to my viewpoint, and let go of arguing with those that don't. I've had to do some of that in my own home as well. My wife and I don't always see eye to eye politically. And that's okay. I love her, and she loves me. That's more important. We all would do well to remember that. Even toward the stranger on the street. I've already seen this spill over into our church group. That's pretty sad, isn't it?

Speaking of church. So... we found a new church. I say "we" as if I had anything to do with it. Really it was my wife that talked (nagged) me into going. I wish now that I had listened to her in the beginning. It would have saved us some time at a different church that we never fit into. There was nothing wrong with the first one, we just never found our groove there. The people were nice and all, but just not the right chemistry for us. We're a little... "rough around the edges"... I suppose you could say. Not your typical suburban Christians. We're pretty screwed up if you want to know the truth. We found a church that seems to be pretty accepting of messes like us. We aren't even the most screwed up there, so we got that going for us. And my wife like's the choir. So that's cool.

So why am I blogging now after basically ditching it for so long? I guess a part of me feels like it's important. Not to the world as a whole or anything grandiose like that. I'm not that full of myself. I just want to leave a little piece of myself out there in the ether of the internet I'd probably do better to put it down on paper, but I like the ease and wider distribution possibilities of the internet. Anyways, I guess the reason I'm doing this and why it matters to me is for my kids more than anything. I can hope that someday after I'm dead and gone that these words will still be floating around in the archives of the internet. So they can look back and get a glimpse into the mind of their crazy old dad, grandfather, great ancestor, or whatever. I think it would have been really cool to have had such an opportunity. I don't know much about my ancestors, other that some of the basics of the history of the family lineage. I have never seen any writings from any of my family's past. It would have been nice to have known what they were thinking or experiencing. I'm rambling. You get the idea. I realize that they may never even look at this blog, but at least I did my part at created it. So there's a chance it may mean something to someone in the future. That's good enough for me. It makes me feel good to do it.

What else is going on? Well, work has been going as planned. I had my bumps and bruises in the beginning but it's smoothed out. If thinks continue on, I'll have my truck paid off by this time next year. I am SO looking forward to that. It would be a huge accomplishment for me. A milestone in fact. I don't remember if I blogged about it before, but the account I got hauling loads out of East Texas has been a huge blessing. I get to see mom and dad at least twice a week usually. I've seen them more in the last year that the previous 15 years before. They appreciate it and I enjoy it knowing my time with them grows shorter by the day. Such is the way of things. So I cherish every moment, as much as I can. The same account has now expanded and we've got loads our of a second facility that will hopefully push us through into a profitable year in 2019. I'm cautiously optimistic.

That's about all I feel like discussing in this post for now. I'll try to update more in the coming days. Writing feels good again. I'll need to catch you up on the goings on with the kids and such. It's been a battle of it's own. That's okay though. It's part of being a parent. It's tough sometimes, but also rewarding. I love them deeply. They bring much more joy than pain into my life.

Love and peace to all who stumble into these ramblings of mine.