A little over a week...

It's been a little over a week since I've been back. Let's take a minute to recap the week because it feels like such a flurry of activity.

With the day off after my return, I picked up Laura to go hear se afternoon music. Her buddy, George came along. I don't have pictures of you s, but this is the sunshine, dance floor, and band.

The next day, I looked at a box of old rubbling alcohol bottles. These were going to be trashed from a house project I'd been landscaping last summer. My bossman asked if I wanted any of it, so I took three musty-smelling cardboard boxes. The lady's son wanted the box of soap back, though, so I gladly returned it. It was a case of bar soap from the 1950s. It touted this super-special ingredient which was later found to be hazardous. Since he wanted it back, I was glad to get it off my hands. You can't be too careful. The second box was a case of hardened 1950s era cleanser. Bossman said I could cut open each one because "the middle cleanser is good." Since I didn't feel a strong desperation for cleanser, i pitched that box, having nowhere to store it in the RV. But the third box ..the rubbing alcohol...this intrigued me.

Each glass bottle felt heavy. 1950s? 60s? I'd tried looking up the name of the company last summer, but I couldn't find any info on it. Not a big name, just a little business. Someone who'd planned to strike it big in the rubbing alcohol business, their business name now lost of the winds of commerce.

I sent a pic to my brother who handles appraisals and collectibles for a living. "Probably vintage, not an antique." he said.

I also worked last week, both online teaching and at the resort. This is my life, week-in, week-out. Lately, I've been working 65-hour weeks, and I'm just tired. But the grading must get done, and the resort is short-staffed.

I'd been having success with the Tuesday-night cookie activity. For an activity that once only garnered 5- to 8- attendees, I'd increased the level of excitement to a regular 15 attendees. (Once we even had 19!) I did this by word-of-mouth, making sure guests knew about the activity when they checked in and explaining what we did.

On Tuesday nights, guests in attendance select a pre-packaged sugar cookie. From there, they can decorate with frosting, piping, and sprinkles. I try to keep guests engaged with questions about where they're from or what they like doing in Havasu. Once they're talking among themselves, I disappear to the kitchen and start the clean-up process.

One morning before work, a black plume of smoke rose from the sky. Everyone wondered what it was. It turned out that the environmentalists were burning things along the Colorado River to "help the environment" in some way.

Curious as to what they'd been burning, I made my way down to the river a few days later. The only evidence of burning that I saw was a clump of trees, but those were closer to town. This is on the river north of town.

This same week, I've been listening to the news. Never in NORAD's history have we had to shoot anything down over U.S. airspace. In eight days, we've shot down four objects. The news also talked about a train derailment in eastern Ohio. The government people set four of the tankers to explode mode, killing fish and birds for miles. Some guy who raises foxes said the government's actions killed some of his foxes. It's all bad stuff.

My head felt crowded with information I didn't want. My schedule felt crowded with a job I no longer wanted. I just want to get back on the road and back into my Bible, my writing, my music, and my language studies.

Yet, here I was in Havasu, working long hours and not getting ahead. If anything, I was more broke and in debt from being here. I don't know how this happened, but it isn't sustainable.

So I made plans to fast-track the roof repair and solar panel installation. It was just supposed to be a solar-panel project, but a hard rain in January she'd me the roof still leaked. Brenda kept saying I had to do the whole roof, while I'd been thinking the patching would work. The whole roof involved time commitment and money, and I'd been short on both. But, now, here I was...planning a roof project:

Updates to follow as I move forward with this. Right now I have the goopity-stuff that goes on top, the flashing, and the screws. I just need to find the waterproof underlayment. They had some at Lowe's, but it was all made in China, so I didn't want to buy it. My new friend, Myles, who sold me the tin snips for the project told me they have it at Home Depot. I'll check there later today, Lord willin'.

And that's it! A week in recap!

Thanks for reading!