We’re back to normal, spring-weather
reality today, and that meant a return to warm jackets and sweaters after nine
days of tees, shorts, sundresses, and swimsuits. Tai Chi needed to be indoors too, and while I
loved getting back to our morning exercise routine; I would have loved it more
if we could have been out by the river doing that instead of in our exercise
room.
Michael, Tim, Rowen, and I were minor
celebrities today thanks to our extreme vacation; though the boys got razzed a
fair bit about spending the week with Mickey, Minnie, and the Disney princesses
– or for having too much fun in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. That was all fun, and while Rowen and I were
teased a bit too; we didn’t get that as much as Michael and Tim did – and we
also got a lot of compliments about how great we looked too after a week in the
sunny south. I was happy enough to be
back to school, and we had a good day; but the number one highlight for me was
a fun little chat I had with Mrs. Robinson about looking into a band trip to
Disney to be in the parade there.
Mrs. Robinson loves the idea! She’s going to talk to Principal Jacobs and
some of the other teachers about it next; and then we’ll see where it goes from
there. She warned me that it’s a very
big project, and that there’d need to be enough interest with both the parents
and students; but I’m not really worried about that. All of the work is another matter, and
raising the money in a small town for something like this will be a challenge
too; but I’m just the girl to dig into something like that and make it
happen! Don’t expect any major news on
that front for a while, since there will be lots of hoops to jump through
first; but I’ll keep you posted as I try and get the project moving from idea
to reality over the next year or so.
Speaking of Florida, while we barely warmed
up into the sixties today and it’s raining now as I write this; it’s been a
wet, rainy day in Orlando. Maybe Mother
Nature really missed us there! ;^)
I am glad that we didn’t have any
washed-out vacation days while we were there, though; and rain here while we’re
at school or during the night isn’t a big deal to me. We are supposed to get rain off and on for
the next couple of days, but I’ll be busy both nights after school anyway; so
I’m just hoping it’ll be nice again by the weekend.
Getting back to the school report, I have
skipped one teen drama story; though it’s already on the way to being an old
story for most of our classmates and friends.
Marcie and Marc broke up while on spring break. They’d been on that slow downhill glide
toward that end for a while; so it wasn’t a surprise. It doesn’t seem that either of them is
particularly upset about it; though Marcie seems to be getting on with her
social life already too. She’s
apparently been hanging out with Kris a fair bit, though from what I saw today;
that’s more of in a friends sort of way instead of romantically – at least so
far. Marc was just hanging out with the
guys today, but he also has the usual teen problem in a small town when it
comes to available, appropriately-aged dating options. As of right now, the only single girl in our
class is the one he just broke up with.
Gil’s been in that singles’ boat all year
without doing any serious dating, and Kris joined him in that little club back
in October when he and Lily broke up; so he’s probably very happy to at least
have a dating prospect – even if Marcie might not seriously be looking at a
rebound relationship anytime soon. The
good news for all three boys, though, is that it’s spring and there are bound
to be other new singles coming onto the market soon!
No, I won’t be one of them – Michael’s
stuck with me!
I went home with him after school and we
did our homework and had dinner with his parents and Rebecca. Michael had done some catching up with them
while at the Inn last night; but we had a fun chat during dinner – and Miranda
liked my storytelling better – even if I’m not the master that she and Aunt
Leanne are. Miranda and Rebecca had some
stories for us too; though that was as much about the latest news from around
town as it was about anything exciting happening for them personally over the
past week. Since Mom and Dad were
hosting the family business and future plans meeting tonight, I couldn’t stay
and hang out with Michael for long after we finished the clean-up from
dinner. Now that we’re getting into
spring, as I’ve mentioned, the action on the future plans front is kicking up
several notches; so I really wanted to be at that meeting.
While other projects are way more
important, a favorite for Ethan, Ehlana, and I is starting this week. We’re getting a new and improved playground
with a lot of new equipment; the park is going to be expanded; and a new trail
system is being added both in that new section of the park and around
town. The trails part of the project is
going to take more than a year to complete; but it’s going to be very cool when
finished! The park and playground
expansion is all about growing the fun along with our town, and that’s always
especially important for the kids and teens in any community.
I’m jumping around a bit here, but also in
the extended construction project group is the addition and remodel for the
church. The addition construction is
getting started now too, and the new outer building of the addition will be
ready by sometime this fall so that the indoor work can be done during the
winter with a completion date that will hopefully be just before Easter next
year. That’s going to be exciting for
our congregation, and again; we’re going to need the extra sanctuary space; the
larger fellowship hall; and everything else that is being added. We’ll be losing some yard space for the
addition, but we do have the school yard right across the road that we can use
for outdoor activities when needed.
The most important project right now is
still the new medical center. The
exterior and landscaping work was started last week thanks to the early nice
weather; and it will be ready to open by the end of June. Uncle Mark, Uncle Adam, Aunt Deborah, and
everyone else that will be working there will need to start moving in by late
May or early June to be ready to go when it does open, but since they’ll have
mostly all-new equipment; that’ll mostly involve moving all of the files and
any furniture and anything else they want to keep from the old offices. There are going to be other businesses moving
into the new office building over the next five or six years, and while most of
those businesses will be medical-related; there will be other business
professionals moving in there too – which is why it’s officially going to be
called the Witch Falls Professional Offices and Medical Center. I’ll go out on a limb and suggest that it’ll
be short-formed by everyone to the Med Center or something equally easy.
On the infrastructure side of things, the
Solar-Wind Farm project will be kicking into high gear now too, and while the
project is on-time and looking great; the really exciting work will be very
visible soon as the wind turbines and solar arrays are completed and the
underground power lines are put in from the old Quarry and tied into the town
and power grid. Once that’s done, we’ll
essentially be power-independent – and generally be able to sell extra power
into the grid too to help pay for it all.
More importantly, with the system better-protected from the elements;
our days of power outages should be behind us.
In the non-direct future plans news, Aunt
Leanne advises us that the Stones and Ayres basically have a deal done for
Jacob and Miranda to buy the Haberdashery building so that they can expand the
Inn while Uncle Nick’s Dad is going to downsize his store and move to another
location that’s still being worked out.
That deal will likely be announced at the end of May or early June; and
the Haberdashery will move in September.
The Inn expansion and remodel will take a year and a half or so – and will
conveniently be done in time for when Jake and Stephanie are finished their
four years at college. A deal for the
old clinic is basically done now too; and KidZone will have the place all
summer to get it remodeled for their daycare and ready to open in time for the
back-to-school rush. Okay, it’s actually
the end of the summer rush for them; but it will be convenient to have the
daycare close to the school for the parents and kids.
The work on the new section of town will
kick up a few notches now too. More
homes and townhomes are on the schedule for this spring and summer; and the
second apartment building will be ready to open by late June too. This one is very similar to the first one; so
they look a bit like bookends for the new section. Aunt Leanne is sure that those apartments
will be just as popular, and the timing is convenient; since there will be
fewer apartments in town after Miranda and Jacob take over the Haberdashery
building. They’ll be converting those
apartments into more rooms for the Inn, and while there will still be other
empty apartments as people choose the newer, nicer rental options; we’ll be
working on that problem over the next few years too.
While all of the work around here is going
to be exciting, we also discussed some longer term plans – with the most
immediate effort needed for the next crop of high school grads. College and program choices are being made;
and Uncle Nick is getting some help from other teachers with nudging a few
students toward options that take advantage of the new opportunities that are
or will be available here. Some of those
future careers are needed for the lab or med center; but others are for things
we’ll need with our growing town and also work that could be available through
our charities and family business – though not everyone being offered those
jobs would know that.
One example would be our need for
agricultural engineers and other specialists for advanced technology
farming. I haven’t been including
details of the research at the lab, but Uncle Adam and Ehlana are ready to
begin field testing of their first drought and weather resistant designer wheat
this year. The Green family farms will
be planting those test crops and the lab will pay them regardless of how the
crops turn out; but my point here is that we’ll need expertise in the fields
around here for the test crops and then full-scale production of these new
crops for decades to come. Some of my ‘farm
kid’ classmates are on the short list for future grads to be offered those opportunities,
so while that isn’t imminent for them; it will be something that will be fun
for me in a couple of years.
Finally, getting back to the local news for
projects that we’re not directly involved in; there are just two more items to
report. First up, rumor has it that
Quarry Lake is doing a major fun upgrade this year. In addition to new water slides; they’re
apparently building a big rock climbing wall that will be topped by a
major-league zip line. I predict that we’ll
be spending extra time at Quarry Lake if their new attractions are as cool as
they sound. Here in town, we’ll have
another new business opening in time for the Memorial Day weekend – an antique
shop. That won’t be as exciting for the
kids and teens here, but I’m a big fan of restoring and re-using instead of
throwing away; so I’m all for having a store like that here in town – even if I
won’t need to be buying my own furniture for quite a while yet.
There were other topics covered in the
meeting, but I think that’s enough detail for one update; and nothing else was
really current news. Since we’d had a
lot to cover, our meeting didn’t end until eleven. After seeing our guests out, it was time for
me to get to work – starting with my Magi lesson with Mom while Dad took care
of getting Ethan and Ehlana into bed. We
spent forty-five minutes doing that, and then I came up to my room to get
started on my bedtime computing, studying, and family business work. Mom is letting me go back to working and
studying the way I want to do it; while reserving the right to step in if she
thinks I’m burning out again.
I guess I’ll have to figure out how to hide
that from her!
Wait, did I write that out loud? ;^)
I’m just kidding, Mom. It’s been a long day, but it also felt great to
get back to the language studies that are going to be so important for my
personal future. The archive studies
weren’t very exciting tonight; but that needs to be done too – and it’s time
for me to start learning to do my Magi lessons and education more on my own
instead of relying on Mom to control my curriculum all of the time. The family business work was mostly fun
tonight; though that was because I chose to play with summer and back-to-school
fashions and other ‘fun’ projects instead of the boring jobs – like reading
through business reports or financials.
Without using a time phase, it has taken
more than three hours to get through everything; and I’m pretty much ready to
doze off as soon as I’m finished this report.
Okay, I’m done; so, until next time...
...May the Magi Force be with you!
