Giving Back Days

This is what I've been doing for the past two days.

We winterized houses of low income, disabled, or elderly families. We insulated outlets and wrapped plastic over the windows (which took a surprising amount of work).

Insulating the outlets only takes a few minutes. You just take the screw and the metal plate out, put in an insulating foam mold, put the plate back on and put the screw back in. But the windows...holy crap.

We start by priming the wood with alcohol swabs. Then we put a double-sided adhesive strip on each side of the window. We let that sit for about ten minutes while we make sure we have enough plastic. After it's been sitting for a while, we would attach the plastic sheet to all sides of the window, pulling it as taut as we could. Then we had to take a hairdryer (but sometimes we got a heat gun :P) and use the heat to shrink the plastic to get rid of the ripples. For the final step we would cut the excess trim off the plastic, and the window would have an invisible layer of plastic to help keep heat inside the house.

Sara accidentally melted a couple holes in one of the plastic sheets at the first house. We had to do it over, so we spent about three and a half hours there. We did three windows because the little old lady, probably about 4' 7", wouldn't let us in to most of her house ("don't go in the bedroom, the cat's sleeping there. Oh, you don't need to go into the attic, it's really cluttered. Why on Earth would you need to go into the bathroom???")

The second house we went to was owned by another old woman. The place only took about an hour, and the newspaper interviewed us while we were there. Today channel 6 news recorded Coalton breaking a window while Marylyn was babbling on being Marylyn. For some reason Coalton thought glass could bend...

Yesterday went really well, but today was an absolute joke. We took two cars so we could all go to Wells. The lady there ended up having a really big house, and the only thing she needed was a hot water blanket. That took Connor and Will ten minutes to tape on and we were done. She didn't even need that much help, by the looks of her finished basement she could have just hired someone. Three of us didn't do anything while we were there.

Then we went back to TNS, had a short break, and found out Wallingford Farm needed all their windows done.

No one even lives there! They don't use heat in that part of the building, what's the point of insulating a building they just use to store all their old junk??

After half an hour of pretending we could do something there, me and Sara decided to drive back to the school and find an excuse for staying there. Gordy, Rhiannon, and Joey moseyed on back as well, and we decided it was time for a lunch break. At 11:15.

At 12 our adult supervisor told us he'd rather stay home than work, so we had to merge with another group. Zach had to drive us, and he was worried because his 6 months would be up in two weeks, but after some persuasion he said it was alright. I got shotgun :P

We went to another little old lady's house, and she only had three windows to do. For the first time that day I touched one of the supplies and did about five minutes worth of work. I felt bad for not helping more, but there were just so many people there and not enough space to work in. Zach, Will and I decided to go to Kennebunk Glass (which I didn't know existed before today) to replace the window that Coalton broke. Then Zach drove us really far to a house bombarded with teenagers.

The neighbor almost called the cops because there were so many of us, but after just staring out her window for ten minutes and being persuaded by us that we were alright, she put the phone down and took a nap.

I didn't even go in the house. Connor, Sara, Will and I just stood around Connor's truck because the other little old lady (I didn't know we had this many around here) felt overwhelmed by all of us and didn't want us inside. We then drove back to TNS in his truck...which comfortably seats two people. I got shotgun again :) this is a pun because Connor had to move his rifle from the front seat for me. haha

I knew this before I set foot in his car, but the ride re-affirmed my belief that Connor is a horrible driver. We were in the middle of a curving road, and Connor says "Oh, let me turn the airbag on for you, Sara," He takes the keys out of the ignition to turn the airbag on, a few seconds later saying "Oh yeah, I forgot the steering wheel locks when you take the keys out."

We were completely in the other lane, diagonal to the flow of traffic! And on a bridge!! It wasn't even a fun kind of dangerous, it was just an "oh crap" kind.

And those are called Giving Back Days. But now it's vacation! ~Party~

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I love you all so very much.

Sara :)