In some distant place  inside me I find myself yearning to be able to paint, when I quickly realize I am 55 and have far too many irons in the fire already to take the time to learn the hundreds of techniques needed to begin to  paint something  endearing or enduring.  I went through this with music when I was younger, except then I spent countless hours picking at my guitar trying to imitate my hero Jimmi Hendrix instead of taking lessons.

You can imagine how that technique worked out. I finally traded in my Epiphone semi-acoustic guitar for a fancy turntable. Then, when friends asked, "Do you play?" I would answer," I play records beautifully." I'm trying to recall who I gave my acoustic guitar to… was it you Adam?  I go through phases where I rue the past, and the way I did things, but only for short instances, for mostly I am very happy with the way things went and the decisions I made.

I still have that record player, and when, first Austin then his sister asked me ten years later if I had anything on which to  play the hundreds of LPs I have stored, I would answer with a resounding, "Yes we do."  Doubtlessly I  mentioned the history of the turntable, because its history has always meant a great deal to me. It wasn't the money either, although today the guitar I traded for that massively obsolete record player has probably tripled in value.

Epiphone Semi-acoustic guitar

So this isn't a sad story, no. I'm certain the guitar went on to more skilled hands than mine. I had fun while I played it, and that guitar made my clumsy riffs sound about as good as could be. Before that guitar, I had a Fender Musicmaster, which while I'm thinking about this, it occurs to me that I traded the Fender in towards this guitar, hmmm, more anxiety, goodie, I had forgotten until right now. No wonder I gave the acoustic guitar away, I was really awful at financial things.

What is done is done, and even though we may not fret (sorry about the pun)  about these things, they do influence us. When I see a beautiful painting, my first emotion is not that I wish I could paint like that. If these feelings do come across my mind it is more of an immense appreciation for the skill and inspiration that goes into great artwork. Don't get me wrong, sure, I wish I could paint, and if I tried, I might be able to make something, but I am still contented playing music on the radio, and looking at these beautiful paintings.

Meanwhile back at the ranch. In between caring for my wife, I popped in and out of the shop, tinkering with little projects. While Jona and Sara were here on Saturday, we left the girls in the house and worked out in the shop for more like a couple of hours that time. The rest were very short term projects, as Nell was miserable and needed lots of consoling as well as what we like to refer to as, " tending to each others every beckon call."

The glow-plugs for the Isuzu diesel engine came in on Friday, but the fuel filters I ordered hours before from the same place didn't. Go figure.  The plugs  went in pretty easily, the engine started on the first try, unlike the five minutes of turning over it had been taking to start the Trooper over the last month. So that was cool.  The engine oil in the Trooper needs to be changed and that filter as well needs replacing. I've been meaning to find the time to check the fluid levels in the transmission, transfer case and rear and front differential, and I getting more and more anxious about that as time passes and I still haven't done it.