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.