Florida Living

Hey y'all.  We are still in Florida safe from the terrible storm that Isaac brought.  I am sure you all know how bad some of the parts of the south were hit by Isaac and if not, they were hit BAD.  New Orleans and Mississippi are where most of my friends got deployed to for disaster relief because of this storm.  They have been working pretty much 24 hours a day with occasional naps because they are helping Red Cross with shelter work.  I give them all the credit in the world for being where they are and helping out.  I've talked to a few of them from a few different teams and from the sounds of it, that part of the country is pretty bad.  Keep those people and my amerifriends down there in your thoughts and prayers. 

Anyway, back to our project.  We worked all last week at Miss Thompson's home.  We can say that it is about 98% finished.  We gave her a new ceiling that needs finishing touches to be finished, a new floor that we are waiting for the rug to be delivered, and new trim on her walls.  Her trailer is looking like somewhat of a home now.  One of the major accomplishments of last week was turning on the faucet one day.  Danny works daily with us and he had us look over as he turned the faucet.  Miss Thompson has not had running water for the past two maybe three years.  This was all before Debby hit Florida, but still, two or three whole years without an amenity we look at as a simple thing.  She cooks outside on a "stove" if she isn't eating canned goods.  She has made accommodations, but on this day, her faucet worked.  Danny connected some pipes and she now has running water.  We have been cleaning the sceptic piping for her and installed a washing machine.  Hopefully when the water becomes crystal clear, she will have clean water for the time being.  Pretty awesome to know that now she will have some sorce of water with a clean bathroom, a washing machine that works, and a faucet to clean and cook with.  We worked at her house today, too to do some finishing touches on her door.  We are now at a stand still with this home until the carpet that is being donated actually gets donated.



Ceiling work.




Drywall for ceiling




Putting together ceiling

  



Insulation for floor




Parts of finished room

Unfortunately, coming to Florida, we were under the impression that there was going to be endless work for us.  There is now an end in sight.  Somedays we do not have sufficient work to do, but we find projects around homes to get each home complete.  We are hoping that there are more homes (for work sake not their sake) that we can help fix.  Either way, Florida is awesome, just the work is kind of slow.

This past weekend was so relaxing.  Friday night a few teammates and hung out and did nothing.  Saturday was beautiful here.  I took advantage of the pool for the morning and then went down teh street to watch football for most of the day.  Sunday was the same routine.  I was at the pool all day with the sun, until some clouds came adn ruined my day.  We did some laundry then I concluded the weekend days by watching countless hours of mindless MTV "reality" TV, which I had been watching all weekend.  The Hills provided me with my dosage of drama and crazy girls for the next year.  It was an awesome 3 day marathon of such a really intelligent group of people.  Monday was Labor Day so we had the day off.  We traveled to Jacksonville to go to the beach and to meet David, our teammates, new baby.  Leyek is 10 weeks old and is SO CUTE.  David got to go home for 10 days to be with him and he lives in Jacksonville.  We got a nice meal cooked by his mother and step father after we went to Saint Augustine for the beach.  The town of Saint Augustine is awesome.  It is very old, the oldest town in the USA in fact, and has awesome beaches.  It ALSO has multiple Dunkin' Donuts! I got my fix of Pumpkin Spice that I thought I wasn't going to get.  Thank God, it was worth it.  We are thinking of going back to Jacksonville this Saturday to repeat what we did yesterday, beach, baby, and sun bathe.  

David and Leyek


We are hoping work speeds up this week for us.  Either way, I am still happy to be helping people.  I've been thinking of things to do after AmeriCorps and hopefully I will find a job somewhere and enjoy what I am doing.  Kind of stressful.  I am really looking forward to fall break where I will be staying on campus for a few days then traveling to Nashville for 3 nights and 4 days with some friends from AmeriCorps and a few from home.  Going to the birth place of my favorite genre of music to celebrate my 24th birthday that Friday!  I can't wait. 

That's all I have for now.  I hope everyone had a nice first day of school, especially my favorite permanent sub, my favorite 5th grade teacher, my favorite senior in college and my favorite 5th grader.  Crazy how time flies.  Oh yeah, and my new favorite college professor father.  I am sure the first day was good for you, too, Mom.  Hope all is well with y'all!