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.