Tuesday, August 30, 8:30 PM. Garrett.

I haven’t been writing in my diary all that much. But I was reading through what I had written so far and it’s actually pretty interesting. I had already forgotten about that day when we picked up our van from Dallas and found the geiger counter, even though it was just a few weeks ago. Sometimes at night when I get into bed and don’t have anything else to do, it’s nice to write down what’s going on. I guess I’ll keep doing it.

Dad and I went over to the farm to start getting set up to live there. The house at the farm is really nice. I’ll miss this house, I guess. We’ve lived here forever. But the new house is a lot bigger and nicer. I’ve already picked out my room and Dad says I can have it. It’s upstairs and big and it’s got its own bathroom. I’ve got a desk and shelves and a window that looks out over the fields.

Dad spent most of the day driving, looking for propane, while I stayed at the farm. He says we’re going to burn through a lot of it. The house has a big tank. He thinks we’ll have to fill it up every week! After a few hours he came back with a tanker truck full.

While he did that, I stayed behind and worked on getting the pool clean. I also worked on cleaning the house for when we move in. He says Mom and Claire and Trevor will feel a lot more at home if the house doesn’t look like someone just up and abandoned it, so I’m taking out a lot of things and putting them in a trash truck. It feels really weird to be walking around in someone else’s house with their jeans and toys and dirty dishes and phones all lying around. It smells funny, like old socks and strange deodorant. I keep thinking they’re going to walk in on me and get mad. I had sort of gotten used to that feeling when we’re scavenging, going into some house for a few minutes just to find something. It feels worse when we’re taking the whole place over for good.

When Dad got back he helped clean up too. We’ll keep most of the furniture and a few of the plates and pans and things. We’ll see what Mom wants to keep. Maybe she’ll want to repaint some. I like the bed in my bedroom just fine, but maybe we’ll get new covers because I don’t like Texas Tech that much.

Dad picked up a new basketball net while he was out. On the right side of the house, if you’re looking at it, there’s kind of an open concrete area that connects the garage to the barn and the actual driveway. There’s a pretty nice basketball hoop beside it but the net was all torn up, so we replaced it. We played a quick game before we came home. It was really hot, but fun.