Damn he's handy!

Last year for Christmas my husband bought me a Les Baer custom rifle in a AR-.223 complete with a Leupold scope (6.5-20x56 Long range) This rifle will shoot a sod poodle (read: prairie dog) at 250 yards like it's nothing. You. Can't. Miss.

Recently we've had some issue with diseases wiping out the dogs so I've been spending more time at the range with my baby. And my husband. However I'm a picky bitch when it comes to rifle rests. How handy that, though my husband is wood retarded, he's a genius with steel. (Handy he owns a machine shop huh?) So I commissioned him to build the Ultimate Rifle Rest. And boy did he come through! You can move the rest left or right or up and down with the handy knobs he built. It also has levels mounted on it and the rest portion itself swivels 360 degrees. Below are pics of The Gun and The Rest (as well as a cute pic of my kid in his daddy's boots!) Enjoy-

The Gun-


The Rest-






The Boy-

I survived

I am an industrial engineer for your friendly brown parcel delivery service. During peak season I am their bitch. I loaded 1400 packages in 5 hours this morning. The madness is over. Peak season has ended. I no longer have to work 16 hour days. I will no longer be expected to survive on vending machine fair and 3 hours of sleep. I. Am. Free.

Now for an update- My grandfather passed on December 4th. Had he lived 6 more days he would have been 74 years old. He was not sick. He had no high blood pressure, no high cholesterol, no heart condition. He came home and fell asleep in his recliner and didn't wake up. My dad, who lives with him, found him at 6:15pm with the phone book in his lap, his thumb still marking the last page he was looking at. I will miss him dearly. He taught me many things. Things like "You can be right, or you can be happy. Sometimes you have to decide which is more important." He taught me how a man should treat his wife. Jack Podge and Joyce Ray were married on June 12, 1954, one month after her high school graduation. She had never kissed another boy. A year and a half later, to the day, my father, Jack Jr. was born. Two years later his brother, Jeff, was born. I am the oldest of three grandchildren and the only girl. My two cousins, my uncle's boys, have both grown to be fine men. My Granny left us on April 18, 2000. My Poppa's soul left with her that day, leaving us with only a shell of who he was. I believe, with all of my being, that they were a rare example of soul mates. I've not seen two people so deeply devoted to one another since. He's been waiting to be with her. Since she's been gone he's watched all three of his grandchildren graduate high school and college. He's watched two of us get married. He got to meet his first great grandchild and got to know the woman who is about to give birth to his second. And through it all, he wanted to be with her. He loved us, I've no doubt about that. He tried his best to live the remainder of his life with the same gusto he got through the first half with. But that spark in his eyes was gone. The lust for life, extinguished. He is with her now. They are happy. I'm not sad for him, I'm sad for me. I will miss him. I will mourn the loss of my child in getting to know this great pioneer. However the last time I talked to him, two days before he passed, he told me how much he loved my husband. What a good man he thought he was. He told me all the things I needed to do to "keep that boy around." I will Poppa. I will love him the same way I watch you love Granny. I will make you proud, in the way I live my life, the way I nurture my marriage, the way I raise my son. And I will know that you and Granny are sitting on the bank of a catfish pond in heaven laughing and holding hands talking about what a great life you had. We will all do our very best to honour you. I love you both very much and I hope to see you someday.

Mrs. Manners is having a stroke

I'm floored at the sheer tackyness that abounds. Seriously. I'm awestruck.

My husband's best friend is getting "married" on the 15th. I use that term loosely because they have lived together 12 years and have an 11 year old daughter. For all intents and purposes they're married. In any case they have deiced to have it made official. Whatever. He's 38, she's 40 what's the fucking point?

So we get an invitation to the, well, not to the actual wedding, that's just for immediate family, but to the reception. Then I get an invite to a bridal shower complete with super tacky registry info included. Now let me get this straight. You've lived together over a decade. You're child in is junior high. You just bought a brand new 140k dollar house on 10 acres. And you want ME to buy YOU a fucking present?! Really? You have GOT to be shitting me.

Now as if that wasn't enough, the future Mr. Tacky has decided to have a bachelor party. Hello numbnuts! You haven't been a bachelor since the early nineties! I'm sure there will be copious amounts of drinking(which I suppose is fine on rare occasions) but there will also be mostly naked women. No way Jose. I don't roll that way. We haven't talked about it but if my husband is even entertaining the thought of attending this oh so classy affair he is sadly mistaken.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not (usually) one of those women. I don't care what he does most of the time. Fishing, hunting, football whatever. Fine. I want to spend time with my friends too. However we attend the ballet, nice restaurants our husband's think are "girly." We go to the movies, to baseball games etc. We do NOT however go to bars unescorted. I'm not going to toot my own horn too much but I'm not bad looking and I KNOW that if I patronize a place generally used to pick up a drunken conquest I will get hit on. And then I have to explain what that ring on my left finger means and that yes, I know you don't care if I'm married, but my 6'3" 250lb husband cares and you would do well to back. the. fuck. off. And I certainly don't attend functions where some naked man is going to be gyrating his goods in lap. No thank you. That's less appealing than, and not nearly as productive as, sticking flaming toothpicks in one's eardrums.


In other words I do not place my self in unsavory conditions that could, given one too many tequila shots, be detrimental to my marriage. I'm hoping my husband feels the same way. Because if he doesn't he will soon enough. No matter what kind of convincing it takes. And he would do well to remember my concealed carry license.