Of Deadlines and Blackouts

I'm not a big fan of deadlines. I see their purpose but I don't like them at times. Like Friday for example. We arrived in LA early (as in 1 am) on the 30th. Once we got up the next morning we got up and started figuring out the arrangements for unloading the trucks... to make a long story short we ended up having 12 hours to unload the trucks, pack the storage stuff, move the things going to the cottage to the cottage, and get the Immanuel Banners stuff where we needed it to go. Oh, and did I mention that LA is having a major heat wave so that it's actually over 100 the past couple of days? In fact on Friday we heard that it was 109 and we estimate that it was probably in the 120s in the truck. We were outside all day, so we were very tired, and very very hot. So anyway we did get the trucks unloaded and most of the stuff got where it needed to be. Because it was a Friday there weren't a lot of people from the church who could help, but a few did come and we hired professional movers to help unload and pack the storage unit and they took the IB stuff to its new location.

As of right now, the majority of the furniture is in the Dodd Cottage. We all have beds (a very, very good thing) the boxes on the other hand, or mainly out on the patio until we can sort through them for what we need or get them situated in/on the furniture.

Blackouts. Sure in Michigan we had one occasionally, have the power go out, but here... as I mentioned earlier, we're in the middle of a heat wave. So, I'm not sure if it's just the amount of power being used or if the power company is doing it to prevent the grid going out, but we have had blackouts for the past four days. Last night, it was out for so long, that we were about to go to sleep on the patio in our camp chairs and we ended up coming inside sometime in the middle of night, but the power didn't come back on until after 6 am. By the way, it's out again, for the fifth time. I might add that when the power goes out so does our AC, fortunately the power has been going out in the evening when the air temperature is cooling down.

We're all extremely tired (we've crashed), and we miss everyone in MI. But I'll remind everyone: I'm only a phone call or e-mail or Instant Message away.