Last Day

I turned in my phone and keys. Then I filled out an evaluation that was really not directed towards me. It asked about my salary, overtime, benefits, work hours...all things that I didn't get. Leslie and I were cracking up the whole time. I had to write NA on half of it. It was quite amusing.

I went back to my trailer and finished Christmas cards and stuff for everyone, then packed the last of my things. My plane leaves tomorrow morning. So ends this adventure.

"The end is the beginning of all things,
Suppressed and hidden,
Awaiting to be released through the rhythm
Of pain and pleasure"

Pearlington

Leslie called this morning to say there was a change of plan. I was supposed to go to Luling today and John and Lisa were going to come help Mike and Henry with a house in Pearlington. But John and Lisa are both very sick today, so I stayed in Pearlington to help. Leslie said it was unlikely a lot would be accomplished in Luling today anyway, since it's supposed to rain a lot. So I went to a house with Mike and Henry. It's one of those stilt houses and we were reinforcing a couple of the joists. So we had to put a second 4 x 12 board in two spots where it was a little saggy (these went in horizontally on the underside of the floor). Then we had to put 4 x 4s (vertically) underneath the 4 x 12s to keep those from sagging too. And of course everything had to be nailed in. (Mum, you might want to skip this sentence) And since it was a stilt house all this was being done several feet off the ground, mostly on makeshift scaffolding. We got there about 9 and finished around 2. Then we went back to the village to scrounge up some lunch. Mike and Henry went to look at a client's house and I came to my trailer. I'm sort of considering a nap right now, but I'll probably just play cards.

Party

At noon we had our staff Christmas party. Leslie had it catered. We had bar-b-que sandwiches, baked beans, potato salad, and cole slaw. After everyone ate we had a gift draw. (One person picks a gift, if the next person likes it then they take it otherwise they open a different gift, and so on.) The funniest gift was play dough. Wilf picked that one. He was very excited about it. It's a good thing he was at the end because a lot of people were eyeing it. He and Mary opened it right away so they could play with it. Lots of fun.

This afternoon I mailed a couple boxes of stuff home. I went back to the trailer and packed. From there I went to Pearlington. I am now sitting in Heather's trailer considering a raid on the kitchen...My stomach is growling a little bit...

New Guy

Today was pretty slow. Jessie stopped by this morning and she, Megan, and I sat around chatting while we waited for Leslie and Rich to show up. Rich is going to shadow Megan for two weeks to see if he wants to come down for a full three months. When Rich got there, we gave him a tour of the village. Jessie left for Pearlington and I packed up the rest of my stuff, turned the trailer keys over to Rich and headed home. I stopped in Pearlington for lunch. Then Buddy and I had to refill the propane tanks because almost everyone was completely out. We had fourteen tanks, but Flying J's has a limit of 10, so we filled 10 and put the empty ones on the trailers nobody's using. We can take them another day. And since then I have been lounging in my trailer. I worked on the puzzle some more. I think we are missing a couple pieces...that would be sad.

And before I forget (for the thousandth time!), some very (very, very, very, very) belated thank yous. Thank you for all the birthday cards and gifts! I will try to call/write/email you all individually. I intended to do so long before now, but things would get busy and I wouldn't remember until ridiculously late at night. So I apologize for my extreme belatedness!

Also, I'm pretty set for puzzles now. : ) So thanks to everyone who found such great puzzles! (But I don't need anymore for...at least a few months...)

Outback

This morning was pretty slow. I went to Winn Dixie to pick up some stuff for dinner. I also solved a few sudoku puzzles.

This afternoon, Megan and I made oatmeal cakes and PDA cookies. (There is an official PDA cookie recipe!) The cookies are pretty good. They have oatmeal, bran flakes, pecans, and chocolate chips. I haven't tried the oatmeal cake yet, but I hope there is some left, because it looked very good. Then we put the lasagnas in the oven so they would be ready by dinner time. Then we had an hour/hour and a half to ourselves, so we retreated to our trailers.

Chris invited me to dinner tonight. He took me to The Outback Steakhouse in Slidell. Our waitress was really nice. When we were getting ready to leave she told us we were very sweet people and that she'd never had people as nice as we were. We left her a very nice tip. Chris forgot his to-go box, but the waitress ran after us to give it to him. And then he brought me back to Olive Tree.

Trains

I finished the last of the DRD stuff this morning. Some of Megan's family was in town this afternoon, so she spent some time with them and I had a lovely nap. Laura made dinner. She owns her own catering business and once a week she makes dinner for the volunteers. Tonight she made shrimp fettuccine, salad, and jello cake (which sounds sort of weird, but is actually very good). It was all delicious. For devotions everyone told why they were here/what had inspired them to come. Then we sang a couple songs.

I much prefer Orange Grove to Olive Tree because here we are right on the corner of a very busy highway. Cars and trucks are racing by and revving their motors and honking and screeching and rumbling constantly. All day and all night. Also, the train passes by very close to here. The trailer shakes every time it goes by and the blaring cacophony of the horn with all it's clashing pitches is deafening. It drives me crazy. Megan says she's gotten used to it and she doesn't hear it anymore, but I most certainly do. I will be glad to go back to Orange Grove on Friday.

Snakes

I slept on the couch and it was quite comfortable. When I got up I got my shower stuff out of the trailer and took a loooong, hot shower. It felt so good.

I spent several hours today doing DRD stuff for Megan. She is several weeks behind because she is trying to do her job and Colleen's. I didn't mind doing it for her, because it gave me something useful to do. I didn't get it finished, but I got a lot of it done. While I was working on that, she took a shower. There was a little garder snake in there. She really dislikes snakes. She yelled and I looked up to see her standing in the doorway of the office, wrapped in a towel. (That was when she informed me there was a snake.) From her reaction I'd half thought it was a rather large snake, but it was a tiny little thing. So I picked him up and released him at the back of the camp where there are some bushes and he isn't as likely to be found. The poor little guy was just looking for somewhere warm to stay. It was quite cold outside today.

Anyway, later this afternoon we refilled the propane tanks. (Megan's were almost out too.) Then we both retreated to our trailers for some down time. The volunteers are on a tour with a couple of the Project Homecoming people and then they're going out to dinner, so Megan and I will basically have the evening to ourselves.

I had more fancy ramen stuff for dinner. Megan and I had a bit of cookie dough for dessert. Now I am back in the trailer. (I have heat! Yay!)

Ice Box

I slept through my alarm this morning, so I did not make it to Olive Tree in time for orientation. When I did get there, I sat in the office for a while and chatted with Megan as she checked and respond to her emails (since Colleen left, she has to check both hers and Colleen's). We had some fancy ramen noodles for lunch then went to the Project Homecoming office. (Project Homecoming is the group that plans the worksites in New Orleans.) Megan and Sue made sure they had all the skill sheets for the groups coming in over the next few weeks. Then Megan and I went to Winn Dixie. She realized she didn't have her credit card in her pocket, so she went to get it from the truck. It wasn't in the truck, so she went back to camp to get it. It wasn't there either, so she called Leslie who called Louisville who cancelled the card. She picked me up from Winn Dixie and we put the groceries on hold. I got my card out of the trailer and we went back and bought the groceries with that. We have a fifty dollar limit and it cost $49.11, so that was perfect. We put all the groceries away and Megan checked her email again. Then we both retreated to the trailers for a little bit before dinner.

My trailer is an ice box. It is about 55/60 degrees because it is completely out of propane. It's supposed to get down to 30 tonight, so I think I will sleep on one of the couches in the main building. The building is heated and the couches are very squishy and comfortable, so that should work well.

Wilf and Kyra stopped by to give Megan and me milage books for our trucks. We have to enter our milage for the day, when and where we get gas, and any maintenance stuff. So he gave us those and then Megan and I sat in the office and chatted for a while before dinner.

Dinner was pretty good. We had 'burgers and 'dogs. And Megan and I made some cookies out of pre-made batter we found in the freezer. Though we had to figure out how to light the pilot on the oven first. After that, I went back to my trailer and called home. Now I'm sitting in the building listening to the volunteers talk about their day. Once they leave I'll set up a make-shift bed on the couch (I brought a couple blankets, a pillow, and my pjs with me). For now I'll piddle around online and read my book a little. Hopefully they will feel inclined to go to bed soon because I am very tired. But I am doubting this a little because they are watching a football game and it doesn't look like it's going to end soon. Oh well.

Change of Plan

I didn't do a whole lot today. I had pumpkin cake for breakfast. I picked up a couple things from the store. I did a load of laundry so I will have clothes for this week. I was going to be going back to Luling, but that plan was changed. Jessi will go to Luling and I will go to Olive Tree to keep Megan company. She has ten volunteers this week. And since Colleen left, she's the only one there. I reminded Leslie of how easily I get lost, so me driving around New Orleans was not such a great idea, but she solved that by having me ride with Megan to the worksites. So I guess that will be that.

This evening I went to see the movie Australia. It was very good. There were a couple rather cliche/predictable parts, but it was a good movie. While I was in the movie, Megan called to see when I was getting to Olive Tree. She called Jesse and Leslie to see if either of them had heard from/seen me. They both called me. Everyone was getting really worried. I called them all back after I got out of the movie. I explained I had been under the impression I was supposed to go to OT in the morning, so I had gone to a movie tonight. Everyone was very glad I wasn't driving around lost.

Gumbo Shop

We ate breakfast at Waffle House. Leah and I shared a plate of hash browns and eggs over easy and a strawberry waffle. It was good. Then we drove to New Orleans. We drove past Olive Tree, but Megan wasn't there so it was locked. Then we drove down to the French Quarter and wandered around there. We ate lunch at the Gumbo Shop. It was sooooooo good. I had a shrimp po-boy, but mum and dad's food were even better. Mum had gumbo and dad got a combo plate that had red beans and rice, jambalaya, and something else that I can't remember, but was delicious. Then we went to Cafe Du Monde for beignets. Then we came home. Buddy was home, so they got to meet him. Then they headed back to the hotel and I headed for bed. : )

Nice, Lazy Day

Woke up. Took a shower. Folks came over 'bout the time I got out. Hung in the trailer for a bit. Mum and I worked on the puzzle. Dad disappeared to the kitchen to make a belated birthday cake. Taylor and Leah opened every single cabinet in the trailer. We went to the dining tent and played taboo for a little while. Had lunch at Lookout 49, then came back and had cake. Frank had cake with us. Then the girls and I chased Joe around for a while. We drove past a couple of the worksites and then hung at the hotel for a little bit playing cards. We went to dinner at Catfish Charlie's.

Thanksgiving

I slept in a little today. Then I worked on the puzzle some more. It's nearly finished. I gave my folks a tour of the village. Then we drove to the coast and walked along the shore for a bit. We drove to Pearlington and had dinner with Jessie and Mike and the volunteers there. It was very good. The pies were fantastic. The gnats on the other hand were terrible. And they bite. During dinner one of the volunteers was talking about this little dog he'd seen and how it reminded him of Peter Sellers. My whole family immediately cracked up because we knew what he was talking about. ("Does your dog bite?"...) He said he was glad we got it because most people didn't catch the reference. After dinner we came home. Today has been pretty good.

Double Traffic

I left Houma around 8 and got here about 10. There was no traffic. Worked for me. : )

I figured out how to use the cruise control on my truck. Very nice to know. My leg muscles were too tired today to hold the gas pedal down for 2 hours. My arms are a tad sore too. And my back is really sore. But oh well. I would rather be productive and sore than wandering around camp aimlessly.

I did not do a whole lot today. I straightened up my trailer a little bit and I've gotten a lot done on the puzzle. I'm waiting for my folks to get in. They got stuck in Baton Rouge traffic and New Orleans traffic. Bummer.

Here is what the puzzle is supposed to look like:



And here is what we've done so far:

Catch Up

Sorry it took me a while to get the posts up for the last three days. Houma (where we were sleeping) doesn't have wireless. They have little cards that plug into your computer. Except they don't fit my computer. So I had no internet for a couple days. So now you will just get to read several days at once. Lucky you! : )

Today was longer than yesterday. I'm sooo tired right now. We left here just before 8 so we were already working by 9. We got the last nine pods down. We took apart the duct work so it was in small enough sections it can be moved to Texas. We folded and wrapped all the cots that were in the dining tent. There were quite a lot of them. Then we picked up a lot of the rivet and button pieces. We didn't get all of them, but I think it's fair to say we got most of them. We left Luling around 4:30. No rain today. It was cool and sunny. Perfect weather for taking down pods!

Also, there were two women and eight children running around today (well, the kids were running around). They are on their way to Texas and the church let them park their rv their overnight. They gave us some fresh apples that were absolutely delicious! They left around 2. I think I will be coming back on Monday, but I have to talk to Leslie about that first. I don't know why I wouldn't, but I have to get the official go ahead anyway. Now we're going to make dinner. Which is mostly heating food up. We're going to have gumbo and biscuits and assorted veggies. And I am so looking forward to it. I am starving.

Dinner was good. It was just the four of us (me, Kyra, Wilf, and Mary) again, but it was nice. I really do like working and hanging out with them. They're a lot of fun. Apparently Megan is coming down tonight so she can help with the roof project (15 roofs in 5 days) but we haven't heard from her yet. She was planning on staying in a pod, but Kyra said she could stay in her trailer with us. (She calls me roomie now. It's funny.)

Today Kyra was talking about her allergy to peanuts (she is deathly allergic, like if the person next to her is eating peanut butter, she'll break out and if she touches it, she goes into anaphylactic shock) and she said one time some volunteers made peanut butter cookies and she was cleaning up and she picked them up before she realized they were peanut butter, so she went back to the trailer and gave herself two epi pens and went to bed. In the morning the guy who was sharing her trailer ("I slept on one end and he slept on the other. We were in the middle of a disaster, nobody cared then. That was before all this sexual harassment stuff.") woke her up asking (very loudly...) what the hell had happened. She said she woke up and said "What? Morning? We going to Sams?" She said there was also a time when she had gone for a couple days and while she was gone some volunteers anointed everything in the camp with peanut oil and the village manager was running around behind them saying "No! Stop it! You're going to kill Kyra!"

Megan arrived. And realized she brought her left sneaker and right black shoe. We laughed about that for a while. She's wearing them tomorrow just so she can be the story of the day.

Rain and Pods

Today feels rather long, but I suppose it wasn't really. We left here at 8, got to Luling around 9 and were ready to work about 9:30. We got 9 pods taken down. It was a little more difficult than Friday because 1) we had less people and 2) whoever put the pods up riveted everything. Also, they attached the stands for the duct work to the base of the pods. So these pods took a lot longer to take apart. We had a lunch break around 1:30 and quit for the day about 3. So we got a good 6 hours in despite the rain. It drizzled on us some after lunch, but it didn't pour until we were on the road. So that was good timing. There were two older gentlemen (I'm pretty sure their names are Sam and Dennis) from the church there that helped us.

It took us quite a while to get home because there were two wrecks. One of them was really bad. A big semi type truck rolled over. When we got back I took a shower in the shower trailer. The light wasn't working, but I left the door open and I could see fine and the water was nice and warm. I found out later the light does work, but you have to pull the switch inside, not the one right by the door. Oh well.

Kyra and Wilf just ran to the store to pick up frozen pizzas for us to throw in the oven for dinner. Kyra is awesome. She's a kid at heart. She told me she's a therapist mostly for the kids (teenagers) that others have given up on and they love her because she's like them. Most of them have told her they'll quit seeing her when she grows up.

Houma

This morning I baked the two pies and did laundry. The dinner got moved from 4 to 7. I worked on the puzzle. I've gotten a fair bit done. I'll be going to Houma tonight for the dinner (probably by myself. I don't think Buddy is coming like he planned to.) I'll stay there tonight with Kyra and then go to Luling with Kyra and Wilf Monday and stay until Tuesday. Then come home Wednesday to be here when my folks come.

There were a lot more people for dinner than were expected. They thought there would be about 60 but there were actually 100+. Kevin made gumbo that was very good. They were running out of food, so were trying to throw together whatever they could find in the pantry. There were a couple cans of asparagus and a bag of stir-fry and some biscuits and french fries and a salad. Also, we had a bunch of vegetarians. So Lisa was very worried that they wouldn't have enough because almost everything had meat in it. We told them the beans didn't and then Kyra found a piece of meat, but there was only one piece in the giant pot, so she ate it and that was that. I washed dishes which took quite a while. Then Wilf, Mary, Megan, Colleen, Kevin and his daughter (I think her name is Amanda) and I all stood/sat around the back steps chatting. It was nice. Prior to this I haven't had much interaction with Wilf, Mary, or Kyra, but I really like all of them. I think these next two days will be fun.

Baked Squid

I slept in until about 9. Then I helped Buddy google some info for a paper he has to write. He took me lunch at a chinese buffet. It was pretty good. I tried some strange things. The boiled squid wasn't bad, the baked crab wrapped in bacon was an insult to crab meat, and the muscle was disgusting. I had to spit that one out. But the fried dumplings were very good and so were the shrimp. The shrimp had some seasoning on it I'm not used to, but it was still good. There was some very spicy chicken. And of course, egg rolls. It was a very filling lunch. After lunch I went to Michaels and bought two picture frames; one for the snow leopard puzzle and one for the villains puzzle. When I got home I put the puzzles in the frame. After finally wrestling them in I realized I'd put them in up-side-down. So I had to take them out and put them in again the right way. (You think I'd learn my lesson after the first one, but no, I did it with both of them.) The villains puzzle was just barely longer than the frame, so I used a box cutter to trim it so it would fit. But they both look very nice now. Then I took a little bit of a nap. I discovered that Houma is having their Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow afternoon not Thursday, so Buddy and I will be driving to Houma tomorrow. And I will likely be going to Luling after that to work until Tuesday. I'm not entirely sure how that will work. But it will all be figured out.

Luling

I left for Luling at 8. I got there a little after 10. I did not get lost!!!!!!!!! It was wonderful. There was wind, but it wasn't a problem driving, because there are huge trees that block most of it. But in Luling the wind was cold. I'd only taken my light jacket because it wasn't that cold out. And it wasn't. When the wind stopped, it was just beautiful weather. But the wind didn't stop very often. We got 12 pods taken down today. The front and back come off in 3 pieces each. We take out the little button things that hold them together, stack them, and wrap them in saran wrap. The top and sides are all one piece that fold like an accordian. We saran wrap that too. And lastly is the floor which also folds up accordian style and gets wrapped. Everything gets stacked to the side and voila! No more pod! Around 2 we sort of cleaned up and headed out. Don and I left first. I was going to follow him, but I lost him. I made it home no problem. (I didn't get lost again! What is the world coming to?) We left a little after 2 and I was back by 4 ish, so I made good time going both ways. I am so exhausted though. I was ready for bed at 5. I took a little bit of a nap before doing this, but I'm going back to bed soon. I'm going to sleep in tomorrow. : )

Trailer

We had a house blessing today, so this morning I made bread and bought flowers. I put the basket together and we left. Frank, Henry, Christi and I carpooled. The homeowner was very nice and she had a very sweet but very hyper dog. I don't know what kind it was, but it was small like a wiener dog, but not as long and with bigger ears. It was very cute.

After the house blessing I went to the main office and looked up some volunteer contact info. Henry wants to let the groups know the houses they worked on are finished. But he had 13 houses that have been completed in the last few months and each had several groups that worked on them. So there was a lot to look up.

I called Leslie to see if I was actually going to Luling tomorrow. I am. I don't yet know how long. She's supposed to call me back this evening after their meeting. Wilf needs a tool trailer that's here, so I'm taking that. It's a little one, which is why I agreed to do it, but it is very different. Buddy helped me hook it up to my truck this evening. I had to run to the store to pick up some stuff for dinner, so I drove it to Kmart and back. Leslie was planning to have Buddy come down with me, but he has a bunch of school stuff he still needs to catch up on, so he can't go. But that's okay.

I made spinach and black bean quesadillas for dinner. It was just Frank and I (and Joe) but it was nice. He asked if I wanted to come back (in January) and I said yes and he said he would fully support that and Leslie would too. Also, this camp will probably be closed by June, so there will be lots of work even though we don't currently have lots of volunteers. He also said I've done very good work. So that's all good.

Steel Wool

I slept really late by accident, which was okay because there was nothing happening. So I got up at 9 and went to the kitchen and made a couple biscuits. Then I went over to the tool trailer and started cleaning the tools that were outside. From 11:30 to 4:30 I was out there scrubbing the rust off and sanding the handles so the tools would be usable again. I finished 21 shovels. But it was really hard on my hands. I was using a steel wool scrubber to take off the rust, but it also took a layer of skin off all my knuckles and the heel of my hand. And I have a bunch of little cuts on all my finger tips. And I cut my thumb on a cinder block. I poured peroxide on them to clean out the rust. It hurt a little, but not too bad. It also looks like I will be going to Luling on Friday to help pack up the village so it can be taken to Texas. I haven't heard for sure yet, but it is likely I will be there Friday, Monday, and Tuesday. I guess I will find out.

Birthday!

Well, today I turned 19. It was a quiet event. I got lots of birthday wishes and some amusing voice mails from friends. This morning Henry, Don, and I went to the house blessing. I stopped by the main office this afternoon to say hi and drop off mail that needed to be forwarded. (We get quite a lot of mail for this one person that hasn't worked here in months. We do not understand it.) This afternoon I ran around with Joe. That was about all I did today.

No Grocery Shopping?

It was soooo strange to not have volunteers. I was out the door at 7:30 as usual. But no one else was up. So I wandered over to the tool trailer, but everything was put away. Then I wandered over to the office. I straightened up a few papers there, but pretty much everything was already good. So I sent Christi an email to see if I could go in and do DRD stuff. Christi said she was in New Orleans, but her computer was in the office, so I drove over to the main office, but no one was there. So I went looking for a hair salon. I went to a couple different ones, but all of them were closed. I went back to the main office and Leslie was there, so I did the DRD stuff. It didn't take long since we only had nine people last week. I found an open hair salon (oddly enough, it's called Mane Tamers - same as the one I use at home) and got my hair cut. I put a little bow in it. I think it looks very cute that way. When I got back to the village I made two pies with the apples in the fridge, but I didn't bake them today. I put them in the freezer with baking instructions in case I'm not the one to bake it.

Here is a picture of my new haircut.

Cold!

It has been cold this weekend. : (

When I woke up, I discovered the heater had not been running. The trailer was like an ice box. I was buried under 4 blankets and wearing two sweaters. And still cold. I think the heater was just out of propane because when I switched it to the other tank it started working. So hopefully that will not happen again.

After I finally convinced myself I could get up, I went to my trailer and put on my leg warmers and a long sleeve shirt. Then I put on my regular clothes over that. I went to a Waffle House (there's pretty much one every block) for breakfast. I had a strawberry waffle. Then I came back and started a load of laundry and hunkered down under the blankets again. I made an egg sandwich for lunch and moved the laundry. I also sort of went through the paperwork from this week. I still have to do the DRD stuff, but everything else (I think) is taken care of.

I picked up a pizza from Papa Johns for dinner. Then I spent a while cleaning the trailer. I found extra shower curtains in the office, so I changed the curtain because it was getting all moldy and really very gross. I put all the puzzle glue and unsolved puzzles in one cabinet. I washed the sheets. I cleaned off the couch and the counter by the door. I swept the floor. I'm sure it will not last, but it looks much neater.

Two more days until my birthday! Three days until Chris comes home!

Lost in NO

We got our orders of the Fair Trade coffee, so I put ours away then delivered Pearlington's. Then I came back and made a sandwich, stopped by the main office to try and find a volunteer in the data base, then left for New Orleans. Olive Tree had a house blessing there today, so I went to that and delivered their Fair Trade coffee.

On the way home I took 10 West instead of East and didn't realize it for about 10 minutes. Then the exit I took to turn around led to a one way street away from 10. I finally found a street that went the direction I wanted and saw a sign for 10 East and got on. And then realized I had misread the sign. I was actually on 610 East. So I had to find an exit to turn around. I eventually found 10 East and made it home, but I was fairly stressed for a while there.

When I got home, I put on pajamas and made a bowl of oatmeal and climbed into bed.

House Blessing

Since yesterday was so long, I slept in a little bit. Not as much as I would have liked to, but I had to get ready for the house blessing today. I arranged the basket. It looked nice. (I'll put the pictures at the end of the blog.) Then Christi picked me up and we went over there together. No one else came, so we gave the home owner the basket and talked with her for a little while. She showed us all the work that had been done and praised the volunteers for their work and spirit. She was extremely nice and grateful. She said she'll try to come by one of the family night dinners, which would be very nice. She came to one several weeks ago when we had it on a Thursday, but when we moved it to Wednesday she couldn't make it because she has bible study then.

Christi brought me back to camp. Don was here and he and Frank talked for a while and Don took back his phone and keys. So that's good.

I spent 3 hours doing DRD then came home, had a late lunch, and took a nap. I slept for about 3 hours. It would have been nicer if people hadn't kept calling me, but it was still a very, very good nap.

One of the volunteers told me about this website called Pandora. It's pretty cool. You type in a song or an artist and it plays music similar to that.

16+ Hours

Today has been crazy!
Today began at 4:00 in the morning when I got up to take Chris to the airport. On the way home I stopped by Wal-Mart to pick up yeast so I could make bread for the house blessing. When I got home I started on the bread because my to-do list for the day was as long as my arm and growing.

As I was waiting for the bread to rise, Don came and talked to me. A client made an accusation and PDA has to look into and while they investigate, he basically can't work. Henry is leaving town today which means I'm the only around with a truck to deliver supplies. Only problem: I didn't really have the time. Henry asked me to pick up and deliver some siding to one of the sites this morning (it's now about 7:30. when I usually make it out to breakfast. just to let you know how early it still is for me). I told Henry that I absolutely had to finish this bread and get flowers, but if the team could wait until 9:00 I could do it.

So in between waiting for the bread to rise, I was running to the office to print directions to the house blessing and to the work site I was supposed to take siding to and running to the storage trailer to get out more plates and bowls because we were running low in the tent. Then the guy who is inventorying all the villages asked if I was available to help him this morning. I told him my day was looking pretty busy, so I didn't think so, but I would let him know if I did.

I got the bread finished and it looked very good. (I tasted it later. It is good. Experiment successful! Thank you daddy!) Then I got in my truck and drove to the flower shop. (It is now about 8:30.) The shop doesn't open until 9 which meant I was really going to be pushing it to get the siding to the worksite and get the flowers and make it to the house blessing on time. (The house blessing is at 11:30 and the house is about an hour from camp.) So I called the group that needed the siding so we could meet at Lowe's and they could get what they needed and I could bring it to them. They didn't answer, so I left a message and went to Wal-Mart to get the things they needed for dinner. I brought the groceries back to camp and was about to go back to the flower shop because it was almost 9 when the home owner called. She couldn't do the house blessing today because she didn't have a car today, so she had no way to get home for it. So we rescheduled for next week and I called Henry and sent an email to the rest of the staff to let them know. So that took a little of the stress out of my day.

About then, the volunteers called back, so I picked up the siding for them. I brought one of the women back to camp with me. She started working on dinner. I had to go back to Wal-Mart because I hadn't bought enough hamburger the first time. (It is now about 11:30) At this point I strongly considered a nap because I was losing focus and becoming non-functional. But I needed to get flowers for tomorrow's house blessing before the shop closed. So I did that. While I was there I got a pinkish orange lily for Leslie because the last two days have been even crazier and more stressful for her than for me, so I thought she would like something to brighten her day.

The lady at the flower shop gave me the lily and one other flower for free and thanked me for coming here to help. She was very nice. So were all the other people there. The man there was working on a wreath and he asked me my opinion on it. It was beautiful. There were blue sequin fish ornaments and a green sequin something with peacock feathers on it and bright green sequin leaves. That sounds kind of loud and maybe too many sequins, but it really wasn't. It was quite lovely.

Anyway, I took the lily over to the main office to give to Leslie. I gave her the flower and a hug. I'm glad I did. It made her smile which she hasn't done as much lately because of all the stress. We talked a little and Leslie did say she would see if she could bring me back in January. So I really hope she can. Since I have insurance under my parents, I can work here more than 90 days (which is the cutoff for the uninsured) but with so few teams coming in she doesn't know if she can justify bringing in staff.

I got a short half hour nap around 4:30 (which was much needed) then a huge sugar rush from eating a pint of chocolate ice cream (which got me through dinner without falling asleep on my plate).

Tonight was family night. We had two families come. It was very nice having such a small group because I actually got a chance to talk to the families a little bit. After dinner we gave them a quick tour of the camp because they've never been here before. It was sort of difficult since it was already dark, but they could see the main things.

I am now up to a 16 hour day and I still have to go make bread for the house blessing tomorrow morning. >.< which means this will most likely end up being an 18-20 hour day. Such insanity. But so it goes. I am going to call home and see what is happening there, then I will go make bread, then I will SLEEP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Because my sugar rush is about to wear off. I can feel the crash starting already.

The Mystery Meeting

The Louisville folks came by Orange Grove this morning and toured the camp. Frank showed them around and I kinda just followed behind. Then he took them down to Pearlington to see a more "normal" camp (since the headquarter staff don't stay there.) and to visit a house the teams were working on.

I ran to Wal-Mart to pick up a couple things and then Don picked me up and we drove to Olive Tree. Shortly after getting there, I went to the Project Homecoming office with Megan to pick up a projector screen for the presentation.

We had little sandwich quarters, chips, and salad for lunch. Then we had the presentation. It was insanely long. We were there for 3 hours and then headquarter staff had to stay even longer. It was sorta boring and extremely tense. There were a lot of unhappy people. The Louisville people have made some changes in how we spend/get approval for spending in an attempt to cut down on how much we are spending. The petty cash fund is going to be called the emergency cash fund and will only be $50 instead of $500. If we buy anything over $50 (with the exception of Sam's and gas) with the corporate credit card, we have to get approval from Frank. The corporate credit cards are going to be issued under our names instead of our positions. I think that's all the major changes they made.

Anyway, then Don drove me and Chris home. We stopped at a bait store so he could get crabs for his fishing trip tonight and then we briefly stopped by his house. We got back to camp just in time for dinner. And that was today.

Florist Shop

This morning I picked up the Sam's order. It was not very big and I think we're pretty much set for the week now. Which would be amazing. Then I went to a florist shop to see what their prices were since Henry wants fresh flowers for the house blessings. Then I had some lunch and did a little bit of stuff in the office. (Roses are $5 a stem and daisies and mums are $1 a stem.) I washed my truck, took a shower, and went to the main office to turn in my time sheet and shopping receipts. I'll have to do the DRD later this week because Christi's computer wasn't there today.

Chris will come home from tomorrow's meeting with me and Don. Then I will take him to the airport Wednesday morning. Early, early, early Wednesday. Like his flight leaves at 6:30 AM, so he has to be there at 4:30 AM. He is going home to Canada for a week to see his mum and grandma. Anyway, I will probably have to work in a nap on Wednesday to catch up on my sleep.

Michaels

I slept in until about 9:00 then I got up and dressed and did my makeup. I grabbed my directions to the church I was planning on going to and left extra early to give myself some drive-around-lost time. But I never made it to church because I could not find it. So I went to Michaels and picked up some things for the home blessings on Wednesday and Thursday.

When I was poking around in the fridges and freezer looking for lunch, I found four of those pie tins with the crust already in them, so I made apple pies for the volunteers. Dinner was pretty informal. Buddy defrosted some leftover vegetable soup/stew and the volunteers had that and sandwiches. And apple pie, of course. With ice cream.

My week is looking pretty busy right now. Or at least the first several days. I have a bunch of stuff to do tomorrow (mostly paperwork, unfortunately) and I will likely be driving tools and supplies around too, because our volunteers have one van and three worksites. Then Tuesday is the very long meeting with the Louisville big wigs. Then there are home blessings on Wednesday and Thursday and I have to get the baskets together. I'll have to make a loaf of bread for each of them and I have to get fresh flowers the day of/before. Hopefully things will not actually be as busy as it's looking now.

Ahhh! Piles of Paperwork!

I slept in until 8:00 then had apple pie for breakfast. (Breakfast of champions!) Then I organized paperwork so everything would be ready for Monday. I finished about 2:30 and had a late lunch. Then I did nothing for a couple hours.

There is one volunteer still here. He will leave tomorrow. Anyway, he said if I would drive (because he doesn't have a vehicle) he would buy me dinner, so we went to Lookout 49 for dinner. It was very good.

Chris, John and Lisa have gotten all the pods up in Houma and they're hoping they will finish the duct work tomorrow. Chris said he would be home sometime Monday (depending on when they finish the duct work). Then he goes home to Canada on Wednesday and he'll get back the following Wednesday (one day after my birthday). And then my family comes!

Cajun Cooking!

Yesterday I picked up the Sam's order and a couple things from Wal-Mart. I put all the stuff away, got some lunch and then made more cookies because I want to give some to Lisa for her birthday tomorrow. I went to Walgreens and got bubbles and silly string, put them in a shoe box with the cookies and wrapped it in birthday paper. Then I met the volunteers at Lookout 49 for dinner. I had a Cajun pasta that was absolutely delicious, but very spicy. The sauce on the pasta had shrimp, crawfish, sausage, and of course the Cajun seasonings. I couldn't finish it all. The rest of it is in my fridge right now.

Today Don, Buddy and I were supposed to head for Luling about 7:30 so we could pick up my truck on the way to Houma, but we didn't get out of here until almost 9:00. So we went straight to Houma. We took the wrong exit and had to back-track, so we were even later, but everyone had trouble finding it so we weren't the only ones who were late. We weren't even the last ones there. Kevin made pasta with shrimp and fish in it and salad for lunch. It was very good. Then we had the meeting which ended up being very short because there wasn't much Leslie could tell us until after the big meeting with the Louisville staff. So we have another meeting with a bunch of the head honchos on Tuesday. This meeting is apparently going to be very long and a lot of things are going to be changed.

After the meeting we took pictures with everyone which I will hopefully get copies of because there were some good ones. I rode over to Luling with Harold and Dona (the Luling Managers) because Buddy and Don were going straight home. Colleen and Megan wanted to see Luling, so I was going to follow them back to Olive Tree where I could just get on 10 and follow it home. But when we got to Luling, Buddy and Don were there. They put the extra fax machine from Houma in my truck since I didn't have a passenger and then we loaded up both our trucks with fire wood. There is a very nice, very large fire going right now. Oh, and Don gave me a pair of $45 sunglasses for my birthday. You know, the kind that come with the little bag to keep them in so they don't get messed up or anything. They're very nice. And that's about all I know.

And the dinner bell just rang, so I must go!

New Truck!

I discovered that I am not getting emails on my phone. I got on the office computer and had about five emails from the last two days. So now I know I have to check my email regularly.

We have a village manager meeting in Houma tomorrow. And I think Kevin is going to make lunch for us which would be wonderful since he is an excellent cook. I haven't actually eaten anything he's made yet, but all the staff who have rave about it. Also, I will be getting one of the Luling trucks tomorrow. We're going to stop there on the way to Houma so I can pick it up. Dona and Harold don't need it since they use their vehicle most the time and they'll still have one PDA truck, so Wilf and Leslie decided I could have that one. After Leslie rode in the Red Monster she didn't want me driving it anymore because she doesn't feel it's safe.

I went grocery shopping this morning and then this afternoon I went to the main office and spent a couple hours entering stuff into DRD. While I was there, Mary told me that Louisville has finally got the Sam's thing sorted out so we can do the click'n'pull again. Which will make things sooooo much easier!

We had lasagna for dinner and jello with fruit chunks in it, apple pie, and pecan pie for dessert. The pecan pies were delicious!

What? A Weekend?

I actually had some time off this weekend. Don, Buddy, Henry and I organized the tool trailer on Sunday afternoon. That took a couple hours, but other than that, I had the weekend to do whatever I wanted. Which I think is a first. I got to sleep in late! On Saturday afternoon Chris and I watched a couple movies and we made grilled ham and cheese sandwiches for dinner. I read more of my book. It was very nice.

For the last two days I have gone shopping all morning and baked all afternoon. I made cookies and an apple pie for the volunteers. Tomorrow I get to enter last week's volunteer hours into the computer. That will likely take up my entire afternoon.

I am taking care of Joe tomorrow and Thursday. And I am taking care of Star until Chris gets back from Houma. He, Wilf, Mary, and Kyra went back today. They've got most of the pods back up, but they still have to do the duct work and lighting for them. They're hoping to finish that this week.

Buddy left yesterday morning to visit his mum. He got back this afternoon.

We're going to have two house blessings this week. Very exciting.

I think we're having chili dogs for dinner tonight.

WE NEED VOLUNTEERS

If anyone can get together a group of 3 (must be 18 or older) to come down and volunteer please do so! We have five villages here in Mississippi and Louisiana and three of the five are very slow until March. So we really need volunteers for the winter months. You can register online on the pcusa website http://www.pcusa.org/pda/teams.htm.

It has not been as cold as it was at the beginning of the week. Two days ago I was digging stuff out of the storage trailer. I (of course) needed something from the very back. And (of course) there was no way to get to the very back. So I spent a good 40 minutes rearranging boxes so I could get back there. And then putting them all back so I could get out. I'm sure it would have been quite amusing to watch me. I did at one point drop a slightly heavy box on my head, but it didn't hit hard and I am rather hard-headed, so it wasn't too bad.

We are having many problems with Sams. The direct deposits are not going through and they won't take our credit cards, so we are having to get everything from Wal-Mart for now. But our credit cards are about to be maxed out, so hopefully the Sams thing will be sorted out soon.

I spent most of this morning driving around. I went to the Salvation Army warehouse with Leslie to pick up some mold blaster and some kilz. (Kilz is a mold-retardent primer.) They gave us an entire palette of mold blaster (36 buckets that hold 3 gal. each) and five buckets of kilz (5 gal. each). I dropped Leslie off at camp and we took out a couple buckets to leave here. I took the rest of them to Pearlington, because a lot of the houses they are working in right now have mold. I got there about lunch time, so I went with Mike to the Methodist Church just down the street that serves hot lunches for volunteers every day. They had salad, potato salad, rice, green beans, mac & cheese, cornbread, catfish, garlic bread, and assorted desserts. It was pretty good.

Chris, Mary, Wilf, and Kyra come back from Houma tonight.

There is a wasp flying around in my window. It is making me very nervous.

Chilly Nights/Mornings

I went to the main office this morning to finish up the paperwork. It only took me about a half hour. So it wasn't bad at all. I went to Sam's and then took a bunch of receipts to Mary.

This afternoon I put all the letters and postcards and notes from the youth group up on the walls. There is hardly a blank space of wall anywhere. It's fabulous. Later this afternoon I went to one of the worksites to make sure they had everything they needed (because Don called and asked me to). I'll probably be doing some of that tomorrow since Don will be in Pascagoula and Henry will be in Pearlington. But we'll see.

We had hot dogs for dinner. More excitingly, we had delicious apple crisp for dessert! Steaming hot when we got it. Which really warmed us up.

Finally

The snow leopard puzzle is complete! Behold!









Yesterday Chris, Wilf, and Mary W. left for Houma (a village in Louisiana near New Orleans). They will be living there this week while they rebuild. They have a bunch of volunteers helping, so they are hoping to be done by Friday.

We had a staff meeting this morning. Then Ms. Sally (Our cook for the week. Three cheers for Ms. Sally!) and I went to the grocery store. We had lunch and then I headed over to the main office. I spent three hours there entering volunteer hours into DRD. I get to go back tomorrow to finish up. But it shouldn't take as long tomorrow. I'm almost done.

A little bit of a cold front came in. We have a frost warning for tonight. We also discovered that we are out of kerosine which is what we use in the heaters for the pods. We only have enough to run them tonight, but it's going to be cold all week. And apparently no one in Mississippi sells kerosine, so it has to be ordered from Louisiana. But we have a tank of diesel coming in tomorrow which is close enough to kerosine that we can use it to run the heaters.

Buddy is going to school to get a degree in oil refining. He has gotten a job/internship (I can't remember which) offer. He's pretty much been accepted for it, he just has to pass this special test that he's taking tomorrow. So he's been studying like crazy. I'm sure he'll do fine. He's been getting A's in all his classes and most of the tests he's taken he's gotten 90% or better. So he's worrying a little, but I have no doubt he'll ace it.

How To...

I have been sorting through paperwork again. People seem to have a very hard time following directions. We ask the volunteers to keep time sheets. We give them a How-to-Fill-Out-Time-Sheet paper with each time sheet. I had one group that wrote the hours for all four people in one line...on the how-to sheet, not the time sheet. Is is really that difficult? It seems pretty self explanatory to me. Particularly when it comes with instructions. Oh well.

All but one volunteer left today. We'll be getting some more tomorrow evening and then more on Sunday. We're going to have about 40 people here. So about the same as this week.

Buddy and I bought two new grills for the village because the two we have are rusted out and not usable. So now we have new ones.

We have made a lot of progress on the leopard puzzle. You can actually see the leopards now. : )

Pie, Catfish, and Prayer Shawls

I went to a house blessing in Pearlington. Whenever a house is finished, they have a house blessing and everyone is invited. The house belongs to an elderly couple. It had been flooded to the ceiling by the hurricanes, so it had been rebuilt nearly from scratch. It was a beautiful home. They opened with a prayer and then sang a song, read a scripture and prayed again. The volunteers who had worked on the house presented a prayer shawl to the woman. It was very nice.

This is the house blessing song:

Bless this house, O Lord we pray,
Make it safe by night and day...
Bless these walls so firm and stout,
Keeping want and trouble out...
Bless the rood and Chimneys tall,
Let thy peace lie overall...
Bless this door that it may prove,
Ever open to joy and love...
Bless these windows shining bright,
Letting in God's Heavenly light,
Bless the hearth, the painting there,
With smoke ascending like a prayer!
Bless the folk who dwell within,
Keep them pure and free from sin...
Bless us all that we may be,
Fit O Lord to dwell with thee...
Bleus us all that one day we may dwell,
O Lord! With Thee!

And these are a couple pictures from it.
The man on the far right is one of the volunteers that worked on the house. The woman with the cane is the one that led the singing. The other two are the house owners.







This is Heather with the house owners. Heather (the Pearlington village manager) is on the far right.








These are the home owners. I never caught their names.










This is as much of the staff as could make it with the home owners. From left to right is Mary G. (financial manager), Henry (construction manager), Leslie (village coordinator), Jesse (Pearlington worksite manager), me (Orange Grove manager), Mike (the other Pearlington worksite manager), Heather, and Jane (was the Olive Tree manager, but will be going to Texas soon)




Chris and I were late to dinner, but we made it in time for dessert. Since there were only about 10 people here for dinner, the cooks had made it a little fancier. It was a candle (lamp) lit dinner. The made chicken tetrazzini and salad and cherry pie and some sort of custard pie. They brought it out in courses. As I said, we missed dinner, but desert was delicious! While we were there a couple of the volunteers came back and one of them had two pieces of fried catfish from Catfish Charlie's that they gave to Chris, so we shared those. Very good.

S'mores

This morning I went to the main office and Christi showed me how to enter volunteer hours into DRD. It isn't hard, but it is rather tedious. I started on it at about 9:30 and was there until almost 1:00. Then I went to Wal-Mart to get some stuff for tonight and Sam's to pick up an order. We got everything put away and then I had to go to Winn Dixie to get a couple more things they needed for tonight. When I got back I helped Wilf, Chris, and Buddy load pods into a moving truck. Wilf and Chris are going to take them to Houma. I think Chris said they'd go down to Houma Monday and stay there until it's rebuilt. I hope it doesn't take much more than a week. I will miss him. But that's okay. Anyway, I got pretty dirty doing that since the pods had been sitting on the ground and were all wet from being rained on. So after we finished I took a shower. Then I had to go to Winn Dixie again to get more stuff for dinner.

Christi sent me an email thanking me for doing the DRD stuff and saying I'd worked really hard and she cc'd it to Leslie and Henry. Leslie replied saying ditto. Which was very nice of them, since it's my job to do it.

Dinner was tacos. After dinner Chris got the fire going and a bunch of us sat out there and the volunteers made s'mores and everyone was telling stories and jokes and it was a lot of fun. I figured out how to turn on the heater in my trailer which will be very nice. And now it is bedtime.

Super Ball

This morning I placed a Sam's order, then went to Wal-Mart to get the things we needed for tonight. Then Buddy and I went to the main office to give Mary our receipts, gift cards, time sheets, etc. Then we went to Wal-Mart to get the rest of the things they needed for dinner. Then I went back to the office to work on paperwork. I have it all done and ready to enter into DRD (which is the computer data base that tracks volunteer hours and client information) tomorrow. Yay!

I hung out in my trailer for a little while. I made a bouncy ball with the kit mum sent me in my Halloween care package. I haven't checked to see if it's done, though it should be. I sewed my jacket where the seam had split. Easy Peasy.

Dinner was chicken casserole, peas, garlic bread, and salad. It was pretty good. After dinner I left to get my jacket. I came back for devotions, but didn't get to stay because the kitchen ladies called me away right before they started and kept asking me questions about what I'd bought and what was ordered and what they needed. I got to go listen to the last 30 seconds of devotions, but that was it.

Pasghetti

I slept in late. At 9:30 I got up because I was hungry. I brought back pie and ate it in bed.

Five volunteers came in last night and the rest should get here sometime this afternoon/evening. There's supposed to be about 40 of them.

I spent most the afternoon in the office making copies for Henry and Don. I went in because I was going to work on my paperwork, but they were in there and I didn't want to interrupt, but I was hoping they would finish soon so I hung around. But I didn't mind making copies, so it worked out just fine.

We had spaghetti for dinner. When I heard that's what we were going to have, I was bummed because I'm kinda getting tired of it, but this spaghetti was really good. The best we've had yet. Then there were devotions. After devotions I tried to make my escape, but the cooks wanted to talk to me about what groceries they were going to need, but they were still talking about what meals they were going to have on what days and what vegetables and sides they should have with each. I finally got away 45 minutes later. It was nearly 10:00 by then and I was tired.

Apple Pie

I've spent all morning running around (or at least so it feels). I found the misplaced files dumped in a corner of the dining tent with a bunch of clipboards and other papers that now need filed. So I've been filing, copying, and finishing (not in that order) paperwork like crazy. I also cleaned up the dinning tent a little bit and put the week's weather forecast on the board.

Apparently the truck I was given yesterday is going to Houma. So I do not have a truck. : ( I will have to share the red truck with Buddy. Buddy call it the Red Monster. I think my car at home is nicer than this truck. Let's just say, I won't ever drive it very far, because it feels like it's liable to break down anytime.

I took a couple hours off this afternoon where I did basically nothing. Then I ironed my red dress so it wouldn't be all wrinkled the next time I wear it. I did a couple loads of laundry and made an apple pie. Completely from scratch (crust and all!). It came out very well. The reason I made it, was that the fruit bowl had several apples that had bad spots on them, so no one was going to eat them. I didn't want them to be wasted (plus apple pie is delicious!) so I cut them up and put them in a pie.

We had about five volunteers come in tonight. The rest get here sometime tomorrow afternoon/evening. We're supposed to have about 40 volunteers this week. So hopefully I will not have to go shopping quite as often. Though the employees at Sam's are very nice, being there 11 times in 6 days is a bit much.

The good news is the gas and electrical guys finally made it to Pearlington, so their volunteers are able to stay there this week. So that's less shopping for me and less driving and cooking for the volunteers.

Olive Tree

There was a village manager/worksite manager meeting today in Olive Tree (which is another volunteer village right outside New Orleans). It was mostly a chaotic vent session. I asked about my truck. It is now officially a Pearlington truck, so I won't be getting it back. : ( Leslie said the one I'd been borrowing could be mine, so I will still have a truck.

I rode to and from the meeting with Don and Buddy. Don regaled us with stories of things he's done. And let me say, he is quite a character. For instance, he was once a bouncer type person and two guys at the pool table got into and one of them hit the other in the throat with the stick, which crushed the other guy's windpipe. So Don cut his throat and put a straw in and was breathing for the guy. When the police showed up, she didn't know what was going on, so she tried to handcuff Don. He took her down, and put her own handcuffs on her, told the other bouncer to put her in the backseat of her cruiser, and continued to breath for the guy. When the EMS guys got there, they took over the guy with the crushed windpipe. The back up police arrested Don for assaulting an officer. The charges were dropped when the parents of the guy told how Don had saved their kid's life and the policewoman explained she had misjudged the situation. He got to keep the handcuffs. Ironically, Don ended up teaching that policewoman and many others on the force self defense. Anyway, it made for an interesting trip.

Once we got back to camp, I was pretty much in the office until the dinner bell. I had to make copies of and file a bunch of papers. It wouldn't have been so hard if someone had told me earlier that I would need to do this. But since no one did, I not only have a huge stack of papers to go through (many of which I will need to complete information on), but I have to round up papers that neither Buddy nor I saved because we didn't know we should. Some of the things I will have to go get from the main office.

The groups were not very communicative, so we thought there were going to be 40 for dinner, but most of them went out to eat. So there were 14 counting all the staff. But man, was it good! They cooked chicken that had been marinated in yogurt and dry salad dressing mix (which sounds weird, but was very yummy), mashed sweet potatoes (a favorite of mine), grilled vegetables, rice, dinner rolls, and salad. And there was fruit salad for dessert. We have quite a lot of leftovers, but these are yummy leftovers!

For devotionals, they sang several of the older hymns, so I didn't know them, but they were simple and we had sheet music, so I was able to sing along. I did know two of the songs, but they sang them waaaaaay too slow. And because the guy who started every song was a bass, they were all in too low a key also. But we managed and I think most people enjoyed it.

Erters and Copters

Harold and I went to a luncheon hosted by the Red Cross to thank all the volunteer organizations that have helped them. It was at a college and they sent us through the lunch line before students started showing up. But, hey, free food. Who's gonna complain? After everyone finished eating they presented plaques. We left at about 12:30. I brought Harold back to the village and I went to Sam's to get some things we needed. Then I had to go to Wal-Mart to get RV toilet paper because I couldn't find any in Sam's. Then I had to go to Winn Dixie because neither Sam's nor Wal-Mart had sweet potatoes. Well, Wal-Mart had them, but not very many and they were individually shrink wrapped. Not exactly what you want when buying in bulk.

Henry sent me an email asking me to enter the volunteer hours into the DRD database. But he has all the time sheets. So I told him I would be happy to do it if he could tell me where to find the sheets. He doesn't know where they are, but will let me know when he finds them.

So while I waited for Henry to find everything, I took a half hour nap. Then I went to the kitchen to raid the fridge, but there were a bunch of volunteers in there (the ones cooking dinner) and they needed hamburger buns. So I ran to Sam's to get some. I didn't mind going to Sam's, but it frustrates me that I couldn't find the ones I bought earlier this week. We haven't eaten anything with hamburger buns and I bought about five bags of them. I could only find one.

Anyway, after that I took a longer nap. Chris came in and said hello. We discussed comforters because he was going to ask his mum to send him his from home (because he likes it better than the blankets he has here). He asked what an erter was. I said "I think it means comforter as in something that comforts." And he said "Oh! Then we're the comfortees!" I said yes and laughed because he'd just figured that out.

Then we went to dinner which was pulled pork sandwiches and broccoli and corn and salad. Very yummy. There's sort of a fire pit on the lawn and the volunteers lit a fire. It was nice. But I didn't stay out long because mosquitos the size of helicopters come out when the sun goes down.

Speaking of which, an actual helicopter passed me on the highway. It was on a trailer hooked up to a truck. But it was sort of funny. Look! A helicopter! On the highway!

The Hulk

When I woke up this morning, I had a huge kink in my neck. It's still there, but it's loads better than it was this morning.

Jessie took my truck today. : ( I was very sad. They should give her a truck of her own. So I had to borrow Buddy's truck to go to my doctor's appointment and Sam's. The doctor's appointment was fine. The nurse took my temp, weight, height, etc. then the doc checked my heart, ears, throat, etc. then another nurse came in and stuck me with a needle. That was it. But getting out of the parking lot was insane. The rows were a little too close together. There was a truck parked directly behind me. I had to pull forward and backward (I'm not exaggerating) about 20 times to be able to get out without hitting either the truck behind me or the car next to me. It was ridiculous.

Anyway, I came back to the village, made a sandwich, then went to Sam's. I took one of the volunteers with me. (She volunteered to go.) It was an even bigger truckload than the one I got the other day. We put everything away and I went to my trailer to take a nap. I slept a little and read a little and then went to dinner (which was chicken fajitas. mmmmmm!). Chris and I worked on the new puzzle for a while. Then I read some more of my book and went to bed.

This is the Hulk puzzle.









This is the anime puzzle.












This is what we've done of the snow leopard puzzle.









And this is what we've done of the other puzzle.

Attacked by Presbyterians

Chris came to church with me and we went to the one on site because his aunt and cousin came. Apparently Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving in October which is why they were visiting.

Chris and I solved two of the puzzles already. One was only 100 pieces. It was of The Hulk. The other was 300 pieces and it was some anime characters. The anime one took us a little under an hour to finish and the Hulk took us 12 min. (We tried to do it in 10, but didn't quite make it.) We used the puzzle glue on them and they are now hung up on Chris' walls. We started on another puzzle that looks to be as difficult as the snow leopard one. So now we've got one giant puzzle in each trailer.

Volunteers trickled in all day. There are 70-80 staying here this week. I am so glad I don't have to do the cooking!

After dinner, I went to help with orientation, but they were waiting for one of the groups to get back from dinner. So I took the grocery list and placed another Sam's order. By the time I got that taken care of, they were almost done with orientation.

Lots of Groceries

I slept in a little this morning. When I got up, Henry was trying to figure out what jobs the volunteers are going to work on this week. I ran back and forth to the office a couple times to get stuff for him and Don. Then I worked in the office putting all the incoming groups on the white board, though I'm not really sure how accurate the information I had was. I went to Sam's in the afternoon to pick up the order I'd placed yesterday plus a couple extra things. The bed of my truck was full of groceries. The crazy thing is, that will probably only last a couple days. We're supposed to have around 70 volunteers this week. Buddy helped me put all the groceries away and then I cooked a frozen pizza to eat as a late lunch. (It was about 3:00 by then.) I went back to my trailer and Chris stopped by. We worked on the leopard puzzle a little and then ran to Winn Dixie to get some soup since that's about the only thing he can eat right now. So he had vegetable, alphabet soup and I had oatmeal for dinner. He's going to go to church with me tomorrow. We're going to the Westminster one my mum recommended. So we'll see.

Oh yeah, Jessie (the volunteer that worked on puzzles with us) mailed us about four puzzles today. Very exciting!

Sam's Club

Today is Chris' birthday. I got up and made ginger waffles.

This morning (after making breakfast) there was a meeting about the handbooks for Village Manager and Worksite Manager. We basically got an overview of what was in them. I will have to find time to read it a little more closely. Leslie also gave out shirts and jackets and ball caps (with the PDA logo on them) to the newest folks that hadn't gotten theirs yet. Then I headed over to the office to place a Sam's order online. That ended up being a little bit of a fiasco. I selected all the things I wanted and got it all sent in and confirmed and whatnot when I realized I had the wrong pickup location. So I called the customer service number and the guy told me he couldn't just change the location, the order would have to be canceled and he needed the guy in Louisville (whose name the account is under) to call in to cancel it. Then he gave me the number to a local Sam's store to call and talk to them about it, but the number is no longer in service. So I called the customer service number again and the lady who answered this time was much more helpful. I got the order cancelled. I had to reselect the things I wanted and this time I clicked the "change pickup location" button before submitting it. Changing the location cleared the cart, so I had to find everything AGAIN. Finally I got it right (I hope!) and the order should be ready to be picked up in one or two days. After that mess, Donna and I went to Sam's to pick up stuff for dinner tonight. By the time we got back and got all the groceries put away, it was about 3:30.

One of the groups was leaving this afternoon and they were going to leave all the tools at the worksite and I was supposed to go pick them up once they were done, because they were leaving from the worksite instead of coming back to the village. I had asked them to call Buddy (since I still don't have my phone back) when they were through, but they didn't. But this morning they had said the absolute latest they would be there was 3:30 and they were planning on being out closer to noon or 1:00. So I drove over. There was a little bit of traffic, but it wasn't bad...at first. Then there was an accident. Apparently a boat fell off a trailer. Anyway, what is usually a 20 min. drive to get to the house took me and hour and a half. But I did finally get there and get everything loaded into my truck. There was almost no traffic on the drive home (thank God!) so it only took 20 min. Some of the volunteers went out for dinner tonight, so we were a small crew at dinner. We had tacos.

When I had Buddy's phone this morning, I forwarded all the team contact and skill sheets to myself, so I can see them on the computer and print them out to file them. That will (I think) be my project for tomorrow. It's going to be my job to handle the computer and filing stuff, make sure Henry gets the skill sheets, and call the team leader to make sure everything is good to go.

Bathtub

This morning I took one of the volunteers to Home Depot to exchange a couple vanities. There was this kinda dumb mold training thing at 9:30. I don't think I learned anything I didn't already know, but that's okay. The Orange Grove computer is back and running, so I spent a while in there looking at that and cleaning out my email and updating my contact list. A couple showed up needing help getting into a house, so I asked Wilf what to do and he said call Christi and she said for them to apply through FEMA which they said they'd done, but they hadn't qualified and Christi said the number 211 is a help hotline so I told them to try that. I was showing Harold and Donna how to look at their emails on the computer when Henry called to tell me he wanted me to go to Mobile to pick up a bathtub. So I went over to the office and Henry gave me the invoice and looked up directions to Mobile for me. It would have been an hour long drive (one way) but I didn't end up going because we purchased the tub at the Home Depot here, we couldn't transfer that to pick up the tub at the Home Depot in Mobile. So Henry will just have to wait for the tub to come in at the Home Depot here.

Kwanset Huts

I went to Samm's in the morning to pick up groceries for the next two days. Heather said if I didn't have anything else to do around camp, I could come down to Pearlington and they'd find me something to do. So I was getting ready to head out when Buddy told me he needed me to stick around and get a hold of a plumber to come fix the toilet trailer because it was really backed up and Buddy couldn't fix it and he had to leave for school. So I was kinda bummed that I was going to have to stick around camp and do nothing all day instead of go to Pearlington and be useful. But Buddy came back because his teacher got called away for something and all they were going to do in class is go over a test that he got a 102% on. So he stayed here and got a plumber and I went to Pearlington. I helped Heather clean the shower trailer, then untangled some light cords, stacked some scrap lumber neatly so it wouldn't take up as much room and would look nicer, and helped Chris and Harold and a couple volunteers make the floor for the Kwanset Huts (which are giant tents that can sleep 30 volunteers or something like that). I gave Harold a ride home. In the evening Chris and I drove to the beach. There wasn't much to do because (since it was already dark) it was too cold to get in the water and there weren't any shells along the water line. But it was pretty and we stayed out admiring the view for a few minutes before coming back to the village.

Flying J's

The breakfast bell woke me up. I didn't hear my alarm go off this morning. I got dressed and picked up a couple pancakes that I ate as I walked to the tool trailer. I helped get everything the volunteers needed loaded into my truck. While they got themselves organized and ready to go I let Joe out...on a leash. We did not play catch the dog this morning. I drove the volunteers over to the worksite, then came back to the village. Harold and I took the empty propane tanks to Flying J's to refill them. It cost us a little over a $100 to fill 12 tanks. I got some lunch and then took Joe for a short walk down the street. When we got back to the village, I let him off his leash and threw his stick for him and chased him around a little. This afternoon I did some laundry.

The new Pearlington Assistant Manager got here today. She will probably be living here for a couple days until they get everything squared away at Pearlington. Her name is (I think) Jessie.

It rained on and off all day. So it is nice and wet outside and the beach will probably have to wait for another day. Because, although it has temporarily stopped, it looks like it wants to rain some more.

And now we have to go feed Joe and let him out so he can go to the bathroom.

Home Depot

I spent my entire morning running back and forth to Home Depot. The volunteers told me they needed rollers for popcorn ceilings, paper towels, finishing nails, 2 1x3 boards and 16 1x4x10 boards. So I went and got everything except the finishing nails, because the only ones I could find were for nail guns and they hadn't brought one to the site. I got back to the site and the guy looked at the boards and said he needed 1x6 boards, not 1x4 and he thought that was what he had said. So I got to go back to Home Depot and trade out the boards. I came back to the village and let Joe out of the trailer for a little while. He was not thrilled when it was time to go back in and he played hard to catch. And he can really be hard to catch! Henry wanted me to go by the other worksite and see if Don (the new worksite manager) needed me to pick up anything. They were done for the day, because there wasn't anything more they could do with the materials they had and it was getting ready to rain. But he had me return a couple 1x6x8 boards and pick up 8 pieces of molding. It started to rain as I was loading them into my truck. I had to stop at Winn Dixie to pick up tomatoes for on the burgers this evening and then I had to get gas. By the time I finally made it home it was almost 5:00. The volunteers made burgers and hot dogs and baked beans and salad for dinner. It was pretty good. It's been raining on and off since after dinner and looks like it will continue to do so through the night. And possibly some tomorrow also. That's about all I know.

Puzzles

I didn't go to church this morning because I didn't get up until about 9:15. Don and Chris took railroad ties to Pearlington this morning. I made cinnamon rolls. They were good. When Chris got back, we went looking for puzzles. There used to be a puzzle store in the mall, but it apparently no longer exists. It is ridiculously hard to find puzzles. We did not have any luck today. I let Joe out this afternoon and chased him around for a while, then put him back in his trailer and fed him. We had spaghetti for dinner then we had orientation for the Orange Grove folks. Heather's going to do Pearlington's tomorrow after breakfast. Buddy did most of the orientation and then Henry talked about the worksite stuff. He really likes to talk. I left after a while because I was no longer necessary (not that I was really necessary before) and was tired of listening to him. Chris took Joe for a walk during orientation. And now it is bedtime. Because sleep is good.

Cat In Sink

The volunteers left around 7:00 this morning. I did not get up early enough to see them off. Buddy did some more mowing. I fixed the doors on three of the pods. I did laundry, worked on the puzzle a tiny bit, and took a nap. Some of this week's volunteers got here tonight, so we introduced ourselves to them. Heather made box mac & cheese for dinner. But it was the good kind of box mac & cheese. Chris and I downloaded some more music to put on his ipod. Then we went to see Frank about Joe. Frank is leaving tomorrow and we will have Joe until Wednesday or Thursday. Frank said Joe likes to go to the ocean, so we will probably do that sometime this week. (Yay!)

Star is currently sleeping in my sink.









And this is me and Chris in my trailer working on the puzzle.

Snow Leopards

I am actually writing this on the 4th, because I didn't get to it last night.

Yesterday morning I helped Buddy and Harold and Donna sweep out the empty pods and put cots in them. That took several hours. We had lunch and then Buddy and Harold cut grass and I came to my trailer and read/snoozed. When Chris got back he took a nap on my bed because my trailer was cooler. He says my bed is more comfortable than his. I read some more of my book while he slept. He got up when the dinner bell rang. We had chicken and broccoli casserole. It was good. Then Chris and I started on our new puzzle (1,000 pieces - two snow leopards in...you guessed it, snow!). It is far more of a challenge than we had thought it would be. But it is coming along very slowly. Jesse came over and helped us some. We called it quits around 11:00.

Double Dutch

My blackberry broke this morning, so I had to mail it to Louisville so it could be fixed. Hopefully I will have it back in a couple days. I ran a couple errands and got puzzle glue. So I coated both the puzzles this evening. I also found a new puzzle for us, but we will have to wait to start it, because Chris was really tired and he has to get up early tomorrow to go to Luling (another village in Louisiana). This evening, I helped Chris hook up the heaters for the pods. Kyra and I used an extension cord as a jump rope and Chris proved that he can double dutch. Then I helped Wilf dig out duct work and load air conditioners and heaters onto the flatbed trailer. Chris and Don are going to take them to Luling tomorrow. The volunteers had dinner in Pearlington with the home owners they're working for.

Fire

This morning I helped Chris dig duct work out of a storage trailer and load it into a truck so he could take it to Pearlington. Then there was a meeting for village managers. We talked about how to buy food and supplies and such and got an updated phone list. The volunteers came back around noon, showered and went to New Orleans. They are still not back. Chris and I finished the puzzle and went shopping for a new one, but could not find any good ones. My mission tomorrow is to find some puzzles. Things have been pretty slow for me here, but it will definitely pick up next week. We will have 11 volunteers, but Pearlington will have about 40 that will be eating and sleeping here also.

Well, I had thought that would be the end of today's adventures, but is a much more exciting end to the day. There was a car on fire just down the road from us. Chris knocked on my door and said "I think there's a house fire." So we went to see and make sure someone had called the fire department and no one was hurt or anything. Everyone was fine and the fire truck got there right after we did. They put the fire out, but that car is toast.

Burnt Cinnamon

In case you've ever thought about it, you should NOT try to make the pre-made pillsbury cinnamon rolls in a microwave. It does not work. You get overdone croutons and a trailer that smells like burnt cinnamon. Not appealing.

This morning started out pretty slow for me. I cleaned out the last of the files in the office, did some laundry, and had lunch. An air conditioning guy came to fix the air conditioner in trailer 4. The new Houma managers got here today. (Houma is another village in Louisiana.) They will be staying here at Orange Grove for a couple weeks until Houma is habitable. So I made sure their trailer was clean (washed the sheets, made the bed, put away the dishes that had been left in the sink, take out the trash). Henry made a copy of the office key, so now Buddy and I don't have to share one.

We had chicken and stir fry and salad for dinner. There was bread pudding for desert. Chris got a puzzle from Kmart for us to do tonight. The only spider-man puzzle they had was only 24 pieces, so he got a disney villains one instead. We're going to go puzzle shopping at Wal-mart tomorrow to look for a spider-man one and one other of my choice. We're only halfway through the disney one. Jessie (one of the volunteers) worked on it with us.

I had never had a klondike bar before coming here, but now I eat them fairly often. They are delicious. Like ice cream sandwiches - there's not that much to them, but they are irresistibly alluring. I think Chris and I are the only ones eating them. Which is fine by me. All the more for us! : )

Here is the completed apple puzzle.

Day Thirteen

This morning I went shopping for tonight's dinner. The checker lady looked at me kind of funny when I put everything on the conveyor belt. I had 10 lbs. of red potatoes, 5 lbs. of sweet onions, and 30 ears of corn. The volunteers bought shrimp on the way home and they threw everything together in a pot and cooked it. Very good.
This afternoon we got a huge shipment of paper plates, cups, and bowls. We think they are for all the villages, but let's just say we won't run out anytime in the near future. There were three wooden palates stacked with them. They arrived in a UPS 18 wheeler. Anyway, we had to fit them all into the storage trailer, which was a little bit of an adventure. Especially considering the trailer does not have a fan. So we were sweating to death and being eaten alive by mosquitos while carrying huge boxes of biodegradable paper ware.
I bought a puzzle this afternoon and Chris and I spent this evening putting it together. It is not quite finished, but we should be able to finish it pretty easily. Chris said he would buy another one for us to do tomorrow. "Something cool, like Spider-Man or Superman."
Here is the puzzle so far.

Day Twelve

I slept in a little, then got ready for church. Buddy picked me up. It was a bit like Triennium or Montreat, but less structured. The music wasn't bad, but I didn't know any of it, so I couldn't really sing. They sang for 30-45 minutes or so and everyone was standing and clapping and jumping and waving their hands in the air and shouting "Amen!" and "Praise Jesus!" and that sort of thing. Then everyone sat down and the pastor did his sermon. It was alright, but I think I might go church hopping to see if I can find a more traditional service with a congregation bigger than 10. Anyway, Keith (the pastor) and Tanya (the pastor's wife) invited Buddy and I over to their house for lunch. They had pot roast, mac and cheese, peas, beans, and rolls. It was very good. They are very nice people.
This afternoon I took a nap. Star took one with me. It was much needed. Frank made chicken and vegetable stir fry for dinner. After dinner I went and knocked on Chris' door to see how he was doing, since I hadn't seen him today. He spent the whole day in bed watching tv and taking cough medicine. His cold is not really any better. He lent me the movie Balls of Fury.
Buddy went back to his pastor's house for a class of some sort and Keith and Tanya sent home mac and cheese and ribs for me. Which was really sweet.

Day Eleven

Well today has been a very lazy day. I slept in until 8. (It's very sad that I now think 8 is late. ) Buddy, Chris, and I sat on logs in the mini field between the trailers and pods and chatted and threw a ball for Joe. (Joe is Frank's dog.) I wrote a letter to cjs and downloaded some music. Then I did nothing for a couple hours. I took a nap around 5ish. I will probably go in search of food soon. I'll be going to church with Buddy tomorrow and he said his pastor and pastor's wife invited the two of us to lunch at their house after church, so I'll be doing that.

Frank made shrimp for dinner. It was delicious! Searching for food has never been so easy or rewarding. : )