The last day of work and so much still to be done. I headed over to the house not sure what to expect. Some co-workers were meeting there in the late morning. I don't know what I was thinking - I actually showed up in street clothes. I had thought to put my volunteer shirt on that morning, but it smelled so bad I couldn't bear it. I did bring it along in the car though.

When I got to the house work was still in full swing. The streets were already jammed with spectators, so I went back to my car, changed into the volunteer shirt and walked back to see what I could do. All sorts of things were still being done - work on the interior, the exterior, picking up the neighborhood, beginning the relandscaping of some of the neighboring homes, breaking down some of the temporary structures that had been erected. I plopped my hard hat on my head and set to work.

I spent some time deconstructing tents and picking up rubbish. At one point, I heard someone call my name. I'm not sure if I mentioned it before, but you have to be 18 to work on an Extreme Home Makeover project. We have no such age restrictions on our Mississippi trips - we've taken kids as young as 10 or so, although generally, we prefer 13 or older. Rebecca, who had been on 2 trips to Mississippi with us, and her younger sister, Amanda, were standing along the fencing, watching the craziness. Rebecca asked me to sign her shirt - hehe, I felt like a celebrity, though I'm just one of hundreds of volunteers. We chatted for a bit and Rebecca showed me her arm - she had put tick marks on her arm for every person she saw volunteering that she knew. There were probably close to 200 people marked off on her arm! Wow!

I returned to working and ended up inside the house. The interior was completely chaotic! There were so many people in the house, it was hard to determine what needed to be done! I spent some time in the master bedroom, cleaning up some paint spots that had been spilled onto the floor. I spent some more time helping another volunteer try to clean up the dust and debris in the very cool laundry room/boot room. I played gopher for several people.

At one point, I ran into my friend, Kristen. I hadn't seen her the whole time I'd been on the site, though I had talked to her extensively before the build started. She and her husband, Rod (very very good friends of Kirk's since grade school) had helped by providing an RV for the week, locating a granite supplier, and lots of other things. She was helping the photographer, Trish. So, I started helping them. Trish had framed a bunch of the photos of the family that she had taken in Cabo San Lucas. They had been stored in the grandmother's closet - where they had gotten somewhat dusty, and in spots, quite dirty. I spent some time cleaning them up and sorting them between the type of frame they were in (all were solid black wood frames, but the wood detail was a little different for each). Meanwhile, while I was doing this, much was happening in the room. Frames were being hung, window dressing examined and critiqued, plants being repotted, clean up happening, the room was being reorganized. There were about 3 times as many people in the room than it could handle with all that stuff being done.

Eventually, we were ready to hang the photos (after a bit of a wild goose chase, looking for the appropriate nails). The photos were simply incredible. We spent some time placing them in the hallway between the bedrooms and bathrooms, getting them arranged and then hung. I walked around a bit more, cleaning up and doing other odd jobs but I didn't have anything specific in the house to be doing at that point and they were trying to clear some of the extra people out, so I left and had some lunch.

When I came back, there were still tons of people in the house, but they weren't allowing anyone back in, so I found a spot alongside the yard of the house, where many of the volunteers were gathering for the festivities later.

To Be Continued...

Labels: Extreme Home Makeover, Friends, Volunteerism