Day 3 of the New Orleans Adventure.

Today was the first work day of our time here in New Orleans. The plan had been for 10 of us to go work at siding a house and 3 to do some organization and inventory at PDA's (Presbyterian Disaster Assistance) warehouse. After orientation we discovered that the owner of the house to be sided had not yet completed the paperwork for having us come. Instead of siding, the 10 of us worked in a warehouse to construct dining room tables. It seems that several months ago a furniture maker from Pennsylvania noted that the families that have been living in FEMA trailers now have homes, but little or no furniture. He went home and with his association of wood workers built a bunch of dining room tables and benches. As they arrived here there was a mishap and the tables fell off the trailer. They were not damaged, at least not many of them, but in the process of cleaning up, they were totally mixed up. The legs and tops and bottom rails were mixed up. Our process was to find complete tables and put them together. It sounds reasonably easy, right? WRONG. Some of the tables were well marked with the crafter's initials and parts numbered, but many others had little identification. We also found many legs that were stained and they seemed to go with tops that were not stained. It was quite frustrating. We eventually found a system of putting all the initialled pieces in piles according to the crafter and then trying to put them together. Julio was pretty successful at making things fit and pretty soon we all got into the act. We managed to put together about 30 tables. That doesn't seem like so many, but the manager was quite impressed since they had only put together about 12 over 2 weekends.

The other group, JoAnn, Pat and Jackie got the warehouse organized and put tools back on shelves. They sure are talking a lot about the cute kid who was the manager. A couple of them say they have his phone number on speed dial!

Tomorrow it seems we will continue with the dining room tables. They will get us some more tools and we will make the parts fit!!!!! We will also begin working on the benches and even stain them. All 13 of us will go that direction, I think. They seem to think that the house will be ready for us by Wednesday. That might be OK since it got quite warm today and by Wednesday it will be overcast and cooler.

Here siding means some really heavy stuff--it has to be heavy to survive future hurricanes. We might be in for some hard work.

Today was our turn to do devotions after breakfast and dinner. That chore is behind us. We realized that the dinner group had worked all day and not had a chance to shower before doing their cooking. Several of us finished up for them so they could hit the showers. They were quite tired, and it was great that so many people from the community here volunteered to help. There are about 80 of us from Pennsylvania, Maryland, Washington, as well as some other places.

We're having great fun. Kathy W. doesn't know it yet, but just a bit ago some of the gals..... NOT ME........ short sheeted her sleeping bag. You might think that is pretty hard to do, but they managed. I'll let you know how it goes! We have been laughing a lot, and are enjoying meeting others here at the village.

Time for some sleep. I'll check in with you all tomorrow night. I hope you are having a good week.

Blessings. Joyce