Yesterday was one of those frantic days. After days of wishing for the phone to ring, it wouldn't stop yesterday. At one point in time I had the land line in one ear, my cell phone in the other and the fax was ringing in the background.

I've got a list of things to do. One truck needs to go to work Wednesday morning. Maybe a second truck too. First order of business was trying to get hold of drivers. I had two semi-retired drivers who seemed to fit the program. However, one of them finally "had" to do something else. Now he isn't an option. The other one, I called and left a message. I haven't heard back from him. I'll try to make contact again today. I had a call from one man who had worked with me in 2005 and very briefly in 2006. He is recovering from an injury (prior to our association) and is just cleared for light duty.

I've been taking mental inventory. When we returned from the jobsite, the vehicles that did the brunt of the work went into the shop. This was for several reasons. (1) You know what needs attention. (2) There is time to do it (everyone is suffering from jetlag after fourteen weeks of 24/7 and need time to decompress). (3) It is easier to sell the office to spend the money for repairs. At the time I put the trucks in the shop, we figured four to six weeks before other seasonal work would materialize. That was December 18. The trucks have not turned a tap since then. Thirteen weeks! Yikes! The only thing happening was in the office, year end and quarterly reports.

Now it appears things are going to break lose and we are going to have opportunity to work. Guess what. I have to go to the trucks to work on them! Actually it is only annual inspections. One is out, the other is in it's last month. This shouldn't be a problem. Maybe a light bulb or something small (I hope). Then it is some adjustments I want to do. Everything we do in the Fall is on the road. This work opportunity is short haul, off road. I want to do a few things that I hope will make it easier on the equipment. Of course, registration expires end of the month. Hopefully the vehicles can generate enough revenue in the last eleven days of the month to pay their registration. (About a $1000 per truck). Then a little creative money management and maybe things will even out before operating bills hit.

I'm excited. I am pumped. I am ready. I don't care if I have to drive one of the trucks myself. I'm tickled for the opportunity. In the interim it may be interesting to get everything done in and out of the office.

Krl has been a cleaning dervish. It is pretty remarkable to witness her recovery. I am thankful.

Pat had called yesterday. She had an appointment and some errands to do in Abilene. Initially she mentioned possibly getting together for lunch, but we decided to just go with it and not set time frame. She ended up getting to the house shortly before five. I don't know how she does it all. She has more irons in the fire than Carter has pills! Lately she has taken steps to slow down, and it is a start in the right direction. I am thrilled for the good fortune that has come their way, and I am hopeful it will allow her to make even more changes in her busy schedule.

We had a good visit. We laughed some. We have lots more to talk about. Krl and I both enjoyed her stopping by. We re-visited some of our growing up. She is accusing me of selective memory about some stuff. Of course anytime I could stay with Memaw and Gan Gan I did, so I missed some of the things that went on. I think after Gan Gan died I existed in a haze for quite some time. Then I was away at college, and after the fire at Mom and Dad's house it was never home again. It was somewhat comical to listen to Pat talk of my relationship with Memaw and Gan Gan. I was Gan Gan's favorite, I knew it, and I was entitled to all the perks that went with the title! Ha!

I sometimes have to tell myself what I tell Pat often. We can't indulge in the "what ifs" or "what might have been" or "what might be different". We make the best play with the situation we are presented with. I got tickled with her telling me that she and Chris have been visiting about parenting. Chris has had a lot of anger about his accident and his disability, but he is working through it. Neat thing is, Pat is working through it too. Chris has been giving her "letter" grades on different areas of parenting. That is interesting.

Me, I don't want letter grades, I'm just auditing this course.

Pat and I recently talked about Chris, the fire, his recovery, his disability, and the affect it had on their entire family.

Pat doesn't deserve a lot of what she has to deal with daily. But it is amazing how the big man upstairs has equipped each of us. She may have struggled at times, but she has coped. I am glad to see the spark she has displayed over the last year.

Part of my Monday was spent checking on belly dump trailers. The local outlet Fred had been using was out of trailers last time Fred talked with them. I ended up talking with a company in Amarillo. They have thirteen ready to go. All of them '00 and '01 models. Nothing that $331,487 wouldn't buy. I think maybe I will try to rent one or two. I ended up filling out a credit application for my employer, I'll be surprised if it is approved because that is the first one I have filled out, but with Krl recuperating, I have to grow up. I figure what will happen is I will rent or lease a trailer costing my employer $1250 for the first month, I will get the inspection costing my employer $60, I will fuel the truck costing my employer $250, I will send off the license registration costing my employer $1000. Then it will rain, the rig will sit, and the wet dirt and my name will have something in common. They'll both be "mud".

The rest of my day was spent e-mailing and calling different vendors regarding the equipment I had been researching. I'm still waiting for them to get back to me.

My last office project of the day was to change our home e-mail address. Let me rephrase that. Last project of the day was to TRY to change our home e-mail address. If you are reading this and you send me e-mail, please send it to both addresses. The new address is the same prefix as the old one, but @suddenlink.com . Please continue to carbon copy it to the prefix @cox.net . They sent out an e-mail saying that we had until the twenty-second of April to make the change. We knew it was coming as Suddenlink had purchased the local Cox franchise last year. They had one of those installation wizzards that was supposed to do all the changing. Even notifying all the people in the address book. As my luck goes, it froze up in the middle of the change. I backed it out and tried it again and it said it finished but a test e-mail didn't make it through. I went in to make some manual changes and it didn't get any better, or any worse for that matter. I guess I will have to call them tomorrow. Hopefully early on, before I go to Roscoe.

I'm watching a local station and they have a feature on this morning called B.O.B.S.. Breakfast on Beech Street. Five churches have a rotating schedule, they fix breakfast for anyone needing or wanting a good breakfast. As patrons leave they are given a sack lunch. I think I like that.

I guess I am getting that Street Lawyer/soup kitchen/pro-bono mentality again.

And it feels good!

I talked with Miss Ollie yesterday. She had been to her doctor and they re-did her temporary splint that she had taken off. She said she got a deluxe butt chewing. I said she deserved it! The doctor told her they could do this the hard way or the easy way. Now she isn't due to get her hard cast until the twenty-seventh. She still can't tell me if she is coming or not. I may get tired of this and withdraw the invite.

I had visited with Kali Sunday. I had received a liquidation sale flyer in the mail for a sister dealership to the one she works for in Angelo. She knew nothing about it. I hope that remains the same. I was concerned for her job security.

I visited with Rian briefly. I had a few questions for his catering brain. The general contractor for the wind farm going in at Roscoe is wanting someone who will go on site and sell breakfast items and sandwiches at lunch (barbecue, ham, bologna, hot dogs, whatever). Supposedly May 1 they are bringing in five hundred employees. They expect to have twenty-five trucks running locally and to be receiving forty loads from the plains every day. That's a lot of mouths to feed. Rian had some ideas.

I may have to go on e-bay and see if they have any roach coaches at auction. It's not a snow cone stand on the beach in Mexico but then where is the beach in West Texas. Hey, that's a thought. Drive a roach coach in the morning and at lunch, then cruise back by in the afternoon with an ice cream truck!

Give me your hungry, your famished, your sweet tooth!

I have rambled on til almost morning.

Go forth, and have a day. Ye shall call it Tuesday.

FATHER, thank YOU for an inspiring day yesterday. Renew and refresh us.