It rained last night, so there were little gnats out today – the kind that bite really HARD! So those of us who could, spent as much time as possible working inside. It started out as a damp day, too, but then the rain held off yet again, and it turned into a pretty day, aside from the gnats (Mister Bob called them G-nats…).
Painting the "magnolia room" – Miss Janie says every Mississippi home must have a magnolia room. By that she means that the decor will involve lots of magnolias when it's done – it should be very pretty with this eggshell paint, and the cream-colored ceramic tile she chose.
The siding crew spent most of today working on trimming out the bow window – it was very complicated with all the odd angles and the number of individual windows. They also sided the little wall by the front porch that the Entry guys had had to take apart yesterday. So the front porch is all done, except for the plank that's planned for the floor – I think the next group will be doing that, because there's something else that goes down first.
Just to give you a feel for the rest of the neighborhood…
Mister Bob says everyone has an El Camino, haha.
I wish I had taken some photos of the houses we passed on the way to the jobsite every day. There were clearly quite a number of them that hadn't been cleaned out yet since the hurricane, and lots of others that were in progress.
A few more work photos:
At the end of the day today, I volunteered to be one of the ones on the 2nd van, so others could get back to camp earlier this time. It was actually pretty interesting… first we had to stop at Lowe's to pick up some pipe for this other jobsite we were going to, then when we arrived there, they were ready to pack up most of their tools – they figured they'd be done with their job mid-day tomorrow. They had just finished hanging a front door on the little house – that wasn't part of the original scope of work, because the owner hadn't requested it, but the crew saw it was needed, so they fixed it. I talked to the owner a little bit, a young woman living alone (I don't think there were kids). She said when she first came back after the hurricane, she thought her house was OK because it was still standing, but when she opened the door, water gushed out, and everything inside was all a jumble. She said she had to wade through hip-deep water to get to the house, and then found out later that the local alligator farm had lost a lot of its residents!
Dinner tonight was beef stew, not too bad – hearty anyway. Also more of the pasta salad we had last night, which is really very good. After dinner and cleaning up, we all ended up back in the dining hall playing cards while they showed a video about Biloxi right after the hurricane. Nikki taught us to play Egyptian Rat Screw, which I'm afraid is one of those games I'm no good at – requires faster reflexes than I'll ever hope to have. Then Gordon came over and introduced himself, and showed us how to play Left-Center-Right, which was a fun little dice game (he pointed out that it's more fun with dimes than with chips…). Then we taught Gordon how to play spoons, which as usual, got a little violent! I'm a little better at that one, but still no match for the lightning-fast reflexes of my progeny, so I spelled s-p-o-o-n first, and went to play Left-Center-Right with another group. All in all, a very enjoyable evening of fun and games!
Where have the days gone? 