Signing Houses

After several days of initial home visits (IHV's), we're finally starting to sign houses! It is going to be sad to have to tell people no, we cannot work on your house, but at least we get to tell some people yes, we are going to fix that leak/porch/rotten floor. For Week 1, we only have 6 work crews coming, so that's only 6 houses to start off with (later on, we'll have up to 16 between the 5 of us... the max is supposed to be only 15, but somebody messed up, I think.) We're awesome, we can handle it. Hopefully :)

The families we're working for are great. We're doing foundation work and a wheelchair ramp for a family who's son is in a wheelchair, he was so excited about being in a 4th of July parade next month, it was cute. There's an adorable older woman with the prettiest Siamese cat I've ever seen. And I'm really excited about starting one house in particular--the family is pretty much insane, but in a good way. They're so outgoing and friendly, the mom wanted to feed Craig and I lasagna and give away some of her (numerous) garage sale purchases when we were there for the IHV. One side of their foundation is slipped outward, and the ASP group that fixed it years ago cut the 2x10 rafters 2 feet short of the band joist and scabbed on 2x6s instead (that's bad!).

Somehow, no matter what I do, I seem to get injured. On the first day here, I was trying to unplug the calculator so we could move the desk--it was stuck so I was pulling and pulling and when it finally gave, my hand flew back and hit the desk, leaving a nice purple bump right below my thumb. Then yesterday, Kristina, Stephen and I took a break to play horseshoes here at the center--I wasn't paying attention and Stephen nailed me right in the shin. And this morning at one house we visited, this neighborhood kid ran up to me and hit me in the arm with a stick. It turned all red and stung for a bit. Little punk. This afternoon, we drove a bunch of crappy windows from the barn (2 van loads!) down to the dumpster. It was oddly satisfying to chuck them in there and hear the glass break. Of course, I cut my finger on a hinge that was sticking out. Oye.

Fun fact: the mascot for the St. Charles Elementary school is pretty much the most fantastic mascot ever. Sing it, y'all: We are the Midgets, the Mighty Mighty Midgets! We'll kick you in the gonads, we'll kick you in the shins! We'll bite off your kneecaps and tie your shoes together......

Yup. I love this town.