Monday, September 28, 2009

Preparations

And so it begins. We're leaving for Florida on Saturday morning, and today after school I'm going to try to find a bathing suit at Target. I forgot today to tell Mr. Butler that I won't be there next week, and that means getting access to those filmed videos... or stealing notes from one of my classmates. Which also reminds me of all that Bible homework that is due week after next. I better get on it.

I applied for three jobs on Friday. One at Publix (which I don't have much confidence in after talking to Brittny yesterday), one at Books for Less (not confident either), and one at Quik Trip. I'm more confident about QT because the manager knows us; he's a very friendly Black guy who knows our family by name because we used to go there every Thursday after co-op. He said some things to me while looking over my application that made me hopeful about being considered for a job there. So, we'll have to see.

On Friday, Mom and the kids went up to northern Georgia where they spent all day picking and sorting tomatoes. Our cousin Noah says that he now hates tomatoes with a passion. Poor Mom smelled like tomato muck for a while, which she was constantly trying to get rid of. They all came back tired, sore, and red, but they all enjoyed it. The money from this job, I think, is going towards a future trip that Mom wants to take with her science students next year.

And the church now looks completely different. After several years of planning and saving up, we are officially expanding it. The construction workers have chopped down several trees in the woods to make room for the new pipeline and for the expansion of the parking lot, and it's bittersweet; I have many fond memories of those woods, being chased around by the boys and also playing a fantasy game with another boy that inspired many early story attempts. The retaining wall behind the church is also gone, as the whole place is being leveled out. It's finally nice to begin building, but on the other hand it is getting less shaded and is looking a bit different... but I'm sure we all get used to it.

We have an escape artist in the house. The high-strung hamster Chloe, who has refused to calm down after a few rough days at Geneva months ago, has been constantly trying to escape. On Friday night, she got out and was running around Mom and Dad's room, which made me scream because two of the cats were watching her; we got her back into the cage, and we thought that her cage door probably wasn't closed properly, so we made sure it was. Last night it happened again. Mom was going into the utility room when she noticed all the cats in there surrounding something. She turned on the light and saw it was Chloe, cornered by a bunch of fat, lazy beasts. Her door had been closed, so we're not sure how she got out. There is a book on top of her cage to prevent her from opening the door, so hopefully the escape artist will stop, though I have no confidence that she will. I just hope she takes the hint that the cats will kill her if she gets outside, but I doubt it. Stupid animal.

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