Going far far away...

I've had a week guys. A full week in work and stress, but only four working days. And those four were enough to make a dead person go insane. Not fun. Taxing. And I'm officially over it. It's done. I'm done.


So, three cheers for taking a three-day weekend! I've finished my February paper (finally!) and am taking Friday off. It's part vacation - part mental health day.


But, of course I've had to hear some grumbling from the peanut gallery about the slow-to-no post kind of week. I apologize, but this stop-and-start cardiac kind of week was enough to overflow my plate and make me want to start an ugly food fight.


But enough about that. It's behind me.


So alas, I'll catch up a little. My sweetheart and I have taken over teaching our Sunday School class as our previous teachers were forced to step down due to ongoing health concerns. So, not wanting our class to dissolve, we stepped up and took it on. Sounds great in theory, but it's a load on top of our already busy work loads. It's very manageable, if only we weren't fussing over the lessons as we prepare it. We're currently covering a book titled "Not your Parents Marriage." It speaks of how we must separate from our previous lives as children and come into our own identity and that identity in our new marriages. Pretty interesting materials and we've yet to have prepared a lesson without having our own discussion over the materials in less than an hour. If you're interested, the books available at any LifeWay book store or online.


What else... The sweetie's brother Stephen - my favorite brother-in-law (and only brother-in-law) bought a new truck. Haven't seen pictures, but it's a Dodge 1500 and it's silver. Much like my sweetie's was before it died trying to get us out to Virginia. May it rest in peace.


My sister Rachel's been navigating over 30 girls through Rush for her sorority and is now training about 8 or 9 I think. Check out her blog for more info.


Seth, the eldest of my three younger brothers, got to go on a specially arranged trophy hunt. The hunt was made just for disabled kids. So, being special needs, he didn't actually shoot the deer, but he got to tell dad to shoot it. And so Seth bagged a nice 11-point deer. The rack was especially notable as it had a drop-tine and had some velvet left on that the deer was unable to rub off. He's unique and being made into a mount. See pics below.











And that's about it from our neck of the woods. I'm going to be MIA until Monday, but hope to be better at posting next week.


But, as fair warning, my company's gearing up for one of our big weekend home shows (the weekend after Valentine's) and our office is pretty much hitting on all cylinders and then some. We've combined with the horticultural society to make it a bigger and better (more 'green') show, so it's double the work and double the "fun" of making it happen.


So that means I get at least a couple "Get Out of Jail Free Cards" for not posting everyday. It's not because I don't love you or think that you, my loyal reading audience, isn't important... it's me. Me and my crazy schedule.


So there. Feel loved and be patient.

It's another birthday!

Today's the littlest Hinckley's Birthday. He's turning a whopping 11 years old.

Happy Birthday, Samuel!

And for the birthday boy, here are some birthday facts:

• More people celebrate their birthdays in August than in any other month (about 9% of all people). The two other months that rate high for birthdays are July and September.
• Close to 2 billion Birthday Cards are sent each year in the U.S. alone, accounting for nearly 58 percent of all cards sent.
• The world's largest birthday cake was created in 1989 for the 100th Birthday of the city of Fort Payne, Alabama. The cake weighed 128,238 pounds, 8 oz. and used 16,209 pounds of icing.
• A recent survey suggests that more people are born on October 5 in the United States than any other day. October 5 holds a not-so-surprising significance, as conception would have fallen on New Year's Eve.
• The least common birth date in the U.S. is May 22nd.
• Since your last birthday 31,536,000 seconds have passed.
• In the past year your hair will most likely have grown 12 cm and your nails about 4 cm.
  Your heart beats at a rate of around of 72 to 80 beats per minute - since your last birthday it will have beat about 42,075,900 times.
• You breath at a rate of about 30 breaths per minute so, since your last birthday you have taken approximately 15,768,000 breaths.
• The volume of blood in your body is approximately 5 litres. The heart pumps about 280 litres of blood around your body every hour - that’s 2,688,000 litres per year!
• The average garden snail (not one that has entered the Olympics 100 meters race) moves at around 0.03 mph. If one set out on your last birthday, and it walked non-stop it would have traveled 263 miles. If you walked this distance non-stop you would complete it in around three days.
• Since your last birthday you will have had about 1,460 dreams.
• World population has grown by around 76,570,430 since your last birthday. In the time it takes you to read this another five babies will have been born.
• During the past year there have been more than 50,000 earthquakes throughout the world.
• The Earth is zooming around the sun at around 66,780 miles per hour! Since your last birthday the Earth has completed one journey around the sun travelling about 584,337,600 miles.
• If you counted 24 hours a day, you would be over 31,000 years old when you reach one trillion!