Goodbye Summer

September is passing by in a blur. Things are just starting to settle a little bit.

Monday after the big birthday weekend, the remnants of Ike arrived and crashed into a cold front. We did get some rain but it was the 50 mph winds that did us in. We lost power about 2:30 am Monday and got it back in the early evening. We spent the day cleaning up debris in the yard. My garden arch is now a twisted mess and we had to replace our printer but I guess we were lucky that that was all the damage we had. When I left for class the power was still out but it was back by the time I got home. PJ & Bean were both without power until Tuesday evening. Between the power outages and downed trees and wires we used our 1st snow day of the year already.

Tuesday I had the first safety meeting of the year. Several people forgot about the meeting because the snow day threw off the week. We have two big events coming up in October so I have spent much of what little free time I've had the last week writing letters and talking to coworkers to line up the help and supplies we'll need. I started working with a new driver in the afternoon.

I don't know where Wednesday went. The evening was spent at class again. By Thursday I was really dragging and we went to Mom's. I had picked her up a couple of plants and got them in the garden. Friday I was busy all day but have nothing to show for it.

Saturday's class was in a different location about 40 minutes away. After an hour we got back in our cars and travels to the seat check site. Not one of the seats I saw that day was anything like the ones I'd worked with in class. One was on the recall list. At one point I was told I was working too slowly - after being told in class to take the time to make sure I did it right. I won't go into specifics but Saturday was hell for me and I don't see me doing a lot of these checks. We are having one next month but beyond that we'll have to see.

Sunday I just kind of crashed. I collected some seeds and puttered in the garden without really getting anything done. I did get some letters transcribed and caught up with some online reading. Yesterday we were back to Mom's and there was a School Board meeting in the evening. I don't usually go to board meetings but our department received a safety award for our accident free record and 99.1% inspection pass rate. Being recognized was nice :-)

Today I was writing more letters for our safety event. The letters I wrote over the last week were what I call begging letters and I'm not very good at them. Could you donate this? We really need that, can you help? Today's letters were much easier as I was asking the local fire, ambulance and DPW depts to come and bring their trucks again. I think I finally have set all of the wheels in motion that I need to. The next couple of weeks will be spent following up and twisting arms lining up volunteers.