Progress, permanent guests, travel

There was a lot of progress on the apartment this weekend. Norman and Seth did most of the sheetrock on the ceilings throughout the apartment while Grandpa worked on all of the electrical runs. The wiring is almost complete. I still have a few outlets to cut into the laundry room since Grandpa thought the ones I had cut already should be moved and we still have the oven wire to pull into place. Other than those few items we are done there.

While they worked inside, I worked on sealing up the roof. I was on the roof in the hot sun most of the afternoon and at one point I got pretty overheated. I took a short break while all the rest of the crew went to Nocona to celebrate “Fun Day”. I learned about the event when I had gone to the lumber yard early that morning. Even Mama went. Seth piloted her around in a wheelchair.

I did get one part of the roof (where the two buildings that make up the whole shop are connected) sealed up for good but there is still more work to be done.  All in all, I did about a quarter of the work in one day. It will take putting a roof on the tall part of the shop to finally seal up the connecting edge but that will not happen soon.

I will look today when I get home where Norman and Seth left off on the sheetrock because they worked through the day yesterday while we went to church. I did not go out and look after Victoria and I got home from the evening service. Mama did not go. She was in a good deal of pain and the knee was pretty swollen after an active morning.

Norman and Seth will be leaving this morning so we said our goodbyes last night. He felt badly that he had not gotten more done and I told him I felt that way every weekend. I assured him that he had done what it would have taken me four or five weekends to do. I consider myself a month ahead because of the effort. Now Grandpa can work at a slower pace to get more of the sheetrock done and I can do the tape and mud in the evening when I get home. I am very pleased.

The really odd thing about Norman and Seth’s visit is that Grandma insisted on keeping Moca. I have never known her to be so taken over any animal but she is definitely taken with that little dog. The dog sleeps in her bedroom on a special bed. Grandma hovers over her whenever she has to go out to use the bathroom. It is a big dangerous world out there and anything could happen to the tiny pooch.

In ways she is right to fret some. My biggest worry is a hawk getting Moca. She is not much bigger than a medium sized rabbit. Norman said that one night not too long ago an owl was making its approach for the kill when he stepped out of the house. His sudden appearance dissuaded the owl from its prey. That was all Grandma needed to hear.

Even though we are ahead for the moment I will not get very much farther this week. I have to leave tomorrow to drive to Eagle Pass, TX. I am slated to participate in the rollout of a new driving monitoring system the company is installing on all company vehicles. Not the most pleasant assignment. In the location I am traveling to there are sixteen vehicles. In my location I manage one hundred and seventy five. The scale up could prove problematic but I have until the week of the 23^rd of June to get a plan together.

The following week I have to go to Borger for some prep work there. The only bright spot in the two week period is Memorial Day. I will be off on Monday the 27^th so I will have two full days to work on the apartment over that long weekend.

We are not in the final stretch but we are a lot closer.