Ahoy! Allison here, filling in on some vital info that every other blogger has left out so far. First off, I must explain to you the dangers of painting the whole inside of a house (including ceilings) that already has been partially floored. Thank goodness it's not carpet! There's just something about paint that attracts it to those areas of the floor that haven't been covered by a drop-cloth.
On the very first day that we painted, Norm was working in a closet. I heard, "Norm needs paint!" So I got Norm paint, one of those paint trays with a moderate amount of grey paint. As I returned to my room, I heard, "Allison, Norm spilled!" Almost all of the tray's contents had slopped over the edges. There was so much paint that the most efficient way to clean it off the floor (that hadn't had the wood floor added yet) was to cup your hands in the liquid and dump it into the trash. There was a lot of paint. It was just a closet, without a floor yet, so all was well.
But the bad luck continued the day after that, when lucky me, lucky me, spilled three cups of paint. At the same time. On hard-wood floor that had already been installed. I have some serious skills. Andy and I freaked out trying to clean it up, so did Sean and Steve. We used up a whole role of paper towels, lots of wet rags, and some dry ones too. In the end, you can't tell there was ever anything on that floor but clean feet, and you may not even be able to see that either.
We had a day of rest, (the half day we took on wednesday) and then it was finally some one else's turn to spill. None of us ever knew that Melanie had such a dirty mouth. There was, "Oh *bleep*! Oh *bleep!" twice. There was a small cup of paint that she had been useing for touch-up work in the closet. It was the last of the light grey, and it tipped over. Not near as much as all the other times that spills happened, but then again, she wasn't me or Norm.
Thankfully, not a single person knocked over paint today beyond an over-stuffed paintbrush. All blobs have been cleaned up and the floors have been swept. We're done!
I must say, if it wasn't for Andy's mp3 that was built into his cell phone, we may have all gone crazy a long time ago from boredom. (Apparently, these crazy people think that christmas carols aren't appropriate to sing during spring break...) Who knew that there was so much music from Scrubs on his phone, or that he and Sean both liked journey music so much, or that they were so open about singing loudly along with it? (I took a video of it, the tech wiz here is trying to figure out how you guys out there in cyberspace can watch it.) Let's all give a big "halleluja! to god for music!
Needless to say, we're all pretty done. Of course, the fact that we still have cleaning to do doesn't help, neither does the need to wake up uber early in the morning to catch out flight tomorrow. Last travel day, we didn't find our way here until 1 in the morning, hopefully that won't be the case tomorrow. We'll have the time zones working in our favor. :-)
There is so much to write about here that you can't possibly fit into this whole blog, let alone one post! New Orleans is truly a party city. There are always people up and about at all hours. All of us are leaving one of the Rebuilding Together T-shirts where we're staying to help sruce up the place. (Which is already pretty nice, Missy says that this is one of the nicest housing buildings, there are some that have the toilets outside, are really tiny, and have barely any towels/bedding/sources of entertainment.) We're all signing it, to leave behind as a momentum of out stay.
Over the week we've worked 434 1/2 hours of joint community services, which adds up to $8,472.75 for the program to fund future project. We've all done a lot of work and we all have learned so much. Everyone here is both tired and busy, and I should probably go help out. Flying out tomorrow, signing off, here's Allison.
Two Updates in a Day, Pictures below this article (Andy)
