A Week Alone

It was a rather uneventful week, especially since Sandy was not here to liven things up. We did have several days of rain and at least two nights of magnificent thunder storms with continuous lightening shows (the kind that wakes you up at 1 am and leaves you in awe – and wide awake).

After Church last Sunday, Sandy drove to Vicksburg to spend the week caring for the five Foxes there, so I was on my own. On Monday I finished nailing the last of the shingles on the house I had worked on the previous week. I came home to mow the yard on one of the few days it didn’t rain this week. The rest of the week I spent at one of the White’s rental houses. While the tenant was going to have someone clean it, that didn’t happen. Of course the tenant’s deposit will pay for my cleaning labors. I also needed to install a new tub surround in one of the baths. I accomplished this around tutoring, teaching, and preparing an Institute lesson for Wednesday night.

Thursday evening was the annual GED graduation conducted at the local college; this is always a well organized event with the college president in attendance. They had 95 students pass their GED in the past year and about 20 came for the recognition ceremony. Of that 95, six were those I taught at the treatment facility; I felt good about that percentage. This past week one more client qualified to take the test in two weeks; that means he passed the practice tests with good enough scores. I have another young lady I have been working with for three months that is close.

While I had high hopes of clearing more limbs this week, it didn’t happen. Saturday when I had planned to do so, it was raining. Good excuse to work on the downstairs kitchen that still needed a lot of little stuff done. So I spent a good part of the day cutting baseboard, making a small cupboard at the end of the cabinets (somehow this area was overlooked when sizing the cabinets which left a six inch hole to the side of the cabinets), trimming out another area that had suffered collateral damage due to the improvements, and more. Only a couple more hours and it will be finished. Except for the counter top. And the sink. And the new faucet. And a stove…

I was pleased to notice that last year’s ground squirrel survived the winter. He keeps to himself off to the side flower bed and occasionally dines on the strawberries. Evidently, unlike Susan’s ground squirrel, ours is a more welcomed guest. The chickens are still growing; still too early for eggs.

Sandy should be home tonight. We drive to Nauvoo on Thursday for Cyrus and Kendra’s sealing on Friday and will drive home again on Saturday; no limb clean up for me this week.