Sarah Jane Humke

So yeah, not a lot coming from this corner for a bit.  I’ve been, you know, busy y’all!

So, where were we last?  Oh yeah!  I went to Florida to deal with house and storage unit and to catch up with my wonderful Florida peeps.  The damage to my house wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been but bad enough that it is going to be a P.I.T.A. to fix.  I think that the people who broke into the house weren’t of the same gang that has been going around to vacant houses and completely cleaning them out of everything including the wiring, appliances and fixtures for which I am glad.  I think that the people who took the A/C unit just needed an A/C.  I guess I can understand this but at the same time (and this is probably a tad on the mean-spirited side) I hope that you get it all installed and working and then it leaks all over your drywall causing many expensive repairs.  I mean, that would be pretty much perfect karma there!  So here are some pictures of the damage I was (and still am) dealing with.

 

I drove my father’s monster van down there.  He gets irritated with me when I say that as he doesn’t think that it is all that big.  But when you are looking down at all the pickups and nearly all the other vans on the road and can look in at the truckers nearly on their level then I think it pretty safe to say that it’s a bloody big van!

The reason that I drove the beast down there (other than wanting to look like a bad-ass [not sure how much I succeeded on that front!]) was that there was a storage unit that we still had stuff in that needed to be cleaned-out.  We had left a lot of appliances and electronics behind as they don’t work over there and (if you’ve been reading the blog for a while you already know this) we were worried it wasn’t all going to fit in a 40′ container.  So I got to clean-out a 10’X10′ storage unit with over 2 years worth of dead black widows in it.  Yeah, there was a black widow spider infestation at some point (I’m told that this was normal for the entire area) and it was all sorts of fun figuring-out if any of them were still alive.  Now normally these spiders don’t bother me too much.  I mean really, they are truly a “live and let live” sort of creature.  But in this case there were just so many of them that I was afraid that I was going to just “bump” into a web a little too forcefully and piss-off it’s inhabitant.  Luckily, there only seemed to be one that was alive in the whole unit and I set it free in the great outdoors.  Anyway, by the time I left, the unit looked like this:

Since I was down there I got to spend a goodly amount of time with the Hookers.  I made it to 2 meet-ups and the Christmas party.  I didn’t take a lot of photos at these as I never ever remember to take my camera out until it is too late.  But at the Christmas party we did a group shot which I had the presence of mind to throw my camera at one of the photographers to get a couple of shots.

I was also well booked for lunches and dinners meeting with folks I’ve not seen in a couple of years.  It was great to get to hang out with friends and catch-up with what is going on in their lives.  We get such a fragmented picture of what is happening from things like Facebook and twitter that it really shows just how much live, in-person communication is still a needed and necessary thing.

Plus it’s still hard to get hugs over the internet.

I drove the same route back as I did down with the minor exception of taking the Atlanta bypass around the city rather than going straight through it as my lovely Georgiana instructed on the way down.  She was still quite insistent that downtown was the best way to go on the way back but I turned her off until she could come to her senses.

Luck or fate or Mother Nature or whatever you want to call it was on my side throughout this entire trip.  I didn’t have any severe weather going in either direction (for which I am extremely thankful) and really it was just a heck-of a lot of driving.

Since I’ve been home it’s been all about getting ready for Christmas.  There was a tree to set-up and decorate and the presents to wrap (this has been a task delegated to me since early childhood) and dogs to wash.  Ok, so that last one isn’t strictly a Christmas thing, but you know, stinky dogs do bring down the holiday spirit:-)

I’ve been trying to get things ready for my new job which starts in January.  I’m not going to say much about it except that it will have me all over the state of Iowa so be ready for lots more of my photos from behind the wheel (don’t try that at home!).  I’ll also be traveling to South Carolina for a bout of training so there might be some more travel pictures too.