Mitchguyver

Being a handy man/repair man/ contractor type guy; tools are pretty important to me. I think Ray Stevens says it best in his song Power Tools:

Well some folks say that grown up men are still jus' little boys,
and that really the only difference is the price of our toys.
We go for macho symbols, like guns and running shoes,
pickup trucks, huntin' ducks, and *vvrrmmm* power tools.

So with tools being so awesome and all the time I spend in a The Home Depot store picking up stuff for work I spend a bit of time admiring all the tools that I can't afford. (admiring should be understood somewhere in the neighborhood of not quite lusting or coveting because those are sins, but managing to keep the drool from running down my chin as I think of all I could do with those tools and a couple of free weekends.)
However I don't think Dave Ramsey or my wife would approve of me spending all the money I wish I could on tools. Since we have a baby on the way here and a car on the way out tools are lower down on the financial priority list. :( So I keep a keen eye open for deals on tools I think I would be most able to justify. Like when I got battery powered hedge trimmers, weed eater and a large capacity Li ion battery for about half the cost of the battery alone, I couldn't pass it up.

Likewise a few weeks ago when I saw I large cardboard cutout at the Country Club The Home Depot advertising a DeWalt tool giveaway on March 16 I knew no matter where I was working that day I would find my way to that store. A couple days later I saw the same cutout saying the store in Apache Junction was doing the same event on the 15.
SO on the 15th, Thursday, I walked into the AJ store to win me some tools. the contractor challenge turned out to be pretty simple. Drive 5 screws in a board. The daily winner of the 11 events in Arizona and New Mexico each would receive a new DeWalt 20v Max Lithium Ion impact driver, and the over all winner would receive a pallet of DeWalt tools worth $2012. All I had to do was start empty handed, with my drill hand hit the start button, pick up the drill and screws, drive 5 screws flush or deeper, put the drill down then with my drill hand hit the stop button. I totally fumbled my second screw and finished in 12.99 seconds. Which gave me the best time of the day. I even checked my standing on additional trips to that store since I had three jobs in the area that day. Until about half an hour before they packed up when some schmo did it in 12.49 seconds. Total heartbreak.

Friday I made my way to the country club The Home Depot, marched right up to the DeWalt promo stand yada yada yada. 11.80 seconds later I had the time to beat once again. I actually liked my chances in AJ better because the clients are a bit more geriatric and the country club store has a bunch of contractors and is super busy. So I crossed my fingers and waited.

I WON!!! That's right I now have a brand new toy valued over $200 and on the thirtieth will be able to try one more time to drive 5 screws faster than the other 10 event winners and haul home so many of those tools I have been covet... er admiring.

Exactly What I Need

You know, I've had a crazy week.  I've really had a crazy last 7 months, and the worst of it has really been the last 3 months.  The 1st 4 months I was more nauseated than any of my other pregnancies, and as bad as I thought those 4 months were, struggling with depression for the last 3 months is not a battle I would have ever chosen.  And it's mornings like this that I wake up and feel irritated that the imbalance still exists and wish it would just go away.  And then I think of my blessings and the way I've made it this far.  I'm really worried about having post-partum depression.  I've never had a struggle with depression like this in my entire life, it's a real, true, irritating imbalance.  A friend at church last week, who was just diagnosed with being bi-polar, made the comment that it's totally illogical.  I can totally relate to him and I totally agree!  It's so illogical for me to be depressed right now.  I have everything I need and want, except my regular-self.  I just want to be my happy self again.  Technically I'm doing FAR better with this struggle than I was before my wonderful mother clued me into what what going on, but I still have days.  Like today.  When I wake up, and I think, "I'm not happy."  And it's so dumb, because I really have everything to make me happy, and yet the illogical, internal struggle goes on, and so I take my supplement pills and pray that the fact that I forgot to take them last night or yesterday morning won't throw me off my groove for a couple days.

I just want to say that my sister Erin calls me every day.  I don't think she knows how much it means to me.  Yesterday I was so extremely busy, and I was so tired, and I really did want to do all the things I had planned yesterday, but it was hard to keep up with the day.  And my sister called and I didn't answer because I didn't know she called, and simply just seeing that I had a missed call from her made me feel better this morning.  I think she used to get a little irritated at first when I was really bluesy and had a raincloud every single day, but as the months have gone on, she has become so sensitive to what I need.  Some days she commiserates with me and just listens when I've been let down, and other days she knows how to help me break out of it.  I'm just so lucky to have a sister who loves me.  We don't talk for a long time.  She usually has to cut the conversation off when she gets home from work because she has tons of homework to do and she needs to spend a little time with her husband, but the thing is that she's consistent, and she really does care about how I am feeling.  I miss her because of distance, but she's been there for me in exactly the way I've needed, and I love her for it.  Heavenly Father knew exactly what he was doing when he made sisters--it's a bond that can never be broken, and it's a bond that makes me happy.  I love you, Erin!