I'm here finally!

6 days until Chera gets here!!! I'm getting so excited!

Ok, let's see what I can catch y'all up on.

The decision was prayerfully made to abandon the attempted reformation of the church youth class. We're separatists now instead of puritans. :) Naomi and Ethan are going to class with Dad and Mama. BonnieJean wanted to try out Kevin C.'s class so I'm going with her. We're all glad to be out of the youth group. To quote Mama's cousin Ellen--"They're about as spiritual as the coffee table." Between being sick 2 weeks and do nursing home services with Dad this Sunday I will only have averaged 1 week out of 4, but I think I'll like my new class. Ethan and Naomi are liking their new class, too, and no one in the class even blinked at having 2 teenagers in the 40+ age range class.

I'm liking my job and steadily getting better and faster at everything. I love my customers and am trying hard to speak clearly and not get stuck in the robotic 'Thank-you-and-have-a-nice-day-365th-person-I've-said-that-to-today'. I think I'm doing fairly well because I manage to make at least 1/2 of them laugh at something. All the other deli workers (Vicki, Judith, Angela, Sarah, Charla, Stephanie, and Jan) and the night manager (usually Keith, but sometimes Angie or Gene) are very encouraging and ready to help me out. The deli usually has only 1 person working each shift but both Jan and Angela have left me their numbers to call them at home if I get stuck. Although I'm getting along just fine with everyone so far they certainly don't get along with eachother. Vicki is the department manager and I've only worked with her once so I'm reserving judgement on her. But it's kinda hard to when Angela, Charla, and Stephanie definitely have an opinion on Vicki which they are most vocal about. They also say that Vicki is nice to you at first but give it a week and she'll be knifing you in the back. Jan and Sarah do not care for Vicki but aren't as vehement about it. Judith borders between somber and grumpy (kinda reminds me of Gandalf's exterior) and appears to have no opinion on anyone. Also, as far as I can tell everyone is good at their job so I don't know why Vicki would have complaints about any of her workers. So... so far I'm getting along with everyone and I hope I can just do a good job and stay completely out of their little factions and spitfights. The other thing is that I've only worked there for a little over 2 weeks so I certainly shouldn't set any ideas in concrete.

Mama and I went shoe shopping today. I got a pair of black Nike Aspires for work and pair of silver and pink (they had purple with a darker silver, but, alas, it wasn't in my size) Nike Attests for running. Mama got a pair of New Balance which were very similar to the pair that she's using into oblivion. Shoe Carnival was having a sale where you paid full price for one pair and got the second at 1/2 price. So to make it an even number of shoes I got a cheap pair of soft, brown, suede sandals.

After that Mama dropped me off at Barnes and Nobles while she shopped at Sam's. I looked at a book about the makings of the Narnai movie (think the extra stuff on dvds put into book form) which now only has me more hyped for the release of the movie. Then I read the first 2 chapters or so of a book called "In the Presence of Mine Enemies" written by a chaplain who was with the first group of Marines to cross the border into Iraq. It looks like a good book but of course I was too cheap to buy it. I was itching to get into some Star Wars books by Zahn but Mama came back then. We ate at Sonic (bacon cheeseburger with Dr. Pepper and onion rings. Luscious!) and had a most interesting conversation about Hurricane Katrina, the Irish Republican Army, the ways terrorists think, obvious targets that we're surprised they haven't gone for yet, people's view of terrorism before 9/11, and the unimportance of Europe. I love Mama!

The homeschool band just keeps sounding better and better. The Christmas concert should be real good. Ethan, Naomi, and I are also working a trio arrangment of Kum Bye Yah to do for church. Not to be prideful, but it sounds real good.

I'm getting over a sinus thingy. Over the weekend I felt bad. I feel fine now but have a most persistent cough with crud deep down in my chest. As long as it doesn't hurt or affect (effect?) my energy levels it can cough away.

Ok, it's 11 p.m. I guess I should go to bed. Tomorrow I'll post an essay I wrote for Worldviews called Finite Ropes. I apologize once again for not posting for so long. Love y'all!