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.