Places We Have Called Home In 2019

Home Is Where We Park It:   Tucson Metropolitan Ministries Family Services

Oct 27, 2019

Temperature 86 degrees

Mom is Looking Good

Interfaith Pack-A-Thon

First things first, thanks one and all for prayers for my Mom.  She is looking good today and in good spirits.  We are guardedly optimistic about her future.  We’ll know more this week as more test results come back.  So please keep those prayers coming.

Today being Sunday as a team we again went to the St. Johns United Methodist Church for worship. It was an uplifting and positive experience.

The day wasn’t over though.  After church we went to Wendy’s for lunch in preparation for the big event of the day.

Lunch over it was time – time for the big event, time for the Interfaith Pack-a-Thon.  This is a picture of a T-shirt from a couple of years ago.

So you ask what is an interfaith Pack-a-Thon?  The Interfaith part is easy.  The Catalina UMC partnered with the Muslim Community at the Muslim Community Center to pack 50,000 meals for Southern Arizona food needs.

And the Pack-a-Thon part?  You get to pack meals of rice and beans that have a shelf life of two years.

The details of each meal are as follows:

OK, that’s the nuts and bolts of the program.  Let’s take a look at how it all came together today.  The entrance to the community center.

 The check in table

Time to get all cleaned up and don the appropriate attire.

Barbara modeling the latest attire for the trendy Pack-a-thoner

Here’s the whole team ready for action.  From left to right:  Ken, Hedi, Scott, Teresa, Barbara and myself.

Here is what we get to do.  See the yellow funnel in the middle of the table?  One person puts and holds a yellow bag on the bottom of it – Barbara’s job this afternoon.

Then through the funnel and into the bag goes a vitamin bag

A level scoop of beans and vegetables

A level scoop of soy and rice.

The bag is then weighed and adjusted to make sure it has the proper amount in it.

Then it is sealed, labeled and boxed.

Here we are ready for action.

Here we are in action.  Filling the bag.

Weighing the bag.

Sealing the bag prior to putting the label on and boxing the meal.

This is the pile of supplies we started with in the one corner of the center.

This is the same corner two hours later.

Thanks to our team and all these people

Those supplies turned into these boxes of meals – at last count 36,000 meals – that will be used to feed the hungry in the Tucson area.  The meals will go to local food pantries run by different churches as well as the Salvation Army.

That my friends is how our team spent their afternoon.

Of course such a successful day called for a celebration.  We all agreed once it was over the only place to go was Culver’s for ice cream.

That is how we spent our day on The Road of Retirement.  Working together we managed to take a big bite out of hunger in this area.  The biggest plus for me today, though, was seeing that big smile on my mother’s face.  You rock Mom and we’re all looking forward to throwing you your 100th birthday party.

Thanks again for checking in with us.  We  always appreciate your company and your comments. Catch you tomorrow.  Time to get some sleep since its back to work painting an apartment tomorrow.

These are the voyages of  Graybeard and it’s two intrepid travelers.  Our continuing mission: to explore as many new states as possible, to seek out new acquaintances and make new friends, to boldly go where we have never been before

See you on down the road!

 

 

 

 

 

Places We Have Called Home In 2019

Home Is Where We Park It:   Tucson Metropolitan Ministries Family Services

Oct 26, 2019

Temperature 91 degrees

To The Top Of A Mountain

Friday morning and we weren’t moving.  Absolutely not.  We tried.  Honestly.  But we were just too tired to move a muscle.  So we decided to take the day off and postpone sightseeing to the following day.

Now that Friday is out of the way, let’s jump to Saturday.  We were feeling human again and decided it was time to do some more sightseeing.  We’ll cover one of our ventures today and the other two in the following days.

First, there was the matter of breakfast.  We both agreed it had to be

This visit we met with success, they had a full tray of Everything Bagels.  Yippee!  Yet it was close, we ordered ours, no more than 10 minutes later the tray was empty.

Breakfast is served!

Tummies taken care of we were off to do some sightseeing.  One of the trips we had in mind was to go to the top of A mountain.

Remember this one?   The big A originated in 1914.  The A is 70 feet wide, 160 feet long and about 5 feet thick from its base.  It was created by the students at The University of Arizona.  The work began in 1914. It took almost two years to complete.  First the site was cleared of cactus and shrubs; next the students dug trenches by hand for the foundation.  The letter was built using black basalt rock quarried from the hillside. The rocks were cemented together using mortar and water that was hauled by six-horse teams.  Over the years it has been painted many different colors:  green; red, white and blue, and today white.

This peak was originally called Sentinel Peak because in early Tucson a sentinel station was erected and someone stationed there to give warning whenever enemies approached. It was used as a sentry station in the Civil War.

So today we were going to the top of Sentinel Peak.  Yes, the warning is correct.  It is an interesting drive to the top to say the least.

Onward and Upward.

For a brief moment we thought we were back in Saguaro National Park.  The mountain was covered with Saguaro Cacti.

The entrance to Sentinel Peak Park.

Up at the top

the city of Tucson spread out at your feet.

The one thing we missed though believe it or not was the giant A on the mountain.  Only after we were back down did we realize were we went wrong.  OK, it’s only 15 minutes from the rig so another trip is definitely in order before we leave.

We also went to two museums today – the Franklin Auto Museum and the Southern Arizona Transportation Museum – we’ll share them with you in the coming days.

Once back home Barbara went off to the Wishy Washy.  We have clean clothes again.

We ended the night with a team pizza party and movie night.  I don’t know where they purchased the pizza but it was really good.  Not true thin crust NY pizza but really good pizza none-the-less.  A big thank you to our team leaders who hosted the party.

We would also ask for continued prayers for my mom, and my sister and her husband as they continue to care for her.  Mom is still in the hospital and things, unfortunately, still look really bad.  Not all the tests are back but the ones that are paint a rather bleak picture.

That was our day on The Road of Retirement.  We have church tomorrow and a team activity in the afternoon so it’s time for some sleep.  It’s been a wonderful day, another day of discovery and learning new things.  Our kind of day.

Thanks for checking in with us.  We always appreciate your company and your comments.  Catch you tomorrow.

These are the voyages of  Graybeard and it’s two intrepid travelers.  Our continuing mission: to explore as many new states as possible, to seek out new acquaintances and make new friends, to boldly go where we have never been before

See you on down the road!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Places We Have Called Home In 2019

Home Is Where We Park It:   Tucson Metropolitan Ministries Family Services

Oct 23, 2019

Temperature 89 degrees

Fourth Project – Apartment 8101, Day Two

Prayers Needed Please

So the beat goes on.  Second day, same as the first.  Sort of.

Today was a rough day for both of us for reasons I can’t really go into.  Suffice to say we learned another valuable lesson today.  A lesson we both will not soon forget and one that has us questioning our continued commitment to NOMADS in the coming year.  For a fact some of the joy once associated with this project has now evaporated.

In addition my mom is definitely not doing well.  She is currently living with my sister who God bless her is doing the best she can to care for her.  To think Mom was doing so well this past summer.  Now, its so hard to believe she has gone down hill so far and so fast.

The net of it, another tough day for my sister and my mom.  A tough day in other ways for the two of us.

We made great progress in the Apartment today.  I was able to finish the front bedroom as well as the kitchen.  Others were able to repair the broken patio door, the ripped off bathroom door jam, patch numerous holes and also paint the back bedroom.  At the rate we are going we should be able to finish by  Monday or Tuesday of next week.  Pictures of the finished Apartment will be posted then.

We’ll be leaving a week from today – a day earlier than first planned.  We’re definitely going to need the extra day to decompress and lick our wounds.  Amazingly, we are both holding up far better physically then we had thought we would.  Yet, we are weary and sore in more places than we can imagine.  Not to mention the fact that we also need a mental break.

We continue to travel along, hand in hand, singing our song on The Road of Retirement.  We hope to do some sightseeing this weekend but time will tell.  The one place we want to visit is 85% outside and involves a lot, a whole lot, of walking.  Maybe.

Thanks for checking in with us.  We appreciate your company and ask this evening for your prayers – for my mom, my sister and her husband, and the two of us.  Catch you tomorrow.

These are the voyages of  Graybeard and it’s two intrepid travelers.  Our continuing mission: to explore as many new states as possible, to seek out new acquaintances and make new friends, to boldly go where we have never been before

See you on down the road!

Places We Have Called Home In 2019

Home Is Where We Park It:   Tucson Metropolitan Ministries Family Services

Oct 23, 2019

Temperature 89 degrees

Second Project, Apartment 3201, Finished

Third Project  – Apartment 7101, Finished 

Fourth Project – Apartment 8101, Day One

Like that hat above.  I do wear my paint real well.  In fact, perish the thought, I’m even having to take a shower each and every day.  Ah, I look forward sometime in the future to the good old days, a shower every other day, maybe every third or fourth day.  Not for awhile though.

It’s amazing, when I owned my own home I put off painting it until the very end.  Once I put it up for sale I had no choice.  So one room after another was painted.  Not that I enjoyed it.  It was just something I had to do.  Here I am today as a NOMAD finding myself painting day after day.  They tell me this is really what NOMAD’s are really all about.  Maybe they should change our name to RPP – Retired People Painting.

Its really, though, more than painting.  Barbara and I both agree it’s also about growing in terms of interpersonal dynamics.  Let’s be honest for the longest time now we really haven’t had to work together as part of a team.  Its just been the two of us.  Now we find ourselves once again having to work together with individuals with different skills, different backgrounds, and different personalities.  Its been interesting, enlightening, and a positive experience.

So what did today hold?  We finished our Third Project, Apartment 7107.  It needed some touch up and a few other odds and ends.  We were finished with it by lunch time.  A three bedroom apartment like this typically rents for $1400 a month.  However, for those who qualify this apartment will rent for no more than $600 a month.

This is the beautiful wall mural adjacent to the apartment.

Then we moved on to our Fourth Project, Apartment 8101. This was the one we had been warned about.

What did we find?  Take a look.  This is the ceiling fan in the one room.  Look at the ceiling above it.  Yuk!

There were holes large and small in all the walls.  Someone had put their foot or fist (I guess) through one bedroom door.  And in the bathroom wall there is a hole the size of a softball.

Mold in the bathroom shower.

The door jamb had been kicked off the wall in the bathroom.

This is some of the garbage that we first hauled out.

More bags of garbage waiting to go out.  Overall, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be.  Is there a lot of work to be done here?  You bet but we’ll get it done.

Then we moved in and got to work.  Thankfully, the walls in this unit are already white.  With any luck we’ll only have to apply one coat of paint.  I’m working in the front bedroom and I’ve already painted half of the ceiling and two walls.  I’ll finish that room tomorrow for sure.

That was our day on The Road of Retirement.  The days have begun to sort of become one big blur.  One big blur of white paint!  I’m starting to have dreams of paint cans, brushes, and rollers chasing after me.  I guess that’s better than warlocks and witches and what not.  OK, time to get some sleep.  I already hear a wall beckoning to me Please come paint me and make me white as snow.  Wall, you are just going to have to wait until tomorrow.

Thanks for checking in with us.  We always appreciate sharing our day with you and reading your comments.  Catch you tomorrow.

These are the voyages of  Graybeard and it’s two intrepid travelers.  Our continuing mission: to explore as many new states as possible, to seek out new acquaintances and make new friends, to boldly go where we have never been before

See you on down the road!