It is October the first and i am sitting outside in a flannel shirt just warm enough- yay fall !
The past week has been a lot of work - late hours and long days- but all entirely worth it. I think that my brain often feel like it may explode due to the amount of information coming in...
i know spanish and i know english
- but construction- this is a whole different language,
which i am slowly learning in english and in spanish.
in framing a house i have learned more vocab for 2X4's then most people ever thought imaginable. i like to learn though and it keeps me interested every day is new and different, even when i have done the task before because there are often new and different volunteers.
i think that more than framing that has been the lesson of the past week- learning how to teach others. there are many groups who come to chatham county habitat to volunteer- the retired men and sometimes women, the all girls schools, the churches, the homeowners, singles groups, corporate companies,...
each of these groups has their own ideas about how they want the day to go and each of these groups has at ~15 people who all learn their own ways... you can see how i thought i might already know all these things being that i have worked in the service industry for ~ 8 years or something but let me tell you this is a whole new ballgame.
patience is something that i have grown over the years and found it moreso in spain and in my last year of college than anyother time - now it is time to continue that growth and practice it. Being a girl i think sometimes is a factor which makes all of this harder but more on women in construction later.
Yesterday i attempted to go to a urban agriculture meeting with my coworker in siler city after work - before the meeting we drove around exploring the city * town - to see all the parts of it that we cannot see on our daily drive to westmont (where the house is that we are framing). we then went to our favorite mexican restaurant, coincidentally the only mexican restaurant i have been to in town, for a sopes. sopes are from heaven. we were waiting to meet up with a couple people from pittsboro, including my coworker- lauren's boyfriend. welp, we ended up getting the meeting time confused and saw the end of it where we sat outside with a few of the people talking about things and stuff- you know how that is... at this point we were invited back to one guys studio space in downtown siler city (don't laugh city friends) and it was AMAZING... i mean really cool. The tire park in bradford has a competitor - this guy makes all sortsa art - lamps, tables, chairs ... out of old tires. It was wonderful. a night of dancing and singing and piano and drum playing and then of course the old record player. I thought to myself on my drive home from siler city - this is why i moved here.
back to life in pittsboro at the old mann house- i like this as well. my roomates are very interesting people with idiosyncrasies that far exceed what i was expecting and make it about ten times better to live where i do. i really enjoy when the two of them are at home - and even walked into the normally quiet michael singing along to david bowie yesterday..:)
jonah is always boisterous. he also likes pizza more than anyother human i have ever met- which works great for me - being that i came in to a large amount of it last weekend upon visiting friends in the raleigh region. oh and to my wife stephanie (we were married as a class project in hs where there were not enough boys)- her visit from philly was wonderful. so glad to see her so happy.
My class at the community college is interesting - although i find it rather funny that the men teaching the class do not remember me from the 3 months i worked in the same office as them. i suppose i could remind them- but i like being under the radar to an extent.
the class is on building science .
on tuesday nights i go to a new homeowners class - which is going well. i am learning a lot about owning a home. this night also gives me a chance to talk with the homeowners in a nonworkish environment, sharing stories that we do not always get the time to talk about. except last saturday- these stories and more came out last saturday when i was in charge of the homeowners. i think they brought out about 30 people plus. i was stressin' because i had 4 houses going at once- but no matter because the homeowners are the best group to work with- shhhhhh.
i get to use my spanish all the time on these days and this particular saturday i got food for free too! homecooked mexican- yes you should now be jealous. . . and all the meat in the world if i had wanted it.
this job is wonderful. this life change is much the same. i feel more observant of everything- which i like- perhaps because it is new, or perhaps because i take the time to notice more.
... and when i miss the people and do not want to be in the woods i do what i am now- drive to carborro with my dog and sit outside with my computer around others.
i leave you all tonight with a picture of my house as it stood half-way through yesterday. yes this was started last week.
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