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Friday, August 20, 2004

Renewal

Free labor is the best kind….and it’s best volunteered to friends that you couldn’t be happier for. Pretty much every night this week and next week I’ve been lending my good friends Shannon & Dave my two hands as they get their newly-bought house ready to be inhabited and become a home. Spraying the basement with a bleach solution for mold, wiping down and taping off walls to be painted, you know, the norm. And, I’ve done a fair share of construction work on my mission trips to Mexico (which if you know me, you know I thoroughly enjoy digging in and getting my hands dirty), but this endeavor opened up the opportunity for me to do something I never had. Rip out plaster lath walls.

It’s a dirty, messy, dusty job….but someone’s gotta do it when the plaster is smeared on soo thick that Dave has affectionately called it the Cake Room (the walls look like thick smeared icing). So, I gave it my best effort, which turned out to be pretty good! Hoisting that crow bar, busting through the plaster, yanking out the wood lath….it’s all been sort of therapeutic. Working with my two capable hands, emerging from a night of mask-and-safety-goggle-laden-fellowship with a layer of dust settling completely over my whole body was just what I needed. As crazy as that sounds. But I’m sure a handful of you will understand.

Oh…and me being the Martha Stewart/Betty Crocker/Bob Villa mix that I am, made a batch of the softest chocolate cookies with scrumptious dried cherrie surprises iside. If you want me to make you a batch…lemme know, I may trade you something for them... (Amber loved them so much she offered to give me a massage if I made her some, yay!)

As I glance out the window the skies are looking ominous, much to my delight. The weather.com foercast for zipcode 45410 is showing 80% strong storms…those graphics of little black clouds with rain and lighting coming out of them. This is just what Amber and I have been yearning for…..an afternoon of the world being mudl-uscious and puddle-wonderful. A world seen through eyes about 20 years younger. Drops that accumulate faster than you can catch them on your tongue. Feet that have just enthusiastically kicked off their flip-flops and eagerly run to SPLASH in the nearest new puddle. Ahhhh…please rain, please….






1 whatevers:

alisa beth said...

Hey. This is the best entry...EVER! Rain and construction...who knew those topics could inspire such beauty?! Cute, cute picture! I wish it would rain here.