Week 6

Crazed with joy on the construction site

My first full week of working construction is complete, and I can’t even begin to tell you all that I learned. The main thing I’d like to convey is that as it turns out, I love construction! Give me a hard hat, a hammer, some power tools, and a hot day and I’m happy as a clam.

Ruth and I popping lines at the beginning of the week.

We started popping chalk lines on Tuesday for the new house, and I can’t believe how much work we’ve gotten done on it in the last 5 days. After chalking the wall lines, I got to saw the top and bottom boards for them. Some other people on my team sawed and knocked together window and door frames, and sawed studs for the walls. We had volunteers come on Thursday and Saturday, so we pre-made some things like that to simplify things when we had enough man power to do what we could not do with a small group. 

You Hotwork people might be interested to know that I worked with a bunch of volunteers from BASF Chemical! I asked a few people if they’d heard of Hotwork, and they gave me blank stares, but it was kind of cool anyway to be working with people that are Hotwork clients, whether they know it or not.

Mid week progress

One of my highlights from this week is that I got to use a semi automatic concrete nail gun to tack the wall frames to the concrete. It cocks just like a gun, and I felt like an action movie star as I made my way around the house with it.

My site supervisors are awesome guys, and they are making this learning experience really fun. If you make a mistake, they don’t get mad or impatient they just tell you to do it again, but right this time. When they show me how to do something I’ve never done before, they watch me do it once, and then they trust me from then on out not only to do it myself, but to teach others how to do it too. It feels good being trusted like that, and I’m doing my best          not to disappoint.

John and I in the trusses.

My reaction when Justin told me to
climb around on flimsy boards in midair.

My big accomplishment this week was working in the trusses, high above my comfort zone. I jumped on a ladder when they said they needed someone to help stand on it (the ladder) and help pull the side truss up as other people pushed it over the top wall. That was fine and dandy. What I didn’t know was that there was much more ominous tasks to follow for ladder volunteers. I ended up like a monkey mixed up in jungle trees, hopping from one truss to the next as new ones kept being pushed up. The first time I was told to stand with my feet on parallel boards in the middle of two wobbly, boughing trusses, I laughed, thinking it was a joke. But when I looked over, my teammate John was climbing to the freshly set truss, lining up to take hold of the next one coming up. I panicked a little when they told me to just crawl through a small opening between some slanted 2 x 4s while standing on nothing but 2 x 4s in the first place. I said, “I think I need to switch places with somebody”, but there was no time for fearful cry babies as the next truss was already on its way up. There was nothing to do at that point but accept that my time of death was upon me. I went over the top, stood on floppy boards suspended in midair just in time to catch the coming truss and pull it over to my supervisor standing next to me. I got more comfortable when I put my weight on the boards and felt they were sturdy. It’s weird how the things that scare you the most are also the most satisfying at the end of the day. I guess the lesson to take away is that I should face my fears more often. The next day, I was the first person to volunteer when they said they needed manpower in the trusses.

Mac and I in action.

My team and I went to Dauphin Island Beach on Monday. I got fried, but had an amazingly fun day. No oil to speak of, and the water was the perfect temperature. I even made my first drip castle, which was pretty fun.

Even with working long, exhausting days, we are still required to do PT three times a week. This week we did ab exercises, jogging, karate type stuff, and yoga. Strangely, it feels pretty good to do non work related exercises during the week, but I’ll tell you what, I’m not a big fan of getting up at 5am to do them. One Bible verse that keeps popping up in my head is the one from Timothy: “I beat my body and make it my slave.” That’s exactly what it feels like I’m doing right now.

I did a lot of hammering this week, and it’s enough to make me feel like an old woman. In the words of John Lennon, “I’ve got blisters on my fingers.” I can hardly even pick up a crochet hook at this point, so it’s good I got my baby booties finished early.

Anyway, that’s the news from Mobile, AL;

Where all the days are hot,

All the nail guns are semi automatic,

And all the tan lines begin at the elbow.