Phew! We are tired!

Wow. What an amazing first day on the job sites. We were split into two groups for our projects today- construction and finishing. The contstruction team was actually starting a house from the bottom up beginning with all of the framing (and quite a lot of hammering I am told). I was on the group for finishing that are taking on assorted projects in about 7 houses that were part of the blitz build last week. We started out this morning by putting up scafolding and a finishing coat of paint on the exterior of the house. When you have about 25 people working together, it goes pretty quickly. Kudos to my "top level" of scaffolding buddies - Bill and Christina, who made me laugh so as not to remember the fact that I was 20 feet in the air, leaning over to paint the trim and soffets of a roof while trying to remained balanced (yes, my feet still feel like they are tensed from being up there)! Alan from the UK was right below us; giving me the assurance that you could probably die from a 6 foot fall but made up for it by being the painting master below us.

Next we tore down the scaffolding and began to get some individual assignments. There was sub-flooring to be put down and cut as well as sanding and varnishing kitchen cabinets. Becky, Sherri and I took on that one...which made us all have quite interesting attitudes after inhaling the fumes (okay maybe it was just me!). The rest of the group got the AMAZING job of moving equipment, scaffolding and materials from the sites to trailors to trucks (in no specific order). Those guys were champs; I think that they would now be able to pick up an entire bunkhouse and move it if we asked!

We also had our dinner with Hancock Bank tonight. It was great to be able to mingle with them and here their own personal stories about surviving Katrina. We presented them with the beautiful quilt (thanks Annmarie!!) as well as our volunteer t-shirts and $250 gift cards for 2 employees to Home Depot.

So thanks for reading and keep thinking about us!

-Mindy