Alright... Charley, Frances, Ivan and NOW Jeanne! When are the hurricanes going to stop?!? My poor umbrella blew inside out three times between my car and the school this morning. That's less than 20 yards or so. Geez.... it's been raining ALL day long. Rain always makes me sleepy. And, today was picture day. I spent ALL day long in the gym with crazy middle schoolers trying to get the yearbook pictures taken. Yikes. It's almost time to go. I just want to go home and curl up on my sofa and read. I've finally gotten back into reading. I used to read all the time before college. I had so much mandatory reading in school that I didn't want to read for pleasure. Now I'm finally excited about reading again. I just finished book 5 of the "Harry Potter" series. (I know, I know... but I like 'em.) I'm almost done with Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Then, The Secret Life of Bees and The DeVinci Code are next. Yay. Sounds good. About 10 more min. 'till I can go......

Charley, Frances and now Ivan - all unwelcome visitors to my new hometown. Gotta love hurricanes, eh? I hope that Ivan doesn't turn out to be as bad as Frances. I went without power for quite a while during that one. My prayers go out to those in Florida and the Gulf Coast that are feeling the brunt of the hurricanes. Bad weather freaks me out. I'm pretty brave when it comes to most things, but weather is not one of them. Tornado sirens went off earlier - that didn't help my nervous state of mind at all. It looks like things might be calming down a little bit now. (At least they're calm enough that I felt okay checking my e-mail and stuff quickly.) I think I might go ahead and pull out the flashlight and stuff just in case. Stay inside!!

Unexpected letters from friends - aren't they great?!? I got a letter today from a friend that I know has tons going on in her life - but she found time to write a letter to me. That's just gotta make ya smile, eh? Thanks - you know who you are - and thanks for the picture! That's TOTALLY bulletin board material! Now - YOU! Yes, YOU! Grab a pen and a piece of paper - write a letter to someone that you haven't seen in ages... someone that could use a smile... someone that's got way too much going on in their life and can use a five minute mini-vacation in the form of a piece of snail-mail. Go forth and write!

I think I have survived and now recooperated from Hurricane Frances. Central Georgia got hit pretty hard, and I was without power and phone for two days. But, now, Hallelujah, the power has returned! :o) Yay - I'm off to play with my lamps.

How do mechanics keep their nails clean? Oh wait, they don't! ;o) I learned how to change the oil in my car today. My dad's a bit of a shade-tree mechanic so, he usually takes care of those things for me, but today I decided that it was time for me to learn. It wasn't unusally hard, just gross. We also looked at a lot of things that are tearing up on my car. It's kind of sad. Ruby (that's my car) is on her way downhill. Well, she's actually been going downhill for a while. It's getting bad enough that my parents and I had to sit down yesterday and work through my budget to see if I have room for a car payment yet. Yikes! I'm SOOOO not ready to be grown-up and dealing with these things yet! But a car with functioning AC and no oil leak might be pretty nice! Anyway - I'm enjoying this labor day/day off from school/visit to my parent's house. I don't really want to head back to my real life yet. Oh well.... almost time to pack up. Laundry awaits.