Shooting fun!

This has been a great weekend with my love home from work. Soon that will be a rare thing as once his machine is in the ground it requires 24/7 babysitting and that usually means 7 days a week for him. We took advantage! Saturday was spent in blessed relaxation with a dash of Bass Pro tossed in. I have a love/hate relationship with that store. I love all the things I find but I hate the dent in the wallet. Bought a ton of skeet so the boys could play.

Then today we got up early and went out to shoot again. The friend who joined us last time had made a couple purchases of his own and brought his wife along this time. She is a fibromite so it was nice to discuss shooting with someone who gets our specific drawbacks even though they are just now building their own collection. J.W. brought out one of our other rifles. I had never shot the .17. For some reason I had assumed it was like hubby's bad boy in the kick range and have just stayed away from it. Yeah I know I should know better after reading and stuff but hey, I am still a relative newbie. So i shot that today. Love the lack of kick. The rhythm of it was beautiful. The FMS difficulty was that I could not hold it up, shoot, chamber a new round, and shoot again. In a way it made my accuracy more surprising because I would have to lower my barrel, chamber, then raise again to shoot or my muscles threatened to give.  Left me with shoulders burning tonight but it was a lot of fun.

Nephew once again proved why I think he has major skills. Boys were shooting skeet. He had his 10/22 up and was just looking through the scope next to them. Both missed one of the skeet and with that rifle he shot the skeet out of the air. To prove it wasn't a fluke we had him lower and raise and shoot on the pull. Darn kid did it again. He has some skills.

So the day was good. I shot my rifle and the 9mm and got to play with the .17. Had the husband shoulder the shotgun so I could feel how it did with the short barrel on it. Still youch. Otherwise a very positive and fun day!! We needed it! There is some sick building in the house. 3 kids so far. I already have the aches so i know I am up next. Means I have a few miserable days ahead. I really need to find a good rheumatologist and stop putting it off. I need to get ahead of this fun that is my life. I keep saying I have accepted my new normal but just by not figuring out treatment beyond my meds shows I am not fully owning this and doing all I can to relieve the gunk. Uggg....... Fun stuff. Happy Sunday y'all.

Petroglyph Exploration followed by live fire!

This morning we went on another wonderful family desert adventure. These have become common place and serve a couple purposes. In a SHTF scenario when you live like we do in a suburban area outside a pretty major U.S. city it is always very very important to explore the rural areas surrounding you. You need to know the best places to go if you need a short term place to ride out a storm (literal or figurative). It is also just plain fun. We love finding little explored areas and since this is the desert the amount of BLM land and other public land between populated areas is plentiful. We have gotten into metal detecting which adds to the awesome.

Back to today, lol. Today we took a new road (for us anyway) my BIL had discovered last week that he wanted to show to us. After some bumps and turns through the fairly level desert you hit an area of foot hill type hills and rocky outcroppings. Then you see a very rough pull out area and an interesting park visitor type fence. We got out here and walked around where we got to see some pretty beautiful rock formations and some gorgeous petroglyphs high on the cliffs. Who knows how the Indians who drew then got some of them up there but they were beyond beautiful. Of course us women folk took pictures like crazy! The trees were plentiful enough that I am also willing to be their is a spring of some sort fairly close and think the area needs more searching. If that is the case and it is still a live spring even if it is small it is a place to remember if short term running is needed. Our long term plan requires somewhere farther north with more hunting but in a pinch and to get us through something fairly short a nearby well covered, easily defensible, springed camp would be a good thing to have.

After our exploration and my husbands rather cute mad climb up a cliff after a very large lizard for our girls to see (He chased him into a hole and was only able to retrieve a tail, lol. Our girls have a lizard obsession.) we went back the way we came until we found a side road and could get adequately off the traveled path to pull out the weapons. We kept is small today as we needed to be back in town for other obligations and had in town plans for the evening. My guy had to let his visiting big sister shoot his special toy. He loves his .308 almost as much as he loves me, lol. BIL had a .22 rifle for the older female children. We also broke out the Karr .40 and my sweet SIL had the unfortunate luck to be slide-bitten. Youch. I took the time to put about 40 rounds through my 9mm. I think the empty Gatorade bottle trying to rob me was very unhappily stopped and dead. I need to keep up with practice but I think I did okay.

All in all a good morning. More exploration aka SHTF planning and some live fire practice to boot. This girl is a happy girl!!

Contemplating a major undertaking.

As most know I recently bought my first gun. We have many family weapons but this one was one I picked just for me. It is a sweet little HK P2000 9mm and I got it for personal protection at home and out and plan to get my concealed weapons permit as soon as I can. Due to my guy and his career my ideal of living away from civilization is not one we can easily attain until we retire and our current locale is the worst one yet in terms of crime. Yuck!! So I have decided to take my protection and that of the girls seriously.

Most who know me well know I am a researcher and reader down to my soul so when I make my mind up about something I also do a ton of background research and try to get as prepared as possible. Since my decision was to carry a weapon on my body that meant researching the most comfortable ways to do that as well as safety concerns and such. I wanted a female perspective because, hey, I happen to be female. Women of Caliber, Girl's Guide to Guns, Armed Females of America, and Cornered Cat all had great info on safety, holsters, and anything else I may want to know. AFA is a bit outdated and I am not 100% behind the political side of it but the educational info was great. Girl's Guide is awesome. They cover everything from ammo to fashion with humor! Cornered Cat is very no nonsense and great at telling you all the options which I love. WoC is a personal favorite. She is LDS so the most similar to my values and very informative. She also has no problem interacting with her followers which is great. I love a personal touch.

So on to my contemplations, hehehe. In doing my research I found that women being open about firearm use was a heck of a lot smaller group than men. I also found that obviously that also meant that training, info, and gear for women was a lot harder to find. Add that I am a lefty and I am a super small category of girl. If you look at those who shoot and carry concealed you see it is a majorly male dominated field. Kellene of WoC is the highest NRA certified female instructor in the western states. She has the only place I have found aimed at teaching women by women even close to me and it is out of my state. I find that sad. The reason being that women are the biggest victim of violent crime and more would carry, I think, if taught by a women. I can only speak for myself, but I prefer to get my health care from other women. I prefer to buy my vehicles from other women. I am 5'4". Most everyone is taller than me. Especially men. My BIL calls me vertically challenged. When we are out I tend to stay close to my husband or BIL because they are bigger and stronger if something were to come up. I am going to take my CCW irregardless of the teacher because I am determined. I would not be surprised though if quite a few women had decided not to because of the nerves factor.

My considered undertaking is this. I am contemplating getting my NRA instructor certifications. Between the different men in my husband's family I am sure all of the weapon's I could be certified on are present and I could get my basic skills from them before taking my courses to qualify. My sweet guy said he knows I can do anything I put my mind to doing. My semi-chauvinistic BIL looked at me like I was bonkers. Part of the concern is that really my exposure to guns has been fairly minimal. I am comfortable with our .22 rifle and I am loving my 9mm but otherwise I haven't shot many of our other weapons. Part of that is a physical factor and one I have to strongly consider. My fibromyalgia means that certain weapons have a much more physical impact on me than they do on a "normal" person. The FMS coupled with being a lefty was why I didn't like the .40 I had and switched to the 9mm. The .22 is a rifle with not a lot of kick so it doesn't physically hurt me. I am sure in each category I could find calibers that would not hurt me but I could also be stuck with what is on hand and that could be hard on my body. Add that being an instructor means long hours standing, shooting, and moving and my FMS could once again get in the way. I love the idea as I think about it but the expense and the physical complications make me wonder. If I could do it I see some pretty amazing benefits for area women. This area has a major crime rate and if women had a women they could learn from I think more would take the opportunity to protect themselves.

Thoughts?