There has been so much happening lately, I'm feeling overwhelmed about updating this thing.

Animals first - Jewel E. Cat looks like someone socked her one. The left side of her face is swollen, and I don't know why. She's also being VERY sweet, and that's out of character. I looked for fang marks because I think she may have tangled with a snake, but I can't really tell if that's what bit her. Then again, it could have been a spider or a bee or ants. At any rate, she's locked in the house for observation. I've narrowed the time frame to between 6 and 7:30 tonight, so we'll see if she swells some more or acts seriously ill. She's an expensive cat.

Squirt is MIA. He refused to come inside Thursday a week ago and I haven't seen him since. Dave says he saw him at the old house on Sunday, but he certainly isn't coming when I whistle for him.

Gypsy the Street Cat has somehow turned into a spoiled house cat. She thinks that if I'm cooking or using the can opener, then she needs some of whatever it is. She ate cantelope the other day.

Aside from puking 5 gallons on my new carpet, Georgia's life has been relatively ordinary lately. Thank goodness.

The people - We are both working on a lot of church stuff. The pastor resigned, so we are looking for a new one, setting up new committees and teachers for the next church year (which starts tomorrow), and working on the parsonage. It's keeping us very busy. Dave has meetings a couple of nights a week, and I've been painting the parsonage. We started work on it last weekend without anyone knowing because it needs to be done and we didn't feel like thinking about setting a meeting to talk about making a list of things that need to be done to the parsonage. One of the things about the "sleepy little church" is that they like to talk a lot and not do much. We are slowly (well, Dave is mostly) getting things stirred up - and it's good. We didn't tell anyone about painting, but people found out and showed up and we bypassed the whole meeting junk. I'm excited about it. I've also agreed to teach the toddler Sunday school class for the year. This Sunday is the first time. I'm not too sure about teaching toddlers (19 months through 2 years), but we'll see how it goes. At the very least, it should be entertaining. :) I'm also still maintaining the church website, and I really enjoy it, but I wish I had more time to work on it.

Dave's parents are listing their house for sale (yes, the house they just moved into in January), and looking for a house down here. They've visited quite a bit lately. They looked at my Grandmama's house last weekend because she has moved to a nursing home now. That's pretty sad. It's very weird to see Daddy and the aunts and uncle cleaning out that house. It sucks, really, because she always lived there.

There is also a nasty rumor that a new residential development is going to be built right behind our back fence. Supposedly, it's 40 apartments and 69 townhouses. We'll see how it goes. I'm sure it will happen at some point, so I'm planning to plant rows of pine trees behind the fence so they can be growing in preparation for that day.

I can't wait for Labor Day weekend. I need three days in a row. Our cruise is 15 days away. I NEED it badly. We both do.

Oh by the way, I just re-read this and realized that I'm starting to talk/type like my boss, who natively speaks French. So, if something reads strangely, that's probably what's happened. Also, I spent several days this week with some German co-workers and I found myself picking up some of their sentence structure, too. :) It's funny how that happens. I really have to admire the people I work with because the majority of them don't natively speak English. I can't imagine moving to another country and learning the language fluently enough to communicate in a business setting. Amazing.