I'm not sure if you all have been without me long enough, but I know one thing, I haven't been talking about myself enough lately. There's just so much ground to cover there. I really must be the most interesting person alive. But that's what is so great about Xanga. I can talk about me all day long and people think it's actually normal. And I can imagine that someone actually cares! :) Oh rapturous jubilation. 

But enough about me, let's talk about the things that are so great about me. Wow, brain freeze - too much information at once - maybe we'd better not go there.

But seriously, due to the fact that one comment my have made me feel sad and and slightly guilty about abandoning poor Xanga, I have decided to try and miserably fail to be clever once again.

Okay that's not really true either. I had almost forgotten that Xanga even existed anymore (and perhaps assumed that it had been run over by a truck and then fell down a hole somewhere in South Dakota into the black and bottomless abyss) until I noticed an email in my . . . um . . . gmail box that reported that I had a new comment on my Xanga weblog. "Well," I thought, "that old Xanga just came back to life!" It was a little scary, and I was frightened to actually open the email and find out what was inside. Was it some kind of trap? Did this virtual envelope contain anthrax or a poison dart? So, I resolutely and stoically split an infinitive. Oops, I mean I opened the email.

And what was inside was a nice little poem written just for me. At least I assume it was for me. A logical assumption to make, I think, given that I am so popular. I have almost five friends. Life is great, and so are these little labtec speakers imported from China.

I'm going to stop now before I descend in to shear idiocy and incoherent babbling. I don't want to be taken away by the men in white coats again. They might say polite things but they sure get angry when you don't do what they say. The black helicopters are even worse.

Making fences in Texas. It was a good week. We had a great time and made some new friends. And got sunburned. Who could ask for more?

It was kind of cool (weather) when we first got there, but at least it was quite a bit nicer than at home. We got to the "blue tarp motel" around 5 or 6 in the evening Texas time. It was pretty neat. There were a bunch of rooms roughly made out of plywood and blue tarps (which seem to be very widespread in the area). It was all in a neat little community building in which the guys' showers didn't work. So we had to use the women's restrooms to take showers. Surprisingly, it worked out pretty well. There were only three women there, and I think 18 men.


After we got unpacked we went to look at some hurricane damage out by the bay. It was very interesting. It was also very windy! But we got to see a beautiful sunset. Of course it seemed like beautiful sunsets are just the norm there.



Sunday we visited a Baptist church. It was very warm and friendly and everyone loved to give hugs. I loved it! I wish people around here were more like that. The water in that church house was eight feet inside, so it all had to be gutted and redone. It looks pretty good already. They gave us a bunch of breakfast food (mostly frozen), and we used very little of it. It turns out food was not a problem at all. We were overfed, if anything. In the afternoon we played some dodgeball, then went out to see where we would be working. There were quite a few fires burning in some areas, and one time it was so bad there was smoke pouring in the heating vents in the van! It looked pretty cool. Then back to the blue tarp motel and some of the guys played football. Then we had supper, played some games and went to bed.



Monday we actually started working. We split up into two groups. All us Living Water guys and Kenny and Elizabeth and Michael were in one group. Though we didn't really feel like we did much work, because by the time we figured out what we were doing it was practically time to quit. But we did get 1,000 feet of fence up (I think . . . maybe it was 2,000. Whatever it was, I walked up and down it about seven or eight times). We marked everything and then they told us it was wrong because we started from the ground instead of the top of the post, so we marked it again and made the wires 14 inches apart instead of 12 and thought they said to put one wire on one side and the rest on the other. Altogether we marked those dingaling posts four times. They practically looked like Christmas trees with all the different colors we used on them.
We saw some very interesting sights down there. From plumbing and wiring in trees to nice tubs, washbaskets, plaques, and picnic tables. Also some nicely preserved salad dressing, vodka shots, and peanut butter. No one was willing to try any of those, however. We salvaged some of it, of course. Todd caught a couple of lizards and turtles, but he let the turtles go and one of the lizards died.
Tuesday we worked on our longest stretch of fence (4,000 feet). In some ways it was easier because we actually knew what we were doing and there wasn't too much stuff in the way. Communication (or lack thereof) became an issue though because we couldn't even see each other from one end to the middle. It was crazy. We found a weird flag and mounted it on a piece of pipe and called ourselves the "Pathetic Pelicans" and took a group picture. It was great. We used the pipe to stick inside the rolls of wire, which saved a great deal of time untangling wire. It was kind of like unsnarling a barbed wire slinky. But the pipe worked great. We stopped by a park on the way back home again to see if we could see any alligators, since the other group was bragging on how many they saw. But all we saw were some dogs and a pot-bellied pig.

I think I'll give up on pictures for now. Our Internet is being not.

Wednesday I think we finished up our first couple sections of fence and just hung around till lunchtime. Made some redneck fishing poles to catch some fish we saw jumping in a nasty little puddle or pond or whatever it was. But we found out they were all gar (however that's spelled), which are basically worthless. But at least we were entertained. Then we gathered some big corner posts to repair a couple small sections of fence. Had to clear some brush and stuff for that. It was kind of nice because we were by the woods in the shade. Then we came home and had supper and watched movies and played games and went to bed nice and tired.
Thursday we worked on the small, shady sections again. Got a late start because the guys who were supposed to run the tractor didn't get there for a while. Sheesh. John came with us that day. He had been sick the day before and stayed home, but decided to come with us that day. We went fishing that evening, which was a lot of fun. Caught some nice, big redfish and saw quite a few alligators, turtles and stuff. We also caught some crabs.
Friday was the hottest and sunniest day, and we had no water for quite a while. We forgot to bring any along, then when someone went back to the building to get some, they forgot the key and couldn't get in. Only after they came back did they realize they didn't forget the key after all. We finally got some Coke at lunchtime and finally some water later on. That's also the day it seemed like everything broke down. The truck tire went flat, the brush mower got caught on the tractor tire (we finally got it loose and left it there to die), and a hose broke on the bulldozer. Shoot us already. But after all those problems were remedied and we finally got a record amount of brush and trees removed, we got our fence put up in short order. Unfortunately I didn't get many pictures of that section of fence. In the evening we packed up and went out and took group pictures and silly pictures and said goodbye to the great land of Texas - so sad.
Traveling home was awful. Several of us were sick. We could hardly eat anything. I forced down some strawberries and a little waffle and milk for breakfast Saturday morning and had some pizza Combos for the rest of the day.
We finally got home and extracted ourselves from the van (I'm not sure how we managed that) where we gradually dispersed. It was so good to see Mari and come home. The weather was awesome too. Heavy rain and thunder! Yahoo! It was a great trip. Hopefully we can do it again sometime. We can thank God that none of us were too seriously sick or had any serious injury. :)

I'm going to run out of random things to say about myself, but anyway I will give it another round I s'pose.

25 Random Things about me.....

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

(To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)

1. There are two types of people in the world. The folders and the crumplers. I am a crumpler.

2. Right along with number one, there are unders and overs. I am an under all the way.

3. I just snickered because I bet some people don't even know what I'm talking about in 1 and 2.

4. I am borderline addicted to Gushers and strawberry fruit rollups. And just the other night I ate all of Erica's sour-patch kids. Sorry Erica!

5. I rather like to bash people. Especially Kari. What can I say? She taught me all I know. And it only took around five minutes.

6. I love electronic thingamabobs. I wish I could be a new gadget and gizmo tester so I could get them all for free.

7. Todd is driving me crazy! Roughly every 8 seconds he pops in to the room to make some bizarre comment. Any guesses on what his last comment was? "While you're doing that, you can write that I keep popping in every so often to make a weird comment." Yeah, I think we've been around each other way too long.

8. The number 8 it is one of my favorite numbers. But 2 has always been my favorite. Then 5. And E is my favorite letter. Don't tell me I'm weird. My imaginary friends already do that.

9. I really, really, really wish I had a greenhouse again.

10. I'm a little freaked out about Kari's number 10. I think I'll have to ask some questions. Hahaha

11. I like chewing on pens. Or just about anything that isn't too bitter.

12. My favorite season is spring, because winter is the farthest away.

13. Cracking my toes brings me much happiness.

14. I know two people who like (or don't mind) the taste of Nyquil. And they are both named Travis.

15. I hate birthdays because it means everyone is getting older.

16. Ummmm I like reading books.

17. I can't believe I'm still doing this. It's taking way too long.

18. I really like my bed.

19. Thunderstorms are one of my all-time favorite things, ever.

20. It's been said that I'm the rebellious one. Not true, I just know best.

21. I'm just typing this sentence to watch the letters appear on the screen.

22. That was pointless.