Oh happy day!

Yesterday was a pretty good day for me.  My church is doing a 24/7 Prayer thing that started last week and will go for 40 days (until Easter).  Everyone is supposed to sign up for an hour or two (or however many you want) to pray.  There is a website that is used for the scheduling so that everyone knows what times are available.  It is pretty neat.  Anyway, yesterday was my first time.  I signed up for an hour earlier than I normally get up to get ready for work.  I actually was able to get up when the alarm went off.  I was pretty scared that I would oversleep or turn off the alarm (which happens almost every day) and leave my hour unattended.  I'm pretty sure that this was the first time in my life that I have ever prayed for a solid hour.  It was a good way to start my morning.  I'm not sure that I could do that every morning as I have a hard enough time making it to work on time anyway, but it was good and refreshing.  I also had the same 6-7am shift this morning.  It was a little harder to get up today, but I made it in time.  Yesterday was such a good experience that I also signed up for 2 hours next week and 1 more hour the following week.  I don't want to steal all the good times!  :)

So when I got home last night, I had 2 surprises waiting on me.  My Realtor sent me a happy "house-iversary" card!  I love getting things in the mail that are not junk or bills!  The second thing was that there were some railing parts and pieces in my front yard.  Now, normally I would not be excited that there were random pieces of metal in my yard.... but this one is a long time coming, so I figure any progress is good news.  I was actually thinking that maybe this guy took my deposit money and ran off, never to return again.  I actually hired him a little over 8 weeks ago (and gave him $250), and he has had excuse after excuse for not coming out.  I was just about to call him today if I didn't hear from him.  I did take some "before" pictures (although they are from a long time ago when it was snowing!), and hopefully I will have some "after" pictures soon!

How's your bracket holding up?  I'm not doing so hot.  So far I'm in 18th place in my 28 person pool.  I only have 2 teams left in the final four, Ohio State and Florida.  At least they are the two I picked to be in the Championship game.  Here's a picture of my bracket.  The highlighted ones are my right picks and the scribbled out ones are my wrong picks.

I heard the Marquette coach on the radio this morning and he seems like a really nice guy.  Too bad I'm going to have to root against him.  I really need Ohio State, North Carolina, and Kansas to win tonight to somewhat redeem myself in my bracket group!