Charlotte Hausfield

All signs point to hurricane Gustav landing in or near New Orleans this weekend. The Mayor has ordered an evacuation of the city and thank goodness people are taking heed this time and getting out of harm’s way.

We are expecting at least 6,000 domestic refugees in our fair city. I have no idea where we will put them all, but I believe many of them will be housed in the National Guard Armory. It’s a huge facility and the military are set up to handle large groups like this, with chow and bunks. I’m glad that we can help.

My goodness, in today’s world you would think that a person could buy baby clothes without much searching. There are lots of babies born prematurely and with low birth weight, but it sure is hard to find any clothes to fit these tiny angels!

I went to Target, K-Mart and Wal-Mart and could not find any gowns for premies. In fact, Wal-Mart was the only store that had anything at all for premies, and that was just 4-5 little sleeper outfits. I’ll have to go to the mall and see if the Carter’s store and Oshgosh stores have anything. I didn’t expect to thave this much trouble over something that should be commonly available!

This has been a week of new babies! My nephew and his wife welcomed their new baby girl to the family, and also my good friend from Russia and his wife have brought a new baby daughter into this world! Funny how these things go. Both babies are girls. Both babies are the first born for each couple. Both babies were due in September but were born in August. And both babies are in California, although one is in San Diego and the other is in San Francisco.

So it is off to the mall to shop for baby things to send as welcoming gifts to these precious little bundles of joy out on the west coast. I hope to get to see both of them while they are still babies!

We decided to take a walk on the wild side and go to the movies tonight. It was hard to pick which one to see – this summer had a lot of “blockbusters” and there are a few that I think would be best seen on the big screen at the movie theatre rather than waiting for it to come out on DVD and watch at home. Besides, a movie is more fun when you pay $10 for a box of popcorn and your feet stick to the floor from all the spilled sodas and pieces of candy dropped by the kids at the previous showing.

My nephew is spending his summer in Philadelphia as an intern. He is hoping to get some real life experience in his chosen field to make sure he wants to continue to major in engineering.

We are all so proud of him – he is going to Princeton on a full scholarship! He finished the first year with A’s and B’s and we expect him to continue to do well.

He’s always been an excellent student and he’s very diligent in his studies. But he also likes to have a little fun. I am so proud of him for not letting the fun get in the way of his studies like so many college students are prone to do their first year away from mom and dad.

He’s a great guy and I’m sure he will do well in Philly this summer, too. Perhaps his mother and I should plan a little weekend trip to Philly to say hello and do a little sightseeing.