Tubs, Tile, and Filling The Hours

Well, school has started again, I've successfully crossed over into the next decade of my life without losing more memory than I've already lost or breaking my hip. Now I just continue with the job search and talk to the contractor, and pay him. The bathtubs are in, and the drywall is pretty much up. Next comes the tiling. I'll try to get pictures of the progress posted, soon! When I went by the house today, my mother had already started moving us back in by dropping off a patio chair and table. Do you think she's trying to tell us something? :)

With the girls back in school, I am just trying to find productive ways to fill my day until I find a job. I will work two days a week at Parent's Day Out starting in October, but that won't pay the bills. I used to look forward to down time, but now I look forward to busy days. Loading and unloading the dishwasher and doing and folding laundry only takes up so much time. Since Ashton doesn't have her license yet, Sunday's are pretty much spent driving back and forth to church and Ashton's dance lessons and back to church. There's football on Friday nights, and Lofton's soccer on Saturday Now, to fill the hours between 7:00 a.m. drop-off and 3:05 pick-up. Soon Donna will have her baby, and I can go love on that sweetie in the daytime and spend special time with the big brother.

A Flood Can Never Wash Away My Friend Collection

First, I don't know who wrote all of that yesterday. Somebody must have hacked into my blog! :) Today, I'm not such a jerk!

It's actually been quite a trip down memory lane, today and tonight. A friend posted some facebook pics of Belmont, back in "the day." Good grief, our hair and clothes......all I can say is, you could switch up the faces in any of those pictures with mine, and it would be me! What were we thinking? What I see is that all of the stuff I accumulated, and lost is nothing compared to the friends I've accumulated and kept. I've known my friend Sharron for 32 years! Tiffany is a close second at 29 years, Jeanette and Brenda for 22, Elizabeth for 19. Then I've got great friends that I've only known for a short time, with some of my best friends right there in the middle! I've known my mom my whole life and my sisters and daughters for all of their lives! Does having such friends from so long ago make me feel old? No, just lucky. These friends will never be swept away in bad weather, and with each new year of my life, I plan to keep adding to the group! You can never have too many friends. The girl scout song is wrong, one isn't silver, while the other is gold. They are all more precious than gold, and I thank God for them every day.

Post Traumatic Sress Disorder, Anyone?

This is a big rain we've had over the past 24 hours. It has not rained no-stop, and it is nowhere near what we had on May 1 and 2. Still, after being grateful for the first hour of it, yesterday afternoon, I was not feeling quite so comfortable by 11:00 p.m. last night. It's not the thunder and lightening that get to me, it's the sound of the unrelenting rain. Then you watch the news today, and you see that some schools are letting out early due to flooded roads. Flash flood warnings are everywhere, and I don't ignore those anymore. Frankly, I'd rather my house flood again right now, while I haven't spent all my money to re-build, than have it flood once we get back in there and develop an attachment to it.

I find myself to be so grouchy on rainy days, now. I HATE being grouchy. Seems like everyone would, but some people don't seem to mind it. I prefer to smile and laugh, not bite off every body's head, complain, and feel very tempted to climb back into bed. I blame this grouchiness on this being the last day before school starts, allergies, inability to go to the pool, but the truth is, the rain scares me. I guess it will for a while. Soon enough, I'll be distracted by other happy things and feel safe again that rain won't wash away everything I own. Hopefully some man will come along like in Eat, Pray, Love, and say "You don't need a man, you need a champion." Then I'll be laughing my head off, because what man ever really says things like that??? Seriously, that would be very distracting. :)

SWAT Team Update

Just an update on our neighborhood SWAT team situation. Apparently, a man barricaded himself inside his house and refused to come out. When did that become illegal? I'm sure I would do that if I could, and if I do, PLEASE do not call the police. I am not a danger to myself or others. I'll probably just be taking a hot bath.

Nothing Big To Report

Things seem to be rolling along with the re-build. Today, I was grateful not to be home when I saw on the news that the SWAT team had the road blocked off. I figure somebody just snapped and was holding a FEMA inspector hostage until they got more money. Actually, I haven't heard the whole story as to what really happened, but I'm sure it will be on the news tonight, and it won't be as good what I think happened.

I spent today recovering from the weekend which was busier than a normal week, even when I worked full time. There are two more days until the girls go back to school, and we have to start getting up at 6:00 a.m. Both girls have expressed regret that we aren't back in the house before school starts. They don't care if we get a break on our property taxes if we don't move back in until September 1st. The ETA is September 30, but we'll see. I'd really like to be in before Christmas! :) There won't be room for Jennifer and her boys if we're still here.

That's all for today, maybe something exciting and or reportable will happen tomorrow. I don't know if it will be more exciting than the SWAT team, though.

Don King, The Inspector

The inspector from the "We Are Home" program came to survey my damage, today, and report my losses in order to get an idea of what kind of grant or loan I might qualify for. Let me tell you, I use the term "inspector" very loosely! He looked like Don King with a baseball hat on, and apparently the job requirements are asking scripted questions and knowing how to use a tape measure. The first thing he said was, "Let's see what was damaged." "Everything," Mark and I said in unison. Thank goodness Mark (our contractor) was there to help answer the questions. It was a huge comedy of errors. He asked questions, we answered, he didn't understand the answers if they didn't fit into the form that the manual he memorized questions and answers from, and on and on it went. The final question was "Do you want money to cover the replacement of your doors?" WHAT???? No, I'll use my $2 million dollar trust fund for the doors, just help me out with everything else. Of course I want money to replace the doors! On a scale of one to ten in the how much rolling of the eyes can I do, this was about a 15. Yes, I do realize that I'm an eye-roller. I know it's rude, and I try to keep myself out of situations where I might do it, but most of the time it can't be avoided. I get it from my father. Mark is an eye-roller, too, so the guy was probably afraid he would catch something from us or that we were having some kind of fits due to exposure to the flood waters. Mark, Jr. walked in in the middle of this bewildering event, and just looked at all three of us like we were crazy. Naturally, the guy couldn't tell me if or when they will decide to help me out. I'm still feeling positive about it, though. At least there is a program, and that's the first step.

Refugee Reunion

We had, what Addie calls, a "refugee reunion" today. I took the girls to the movies, and Scott, who housed us after the flood, dropped his daughter Ashley and Susie's daughter Laura off to join us. The girls became a close foursome during our time together. Naturally, it stormed while we were together. Fortunately, we were in the movie for most of it, so the usual anxiety did not take hold. Ignorance is bliss. I couldn't help but think how swollen the creeks were after only two hours of rain. I'm sure I'm more sensitive to it, and all of this was normal, but I keep wondering how we can know this won't happen again for 500 or 1,000 years. The truth is, we can't know. Scary stuff! We'll just pray a lot and try to have faith.

All in all, it was a good day, and a fun time! The rain cooled us off by twenty degrees, and that felt wonderful!