Habitable

 

Today was our first day on the job at Habitat, and what a view this family is going to have. They are making us dinner on Thursday, so I will wait to describe them until we meet them.

Today we met Rick the supervisor, an adorable music major from Kentucky who now supervises Habitat Taos builds. His description of the day 35 college students hung sheetrock and things kind of got away from him answered my questions about who on earth had hung the sheetrock. Oh well. I'll bet it was fun.

We walked the house, made lists of projects, and then everyone got to pick whatever they wanted to work on. Carl put doorknobs on the exterior doors, Ray cleaned window sills, Steve was doing all sorts of fix things projects, and me? I mudded. There's a zen to putting mud in sheetrock cracks. It was a good day. It seemed over with before I was ready to quit, but about an hour later the bottom fell out of my energy. We are working at 7,500 feet, and it's a real sneaker, that altitude.

Carl, at the end of day, started sanding, and he was so full of dirt that we came to the local RV park for the night so he could have a good shower. This little place costs a whole $13 a night.

Shiner Beer, however, is $8 a six pack. It is a necessity after a day of mudding, no matter how much it costs, and I have a lot of mudding ahead of me.