NO MORE RAIN!

Derek found an aerial photo of the place where our house will be. You can see that Meeting House Lane will connect to some unnamed road. It won't connect directly to Rockport Road, which is good because that is sort of the main artery in that area, so it is pretty busy. Kind of neat to see where the streets will be. If you look closely, you can even see the bulldozers sitting, waiting to start building our house!

Our little lot is all soggy. So, no progress has been made. But the forecast has no rain until next Friday, a week from today. Maybe it will dry out enough to start. I just can’t wait!!! I keep driving by, looking at the puddles. Our lot is just about the highest land around, but clay doesn’t drain very well. This might not bode well for our future gardening. I still have mud on my shoes from last time we walked around the lot. It might be a permanent condition. Even when the house is finished, I think the yard will have to wait until spring. I foresee a muddy winter.

To keep my mind off of what is NOT happening on the house, we have a busy weekend planned. Tonight, I am going with my friend, Elizabeth, to the release party for the final Harry Potter Book. Tomorrow, we are planning to get together with friends for dinner. Sunday, we are going to Indianapolis for the Middle Eastern Festival, a fundraiser at a church, with music, food, and dancing. And next week is the Monroe County Fair. We usually go to see the crafts, watch the cute baby contest, and eat fried foods.

We have also packed a little more. Boy, do we have a lot of junk! We are up to box number 14. So far, we have mostly packed knick-knacks, stuffed animals, pictures, extra sheets, and books. There are a lot of books. It is hard for me to put my books in boxes, knowing I won’t see them for months. What if I need to look up something for my students? What if miss my books! You can imagine how hard it is for me to actually get rid of any books. The Red Cross in Bloomington hosts a huge book sale in October. People come from miles around. I often buy cookbooks there, especially really old cookbooks. I found one that talked about making meals with less meat during the rationing of World War II. I haven’t made any of the recipes (one was a meatloaf made mostly from sweet potatoes!), but it was certainly interesting to look at it. This year, I hope to donate more books to the sale than I buy. That will be quite a challenge!

It has been hard to find small, sturdy boxes for the books. You don’t want to pack a great big box of books, unless you have your own personal forklift. And you don’t often see small boxes that are very sturdy. I think books breaking through the bottom of a flimsy box and landing on your feet would ruin any day. But a friend suggested we try the Recycling Center for boxes, which is a good idea. A lot of the apartments in our complex are currently empty, but people will arrive in August to go to school at IU. I bet we can get some of their used boxes then.

To take our minds off of packing and what is NOT happening with our house, we will have visitors in August. My parents are coming to see us for a few days, then we are going to St. Louis with Derek’s mom and Terry. I wonder if we will come back and see lots of progress on our house? I hope so!