The Calm Before the Storm

Hello again, and welcome back.

We're pretty much back in the swing of things here. The jet lag is gone, the nights are back to normal, and we're no longer geeking out over the simplest things. Oddly enough, I've noticed that I make far more comparisons and allusions to Florence now than I did just after coming back. Maybe I miss it, and maybe it's just becoming more clear the farther back from it I stand. Anyway, things are returning to normal. The exterminator just finished his follow-up fumigation at our house, and I can't wait to finally unpack all of my things from their plastic bags and get settled again. Because my house is literally full of noxious gas, I'm writing from the loft at Mrs. Bortins', looking out over the lake and enjoying the beauty of the start of Autumn. I miss the foliage of Vermont, but this place is making up for it with incredible weather. Things are changing around here, and not just outside. Mrs. Bortins gave us all new work assignments today, cutting most of our work hours down from twenty a week to just five. She still plans to keep us busy with service work for her company, for our upcoming presentations, and with quite a few other projects she has up her sleeve. Thankfully, I get to keep the blog on top of my other work, but we're all getting new assignments.

There's not much to tell of the week we've been back. It's been fairly tame. Many people went home, and the rest of us dreamed of it. Gracsyn celebrated her 18th birthday two weekends ago, and her family came to visit, bearing cake and embarrassing stories. We all had an exceptionally good time. We take the SATs in two weeks, so Leigh has really given us both barrels with the practice— we've been doing two tests a day, back to back, to try to get us used to it. When Saturday came along, a dozen or so of us showed up at Mrs. Bortins to take a full SAT— too early and too long, just like the real one. We were all a little surprised. I had forgotten how little math there was and felt pretty well prepared. Our scores are encouraging. Honestly, I just want October 5th to hurry up and get here. We've spent almost three months working up to this test, and I think we're all about as good as we're going to get. It's time to face it.

So that's my brief recap! We simply haven't had as many escapades and adventures since we got back. However, with less hours to work, and all these beautiful days and nights, I expect I'll have something to write about soon enough.

Until then I remain your servant,
Barnabas