Happy Wednesday!

Well, let’s see…I talked to Patrick last night—we were hoping that he’d be able to come home this weekend, but it’s not meant to be. He’ll be in Mt. Sterling, KY for another week (see, Patrick, I know where you are. I’m not sure why I always say “Lancaster” when I talk to you….).

I guess I’m glad that they like Patrick so much. He came into a bad situation: the site manager before him wasn’t very well liked by Hoffman (I think that’s the plant that he’s at…Patrick, forgive me if that’s wrong—you can’t expect me to pay attention to everything you say!), and from what I understand, left a whole lotta stuff that needed to be done. Like placing orders from a year ago. But, Patrick came in, started getting things straightened out, called the folks when their orders came in—and heck, has even been coming in every single day! The woman that Patrick has been training to run the site is very smart, and catches on very quickly, and we were hoping that she’d be good-to-go by Friday. But, they’d like Patrick to stay there for another week, just to be sure. And I can understand that—they had someone they didn’t like, didn’t do a good job, and then a new person comes in. So Hoffman is thinking, “Here we go again.” But this time, the person is good, and works hard, and gets the stuff they need, and is nice and pleasant. Then they hear that he’s going to be leaving, and yet another person will be taking his place, and I expect that IDG wants to reassure Hoffman that the person who will be there at the site, continuously and hopefully without any further change, is going to continue to do a good job as Patrick had been doing. So, as I said before—good for Patrick. I can think of a few words that I have floating around in my brain, but I’ll try to keep them to myself.

So, I will continue to soldier on, bravely. Luckily I have the cats to help me through this rough time.

Seriously, it hasn’t been too bad—I’ve been trucking up to Knoxville on the weekends—he drives 3 ½ hours, I drive 3 ½ hours, we meet in the middle. His sister has been gracious enough to let us stay at her house & eat her food. Last Saturday, Patrick and I sorta just hung out together, bopping around Knoxville, and just being together. To the family that we didn’t see—thank you for understanding, and giving us the time to just be together. It’s hard to share him when I only get a few hours with him on the weekends!!!

The driving to Knoxville hasn’t been bad, and with fall upon us, the colors are absolutely gorgeous. I think we could have used a bit more rain—but even with the dry weather, the leaves are really putting on a show. It’s been several years since we’ve lived in a place that gets fall color, and I’m really enjoying it. Coming through the mountains south of Asheville, where you can look out over the valleys and just see golds, and reds, and oranges—it really does take your breath away. I keep meaning to take our camera, but I’m not sure how safe it would be to be snapping pictures and trying to drive at the same time. (Don’t worry Mom—I’ll keep both hands on the wheel, at the “10” and “2” positions!)

I’m looking forward to Turkey day—we’re planning on driving down to Carrabelle to spend weekend with my folks, and hopefully Mee Ma & Pee Pa can join us. I really enjoy being at their house—I know it’s for sale, and I hope it sells soon, but it’s such a nice place, and you can really relax and just watch the world go by…I’ll miss it when they sell it—I know what it represented to them. The flip side is, they’ll be moving closer to me, and I can’t help but be excited and hope it happens soon!

Dan & Janet did check out our house in Finger—they said it looked good, just needs to be pressure washed a bit, but that’s to be expected (that area did get a lot of rain after we left). They planted St. Joseph, head down & facing the house (I think that’s the direction he’s supposed to be in)—they’re using the same statue that a friend of Janet’s used, and had good luck with (what was it—she sold her house in 10 days? Or got the offer that sold the house?). I’ve been faithfully saying the prayer—though not in the morning…I’ve been saying it at night. Hopefully that doesn’t jinx the whole thing! The directions did say “morning” so maybe I ought to change my prayer time.

I’ve arranged to have the heater guy fix the heater—he said all he needed was a way in, so I gave him the lockbox code. Once that’s done, I think all the major stuff that we needed to do will be done. I tell ya, being in a small town does have its advantages sometimes—it’s nice to call up the heater guy’s wife, say your name, and she knows exactly who you are….and you do the whole arrangement on the phone, and they’ll send you a bill. They trust that you’ll pay them, and you trust that they’ll do a good job, and somehow I know that it’ll all work out just fine.

So that’s been my adventurous life for the past couple of weeks. I’ll try to be a little more regular with the postings….I know everyone is just on pins & needles waiting to see what I do next….