Sharon and I went for a drive one evening this fine week. We bought 32 pounds block cheeses. A lot of hamburger patties and Cajun sausages. Some marinated chicken breasts and cooked baby back pork ribs. Those purchases were not the reason we drove down.
Aged whole rib-eye beef loins are my favorite purchase. Buy the whole loin and then hand cut it. Steaks on the grill make a nice reward after a day of labor.
I was not planning on this roof getting shingled for another week or 2. That is until I got a call last Sunday that the roof was leaking and some plaster had fallen. The scaffolding was already set up beside the house but I was waiting for Micah to help. Monday I called Logan and we got right at it.
We almost finished one side of the house
when I was called that we had a flooded basement. I do hope the west side of the house doesn't start to leak because it is not on the schedule till this Friday when Micah will be back around. The sump pump had quit in a house and water was rising. With a furnace in the house less than 60 days old I wanted the water pumped out before it rose enough to get in that new furnace. I did find out a lot of stores were out of sump pumps after last week end. I found one and got it installed. It pumped the basement empty in a couple of minutes.
I finished this narrow piece later. Notice the electric line? It almost touches the roof. The pole that belongs to MidAmerican Energy is leaning toward the house causing the wire to hang low. The wire and the pole belong to MidAmerican so there is nothing I can do about it. Called them to tell them I wanted the wire tightened up to raise it further than 2 inches above the roof. You can't see it in this picture but they just put a plastic wrap around the wire. There problem solved. Yea, unless that wire swings in the wind and catches my new shingles. I am not impressed.
This house also needed the trim around the windows painted as well as the rake board. My ladder was just long enough for me to stand on it and lean back and paint behind and above me. It is not a very good paint job, but if any one complains I will show them where the ladder, paint and the brush are.
Thursday was a dry day so I went back to putting on siding. This is one piece I had to cut to fit on the porch.
Of course there was a piece just like it on the other side of the porch but I had already nailed up the first piece so I had to calculate the cuts all over again instead of just tracing the first piece. Bright move Royce.
We are getting far enough on the blue house I can start thinking about painting the interior. All of the sheet rock joints have the first coat of mud and a few walls were ready to texture. I stopped in to see if Malcom Lumber had any of the recycled paint they are closing out left. I don't like any of the colors but I don't mind blending my own color. They had 44 gallon left. They cut me a deal if I would buy every thing they had left. I like to put exterior paint on some of our houses interiors. It cleans up better than interior paint and is meant to take more abuse because it is exterior paint. If I can get it cheap that makes it even better. With 3 exteriors to paint and 2 interiors this summer we will use a lot of paint. I think I might have enough.
I was ready to texture this afternoon and bought some compound at Walmart. When I opened the bucket I remembered why I don't buy compound at Walmart. Bucket is just 2/3 full or 1/3 empty, depends on your perspective.
I sprayed a few walls.
Even some of the walls we did not touch so they would have the same texture as the new walls. So all in all it was a productive week.
Steaks cut and in the freezer, a leaking roof fixed, widow trim and rake boards painted, some siding put up, sheet-rock taped and mudded and some of the texture sprayed.
All of that done and I can still say that was not the best part of my week. I spent some time this afternoon with a woman whose daughter is in jail. We talked about how God could impact that young woman's life and change her behaviors and only God working in her life could make that change.
That mom thanked me for being kind and compassionate. I told her "we are to be the hands and feet of Jesus in this world, if I can't do that in a small way like this, what am I doing?"
Of all the work I got done this week it was the encounters with people in need that were the best work done. It is often what appears to be the least important things we do, that make the biggest difference. Don't miss opportunities God gives you to build relationships. Do you ask God to use you to build his kingdom. As I sit here Saturday night and look back over my week I am amazed at what God put in my life this week. I was allowed to loan an man $50 to buy his heart medicine. Loan a woman $50 to buy some needed items for her children. Spend some time with a woman who needs to find housing for her family before August when the house they are living in will be sold, and talked to the mom about her daughter in jail. On my own I probably would have avoided all 4 people but God did not give me that option because he was busy building his kingdom.
If you ask God to use you to build his kingdom this week what will God put in your life?
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