He made it out…

of Houston. My Dad, that is. I talked to my Mom a few minutes ago – she finally heard from my Dad. He’s a truck driver. He had delivered a load of water to Houston, and got stuck in the crush of people fleeing Rita. He was in that highway "parking lot" that the news keeps showing…for 22 hours. He said that he was on fumes by the time he made it to a truck stop….but that he was lucky b/c there are thousands of cars along the highway that have run out of gas. Right now, he’s 150 miles north of Houston, he’s cranky, and he’s headed home! He is in a daycab truck, which means that he had no bed, no microwave, no TV…none of the amenities of his other truck. Most importantly, he’s SAFE. Love you Dad!

It’s Friday, and I’m off today. So weird! I normally take days off to do something, go somewhere….or (rarely) b/c one of the kids is sick. I took today off b/c it was easier than going to work. For some reason, I feel a bit guilty that it’s not a "bigger" reason. Rob is out of town with "the boys" (aka Carman & Jim) for the weekend…going to some Nascar race in Delaware…so it was just easier for me to stay home than to arrange coverage for the kids. It’s hard sometimes, living so far from both of our families. We can’t just have Nana/Papa/Grandma/Grandpa step in for us. We do have a wonderful network of friends….at least 4 people came up to me at the Football game last night and said "if you need any help while Rob is gone, let me know," and another friend called this am to make sure that Austin was all set for after school.

Back to me having a day off. What do you think I’ll be doing today? SCRAPBOOKING, of course!! Plus a couple of errands, paying some bills, taking the library books back (before they issue a warrant), doing the laundry, taking a pile of clothes to the Salvation Army, repotting the mums & pansies that I bought, buying film for this weekend….obviously "off" doesn’t mean "relaxing," huh?

Oh, and one final note….there’s a new 4 letter word in my vocabulary….EBAY. The good news- I won an auction on a 70-300mm lens for my film camera. The bad news- I got a little caught up in the whole "win the auction" adrenaline that I spent about $50 more than I intended to. Oops. No more Ebay for me! (okay, but I am SO excited to get that lens!!!)

Happy Friday everyone!