Back into the Routine

We enjoyed watching the Olympics so I was wondering if I would suffer withdrawals after it was over, but our normal schedule has kicked in and I haven't been home enough to notice.

Our weather has been very pleasant for August. It’s too bad our mosquitos are so vicious we can’t go out and enjoy it.

SCHOOL LIFE. We've been wondering how Ben would take to middle school. He may be there with all the same classmates, but it is a new building, a new schedule, and a different set of expectations from the teachers. He is, as usual, pretty quiet about his school day, never saying much no matter how many questions we ask. What we have noticed is that he is cheerful every morning and happily goes about the business of getting ready for the school day. We're taking that as a good sign.

Jenna and Nate seem to be enjoying school as well. The big news from Nate came the other day when he proudly told us he pulled his own loose tooth in class. He decided that afternoon that he couldn't wait for the Tooth Fairy so Vicki handed over a dollar right then.

I suspect the biggest change for Jenna is that she is now able to take some courses she’s never been able to take before. Two examples of this are her Family and Consumer Science (Home Ec) class and Health Science class. Jenna has to wear scrubs to school every Thursday for Health Science. I don’t know if nursing will wind up being her chosen profession, but she sure looks convincing in her scrubs right now.

SNAKE BITE DISEASE. That's what I call the affliction I seem to have when I'm looking for something that's in plain view but can’t seem to find it. The other morning as Vicki was packing our lunches she told Ben to get the deli meat out of the fridge. She was getting very frustrated with him for not finding it because the package was at the front of the shelf at eye level for the boy. When he finally spotted it he exclaimed, "Oh! That's where it was hiding." He’s inherited my gene.

THE WRECK. I am constantly amazed with the number of people who run off the road in front of our house or into one of Mom's fields. Most of the time the only evidence we have are skid marks and a trail through the field, but on occasion there's an abandoned vehicle about 100 feet off the road.

Last Tuesday afternoon a couple who lives down the road from us were returning home from Nashville when the wife, who was driving, dozed off. They ran off the road opposite our driveway, side swiped the old log shed that’s across from our house, flattened a path through the cornfield, and traveled about 200 feet into the woods before coming to a stop.

Of course, the local rumor mill had sprung into action as people drove by seeing all the emergency vehicles but no car (remember, it stopped 200 feet in the woods). Vicki and I were both at work as news of the FBI and TBI pulling at least one dead body out of the field came trickling in. “Oh great,” I thought, “The whole evening will be taken up with me being asked questions to which I have no answers.”

I am glad to report the pair suffered no major injuries. It could have been so much worse. Had their path been about five feet to the left they would have hit a corner of the building and could have been impaled by some of the logs. Unfortunately, they clipped enough of one corner of the building that we’re probably going to have to tear it down which is a shame because it adds a lot of character to the place. I don’t know how old that shed is or what its original purpose was, but I’m sure the men who built it never dreamed that a horseless carriage, if they could have even imagined that, would come flying down what may have been a dirt road and destroy their handiwork.

Joe