I sure hope so. I am so over this year. This has been the costliest year for me I can remember.
My older brother died and my family felt best not to let me know. Created a whole new chapter of family drama. My neighbor passed away, and some good co-workers got into trouble with dui’s.
I have had zero time for myself, have had more animals at the vet, had more health issues pop up, and it just never ends. Took my old dog in for a grand worth of surgery today and have two more procedures on horses coming in the next two months as well. I’m in five figures on vet bills this year already.
This year has been rough. But, I’m doing well working two jobs and able to afford it all. I had to build a barn for the new horse, buy and sell horse trailers, buy and sell cars, and a whole host of other stuff.
Haven’t pulled a trigger since December 2021. Have a new Python that I cannot find the time to shoot either.
I have had only one full day to have fun all year. And it kicked my ass. All my free time is helping the wife with the horses and working on household stuff. My Jeep engine swap is on hold, my bathroom remodel is on hold, retiring is on hold, everything is on hold.
I’m working four 14 hour work days and one 8 hour day each week. My total work day is 15-16 hours long with a short break between the two jobs.
My wife is at the end of her rope with everything so that puts me on top to take up the slack for her even though she is retired. She has mentally been through the wringer and cannot get a break. We go from one crisis to the next. She had new complications from her cancer surgery a few years ago and instead of going to the ER we were at the vets with a sick horse. Her emergency exploded at the vets office and I had to take care of her and then get her back to the vet to get the horse. She never made it to the hospital.
I went lights out during a double implant surgery on my teeth and she had to come haul me home. I still have three more procedures before all that is done.
I really need this all to stop. 😆All in all though we are happy and doing well….just very tired of it all.
A friend came to me at church this morning. “Umm… can we talk? Remember when I asked you about a gun a while ago? For home protection? I said I’d get back to you… Well, this business in Israel has got me thinking.”
I told him that, if he’s legal (he IS), I can’t stop him, but I won’t help unless he gets training, and will promise to practice. Just “having” isn’t good. Now, he’s an Iowa farm boy and grew up toting a 12 ga. around in corn fields, so he’s not a complete greenhorn. He wants to try different handguns- CCW size and full size- shotgun, possibly rifle and large format pistol. For my taste, CCW is easy- G43 or G19 category. Mossberg mod. 500 would be hard to beat for home protection.
There are as many answers as there people asked— plus two. If you were advising someone, what would be your advice?
For my walnut shell media. I tumbled a couple hundred 300bo after sizing them to get the lube off. Maybe 10 didn't have the flash holes jammed with media. Poke poke poke, grrr. I'm used to clearing a few cases, but never this big a percentage.
![[Image: IMG-6051.jpg]](https://i.postimg.cc/ZBKRMJx3/IMG-6051.jpg)