Texas 2 update 8                                                                                                                                      11/2/19

It’s time again to let you know I’m still alive and healthy.

I’ve been doing many of the same things described in my previous updates.  Some of the things that were exciting to me won’t seem much different to you.

I described and included a photo of a house in my last update that some of a large group of volunteers from Indiana came and worked with me on.  I’ve been working on that house ever since.  The owners are man and wife with 2 sons and 1 daughter.  The owners are about the age of my two children and their children about the age of my granddaughters.   At least one son is still living at home but the other children stop in frequently.  One of the owner’s mother lives across the street and 2 of the fathers’ sisters live nearby and stop in frequently too so it’s an interesting family.  The wife in the family apparently works long hours because she is there but ready to leave when I come at 8:00 in the morning and she is never there when I leave at 5:00 for even 6:00 in the evening.  The husband is apparently retired, on disability, or just doesn’t work outside the home.  At first we woke him up when we came in the mornings and he was working late at night to prepare for us.  For the last week or so, though, he has been sleeping in the garage and I don’t see him until afternoon when he sometimes helps me.  I get the idea he is inspired to do many things but quits before they are finished and hoards many things in his yard.

Iconnect said at one point they were going to hire a contractor to put down new flooring in the entire house of 3 bedrooms, 1 bath with 2 toilets, living room, and kitchen/dining.  Then I was asked if I could do it and I said I could but it would take me a long time.  Finally, they had a group of 5 volunteers from a men’s Baptist disaster response group that had time from Imelda off waiting for drying of a mold application for a day to come and help me.  They had come from the Waco, Texas area.  They had never put down flooring of this type but I helped them and they worked for 1 and ½ days so that I only had to do a bedroom and bath by myself.  The flooring is a waterproof plastic that looks like individual boards but is interlocking and floats so that no gluing or nailing is required.  The key is to get it closely and totally interlocked.

After the flooring was put down, I put down the quarter-round.  Then it was decided to provide new appliances for the kitchen including a dishwasher, refrigerator, and microwave and put on new cabinet tops.  There was no space in the cabinets for the dishwasher so I had to lengthen them and cut down the width of a door and drawer.  Of course, I had to remove and replace the sink after putting on the new cabinet tops.  It is finally nearly all done though, and the painter is busy doing paint of all of the rooms and the cabinets.

Yesterday was exciting to me because the local Orange County United Way had decided to put on a “day of caring” in which we met for breakfast with 150 volunteers from all over the county and they were divided into groups to work on various projects.  “Mine” was included and I ended up with 14 volunteers to keep busy for the day.  I had 2 work with the painter in taping and painting and 2 more later in the day.  The painter is quite professional and was quite animate about having only people who had done some painting but was happy with the way they responded.  I kept the rest busy with tearing down an old structure in the backyard that had been used as a platform for an above-ground swimming pool years ago.  They pounded out all of the nails because the owner wanted to keep the lumber.  Then, I had them carry piles of junk from the backyard to the street that the husband had accumulated there over the years.  There was much more there that I would have liked to get rid of but he insisted he wanted to keep.  We used the space we cleared to stack the lumber from the tear-down.  Keep in mind that there are 3 old cars and 2 old house trailers on the property besides 2 old lawnmowers, the remains of a couple of 4 wheelers etc.  but at least we made it look a little more respectable.  Finally, I kind of ran out of work for them so got some paper towels and Windex so they could start washing windows before they left.  It was a busy day!  I should have taken before-and-after photos but didn’t so no photos again.

That’s all for this time!

Christians Together!

Clarence