We had a cooler morning for our Tai Chi by
the river, but we are getting deeper into the fall now; so every day we can
exercise outdoors is a bonus now. A warm
breakfast in the sunroom took care of the chill we were feeling by the time we
were inside again; and then I was off and running again to help with the
clean-up, get ready for school, and meet up with Rowen at her house for the
walk there.
Halloween and football are the top chat
topics at school; and most of our lessons today were themed appropriately for
the occasion. The younger kids love that
more than the teens do; but we have fun too and it is really great to see all
of the displays around the school filled with crafts and projects that make the
place look so festive. The actual
lessons weren’t newsworthy at all for me; so let’s skip that and move on to a
couple of highlights of the day.
For Jenny, that was passing her driver’s
test, and while some of the guys razzed her about it; I’m sure she’ll be a
decent-enough driver – and not require advance warning so that everyone else
can get off the road and out of her way.
I’m sure that you can guess why she’s so fired up about her new
freedom. Now she can go and visit Peter
too instead of relying on him to do all of the driving. I foresee many trips to Brookbridge for
Jenny; and don’t need to crank up the Sight to do that.
The other news bits are related – football and
cheerleading. I didn’t mention this with
the last football report, but our team is all but certain to make the playoffs
regardless of what happens on Friday against Pinehurst. Tim doesn’t think that’s a problem for our
team, but he is sure that his Captain and the other senior players have
temporarily lost their minds. We’ve lost
the only two games we’ve had so far this season against other, serious playoff
contenders. Pinehurst will be the third;
yet the older guys are practicing as though it’s no big deal. Coach is doing his best, but he probably won’t
have much luck dealing with the over-confidence that Jason is leading too many
of the guys into believing.
Our cheerleading squad doesn’t technically
have to worry about winning or losing our unofficial and unofficial cheer
competition with the Pinehurst squad, but we do want to do well at our last
regular season game; so we practiced very hard today – and finished up at
nearly the same time as the boys. Jenny’s
shiny new license was a top story during our practice too; along with a fair
bit of talk about plans for the Halloween weekend.
Speaking of that, Michael, Rowen, Tim, and
I don’t have much actual free time available for making our costumes; so we’re
going to dress up as the Scooby gang.
There’s a new Scooby-Doo cartoon series out this fall, so the kids will
recognize us; and wont’ take long to throw together. Michael and I are going to be Fred and Daphne
while Rowen and Tim will be Velma and Shaggy.
Tim wants to be Shaggy; and Rowen’s okay with being Velma – mostly as a
joke on her younger years when she was a self-admitted, shy bookworm. The easy costumes was the main factor in our
choice, and our only prop will be a stuffed Scooby-Doo that Tim is taking care
of ‘borrowing’ for us; but suspiciously can’t reveal the source without putting
us in extreme danger.
Let’s just pretend that he’s getting into
character or something and leave it alone.
After we were finished our practices,
Michael came home with me; we had dinner in the sunroom with Mom, Dad, and the
twins; stayed in the sunroom to do our homework; and then Michael stayed for
his first family business meeting.
Grandma and Grandpa are away, but Miranda came to the meeting too; along
with the rest of the usual gang. Having
Michael and Miranda there meant that we couldn’t talk about everything we might
normally include for the future plans side of things; but we just took care of
that after Miranda and Michael went home.
I’m not going to cover every detail; but
here’s a few highlights on the night – including a couple that were in that
short meeting extension.
The new bridge is coming along a bit ahead
of schedule thanks to less rain than usual around here in the fall, and barring
any major problems; it’s easily on-track to open by the Memorial Day holiday
next May. To go along with that, a
mini-plan for a pair of paths between the old and new section of town are going
ahead for spring too; along with that section of the pathway that we eventually
want to have built around the entire town and tied into the park paths. One of them is going to be on the south-side
lot line of the Emersons and Seagers houses, and while Aunt Leanne will
co-ordinate negotiating that little land buy for the town – and us; I’m sure it
won’t be a problem. The other one will
be south of Witch Falls Road somewhere so that everyone on that side of town
will have access to the path that’ll make for a quicker walk or bike ride over
to the new section of town – and over to the lab and med center too once the
bridge opens.
In other news, the Solar-Wind farm is doing
even better than hoped; and producing enough extra power right now that we
might even be able to cut the power bill prices to the customers in town – and maybe
in the entire Ridge River district.
Sure, our little investment there still needs to make a profit for the
investors that most don’t even know are from here in town; but we’ll still do
what we can to help our neighbors and friends anyway we can. Construction in the new section of town will
be entirely indoors for the winter soon; and that’s a particularly big deal at
the church this week because they’re building the construction zone wall in the
sanctuary that will stay up for most of the winter while the dividing wall
between the sanctuary and the section of the addition that will expand the
sanctuary by more than half is torn down and the work is continued on the
addition. It’ll be months still before
they’ll be ready to start the remodel that’ll make it one big sanctuary; but it
is starting to get exciting for everyone now – instead of just the Pastors and
everyone else directly involved in the project.
Miranda gave us an update on the
construction at the Inn, and now that Ayres’ Haberdashery is in the new store;
work on the main floor has started in the old store. The new kitchen will be there, along with a
dining room that can be divided into two rooms and used for private parties or
events. The plans are still fairly
flexible at this point, but whenever the new kitchen and dining rooms are ready
to go, they’ll decide how to make the move so that the old kitchen, dining
room, and entrance can be turned into one big dining room with room for around
five hundred.
Why is the thought of that having me glad
that Michael and I will be heading off to college a year or so after the new
and improved Inn is going to be open for business? I’m just half-kidding about that, Miranda!
;^)
On the town business front, the only
current news I have is that there will be no new businesses opening this fall. There will be others opening in time for
Memorial Day; but we didn’t talk about any of that tonight. We did talk about one future plan after
Michael and Miranda left that I’ll be leading the nudges for because it’s about
the future for two of my friends. Let’s
not get into too many details for that right now, but my new job is to talk
with Rebecca and Jenny about our home town and fast food. They both really wish we had that as an
option here; and I need to get them thinking about fixing that little problem
themselves when they grow up. I know
that sounds scary, but they are in Grade Eleven; and it really won’t be long
before they have to start thinking about what they want to take in college –
and then do with their lives after that.
I’ll keep you posted on how that goes, but I can tell you that I really
don’t expect the need for very many nudges on this one. Rebecca’s been wondering for a while how she’d
fit into the new plans at the Inn with her parents, Jake, and Stephanie running
the place. Jenny has the same problem
with her father and brother for the fix-it shop; though she’s not interested in
that kind of job anyway – and laughs anytime someone suggests she could be a
teacher like her mother.
For the record, I’m almost positive that
Ethan and Ehlana aren’t mixing up wishful thinking for their teen years with
our use of the Sight on this one; but they will be happy if this little bit of
our future plans work out.
By the time all of our guests left for the
night, it was closing in on eleven o’clock.
Mom still did a short Magi lesson with me before we helped to get Ethan
and Ehlana tucked in for the night; and then I came up to my room and got to
work – once I was changed and in bed with Mandy. Having the language studying done until after
Halloween helped a bit, but I still had a lot to do; and that’s why it’s
well-past two and I’m just ready to wrap up my day now. Tomorrow won’t be any better for that, and I
don’t have any major news from my work; so I’m going to finish this update too
and head off to sleep.
It’s been fun around here today even with
all of the work, and the momentum for fun around here is going to pick up speed
again every day between now and Saturday; so I’m out of here and off to
dreamland.
Until next time...
...May the Magi Force be with you!
