Music Deferred

My apologies to my fans of my "Music Monday" offerings, but i have failed to get a song ready in time for today. My weekends are pretty much a blur right now, and i was focusing on a short story contest entry. Right now we have a Bible Study meeting every Friday night, DS1 has two soccer games over the weekend, church, Awana, and any other 'social' activities that try and get squeezed in. My beloved and i are working on trimming some things, but that takes time. At least the end of the school year is coming. \o/ Yea! I have never entered a writing contest on my own. When i was in grade school i remember a teacher submitting something i had written to some kind of local thing, but it didn't win anything and i remember being discouraged. But, recently i was searching the internet for a hobby of mine and stumbled across a writing contest this website was sponsoring. Now, it's not a huge writing site, and it is pretty much for niche type of group - and i was a full month and a half behind from when it was announced, but i thought, why not! So two weeks ago i dove in and came up with a really rough 1st draft. I tinkered with it, but in the end i really needed an outside pair of eyes. A good WWW/blogging friend was very, very kind enough to proof it and point some things out... ok, a lot of things, but i dove back in... reworked it, corrected some things... and sent it back. This is a first for me... i rarely edit things more than once (which is a bad practice for someone who likes to write by the way), in the end i had a total of four edits. The contest ends at midnight on Thursday so i am feeling pretty good that i have it turned in a little "early". Now, there are no prizes and i have no idea how many total entries there have been... but i am eager to know how i do. My little commuter car just flipped 144k miles on it this morning. I picked it up the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend 2000. It had only 1 mile on the odometer and it was literally fresh off the boat. I love this little car. Back when i was commuting over 100 miles a day i was averaging over 40MPG! Now that my commute is under 20 miles a day i am still averaging over 35MPG. I have never had any problems with this little car and all i've ever had to replace on it has been the wiper blades, tires, oil (includes transmission and such), brakes, and the clutch plate. God willing i will be driving this car for another 9 years. I know that it is not always wise to buy new cars because they are not investments and the depreciate rapidly once they are driven off the dealer's lot, but i knew i would be a long term owner, and averaging the cost of buying the car over the time i've had it so far has been less per year than i expected. If i am able to drag this on for another decade or so it will be even better. Well, the NFL draft was this past weekend. It is like an oasis in between seasons for me. Now, i am not a fanatic where i digest each and every player that has entered the draft. I rarely even read about other teams (other than the Panthers), but for some reason i like to follow and watch the NFL draft in April. To be honest, it's almost like watching paint dry or grass growing. It is a long drawn out affair with endless analysis of each team and player. But there is something that stirs hope in me. Something that makes me look forward to the next football season! Over all i am happy with Carolina's draft this year. I am never a big fan of trading away your lower level round slots in the draft, but it worked out OK (so far) when Carolina picked up Jeff Otah and Jonathon Stewart last year. Even with out a first round pick i like the first three choices from this years draft: Everette Brown (DE), Sherrod Martin (CB/s), and Corvey Irvin (DT). It is way too early to say how good these young men will do in the NFL, but i like the hype. Well, like I've said in the past... all i really want is a 9-7 season... anything more than that will be gravy... and i like gravy (in this context).