Breaking a Sweat: Habitat Day 2

Breaking ground for
new driveway

Uff-da, today was exhausting! I arrived at the Habitat home at 9am, and immediately began breaking up the ground to make the driveway. A lot had been done the day before, but I had two other local high school ladies come help me make more progress on it. Even Anna came to help us! 

It was really tiring work; the ground was full of rocks, glass, and old brick from her old home so we had to use pick axes to break up the area, and then haul the dirt out to another area. It was hot, but the storm Minnesota had a few days ago must be rolling in since the clouds came and there was a light breeze to cool us down.

Tiling the bathroom

A little before noon the project manager (Andy) came out and said the bathrooms were ready to be tiled and that we could get out of the sun and help with that. THANK GOODNESS. I was excited to learn how to tile and it was really easy! We used the laminate tiles that are sticky on the back, so all you have to do is peel back the cover, and fit them together. We also had to cut a lot of the tile to fit around the wiring and the showers. We had fun doing that and working with another volunteer named Rich. He helped us a lot with measuring the tiles. We finished two bathrooms today, and it felt awesome being able to see the finished product. We moved on to the kitchen as well and got about 3/4 of that done too. 

Tomorrow we're supposed to get rain, so we'll see what project I get to do. It's planned that I have to remove a shed's worth of moldy/rotten belongings into a dumpster. The plan is to empty the one shed, so that items can be transferred from another shed into the first one. After that the second shed will be demolished. Hopefully I'll get to do something inside, perhaps starting on the                                              slatted wood floors we'll put in! 

After all that work, I had dinner with my host family at one of their friends' homes. They have a beautiful yard and pool so we had pizza and then took a swim before the rain. We finally got a picture together as well, I'm so happy! Kathy and Simon have been the best hosts, and have shown me so many "Jersey" things. I couldn't have asked for a better family to stay with, and I'll be sad to leave them on Saturday. 

Me, Kathy and Simon

Well, until tomorrow I suppose!

Toodles, 

Lisa