Jobness

Seem's like jobs are all the rage now, especially with the people in desperate need of money. That would be me. So life at the farm has been pretty interesting lately. I'm pretty sure I posted about the fire last Tuesday, so that bit of excitement is out of the way. So, updates, since then...

I am only working 7 hours now instead of full time, due to the fact that there is pretty much nothing for me to do after 2:30 when everyone else has gone home. It's fine by me, though. Sure, it's minus an extra eight bucks a day, but that doesn't seem enough worth it to stick around bugging Tamara and Belinda about something to do. I very effectively cleaned every single stinkin' onion and garlic clove in the storage stall within about 2 or 3 days of working on 'em. And there were 5 boxes full, each about 3'x1.5'x8"...that's a whole heck of a lot of garlic and onions. It was nice though. When I was working on those I got to sit under the tree in the courtyard...in the shade, might I add...and my only responsibilities were to the onions and the people walking by with questions. But as soon as those ran out, I was left with nothing to do. So now I go home at 2:30 instead of 3:30, and have an extra hour to bum around when I get home. :D Any questions?

The only annoying thing about work so far is a couple people who seem to have an obsession with turning me from a non-rule-breaking, non-drinking, non-smoking, sort of girl into one who thinks it's great fun when the cops get called on her. Seriously, their latest joke (besides the usual: "Just call me whenever you decide to get drunk!" and "Your life isn't gonna be exciting if you don't drink!") is that I need to figure out some way to get onto the police blotter. All the calls into the police station are recorded in the newspaper the next day, and apparently they get stupid ones all the time (suspicious man walking down the road holding suitcase), so all I have to do is go TP someone's house and spray-paint my name all over the place. I seriously wonder why these people say I don't have a life. 'Cause really, they're the ones spending all their time getting wasted, going to work with hangovers, and trying to convince underage kids to do the same.

Geeze.

This seems like a good place to throw in a "Some people's kids!" in a really exasperated tone.

GAHHHH!

Some people's kids.

Busy week, man.

It has been a definately busy week. Majorly. Second week of work, so I'm finally getting the hang of things, but there's always something that I haven't learned yet that I have to figure out on the spot, and something new to do...Goodness. Anyway, the exciting height of my year happened this week.

On with the story...

So Chris was gopher blasting the other day, blowing those little creatures outta their holes so that he could whack them with a shovel and chuck 'em over the varmint proof fence. (At least there's one of us who enjoys their job completely. =D) Well, this gopher blasting machine (named the Gopher Blaster...wow. talk about origional, right?) contains a mixture of propane and oxygen, which, when pumped into holes at high volumes is pretty effective, and makes a big boom that sounds a ton like a gunshot. Kinda freaked me out the first few times, but I eventually got over it, and began to connect each explosion with some amount of fun being had on one end or the other of that machine. So this one boom boomed as normal, and of course, I didn't think much of it.

And then Chris started hollering bloody murder. Yeah, that kinda got everyone runnin'. The two men I was with took off at a run...up the hill. I was majorly impressed, 'cause that hill is a killer. The golf carts can barely make it up it when they're floored. Gah. But then I heard another holler...This one was "FIRE!!!".

OH!

So everyone else started moving around lickety split, and I was stuck next to the tomato patch I was weeding, not having any idea what to do. This was another one of those things that I hadn't been taught anything about and was supposed to figure out in time to do something. So I took off toward the fire, hoping that some opprotunity would present itself and show me what to do. I didn't know where any fire extinguishers were, or what to do without one, so I kinda just stood there a little while longer. Then I spotted a rake someone had dropped, grabbed it, and started copying what everyone else was doing, which was, I figured out a couple minutes later, digging a trench around the fire that was getting steadily larger. A couple of people had cut limbs off the peach trees and were whacking at the fire with those, but they weren't really hindering it at all, so we were all pretty relieved when Brent showed up with the water tank. He drove around and soaked it and it pretty much disappeared after that.

THEN came the sirens. Seriously, some people just have the worst timing.

Too many things happening at once!

As pointed out by my mom, it has indeed been 3 days since i posted. I acknowledge the truth in this statement, but I must be allowed to defend myself: It was all from sheer lack of energy.

For those of you who actually have a little window into my un-blogger life, you know i managed to get a job last Tuesday. Super excited. It's another farm, a lot like last year, except I actually have to work here. A lot. Monday, Wednesday, Friday is picking day. That includes making our way through every single row of berry bushes, picking any veggies/squash that had ripened, as well as doing any little jobs that needed to be done. Tuesday and Thursday qualify as chore days. weeding, crop thinning...anything that needs to be done. and it's all done in 90 plus degree weather. Fun stuff, no? lol.

I'm not sure if minimum wage is enough. :D jk. it is interesting, though, because it seems that i'm the youngest person there. By a long shot. I am the only one under twenty. Oy much. But it's still fun. There are about 10 or 12 people that I have officially met. I don't remember everyone's names, so I'll do the best I can.

Belinda-Boss lady. Big hair. Kind of intimidating.

Tamara-Other boss lady. Really cool.

MaryKate (when one name isn't enough)-she's kinda my mentor...showing me the ropes, and everything.

Guy-our resident Brit.

Taylor-no background info

Chris-pretty awesome...went to NU, was in the choir. lots to talk about there!

and lastly...Kory Simmons-his mother was the secretary at CP school, and I'm pretty sure he was my Big Buddy in kindergarten. Not sure though.

So anyway, that's the work update. Now Sierra's here,and within the first hour or two, we had already busted so many gussets that...i dunno. we busted a lot of gussets. whatever. :P

Sierra: Am I blending yet?!? I am one with the hammock!

Me: ... *insert laughter*

I guess...

...that if I'm going to catch up to mom's blog, maybe I should actually post now and then, hmmm? Yeah, see, I've got this problem with consistency...

Sooooo.....news....can't think of any at this minute. ummm...oooh! i learned a couple new songs. I'm pretty sure that everyone who's heard them is getting thoroughly sick of E.T. Paull. :D Well, they can just deal with it, now can't they? At least now I don't complain about not having new songs to learn. Except I don't anymore, 'cause I've already learned 'em. Gah. Bummer day in the mornin'. Suggestions anyone?

I've officially decided that I'm actually looking forward to school this year. Reason being that so far, each year of school has actually seemed to improve on the last one in some way, so it stands to reason that, seeing as last year was pretty good, next year will be even better. (I know...my brilliant perception of the obvious stuns everyone. It's just a talent I happen to be blessed with. :D) Seriously, I get to go to Ireland! For two weeks! And miss a week of school! And then make up all my homework afterwards!

Wait...

Something's wrong with this picture.

GAH! Summer's slipping by too fast!

Jehova Witlesses

So I was woken up this morning by the doorbell. Twice. Since the person at the door had to ring a second time, i figured no one else had heard it, so i jumped (almost literally) out of bed and scurried down the hall to get it. I met mom just as she was coming back from the living room, and was at first struck with a whole big load of confusion as to why she was going towards the wrong end of the house to answer the door. (I really wasn't awake) When she finally managed to stop me, she whispered that it was a couple of JW's. I only pondered this briefly, before heading back to bed. I slept for 3 more hours. When I woke up again (at 11 :D) I pondered some more.

Why in the world were JW's knocking on our door at eight in the morning? Don't they have anything better to do with their time? (Of course not...we all knew that already, didn't we?) I gave up thinking about it for another couple hours (yeah, I think I have ADD...on again off again much) but about 10 minutes ago, I remembered it again. What if their coming here so early was a prank? Possibly a frenemy thought it would be fun to call them and request a meeting...gave them our adress, and thought it would be fun to point out that we're early risers? (except not) It would definately be a cruel joke. Entertaining, too of course, to the other party. It would definately require some serious retaliation, but I highly doubt that someone had actually done that.

But inspiration has already struck.

Wouldn't it be fun to do that to someone?

I'm feeling kinda evil.

So if a couple JW's show up on your doorstep at 6 in the morning...

Think of me. :D

Feel free to loathe me.

I would definately deserve it.

The best part about the whole scheme is that they never give up. I'm betting they could keep up the whole thing for a couple months...and you would have lots of fun finding new places to hide. Maybe I'll start a Witless protection program. :D




You love me.

It's about time

For me to post another blog. Seriously, I am incredibly bad at posting (in case you hadn't noticed). I was looking at my own mother's blog the other day, and it would appear that she has something over 90 posts, while I have...60. And I'm pretty sure I've had mine at least twice as long as she has. How dum-b (that's pronounced dum-b, if that confused you at all. Aren't I maddeningly unhelpful? :D) Anyway, getting back in the swing of blog forgetfulness, I should probably update everyone (forget everyone...how many people actually read this thing? Myself not included, I would have to say...just you. :P feel alone?) on our trip, which incidentally ended about 2 days ago.

So we left Monday...three weeks ago...I have no idea what the date was (ask mom, if you really care) and trekked out. The first stop on the roster was the ever famous Safeway of Grass Valley, home of Starbucks. Sufficiently pumped up on caffein and/or sugar, we hit the road again, and actually managed to stay there for a while, until a bathroom was needed. The next planned stop was U. Lloyd and A. Jenny's. In Idaho. About 9 hours away. So that meant about 3 more unplanned bathroom/junk food/gas stops before we actually got there. Fun, no? We spent the night at L&J's, then earlyish the next morning set out again. This time we got to stop at the International House of RoundThingsResemblingPansAndCakes for breakfast with Lenora and her husband, who, until that point, had remained unmet by us. So we met him. Onward...

Next stop...a bunch of cousins with little kids we hadn't gotten to meet yet. Adorable! Then onto Devon. There were tons of people there that I had never seen before, but wouldn't you know it, we WERE related to 80% of them, so we couldn't really just walk by and pretend we didn't know them. Especially if mom was there. "Hey Kara, there's someone here I want you to meet! This is your great-Aunt Suzy's nephew's daughter's friend's cousin, who married your third cousin's step-brother-in-law a couple years ago, and has three kids that you should go find...one of them's your age. Or maybe she's twenty. I'm not sure."

Anyway...

Stayed for teardowns, which were pretty much completely uneventful for us females, because somehow the guys got it into their heads that we couldn't really do anything except run stuff up to the house. At least I got to use the golf cart. :D That was all pretty much done by 11ish. I eventually got a job taking down curtains with my friend's girlfriend's little sister. It was pretty fun. Then pretty much everyone left, except for me, Steph, Kevin, Trevor, Logan, Megan, and John. It was fun though. Grandpa let me get out the go-cart, so I took off on that, and was having bunches of fun, until grandpa came out and told me to put it away because I was driving recklessly. I had to agree...just a tad...I got pretty good at drifting though. :D

On to Amber's...tons of fun. Nothing to comment on though.

Back to the Grandparent's. Fun. Saw U. Cliff and A. Jewel. Made danishes. :D

Uncle Jerry's. I hate Washington. Gah. Too much traffic.

Random stops to visit people I don't know. See mom's blog to read more about those.

Sierra's!!!!! Yay. She makes me laugh. :D Got there latish Thursday night, and stayed up "all night". All night, to Sierra, is midnight, because after that, it's morning. :D We stayed up until one, anyway. Then got up at seven to go to a Fourth of July shindig at the Sullivan's over in Madras. Drove for three hours to get there around 11:30. Frank Maricle was there, and apparently completely surprised to see me. What can I say...some people are painfully unobservant. :D So we played a whole bunch of volleyball, and swam, and I even got to play the piano (which is now one of my favorite pianos ever. I don't like ours much anymore). Somehow, Sierra and Drew managed to start the granddaddy of all water fights. It was pretty much amazing. Except I got thrown in at least four times...by the same person. And then dunked. By that same person again. I was considerably waterlogged by the end of it all.

Went to see the fireworks later in the evening. I was completely pooped, so I just sat on the blanket and watched everyone else play Duck, Duck, Goose waiting for the fireworks to start. They did, eventually, and they were pretty cool. Definately loud, especially with a bunch of stuff to echo off of. Wow.

Spent the night at the Sullivans, and left later that morning. Sierra and I just hung out for the rest of the time we were there (unless I'm forgetting something. I don't know), then we left on Tuesday. But she's coming down here next week!! Goodygoody. :D

K, fingers are tired now.

Hope you enjoyed the update.