Bad financials, babysitting, Jake

Yesterday was an interesting day as far as the stock markets were concerned. After opening almost 1,100 points down it settled at 588 points down. That is not a good sign. ConocoPhillips stock has lost more than half of its value from a high of around $85/share. For those of us who will be forced out of the company soon, that is a very bad financial landscape.

There is little we can do but adapt and make the best of things, but there are those in the company who are desperately worried about their future. Fortunately, my hope is not in this world. It truly is “out of this world”. Today looks much brighter for the markets, but that too will not last long. I will continue to look for my chance to buy back into our company stock at a price I have set for that purchase – we aren’t there yet. I only hope to be here long enough to make that transaction.

Locally, the dry weather continues so I have to water several times per week. It is a pleasant chore. Mama and I really like to watch things grow. As I have stated before we have a much better chance of success here than we ever did on the farm in Bowie. Danny Benson is quickly discovering that although he, like us, takes a long view of things. We will eventually figure out how to make things work in our favor. Until then we will experiment to see which methods are most successful.

Mama had the Echeveria kids at the farm with her when I got home yesterday. The house was not the normally quiet sanctuary I find at the end of the work day. But that is not a bad thing. Erin and the kids are traveling to Chicago this morning – their flight left at 4:30 a.m. – so she needed some time to get things together for that trip. I am not sure how she was able to accomplish that in the absence of her “helpers”.

It did not take long after Mama took the children to meet Erin at the church for us to straighten up the house. Luke, the oldest, tends to make himself very much at home which gives him permission to play with anything that catches his eye and to deposit that item anywhere that suits him. He has very definite ideas about how things should be done. We just have to learn how to work within those parameters.

Before Mama took the kids to the church she wanted to make one more round to water the pigs and check on the cattle. Since she was going to feed the pigs I got the overripe bananas and cantaloupe out of the fridge so Gracie could help her with that chore. When Luke saw the inedible fruit on the kitchen table he immediately threw than in the trash. The fact that we fished them out really disgusted him. I would love to hear how he told his parents about that.

We had FBI class last night and Jake hung in there with us through the three hour session by watching movies on his phone in the fellowship hall of the church. At the second break, around 8:40 I asked him what he was watching and he could not remember. I teased him about that for the few minutes we were on break. When we packed up to go home he gave me a complete rundown on the movie he had watched – complete with a Rotten Tomato review of the feature film to back up his own analysis.

I suppose I asked for that.