Jones Family Reunion

Today, the first of the three families arrives for our Jones family reunion. Mary Jane's brother, Jeremy, and his wife and child, Nelda and Andrea, have driven in from Texas. Mary Jane's sister, Amy, her husband, Tod, and children, Elliott and Emily, fly down from Vermont on Thursday. Mary Jane's other brother and his wife, Dan and Laura, are driving down from Washington, D.C., at the end of the week and will get here on Thursday, probably. They have six: Laurel, Elaina, Selena, Lydia, Marielle and brand new Nathanial. On Saturday, we're driving over to Panama City for the big Jones family reunion, with all of Dad's family. This will be the first time all of us kids and grandkids are together with Mom and Dad in almost 10 years. And we've never all been to a big Jones family reunion together. It should be a lot of fun.

On a completely different topic, I have given my two weeks notice at my current job and start a new job on the 13th. My soon-to-be new employer actually offered me this job before I started working where I work now. However, they had to take it back, as the person who was leaving decided to stay. Well, the person is leaving for real and they called me to see if I was still interested. The compensation is better and the location is more convenient, so I have taken the new post. I will be working in graphic design (still) on print projects, signs and vehicle graphics. It's sort of combination between my first two jobs.

I am coming to the end of The Stand, by Stephen King. I have been listening to it for some time. It is better than I had thought, and I have high expectations for all Stephen King books. He is -- by far -- my favorite author. He has such a way of writing that completely captivates me and makes me want to write. I'll try to remember to let you know if it ends well.

You've got to start somewhere

Mary Jane, my ever-lovin' wife, has decided to start a blog. Being as scared of all things technical as she is, she asked me to familiarize myself with Blogger in order to teach her how to use the Web site. Back when I MySpaced, I used to blog quite regularly. Facebook, on the other hand, does not have such a system and I did not continue the task. So, here I am, starting a blog again. We'll see where it leads.

Something I think I'll catalog is our remodel process. After moving to Florida and deciding that living with the in-laws is not "all bad," we (the four of us: Mom Jones, Dad Jones, Mary Jane and I) have decided to enlarge the house in order to accommodate us all more easily so that we can continue to cohabitate. The house currently includes a single-car garage which contains a sofa, a golf cart, and lots of junk. Behind that is a fairly large laundry room with some cabinets for storage. We're going to take that space and turn it into a new entry, a nice-sized office and a dining room. The current dining room will be absorbed into the kitchen, doubling its size, and a new addition will be added to the rear of the house, consisting of a master suite and new laundry room. We also hope to add a covered car port onto the end of the addition and a screened in porch beside it. We'll have to see if the funds are available. So, the process is complete thus far: We have drawn up the plans and given them to the group of fellas who will do the work. They are working on drawing up the plans officially and pricing the portions in order to let us know how much we'll be able to complete and, perhaps, how we can complete it all in stages. I was advised this morning that we should be having a meeting some time this week with them. So, that's where we are so far with that.