I'll be leaving for St. Louis in the morning for Thanksgiving with family.  I'll be by my lonesome as Jodi has to work late Wednesday and early Friday so she is staying behind and will use the holiday to get caught up on orders.  JD and Megan will be getting Jayson that afternoon so they are just going to go to Megan's family get together.  I'll be returning Friday afternoon as I have a ton of work ahead of me and need to use the weekend I have off to get started.

I get to pick up my new Colt rifle today.  It's another evil black gun added to the collection. The other night, I got out a few of my favorites and ensured they were ready for service if the need would arise.

With some free time on the horizon this coming weekend, it's time to begin the cabinetry build in the room we have under construction.  It's going to be a fairly big task so my carpenter friend is going to come lend me a hand and hopefully we can knock it out quicker that way.  Yesterday I went to Woodcraft and bought a high quality table saw blade so that ripping the plywood will go easy and with no tear out.  Undecided if I need to get a zero clearance insert or not but it wouldn't hurt if I can get one before then.

I haven't been able to locate a Remington 700 yet so I guess I'll be calling a lot of Walmart's in the St. Louis area on Wednesday so I can take advantage of their Black Friday weekend firearms sale.  Once I locate the rifle, next on the list would be purchasing a chassis to drop the action into.  Once finished, it will resemble something like this:

Last night I was browsing some gun retailer websites and ran across a pretty good deal.  I saw Palmetto State Armory was selling the Colt M4 .22 LR rifle for $279.  This rifle is normally $499.  After a few seconds of debate with myself, I purchased it.  The gun is produced by Walther under an exclusive licensing agreement with Colt.  It is an exact replica of the Colt M4 carbine.  I already have a pretty cool .22 rifle in the form of a Ruger ITAC but I like a good deal.  This is the Colt .22LR.

Kinda cold, ain't it?  We only got a dusting of snow recently so the new beast of a snow blower remains harnessed in the garage, waiting to throw snow 50+ feet.  Since it's suppose to be in the 50's this weekend with rain, it looks like I have to wait a bit longer to use it.

We have a busy week consisting of 5 sales sessions and a few more scheduled for next week.  Jodi's vacation is over so she'll be using her evenings and days off to stay on top of things as the year comes to a close.  It's been a great year and hopefully next is even better. 

Looking ahead to next year, we need to have our house painted.  I'm undecided if I should tackle it myself or hire it out, although the latter would likely be best.  Or, I could hire a helper and save some money that way.   We're undecided on the colors still but have started looking in to what we may like.

We are having Google Fiber installed this morning.  It is the faster internet available and Kansas City is the first city to get it.  1 gigabit download speeds means you can download a song in 3 seconds.  We are also getting their TV service and will once again have a DVR and Hi Def video. 

We are suppose to get 2-3 inches of snow this weekend.  Not what I was hoping for to use my new snow blower for the first time but it will make for a good test run and this will be my first time using one. 

Walmart is having a 20% off all firearms sale Thanksgiving weekend, Friday thru Sunday.  I'm hoping to locate a Remington 700 AAC-SD in .308 to take advantage of the sale.  The sale includes all AR-15's as well. 

We only have one more shoot scheduled and with the weather the way it is, I don;t think that's going to go as scheduled.  We may have to put it off until next week or maybe even Spring, depending on whether we warm up any.  We are starting to get our sales sessions underway and had two last night with many more to come.  Time to get paid for all the hard work we've been putting in.

The termite treatment was completed yesterday so we have that behind us. Hopefully that is the end of them.  We do have a ten year guarantee and they will do an annual inspection plus we have the pest control guy looking quarterly.

This is the first year I'm bringing in some firewood.  I'm having a truck load delivered today by a friend of a friend so we'll have some nice firewood to burn on some cold days.  With the wood and the snow blower, we should be set up pretty well for the winter.

Today, Jodi's mom, sister and aunt will arrive today for a two day stay.  They usually come up in early December to Christmas shop with Jodi but since she is on vacation for a couple weeks, they decided to come up now.  The visit and break from work will be good for her as she's been putting in long days, not just at work but doing all of the photo editing.  She is pretty swamped right now getting client images ready for their sales sessions and then she has to do all of the ordering afterward.  The two weeks off is at a good time.

JD continues his physical therapy, hoping to be able to pitch again.  We received word yesterday that the head coach had a pretty serious heart attack and may not be doing so well.

Just when we thought our season was ending, I booked two more sessions!  I guess there are some procrastinators still wanting to get some photos so I'm looking at it as bonus money.  It will come in handy as we have to spend $1000 to have our home treated for termites.  They were discovered during an initial pest control application and have only been active a short period, which is the good news.  They will be out to trench, drill and apply the Termidor treatment on Monday.

We've reached the home stretch of our crazy busy schedule.  Shoots today, tomorrow and Wednesday will likely wrap up our on location sessions, which generally leads to some sporadic sessions in the studio over the Winter until Spring.  We may try to run a special promotion to increase studio usage during that time but I have plenty to do to prepare for business int he Spring.

I ran across a really good deal on a Facebook swap page late last week.  There was a guy selling a basically new Springfield Armory XD-40, purchased three months ago and 20 rounds through it.  He was asking $300, which was a bargain price and I happened to see the post almost immediately.  I said I'd take it and the people right behind me were trying to offer him more money to get it instead of me.  Luckily for me, the guy was a former Marine and held up his end of the bargain.  I met him a  few hours later and now have another addition to my collection.  The gun looks like it has never been touched.  Not the best pic but here it is.

Jayson seemed to like Halloween.  Here are some photos of him going to the pumpkin patch with JD and Megan and dressed up for Halloween.  Clicking on pics will make them larger. 

 

 And last but not least, here is the Ranger with the new wheels.