I had expected to come home from church yesterday (I have previously mentioned that I am currently part of a Seventh Day Baptist Church) and find time for my hour of study before my wife left for work and I in my turn took my son to his grandparents to start his classes.  I would then visit with my friend who is interested in seeing my newest books, and be home by midnight, maybe one in the morning at the latest.

I lost that intervening window, and nothing else went as planned either.

I am not complaining on the first point, at least, not too vociferously.  The church has fellowship meals, and I have not yet learned the pattern but am fairly confident that this week was a break in the pattern–more a fundraiser than a fellowship meal, that one of the youth groups struck a deal with a local sub shop which provided hoagies to be sold at $5 each by the group and bought at $3.50 each from the shop.  It’s a clever program, whereby the group prints coupons for free hoagies, sells them at $5 each, and then the store honors them (up to a deadline date) and pays for those which are cashed.  I bought one for myself to eat while visiting with members of the congregation, and one to take home–and then I wound up being gifted with enough “leftover” sandwiches that I did not have to worry about how to provide supper for those who would be left home.

Another substantial chunk of my time went to the fact that the tuxedo from the prom had to be returned by three o’clock.  Getting the wearer to collect all the pieces was a tooth-pull, and I made it with minutes to spare.

However, my transport client was not ready for transport, and needed to be prompted and advised on packing.  I stole half an hour for study time while he took care of the details, and hoped to get the rest in upon my return.  It was thus closer to four when we left the drive, and after four when we left the gas station.

That was when he realized, stroking his chin, that he had neglected to pack his razor.  This was a vital need.

What transpired from there is more than I can explain.  We returned home for the razor and ran into a minor crisis.  I called my wife for advice, but she had already received a call from my son and so came home from work to help manage the situation.  Once that was under control, it was after six, and it had been decided that she would join us for our trip; and it was after six thirty before we were actually making that trip; and she had left a minor crisis at work and had to stop “briefly” there to fill out the paperwork, which took another hour, so it was seven thirty before we were on the road.

This concerned me, because my mother goes to bed at nine.  However, I informed her of the delay, and she was very encouraging about it, and when we pulled in around eleven she fed us and organized us for the return trip.  We left shortly after midnight, and by three or three thirty I was too tired to continue driving safely, so my wife finished the journey.  We did not visit with my friend, because of course it was the one night this year that he had planned to go to bed early because he had an early morning.  That was disappointing, but really we could not have pushed things later.

There was also supposed to be a separate trip, returning another son to his brother’s so he could get to work today; given that we were talking to him at four thirty in the morning and he was supposed to be at work at eleven (I had thought it would be later), he opted to call out today and go back mid-week.  I had said that he should go with us in the afternoon if he expected to go, but everyone else somehow thought we would be back in plenty of time.  I am usually right about such things–that is, it always takes longer than I expect, but I already expect it to take longer than anyone else expects, so I’m the closest guess every time.

Speaking of things taking longer than I expect, I’ve got work to do, so I’d better get to the doing.

–M. J. Young

I am not even entirely certain myself what happened to yesterday.  It was one thing after another, and then when I finally returned from the last thing, picking up a son who wanted to come home for a few days, I looked at a clock which made it nearly one thirty, and I gave up the day without even starting the morning Corinthians study.

Today is a bit easier to explain.  The car trouble was getting worse, not better, despite home remedy efforts yesterday, and I was anticipating making a major trip north this weekend for which things needed to be right.  Thus I took my two and a half hours of sleep last night, and dragged myself into clothes and out of the house this morning (which took much longer than it ought to have done), taking the car to a mechanic who does reliable work quickly.  It proved to be the water pump, not, as had been hoped, one of the hoses; but it is working now.  Since I am no longer in the sort of shape that makes hikes of over five miles reasonable affairs, I spent the morning in a diner a block from the shop, working on editing my Romans work while drinking coffee to stay awake.  When I got home (by way of a grocery store to pick up something for a couple of suppers), I was too tired to think and too tense to sleep, so the rest of the day was lost.  Then, maybe an hour and a half ago, I realized that I was waking up a bit despite not having slept, and I determined to do at least a bit of what I would otherwise have to boot into tomorrow, my off day.

However, tomorrow will be early, even though I think I have been saved from having it be long.  There is a morning trip scheduled relative to helping someone with transportation but making sure that we have the vehicles we need for the work we have to do.  There may be more than one such trip, but everything changed this evening when a call came asking that we reschedule our northbound trip to next weekend.  This was originally proposed as a way to help us with our transportation problems, but when I announced that we had resolved the repair of the car and that next weekend would be worse, it came out that people we are visiting are not well and would like a week to recover.  Thus I think it will be next weekend–although things change so abruptly around here, that nothing can be certain.

And for this reason I am going to nip my efforts short tonight, finish the barest essentials of what I missed yesterday and today, and see whether my body will let me sleep.

–M. J. Young

Yesterday’s predictions proved optimistic. I got home from freshman orientation just after nine, but one of my houseguests had needed help somewhat abruptly, and taken both my chef and my dishwasher away (I still do not know why, and probably never will). Thus I had thought I would be feeding the boy and sending him to bed while diving into the rest of my work, but instead had to tackle undone dishes and half-done dinner. Shortly before ten the chef returned, and helped me finish it but left me to serve. The boy got to bed late, and I to work later.

It was evident as eleven approached that I would have to interrupt the work on the Lutheran forum, and that being of the phpBB variety it does not work well interrupted. Thus I delayed starting it, and instead I was on time to pick up my wife–but she again was not, and I got a forty or fifty minute nap in the parking lot while waiting.

Upon my return home, I was handed laundry. I got it started eventually, and finished before I got to bed. I did a lot of other things before I got to bed as well–like help the boy get started for school and drive the houseguest to her class. I got dressed for bed and hit the pillow around eight forty-five this morning, and was up again three hours later to retrieve the houseguest. There was not enough time when I returned to do anything major before taking my wife to work, and since the new car has been delayed yet again (the wrong part came in and has to be reordered) and it was fairly certain that upon returning home the student would have to go purchase school supplies, I had to keep the truck. Since the schoolbus behind which I got stuck on my way back home was his, I gave him a lift.

While we were debating when to go to which store for supplies, I discovered that one of our houseguests missed the bus to work and needed a ride to have him there by five. That gave me my hour for my morning study and sent me to the stores near the mall (he works near the mall), which is where I preferred to shop.

The houseguests made dinner for me, but still left me to serve it. It was delicious, so I am going to express my gratitude on that. In the cracks I did a bit more updating to the new Multiverser.org website, including links to Legends of Alyria, which you might recall is the first game to include Multiverser interfacing rules so you can use it as part of a Multiverser campaign.

The night is drawing to an end, and I’ve still a few things to do and the strong desire to get to bed in time to get a few hours of sleep before the day starts anew tomorrow.

–M. J. Young

I am like way behind today, and it’s really my own fault.

I knew quite well that on Thursday I was going to have to launch the new book, About the Fruit, and that having launched it I would have to update my own website to announce this. I also knew that once I was certain of its availability I would have to send a special program to the radio station for my Quick Word radio show to announce the book, followed by the new programs that have been sitting on my drive for the past couple of weeks. I knew this would all be a frustrating process of jumping through hoops. Even so, for some insane reason on Tuesday night I decided to start recording an audiobook version of What Does God Expect?, which I continued to do on Wednesday night, giving me a nearly finished project this morning.

Then I got a request to drive someone to work unexpectedly; then by the time I’d finished my morning study I was being asked to go on a couple of quick errands which turned into a three hour tour, making dinner (still not served) rather late, and later because no one did the dishes as instructed.

However, About the Fruit is now available, and in fact is for a limited time on special at a twenty-five percent discount from my intended price. The paperback does not yet bear the ISBN, which is being processed, but you can get copies without it if you’re interested.

I have uploaded the new pages to the web site; I hope I caught all the incomplete bits. I’ve also sent the announcement program to the radio station, but still have to send the four new shows to follow it.

I also have a rather important major undertaking that I should be doing tonight, as instructed by our company president; but I’ve been advised to discuss it with our vice president for public relations before I proceed, which makes sense, since it’s as much his area as mine (development). It just means that in addition to getting everyone fed, I’ve got to make a visit to Delaware tonight to catch him at his day–er, night–job. It should be good to get together with him outside of meetings and pressures, but I’m going to be beat tomorrow.

This is not to mention that my mother-in-law needs to get her social security check to the bank; my sympathy for her is low, because she insists that she needs the assurance of actually taking the check to the bank herself, but doesn’t understand the inconveniece to me of two hours of driving just for that purpose. I also promised my pastor’s wife that I’d have the remaining 7dB audio equipment out of their basement this week so they can get the rugs cleaned, and it has just been a crazy week for transportation anyway. The engine of the new car is currently disassembled to fix a broken rocker arm and a bad engine mount, and one of those parts won’t be in until maybe Monday, so I’m still dealing with the one car problem.

I’ve also had to delete a few comments whose sole purpose for their vapid remarks was to add a link to a commercial interest that has nothing to do with our purpose.  That’s not a problem, really, except that the upload of the radio program files was tying up my bandwidth and making the process run like molasses, which increases the frustration level a bit.

You didn’t come here to read me complaining, though, so let me let you go while I find out what else I have to do tonight.

–M. J. Young