I finally had some not so pleasant days recently. I think that the initial feeling of being glad to be here has worn off, and now I'm more in tune to what actually goes on here. Life sucks for these people, and maybe even worse is that many of them are happy with their state of life.
It started on Monday night while I was “on the house.” One of our transitional guests, call him Dave, came home drunk. He apparently had a really bad day and felt the need to have a few drinks in order to unwind. While it might be easy to sympathize with him about this, it is strictly against our rules to drink at all while a guest in our house. The only possible consequence for his actions was dismissal. Every other day I’ve been on the house, it’s been really quiet. Now I found myself having to tell a drunk guy nearly three times my age why he was no longer allowed to stay with us. Talk about a challenge. After talking to him for more than half an hour about all this and getting help from another staff member, we asked him to pack his things and leave. I was happy he accepted this without getting out of hand. This really boils down to Dave not being ready to move on with his life.
The next morning I was asked to take a look at a sick guy in our parking lot. He was not in good shape, and I ended up calling the fire department to take him to the hospital (the FD out here operates the ambulances). In the afternoon, I looked after another sick guy and managed to piss off one of my fellow staff members (for something unrelated). Later at dinner, a local case worker called the fire department to pick up the second sick guy. I feel bad about not doing it sooner myself. He was drunk and probably just dehydrated, but what if that amount of time had health implications for him?
During dinner, there seemed to be more than the usual amount of people who reeked of alcohol. I had my first time of doubt as to the point in serving the people here. The biggest thing is just wondering if these people give a damn about their lives. Many of them do nothing to move up in life and are content living in poverty. I’ve been able to move past this for the moment, but I’m sure the doubts will come back from time to time. What I really needed was a day off, and that’s today. I’m going rock climbing with a Boy Scout troop tonight, so that should be just what I need.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
A rough week
Monday, September 10, 2007
Today's reflection
What I’d like to talk about today is what Jesus addresses in the Gospel reading. It concerns the Sabbath, a day in the week that we are to rest just as God did after creating the world. I remember that as a kid we would never do any unnecessary work at home because of this day of rest. It was a day to relax, go to Mass as a family, visit relatives, read the paper, and sometimes be just lazy. I think everyone probably has similar memories. Sunday is a day that belongs to God and we should honor that.
But then we came here to Andre House. And we work (with the exception of Bouf) here on Sunday, the Sabbath. I have not detected that anyone has serious reservations about working on Sunday, but it always helps to rationalize in our own minds just why we at Andre House must work on Sundays. I would like to suggest that since we have the ability to work on Sundays, it is our duty, our sacred obligation to work on Sundays.
First we can look at the scripture today, in particular the Gospel. Jesus is watched in a synagogue by the scribes and Pharisees. As we see quite often, they are looking for Jesus’ faults. They are jealous of him and will do anything to discredit him. As we also see quite often, Jesus does something controversial that they think condemns him. Jesus heals the hand of a man saying, “I ask you, is it lawful to do good on the sabbath – or evil? To preserve life – or destroy it?” Jesus doesn’t give a verbal answer to these questions, but he gives a powerful answer when he heals the man’s hand. In this way, he is telling us that it would be evil to not do good on the Sabbath, especially when given the opportunity to. If we can do good on Sundays, than we must do good on Sundays. And I think Jesus speaks directly to our mission when he asks if it is worse to work to preserve life or destroy it by inaction. This is a clear cut scriptural answer to why we work on Sundays.
We can also turn to the Catechism of the Catholic Church for more answers. Here is an interesting way to think about it. I quote, “On Sundays and other holy days of obligation, the faithful are to refrain from engaging in work or activities that hinder the worship owed to God, the joy proper to the Lord’s day, the performance of the works of mercy, and the appropriate relaxation of mind and body.” We are to remove all stops that prevent us from performing the works of mercy on the Sabbath, which are at the very center of what we do.
As I said, Sunday is a day that belongs to God, and I’m certain that what God wants of us is to continue to serve his people here. But there is one more aspect to this. We work on Sundays, and we should have no reservations about such. Nevertheless, it is just as important that we still honor God on that day. Yes, we honor God by doing his work here, but we must also remember to honor God by going to Mass and praying on Sundays. In the Gospel, Jesus does work a miracle on the Sabbath, but remember that he was at a synagogue to teach God’s word. Even though he was working, he was still honoring God. Let us pray that we can follow his holy example.
But then we came here to Andre House. And we work (with the exception of Bouf) here on Sunday, the Sabbath. I have not detected that anyone has serious reservations about working on Sunday, but it always helps to rationalize in our own minds just why we at Andre House must work on Sundays. I would like to suggest that since we have the ability to work on Sundays, it is our duty, our sacred obligation to work on Sundays.
First we can look at the scripture today, in particular the Gospel. Jesus is watched in a synagogue by the scribes and Pharisees. As we see quite often, they are looking for Jesus’ faults. They are jealous of him and will do anything to discredit him. As we also see quite often, Jesus does something controversial that they think condemns him. Jesus heals the hand of a man saying, “I ask you, is it lawful to do good on the sabbath – or evil? To preserve life – or destroy it?” Jesus doesn’t give a verbal answer to these questions, but he gives a powerful answer when he heals the man’s hand. In this way, he is telling us that it would be evil to not do good on the Sabbath, especially when given the opportunity to. If we can do good on Sundays, than we must do good on Sundays. And I think Jesus speaks directly to our mission when he asks if it is worse to work to preserve life or destroy it by inaction. This is a clear cut scriptural answer to why we work on Sundays.
We can also turn to the Catechism of the Catholic Church for more answers. Here is an interesting way to think about it. I quote, “On Sundays and other holy days of obligation, the faithful are to refrain from engaging in work or activities that hinder the worship owed to God, the joy proper to the Lord’s day, the performance of the works of mercy, and the appropriate relaxation of mind and body.” We are to remove all stops that prevent us from performing the works of mercy on the Sabbath, which are at the very center of what we do.
As I said, Sunday is a day that belongs to God, and I’m certain that what God wants of us is to continue to serve his people here. But there is one more aspect to this. We work on Sundays, and we should have no reservations about such. Nevertheless, it is just as important that we still honor God on that day. Yes, we honor God by doing his work here, but we must also remember to honor God by going to Mass and praying on Sundays. In the Gospel, Jesus does work a miracle on the Sabbath, but remember that he was at a synagogue to teach God’s word. Even though he was working, he was still honoring God. Let us pray that we can follow his holy example.
Saturday, September 8, 2007
Transitional Housing (Men’s/Women’s house)
This is continuing the descriptions of what I do in each of my duties.
One of the more successful services we provide for the homeless is transitional housing. This program has very specific goals in mind. We take in people that, for any reason, are homeless and are looking to move out of their current state of life. We take in people that are seeking full time employment with the goal of saving for their own place to stay. We operate a men’s and a women’s house and each can hold several people.
The guests are expected to leave the house every morning at 0815 and must return by 1900. During the day they are expected to work or look for work. We give people without jobs up to 12 weeks to find a job before we will kick them out. We provide all meals for them- breakfast in the morning, fixings for lunch, and dinner in the evening. They have their own room or share with one other person. To sum everything up, we give our transitional guests everything they need so that they can save their money for an apartment. Some of them are able to move in, get a job, save enough money, and move out within a month or two. Others take longer for whatever reason. There is no set limit to how long a guest can stay at our house, but we generally cut people off at six months.
We choose our guests through an interview process. We do an interview every day, as long as someone signs up and there is a spot for them in the house. We ask them information concerning their physical and mental health. We find out if they use or abuse alcohol or drugs. A person must be clean and sober for at least one year before we will consider them. They must fit into our general criteria of wanting a place to stay in order to save money for their own place.
Whenever the houses are open for the guests, there is a staff member present. This is for several reasons. First, we are available to the guests to talk about whatever. Each guest has a staff contact person, who helps them set goals and periodically assess progress towards those goals. We really try to help these guest out. A staff member is also present to make sure that the house rules are followed. No drinking or drug use is allowed. The guests must respect their fellow guests and the staff. They must complete daily chores satisfactorily. They must leave every morning by 0815 and be back by 1900. There are a bunch of other rules, too. The point is to give them some regularity and certainty in their lives, which many of them are missing. Any violation of the rules and the guest will receive a strike. When a guest receives three strikes, they are asked to leave. Some violations, like drug or alcohol use, are grounds for immediate dismissal.
Sometimes all this can be a challenge. There is a wide cross section of people that come into our house, and all have different needs and concerns. There are a wide array of ages that we see. The oldest guest right now is 57 and the youngest is 20. Some of them need more involvement than others. Some of them need a staff member to hound them about not spending their money on stupid stuff that doesn’t get them closer to their goals. Some need a kick in the pants to get moving. Some need watched constantly because they’ll take any opportunity to break our rules. Some don’t need anything but three square meals and a bed to sleep in.I spend two different nights doing this: Monday in the men’s house and Friday in the women’s house. There is some work involved in being the staff member on duty, but we’re mainly there for emergencies. We stay overnight and lock up the house in the morning.
One of the more successful services we provide for the homeless is transitional housing. This program has very specific goals in mind. We take in people that, for any reason, are homeless and are looking to move out of their current state of life. We take in people that are seeking full time employment with the goal of saving for their own place to stay. We operate a men’s and a women’s house and each can hold several people.
The guests are expected to leave the house every morning at 0815 and must return by 1900. During the day they are expected to work or look for work. We give people without jobs up to 12 weeks to find a job before we will kick them out. We provide all meals for them- breakfast in the morning, fixings for lunch, and dinner in the evening. They have their own room or share with one other person. To sum everything up, we give our transitional guests everything they need so that they can save their money for an apartment. Some of them are able to move in, get a job, save enough money, and move out within a month or two. Others take longer for whatever reason. There is no set limit to how long a guest can stay at our house, but we generally cut people off at six months.
We choose our guests through an interview process. We do an interview every day, as long as someone signs up and there is a spot for them in the house. We ask them information concerning their physical and mental health. We find out if they use or abuse alcohol or drugs. A person must be clean and sober for at least one year before we will consider them. They must fit into our general criteria of wanting a place to stay in order to save money for their own place.
Whenever the houses are open for the guests, there is a staff member present. This is for several reasons. First, we are available to the guests to talk about whatever. Each guest has a staff contact person, who helps them set goals and periodically assess progress towards those goals. We really try to help these guest out. A staff member is also present to make sure that the house rules are followed. No drinking or drug use is allowed. The guests must respect their fellow guests and the staff. They must complete daily chores satisfactorily. They must leave every morning by 0815 and be back by 1900. There are a bunch of other rules, too. The point is to give them some regularity and certainty in their lives, which many of them are missing. Any violation of the rules and the guest will receive a strike. When a guest receives three strikes, they are asked to leave. Some violations, like drug or alcohol use, are grounds for immediate dismissal.
Sometimes all this can be a challenge. There is a wide cross section of people that come into our house, and all have different needs and concerns. There are a wide array of ages that we see. The oldest guest right now is 57 and the youngest is 20. Some of them need more involvement than others. Some of them need a staff member to hound them about not spending their money on stupid stuff that doesn’t get them closer to their goals. Some need a kick in the pants to get moving. Some need watched constantly because they’ll take any opportunity to break our rules. Some don’t need anything but three square meals and a bed to sleep in.I spend two different nights doing this: Monday in the men’s house and Friday in the women’s house. There is some work involved in being the staff member on duty, but we’re mainly there for emergencies. We stay overnight and lock up the house in the morning.
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Q&A
Okay, so I've been getting a lot of questions from people and I thought I would devote this post to answering those questions.
Q: How's the weather? A: Terrible! Yesterday Phoenix set a new record for number of days in the year being over 110 degrees. “But it’s a dry heat!” I’ll punch the next person who tells me that.
Q: Well do you have air conditioning? A: Air what? No, someone came up with this great invention called a swamp cooler that pumps humidity into the air, cooling it down slightly. They must be more economical, because most people have them.
Q: Wow, all that sun and you must have a tan by now, right? A: Nope, I'm still a pale white kid. Most of my time is spent inside of our building working. When I am outside I avoid the sun like I avoid Andre House staff members after eating the beans we serve on Wednesdays and Thursdays.
Q: How's the food? A: Well if you don't mind eating the same thing every week, the food is great. Sunday is chili, Monday is pasta salad, Tuesday is spaghetti, Wednesday is hot dogs, Thursday is burritos, and Saturday is goulash. Our meal cycle is as regular as, er, the moon's cycles.
Q: What have you done on your off days? A: So far nothing much. I have focused a lot of my time on preparing stuff to get back into West Point. Fortunately I should be able to finish all of that paperwork by Christmas, then I won’t have to do anything but worry about whether or not I’ll be reaccepted for the rest of my time here (there’s actually not much of a worry). I have been to three Diamondbacks games (the pro baseball team) and enjoy riding around the city.
Q: Have you been cutting your hair? A: I’m sure to everyone’s dismay, yes, I have been buzzing my head about every three weeks. It’s too darn hot to have any hair.
Q: Have you run into any hostile dogs lately? A: Friday when I was running through a nearby neighborhood, there was one dog that ran up to me. Fortunately he only wanted to attack me with some slobber and love, so that made me feel good inside. But I'm still not sure why everyone in this city needs a huge dog and then lets them run around.
Q: Have you been keeping your sense of humor. A: I’ll let you decide.
Q: Have people actually been asking you these questions? A: Nope, I made them all up. But I am happy to answer questions anyone has, just send them!
Q: How's the weather? A: Terrible! Yesterday Phoenix set a new record for number of days in the year being over 110 degrees. “But it’s a dry heat!” I’ll punch the next person who tells me that.
Q: Well do you have air conditioning? A: Air what? No, someone came up with this great invention called a swamp cooler that pumps humidity into the air, cooling it down slightly. They must be more economical, because most people have them.
Q: Wow, all that sun and you must have a tan by now, right? A: Nope, I'm still a pale white kid. Most of my time is spent inside of our building working. When I am outside I avoid the sun like I avoid Andre House staff members after eating the beans we serve on Wednesdays and Thursdays.
Q: How's the food? A: Well if you don't mind eating the same thing every week, the food is great. Sunday is chili, Monday is pasta salad, Tuesday is spaghetti, Wednesday is hot dogs, Thursday is burritos, and Saturday is goulash. Our meal cycle is as regular as, er, the moon's cycles.
Q: What have you done on your off days? A: So far nothing much. I have focused a lot of my time on preparing stuff to get back into West Point. Fortunately I should be able to finish all of that paperwork by Christmas, then I won’t have to do anything but worry about whether or not I’ll be reaccepted for the rest of my time here (there’s actually not much of a worry). I have been to three Diamondbacks games (the pro baseball team) and enjoy riding around the city.
Q: Have you been cutting your hair? A: I’m sure to everyone’s dismay, yes, I have been buzzing my head about every three weeks. It’s too darn hot to have any hair.
Q: Have you run into any hostile dogs lately? A: Friday when I was running through a nearby neighborhood, there was one dog that ran up to me. Fortunately he only wanted to attack me with some slobber and love, so that made me feel good inside. But I'm still not sure why everyone in this city needs a huge dog and then lets them run around.
Q: Have you been keeping your sense of humor. A: I’ll let you decide.
Q: Have people actually been asking you these questions? A: Nope, I made them all up. But I am happy to answer questions anyone has, just send them!
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Today's reflection
No offense to our friend Conor, who was an English major in college, I hated my literature classes. I’m a math-minded guy, and literature never was my thing. I could never really free my mind enough to get past the literal meaning of the words I was reading. Symbolism, foreshadowing, similes, metaphors. All that stuff escaped me. And a lot of times, Jesus does the same things in his preaching. He tells parables and stories to portray his message. A lot of the time, that stuff escapes me too.
Today is a totally different situation though. Today I get the symbolism, Jesus didn’t slip a fast one on me in these readings. He says woe to those who “cleanse the outside of cup and dish, and leave the inside filled with loot and lust.” First off all, it just doesn’t make sense. Imagine if we only cleaned the outside of our pots and pans in the kitchen here. Wednesday’s beans would be Saturday’s goulash and Sunday’s rice would be in Tuesday’s spaghetti. It just doesn’t work that way. It is the same way with us. It just doesn’t make sense to outwardly cleanse ourselves and make no effort to cleanse ourselves inwardly. Woe to the man who makes every effort to make others think he is holy or morally straight or ethically sound, but goes home at night and lives an alternate life and does exactly what he speaks out against or works against. It’s hypocritical. It’s just plain wrong. And as the Psalm reminds us, “you have searched me and you know me, Lord.” We may be able to fool each other by our actions, but God knows what our true motivations are. He knows us in a very intimate way.
Jesus says, “first cleanse the inside of the cup so that its outside may be clean.” This is again where Jesus can’t slip his symbolism by me. We must be inwardly holy, inwardly morally straight, inwardly ethically sound before we make an effort to be outwardly so. We must internalize the things we read about in the Bible, the things we reflect on. We must make an effort to first transform ourselves on the inside. There is an added bonus to all this. Once we truly and completely internalize the message of Jesus Christ, our actions will follow suit. If our actions to not follow, we have not truly internalized the message. If we believe we must work for peace but make no effort to do so, we do not truly believe in working for peace. This is where the true challenge in today’s Gospel comes. We can read about and talk about all sorts of great things that should be done in our world, but we must make an effort to bring those things to fruition. And I’m not calling anyone out here, because we are doing just that in our work here.
Today is a totally different situation though. Today I get the symbolism, Jesus didn’t slip a fast one on me in these readings. He says woe to those who “cleanse the outside of cup and dish, and leave the inside filled with loot and lust.” First off all, it just doesn’t make sense. Imagine if we only cleaned the outside of our pots and pans in the kitchen here. Wednesday’s beans would be Saturday’s goulash and Sunday’s rice would be in Tuesday’s spaghetti. It just doesn’t work that way. It is the same way with us. It just doesn’t make sense to outwardly cleanse ourselves and make no effort to cleanse ourselves inwardly. Woe to the man who makes every effort to make others think he is holy or morally straight or ethically sound, but goes home at night and lives an alternate life and does exactly what he speaks out against or works against. It’s hypocritical. It’s just plain wrong. And as the Psalm reminds us, “you have searched me and you know me, Lord.” We may be able to fool each other by our actions, but God knows what our true motivations are. He knows us in a very intimate way.
Jesus says, “first cleanse the inside of the cup so that its outside may be clean.” This is again where Jesus can’t slip his symbolism by me. We must be inwardly holy, inwardly morally straight, inwardly ethically sound before we make an effort to be outwardly so. We must internalize the things we read about in the Bible, the things we reflect on. We must make an effort to first transform ourselves on the inside. There is an added bonus to all this. Once we truly and completely internalize the message of Jesus Christ, our actions will follow suit. If our actions to not follow, we have not truly internalized the message. If we believe we must work for peace but make no effort to do so, we do not truly believe in working for peace. This is where the true challenge in today’s Gospel comes. We can read about and talk about all sorts of great things that should be done in our world, but we must make an effort to bring those things to fruition. And I’m not calling anyone out here, because we are doing just that in our work here.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Gate
Last time I threw out a lot of the different jobs that I do on a weekly basis. One of those is what we call “gate.” I thought that I should write about it now since I had a really bad experience of it last night. I can’t imagine a worse night.
Basically, there are three people on the gate who help facilitate the traffic flow through the building during dinner time. To start off, usually two people head outside to the line of people waiting for dinner. We first straighten the line, making sure that now one is trying to save their spot and that everyone is sort of single file. Since it is so hot and we don’t want people to have to get out of line for water, we give everyone in line at the time a cold bottle of water. From here, one of these persons goes back inside to help the third gate person, who has since started cleaning the five bathrooms that we have available to the guests. There is often a mess in the bathrooms, and when I say “mess,” I mean crap on the walls (literal crap), so cleaning is a never ceasing adventure.
The person who stayed outside, known as the front gate person, has begun to hand out numbers for dinner. After numbers are given to everyone in line, the guests file into our parking lot and the benches there. They wait in the benches until 5:30 when we start serving. One of the inside gate people, called middle gate, will call the guests in one bench at a time (about 30-35 people). The middle gate person collects the numbers, making sure that no one has cut the line. The last person stands at the exit to the dining room to greet the guests as they leave and to ensure they don’t take out the Styrofoam cups we give them. This is to help control litter on the street.
Last night I was on front gate, and like I said it was terrible. To start off, there was one guy who thought he deserved a bottle of water more than anyone else in the line. He went in our volunteer entrance (which is off limits to guests) and started giving his pity story to some of the volunteers. So I had to go inside and argue with him about why he wasn’t going to get a bottle of water. It might seem like something insignificant, but as soon as we let one guy elbow his way into the building when it is closed to the guests and get a bottle of water, we will have many more people doing the same. It's almost a game with the guests, and I won that round.
The next incident was a woman dealing crack right outside our front gate. She is someone who is around quite a bit and I didn’t think she would be selling drugs. So I called the police and they took her away. She was back today, so I’m not sure what happened to her. While I was dealing with that, a car load of people (not kitchen volunteers) drove into our parking lot. The driver just happened to be drinking a cup of beer. We don’t allow alcohol on our property, so I had to chase them off. There is also one guest who has been giving us a lot of trouble lately, and he got really pissed at us last night. He threw a hissy fit to try and get his way, and we had to compromise with him. He was most likely high out of his mind at the time too, so we were worried he was going to hurt someone. Once I had walked away from that one, I had to convince another guy who was reeking of alcohol that he wasn’t welcome for dinner. I guess that it’s best to get one of these nights in early, because I don’t think they can get much worse than that.
Basically, there are three people on the gate who help facilitate the traffic flow through the building during dinner time. To start off, usually two people head outside to the line of people waiting for dinner. We first straighten the line, making sure that now one is trying to save their spot and that everyone is sort of single file. Since it is so hot and we don’t want people to have to get out of line for water, we give everyone in line at the time a cold bottle of water. From here, one of these persons goes back inside to help the third gate person, who has since started cleaning the five bathrooms that we have available to the guests. There is often a mess in the bathrooms, and when I say “mess,” I mean crap on the walls (literal crap), so cleaning is a never ceasing adventure.
The person who stayed outside, known as the front gate person, has begun to hand out numbers for dinner. After numbers are given to everyone in line, the guests file into our parking lot and the benches there. They wait in the benches until 5:30 when we start serving. One of the inside gate people, called middle gate, will call the guests in one bench at a time (about 30-35 people). The middle gate person collects the numbers, making sure that no one has cut the line. The last person stands at the exit to the dining room to greet the guests as they leave and to ensure they don’t take out the Styrofoam cups we give them. This is to help control litter on the street.
Last night I was on front gate, and like I said it was terrible. To start off, there was one guy who thought he deserved a bottle of water more than anyone else in the line. He went in our volunteer entrance (which is off limits to guests) and started giving his pity story to some of the volunteers. So I had to go inside and argue with him about why he wasn’t going to get a bottle of water. It might seem like something insignificant, but as soon as we let one guy elbow his way into the building when it is closed to the guests and get a bottle of water, we will have many more people doing the same. It's almost a game with the guests, and I won that round.
The next incident was a woman dealing crack right outside our front gate. She is someone who is around quite a bit and I didn’t think she would be selling drugs. So I called the police and they took her away. She was back today, so I’m not sure what happened to her. While I was dealing with that, a car load of people (not kitchen volunteers) drove into our parking lot. The driver just happened to be drinking a cup of beer. We don’t allow alcohol on our property, so I had to chase them off. There is also one guest who has been giving us a lot of trouble lately, and he got really pissed at us last night. He threw a hissy fit to try and get his way, and we had to compromise with him. He was most likely high out of his mind at the time too, so we were worried he was going to hurt someone. Once I had walked away from that one, I had to convince another guy who was reeking of alcohol that he wasn’t welcome for dinner. I guess that it’s best to get one of these nights in early, because I don’t think they can get much worse than that.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Schedule
I wanted to give everyone idea of what I actually do on a weekly basis. When we were in Rocky Point, Mexico, we set a weekly schedule that we will follow for the entire year. Here is mine:
Monday: laundry, men's house
Tuesday: morning porter, gate
Wednesday: clothes closet, afternoon showers
Thursday: day off
Friday: foodbank, community day, women's house
Saturday: soupline
Sunday: men's house from 1100-1500, gate
I realize my above schedule doesn’t look like it’s too bad, but I assure you that my time management skills learned at school have come in handy. The average day starts at 0900 and our duties are done by 1930 or so. Some of the other things that we do on a regular basis, but are not on our schedule are: interviewing people to live in our transitional houses, serving as contacts for the guests in our transitional houses, sorting donations in our basement, helping in the kitchen even on days when we’re not assigned to, among other odd things. I have been given the additional duty to be in charge of the cars we own. As my brother put it, I am the Andre House motor pool officer, as we currently own 12 cars. The majority are old and junky, so it’s my job to make sure they are maintained and kept legal. I can talk about all the other duties in their own posts.
We also have our house that needs attention, so that takes time too. We need to do more of that because 1) the plants we do have growing are dying from a lack of water and 2) we just got a notice from the city that our yard is too far out of disrepair. Apparently one of our neighbors doesn’t like something (because the letter didn’t say exactly), so we need to do some lawn work. Yes, we actually do have some grass in our yard, despite the huge lack of rain here.
I also have to try and do personal things in my own time. I have been working on applications to get back into West Point, making appointments for my medical qualification, as well as Congressional nomination packets. If there is any time left after all of this, I try to motivate myself to work out. It’s so hot right now that we have to work out at night.
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