Is it ONLY Wednesday?!!!

Home sweet home at the Post Library! Reminded me of the days of yore when Kelly and Hannah were little. Whenever they were too sick to go to school, I'd fix up a bed in the backroom for them to hang out on.

This post will be more of a diary entry, just to record what we've been doing. It's probably boring for anyone else to read.

Yesterday before work, Dale and I went off to Garage Door Brokers to order our garage doors. It will take 3 weeks or so to get them, so we should have done this sooner. There was no electricity there either, but they were open for business anyway. Dale dropped me off at the library and went back to our house to survey the damage--lots of limbs down. Meanwhile, Mama got a call on our cell phone (we'd given it to her so we'd have a way to communicate with her when she's at her house overnight) from Life Line in St. Louis. Ruth had gone to the hospital at 2:00 Mon. afternoon, and Life Line hadn't been able to reach us. As soon as Dale found out, he called the hospital and talked to his mom. She has pneumonia and is very weak. He plans to go to St. Louis later in the week.

Dale has been spending his days at Columbia Traders deli (owned by Jeff Neal, our contractor on the house project) where he can use his laptop. The place has been hopping with students and others who had to have computer access. BTW, he was there when it was announced that MSSU and OCC were cancelling finals. He said students were jumping up and down and shouting with glee. Finals have never been cancelled before.

Speaking of Columbia Traders and Jeff, he and his employees there were up until 4:30 a.m. yesterday preparing 600 breakfasts for the Empire Distric Electric crews. He only got an hour's sleep before going back to deliver the meals. Empire ordered another 700 lunches for today, so no rest for the weary. I'm happy for Columbia Traders, though. Jeff had been disappointed with how things were going with the deli business, so this should have a HUGE impact.

We were shocked to find out that our construction crew was back at work yesterday! No electricity, terrible weather (cold and rainy all day), but there they were hard at it. They finished the roof and began insulating. We went over this morning and took a picture of them (see below). They're very nice guys, hard-working, and seem to be doing a good job.

Here's tree debris on top of the wood the guys are using are using for the garage. The foreman told us today that he would cut up the limbs and haul them off for us! He's the one who, with his son, went over to Mama's house on Monday, cut some branches, covered the hole in her roof. He said that was really tough, since the roof was a sheet of ice.