Turtle Crawl

Sorry things have been a little slow lately. Travis and I have been trying to keep our spending to a minimum what with the upcoming holidays and the road trip to Illinois. Plus, Travis has been working his butt off since he started working residential electrical again. The hurricane damage in Galveston seems to be never ending. He doesn't usually get home until between 7:30 and 8:30 every night. I've been taking advantage of that time to run errands (pick up my prescription, buy groceries, go to the chiropractor, etc) and to catch up on the shows I've recorded on the DVR. Since I spent this past weekend reading The Host, I didn't do much TV watching. Hence the DVR backup.

I've also recently developed an addiction to Solitaire. I found it in the games folder on our laptop and I love the new features it has! I can right-click anywhere on the screen and it automatically sends any cards that are showing to the suit pile. Exciting, right? I'm totally digging it. Sara came by last week and even made a comment about how every time she comes over I'm playing that game. I should probably start attending SA meetings. You know - Solitaire Anonymous.

Work is excruciatingly slow this week. We finished all the projects we could before the holidays and we've killed off all our cells. Now it's just wait-it-out for the rest of the week. There's not even the chance my boss might come in with a last minute task because he's leaving for home this morning (he lives four hours away and goes home for the weekends and holidays).

I do have a work luncheon to look forward to today. A girl in one of our sister-labs is leaving for Japan, so we are throwing her a going-away lunch. Sad reason, happy event. On top of all this boredom, is the Vacation Factor. What I am talking about here is how time seems to slow to a turtle crawl the week before a vacation. It's like it just can't come fast enough.

I haven't even had Rachel around much lately for company in the lab because the house she was renting foreclosed this past weekend. Now she has 30 days from this past Saturday to figure out where she is going to live, and then move there. She's run into three HUGE road blocks with this situation.

One, she will be going home to stay with family for two weeks, starting this Saturday. That gives her two weeks, including the one we're in the middle of right now, to find an apartment and move into it.

Two, we just had this hurricane that knocked a lot of apartment complexes and rental houses temporarily out of business. Not only does she have limited options because of that, but she also has to deal with the fact that any places that weren't closed down by the storm are already inhabited by people misplaced by the hurricane.

And three, EVERYONE has raised their rent around here. Either because times are hard and they need more income, or because they just completely remodeled because of hurricane flooding or damage. It's all so overwheming. She is definitely in a tough pickle...