Ji Eun has arrived!

Blogging from Bruce
August 5, 2008

Vonda Keon


Well it is still a little bit dicey over here at the corner of Chaos and Insanity Road. Last Friday I arrived home from work to discover that it was a less than cozy, 95 degrees plus inside the house. Our central A/C had gone caput. A quick call to the air conditioner doctor brought some relief as cool air started to blow again. The girls and I decided to make a fast run up to Oxford to pick up groceries and some specialty foods that we needed to make our newest family member Ji Eun feel more at home when she arrived on Saturday afternoon.

While we were in Wal Mart, the power went out. Have you ever been inside a Wal Mart and the lights go out? Well it’s not something I want to do again. You could have heard a pin drop. Finally the generators kicked on and the managers made the announcement that the registers would work for 40 minutes so everyone gingerly made their way slowly to the front of the store to check out with what they had. It was pretty dark in there too! When we made it outside we realized that all of Jackson Avenue was without power. That power outage was just the tip of the iceberg that was out there lurking to try and sink me!

We arrived home to discover that the A/C was not cooling again and the 1960’s, ugly harvest gold refrigerator had hiccupped also due to the power surges of Thursday night’s storms. So I lost what was in the refrigerator. Thankfully, being the pack rat that I am, we do have a much newer model in the downstairs that works just fine. So as the girls loaded all of our perishables in the downstairs fridge, I was upstairs sweating with the oldie and cleaning it out.

After about 5 minutes of sweating dripping off the end of my nose and running down my back, and dealing with melting ice and tossing out questionable food stuffs, I knew the girls could not sleep upstairs, so I did what any red blooded American woman would do. I called my Mama! Now Mom’s A/C is cooling so well, my glasses fog up when I leave her house, so the girls gladly grabbed their little ditty bags and headed down the hill to Grandmommie’s for a much cooler place to sleep while I stayed at home in the basement with many fans blowing on me.

I had to work the weekend shift at my office so I left home at 6AM. I was praying most of the early morning that the A/C would be a fairly simple fix because I didn’t want Ji Eun to come to the USA and to our home and it be like an oven! My phone started ringing at 8:30. First it was Scott calling to tell me that the part on the A/C that needed replacing was in warranty and he was driving back to Tupelo to pick it up. Then I got the call that Ji Eun had missed her flight so she would not arrive until Monday evening at 8:15. Ok. So that was how the Lord answered my prayesr. We still had time to finish her room, get the A/C working and the house cooled back down, and do something about that refrigerator. Plus she got to stay in LA two more days and go to Universal Studios.

We worked the rest of the weekend on the little finishing touches upstairs. The downstairs still has a ways to go but I must brag on the Asian Style bed my industrious husband built me. I actually slept all night long without waking and didn’t have a single ache or pain. The little refrigerator experienced a resurrection and started cooling again. So its primary function will be to keep bottled drinks and snack cold. I still don’t trust it even thought it did chill me a great bowl of peach jello.

Monday afternoon we headed on to Golden Triangle Regional Airport to meet Ji Eun. We stopped over at Coleman’s to fill up the car. They are still helping out the pocket book by selling their gas less than most folks. I visited with Kegan and discussed his school future as Scott was pumping gas. Then we were on our way to the GTR to meet our exchange student.

It’s a good thing we arrived early at GTR. Ji Eun’s flight arrived 30 minutes early. She is so sweet. And TALL. She stands 5 ft 8 in her Chuck Taylors! American flights being what they are now, half of her luggage did not arrive. So we had to fill out a report on that and told them to deliver it to our house. I will have to call them back tomorrow and keep on them about that. She was starving because she had not eaten on the flight so we introduced her to Zaxby’s chicken before hitting the road back to Bruce. She fell asleep on the drive back and woke up about the time we got to the Square.

Ji Eun comes from Seoul Korea which has nearly 23 million people. Can you imagine what Bruce looks like to her with its 2000 plus citizens? This is going to be an adventure for all of us in many ways. As I am writing this, she has fallen asleep exhausted. Ariel is taking her and Erin shopping for school supplies on Tuesday in preparation for school starting on Wednesday. Ariel will leave on Saturday for her college experience at the W and when we leave her we will stop at GTR and pick up the second exchange student, Ping.

Hopefully the Chaos and Insanity will leave here and a little Feng Shui can bring balance back to our lives. I know I can pray about that and God will answer me!