Donor 401 and iPods

Guys, just be careful when you're desperate for money in college.

Girls, a new use for 'the girls.

My Grandparents are AMAZING people.

I wish that I was as smart as them. It's unbelievable.

Update

The floods of 2008 were worse in some areas, fortunately, not my mother's office. She only had about 2 feet of water and for only 2 days. This time around she was able salvage the floor, the counter tops and the interior walls of her business. She was thinking that she was going to be able to open later this week. That's not going to happen. She got a visit from the city yesterday saying that all the businesses that took on water are not going to be able to open until they have the bottom 2 feet of drywall on the inside exterior walls taken out and the insulation replaced to have mold dealt with. My mom is going to be out of business for the next two weeks. She called me crying yesterday.

~Until Then
I'll be home Sunday evening, if there is sketch on Monday I'll be there.
Oh, and if anyone is bored and wants to be a good Samaritan and has free time, there will be a lot of painting to do. Just FYI.

Worse than 93. By far.

Wednesday- 6:30 am. Nick, my mother, Sam, and I are down at the public works getting sandbags. For the next two hours, we lay down almost 500 sandbags. 2 wide, 2 high. A sheet of plastic then more sand bags. Her entire office surrounded, in hopes of keeping out the water. Things are looking good. The rain from the night before hadn't done much. The roads were still open and the baseball field was still playable.
7pm. We drive back to see how things are. The baseball fields are now a lake with 4 feet of water. You can barely see the fences separating the parks. My sister and I are standing on 16ft square patch of grass taking pictures and throwing stones into the water. We leave. 15 minutes pass and that patch of grass is now 4 inches under water. The parking lot next door at Casey's is filled with stupid on lookers. The police have put up barricades to keep them out. The adjoining business now has water reaching the entire width of the parking lot. 15 feet wide by 1 foot deep. We had to leave.
9:47 pm. The waters have hit the office. The adjoining roads are closed. All we can do is wait.
Thursday- ?

My mom doesn't deserve to go through this again.

~Until Then

I have 14 doors, a freezer, surgery table, and an x-ray machine in my garage

15 years ago my mom's office (which had only been open for 14 months) was filled with 3 feet of standing water for almost 2 weeks. I don't remember much. I do remember watching my parents wade through the hip deep water trying to fully asses all the damage. It was devastating. All the flooring, bottom cabinetry, and bottom parts of the drywall along with 90% of electrical had to be replaced. My mother was out of business for 6 weeks. Rush Animal Care Clinic was non existent. It reopened on her birthday in August. She thought that she would never have to go through that again; now with all the advancements in flood prevention. She dropped her flood insurance 2 years ago because it was 700 bucks a month. And for something that hadn't been an issue for 13 years; was too expensive. Within the next 24 hours, this could become a reality for my mother, once again.
Monday- 1:30 pm. I get the voice mail from my mother. The one I hoped would never come.
'Manda, it's your mom. Call me.' She sounded serious. I called her. 'Manda, we need you to come down here. It might happen again. We have to move...everything.' Nick and I booked it down to my mom's office. There for the next 7 hours we moved non stop. A majority of the items in the office went up to the attic. Boxes of books, all 4000 of the patient's files, small hand held equipment, 2 computers, grooming equipment, and some small furniture. My poor mother was completely lost yesterday. She didn't sleep at all last night. I could see it in her eyes, the realization of losing her office again. It's one thing to be out of work due to a disaster. It's another things entirely to lose your place of work. Her office is what pays the bills, feeds my sister, gives her car a full tank. Allows her to live. 13 years ago, my mother was married and had a second source of income. That income won't be there if her office goes under.
After all the small stuff went up, it was time to move larger things. Nick's parents came down and helped us move all the doors (2 which are lined with lead) up to my garage, and the freezer where dead things go. Fortunately, the freezer got emptied out yesterday morning. That's all we could do yesterday.
Tuesday: 9am. My mom and I come rolling in with a U haul truck. My grandpa and I take apart all the computer desks, draw files, and other large movable items. The office is down to minimal operations for the rest of the day. Then I had to go to work. I come back around 4. The auto business next door has moved all of its cars. The body shop connected to her is getting the rest of their stuff out. The Casey's across the lot is empty. Not even a crumb remains. I walk in to the deserted office. The washer and dryer have been hoisted up onto the counters. There's nothing left in any of the lower cupboards. No pictures on the walls. Balls of dog hair roll across the floor like tumble weeds. At that point I leave to get sand bags. I get to Public Services and fill up the jeep with 40 sandbags. My mom's emplyee and her mother have already made 3 prior trips. The back door has been boarded up with heavy duty plastic and 20 or so sand bags. The crowd gathers out at the front desk and waits as my mom changes the voice mail. 'We're in the line of the flood. We don't know how long we'll be out, please bare with us.' The office is desolate. Nothing is left. It's awful. My mother has out so much work into that office. We walk out the front door and board it up. The U-haul pulls out, I follow. I'm going back tomorrow at 6am to put sandbags around the remainder of the office, that is if it isn't flooded.
Wednesday- ?

~Until Then

Habits and Destructive Forces

I felt like I needed to write. I don't have much else to do. I wake up early because I want to keep my habit. I feel more productive in the morning. Sure people aren't up, but it's far more comfortable in the morning. Sure it sucks in the evening when people want to do stuff and it's 10:00 pm and I want to go to bed, but that's going to help me later in life when we all have to live in the real world. I'm not saying I get up at the crack of dawn, but I'm usually up between 7 and 9:30. I'm going to take an 8 am class next year if I can just so it will force me to not stay out late and get mixed in with the wrong crowd. Then I'll be done early afternoon! It's weird the little habits that we all develop. How we go about doing things, and the ways that we do them.
Well now to change directions. My summer thus far. I've decided that I'm going to get out and do stuff this summer, random stuff, just as long as I'm outside or at least being productive. I hate being a vegetable laying on my bed and eating cool ranch doritios. I've had about 15 days of summer and so far I've managed to do...

• Buy a BB gun and become fairly accurate in my shooting abilities.
  
• Play multiple games of Crotchet and Super Crotchet, one ended in with the entire Crotchet set in the tree.
• Had a picnic by the Sailor ville dam and attempted to throw a boomerang.
• Found out that all the fireworks in my boyfriends car are a dud from being in his trunk through the winter.
• Lit off several of the dud fireworks.
• Planning to tube down the Boone river and eventually Canoe it as well.
• I leave for Georgia in a week to go rafting, jet skiing, hiking, kayaking, and camping. And I plan to see my dad for more than 10 seconds.
• Had bonding time with my sister.
• Saved 4 baby bunnies from certain death by rescuing them from my gay cat.
• Built and launched a rocket successfully, only to have it run over by a car because the wind carried it too high.
  

I'm proud to say that there hasn't been one day where I've just been lying around, I've either done something or worked. I'm also in progress of cleaning out old clothes and tackling all of the areas where my junk just piles up. I've got the clothes down, now I just need to hit my closets. Hope the Chicago trip was fun for those who went, sorry I missed it.
~Until Then