Today we went back to the house we visited yesterday with the same crew we had + 3 united way volunteers. We finally finished the wall that we left incomplete from the day the water pipe broke !! Looks awesome…would love to see it after it has a coat of paint on. We hit a few snags on the way but nothing we didn’t expect… placing the boards in the right spot, putting up insulation, tolerating zoe for 8 hours :p.
Today I spent 45 minutes crawling around in an attic pulling nails out of the floor and walls and while up there I could see lines where the water level had risen to during the Hurricane. I couldn’t stop staring at those marks almost 12 feet above ground level, still there 4 years later.
When Ed (the home owner) stopped by today around 11.30, he stared at the half finished wall for almost a minute and said, “You guys have done an awesome job.” Just one sentence but it had such an impact on us and pumped us up some more. At the CCC meeting today evening, Michael (the volunteer coordinator) told all of us the we may be just one drop but without us the ocean would be one drop less. Those two incidents really inspired me and convinced me that this was worth it. Flying across the country, choosing to spend my spring break in this way is not a sacrifice of any kind but an experience I don’t ever want to forget.
Overall : finished wall + using a big mechanical saw + mother teresa quotes + mac and cheese + spades + failed ice cream run + clarence and christy taking funny pictures of my foot = awesome day :D