What? It's been a week??

I kinda just left y'all hangin', didn't I??

I finally got done with that little area at work that I was working in last week.  YESTERDAY I got done.  Took me 5 1/2 days.  I'm trying really hard not to be tough on myself but I can't help it.  That's what I do.  No way should that have taken that long.  Granted, it was 27 clamps going all whichaway, some with spacers and some without, and pretty much every other thing (jacks, plugs, wire splicing, a switch, teflon tape, lockwire) that we do on those planes so it was great practice to do all that in one area but still, my goal is to get that job down to two days.  IF I ever get that one assigned to me again.  And I kinda hope I don't.  Not for a while.  Like March.

Today I started further down toward the nose, in another spot nobody seems to want to do and I don't blame them.   Mostly clamps again with some ground wires and jacks thrown in but the area.  Oh, dear Lord, the AREA.  Again, HOLE.  And this time, there are only three panels to work with so most of what you do is in the dark, you can't see what you're doing, much less see where your hand, the bolt and your air rachet are going.  But I will get it done!!  Might be next week but I will get it done!!  :)

I can figure a mortgage payment in my head, escrow and taxes included.  You wanna go 30 years or 40??  I can process a loan in record time, close one in less than 10 minutes and have the deed filed at the courthouse by 5:00.  But I cannot for the life of me close a dang clamp once it's around that wiring harness!!  

I'mma get there, though.  'Cause I've got my mama's gutsy tenacity and my daddy's ability to figure things out and I'm determined to learn this stuff, get stronger and kick that Eagle's butt into submission!

Speaking of getting stronger, I already am!  Larry kept squeezing my arms last weekend, in awe of the new muscle he felt in there.

It's a totally different world out there.  I'm really having to get used to the freedom we have to do our job, nobody rushes you or breathes down your neck to see that it's done and we don't even work a whole two hours without having a break or lunch or time to go home.  That's definitely different.  The days go by really fast now.  No more watching a clock for me!

This job is what I wanted, it's what I prayed for and my prayers were answered.  I may not be doing what I went to school for and I may not know my head from a hole in the ground out there but I DO know that there are blessings in disguise all around us, every day.  We just have to see them for what they are.  

Those aggravating, blankety-blank clamps are my blessing in disguise.  I can't believe I just typed that.