An off kilter labor day weekend

Most of my classes and classwork are online. I have one class (G) that meets in real life once a week. Another class (R) meets in real life every other week, with online interaction in the interim. The third class (A) is completely online. Labor Day weekend was approaching, and my mom up in Georgia was both sick and making noises about my lawn needing to be mowed. I decided that since my class that meets in person had already met, and that since the rest of my work could be done from wherever I happened to be, I'd spend a few days up in Georgia. I decided to go Thursday through Sunday, the idea being that I would miss the Labor Day Friday to Monday traffic. That part of the plan worked well. The part about doing schoolwork while I was gone? Not so much.

I left Thursday morning - taking Charlie and Mochi with me. I decided to take the back roads, which as I've mentioned before are substantially more interesting than driving the interstates. It took two hours longer than the interstate route, but there is just so much more to see! The area of highway 17 between Deland and Palatka in particular has sooooo many interesting things to see that I could spend weeks exploring that area. Instead, however, I didn't stop more than just a couple of times. This is because poor Charlie got carsick around Cassleberry (which, for those of you who don't know, is an Orlando suburb). I had to pop into a Publix for paper towels, then pull over several times to clean up after the poor girl. I figured I should make as straight a go of it as I could for her sake.

I did have to stop and snag a picture of this (in Sanford, maybe?)
I have no idea where the time went while I was home. Granted, I just managed to piss away five months there without accomplishing hardly anything, so I'm not sure how it is that I expected to be efficient with my school work while being there for an extended weekend. Still, I guess I got a good bit done. I played with all the animals - take a look at Blondie! (Remember her?) She looks a tad hungover here; I woke her up while trying to take a picture of her asleep:

I took my aunt shopping, went with my mom to get hay for the horses, took Grey Kitty to the vet for his steroid injection, mowed my lawn, weeded my garden, and (sort of) supervised the roofers who were working on my roof. Oddly enough, my 90 year old roof was not leaking... although it sure looked like it would leak all the time, which is why my insurance company demanded that some work be done. Sigh. All the loose tin panels have been firmly secured, the entire roof has been double-coated with cool seal (making it white), and a possum may or may not have been sealed into my attic. I guess I'll find out next time I'm home :/

Top: Before, Bottom: After
I did get a *little* schoolwork done - I posted two postings to one of my online discussions (for R class), caught up on my reading for R, and got about halfway caught up on my reading for A. I didn't get any of my work done for my assistantship. Sigh.
Friday night I had thought I'd heard water running when I was in my backyard, but it was getting dark and I couldn't see what was making the noise. I checked, and nothing was running inside, so I made a mental note to check it out Saturday morning. And forgot. This morning, right before I left, I noticed the source of said noise:

Yay, hole in the pipe.
Luckily mom was able to convince the same people who fixed the roof to fix this as well.
I decided to leave early this morning, and to take the interstates so that I would get home - and thus be able to get back to work - sooner. I got home sooner, but then I took a three hour nap. Yeah. So needless to say, I've got a lot of catching up to do. Reading and web discussions, here I come!