Yea, the kids are home! Kind of strange how empty this place seemed while they were gone. Hurricane Fay came through in August and dumped a full foot of rain in two days, flooding the ground floor thoroughly and making hubby and I have to sleep on the fouton on the living room floor. We liked it being so handy so much that we stayed there for a month before putting the room back together. It was just us, who’s to care?

I never quite figured out how to cook meals for just the two of us either, the leftovers just kept piling up until the fridge was completely overloaded. It all eventually got tossed into the compost bin. When the pears ripened Da Bear came on in to feast, totally destroyed the trash bin to get to – whatever was in there he thought he could eat. Since we don’t toss food scraps, I’m guessing it was stale, flat, watered-down drips of beer from cans waiting for recycling.

Grandson only got to work a few days at his Dad’s comic book shop, but enjoyed it a lot. Didn’t earn anything for college, of course. His dreadlocks are dreadful, sort of a sickly green color from too much time in the neighbor’s swimming pool. Did manage to get his internal clock turned entirely backwards by the weird schedules of my sister’s family. Sister – the one who has a regular day-job – didn’t want to let him go, he’s the only one who could deal with my ‘headstrong’ 5-year old niece, who adores him. My sister has learned more about how NOT to give in to niece’s mad demands from my dear only-child grandson than she ever learned by just being a parent!

Daughter is exhausted from her nursing ordeal, very saddened by our old friend’s condition. She did get to accompany him to Costa Rica, which was a lot of fun for her despite 12 hour a day nursing duties. Met lots of cool ex-pats and locals, who took to calling her “Shiny-Girl” or “Tough-As-Nails” (because she could put up with the “Hard Man”).

They’re both very glad to be home, just before the autumn leaves peak. The fuel situation kept our Western North Carolina tourist season at bay all summer as people decided to just stay home, our October leaf-looker season is also looking to be a bust this year as the economy melts down. Tourism is the #1 industry here – at least half the citizens make their living off visitors one way or another – so we will of course suffer worse than most areas of the country. If it’s mere “recession” out there, it’ll be a full-fledged depression here.

So we’re going to reconnoiter about what to do from here to keep our home and property, have enough money to buy food, etc. Maybe start a new home business, sell my car to get daughter’s car fixed (needs an engine), whatever is necessary. In the meantime, I’m delighted to have ‘em home!

Live-in daughter and #1 grandson left for Florida just over a week ago. She’s signed on to help an old friend near Gainesville undergoing radiation and chemo for cancer, he’s working for his Dad to earn money for college and maybe a car. They’ll go to Oklahoma from there at the end of August to visit great-grandma, he’s put off enrollment until January.

Which is actually a good thing, I hear. College can be incredibly expensive, and often high school grads don’t do well if they start with just two months’ worth of break. Spending two years in academic transfer courses at the community college (all just basic requirements, straight transfer Junior year to UNC) can be a mellower introduction to college life and save a bundle.

The way it works here is that the community college is geared to cost a few hundred dollars less than the basic available Pell Grant for full-timers. Those few hundred dollars can be used for books and fees and supplies. Now, you can’t get your Pell Grant until after you’re accepted and registered, and you can’t register until you pay tuition. So to get started we and his Mom are somehow going to have to come up with the thousand or so dollars it’ll take for him to start. The grant will come in about the time his first semester is over, to be used to pay for his next semester. And we figure it’ll be January before we’ve saved that much.

We all know it’s very expensive to go to college. Daughter is still repaying her own student loans! So we’re hoping that once grandson’s on track in the system, grants and scholarships will cover the bulk of costs. Of course, in the current free-falling economy a college degree isn’t worth much (daughter has been working retail for peanuts these last few years because that’s all the jobs available). It’s just that in ANY sort of stratified economy a college degree is better than no college degree. The world – and this “artsy” region – simply doesn’t need another starving artist.

At any rate, Grandma’s just now bid so long to company that arrived just hours after the kids left, so this is Day-1 of MY vacation! No bad B Zombie movies too loud day and night in the background, no ten tons of laundry to do every day (I think they just throw clean clothes back because they’re too lazy to re-fold them), no big meals to prepare, no constant worrying about who’s coming, who’s going and who’s lost in the woods somewhere. Aaaaahhhhh… now if I only had a hot tub…