45 posts tagged “mississippi”

What's the best thing about today?

Mississippi trip reunion dinner: seeing our new friends once again, watching the slide show of everyone's photos. I found a recipe online for a carrot & parsley salad to take, since I've got lots of both of those.

Show us something you don't understand.

OK - here's the beautiful Beau Rivage casino in Biloxi, MS - rebuilt to surpass its former glory within a few short months after Hurricane Katrina. Total Biloxi casino revenues during the month of December 2007 were over $78,000,000.

 

 

 

Conversely, here's a local beachfront business literally a few lots down the street, as it looks 2-1/2 years after Katrina.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's a family's home along that same street - someone grew up here, lived their lives here. Annual per capita personal income in Mississippi was about $26,000 in 2006, the lowest of any state in the US (as it was pre-Katrina as well).

 

 

And here's what the Mississippi and Federal governments are doing about it.

Maybe I do understand this after all... (hint: $$$$)

But here's what you and I can do to help!

Our local paper published an article yesterday about our trip... it was a slow news day, haha.

I finally caught up on writing all about our trip to Mississippi last week, where we went to help with the ongoing Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. If you'd like to read the whole thing, you can start with my Heading Out post, and keep clicking Next.

If you'd like to help, you can donate your money and/or your time to Camp Victor Ministries. All donations go directly toward helping families rebuild their lives, and if you choose to volunteer, you'll have a deeply rewarding experience...

 

In summary, here are some photos showing what we accomplished on Miss Janie's house during the week:

 

On the outside of the house, we removed the old siding from around the bow window, wrapped and trimmed that whole wall and fixed the window, painted the new siding on the

porch, painted lots of siding pieces and put them up on two sides of the house, painted all the railings and trim on 3 porches, and painted the back side of the house, including the lattice-work. TL decided to stay a 2nd week, so he could finish overseeing the remainder of the siding installation!

 

 

Hm, you can't really see the difference in these photos, but it really looked much better.

 

 

In a bedroom, we finished painting the trim, and painted the walls & closet.

 

In the master bathroom, we fixed lots of drywall, mudded, and primed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the living room, we fixed all the problems with the drywall and previous mudding - you can't really tell by the picture, but it looks a lot better. We primed and painted, and it's ready for the flooring.

 

 

 

 

In the entry foyer, we put up all the drywall, and mudded it. It's ready to prime.

 

 

 

 

We had an unventful bus trip back - I just mostly dozed and took medicine, and I felt a good bit better by the time we got back to Pittsburgh. I think we only made one real meal stop, at Cracker Barrel in Bristol VA for breakfast (I only had a bowl of grits, and they seated us with a couple we hadn't met yet, so I did try to be sociable). Oh, and then a quick stop at the Beckley Travel Plaza to get something to take with, so the driver wouldn't have to stop again (I had my first coffee in several days, and Al & I bought a ham & Swiss sandwich to share later). Movies were watched, but I can't recollect which ones.

...

SO, overall, I think we got a lot accomplished for Miss Janie in a week. It was different from last year, when we worked on a couple different houses doing different projects. While it was good last year to see different neighborhoods and meet different people, in this case we were able to get to know Miss Janie and Mister Bob pretty well throughout the week we spent with them. So that was good in a different way. By the end of the week, she knew most of us by name, and was telling us all sorts of family anecdotes, etc. She told us that she really appreciated all the hard work we were doing for her and in general on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

And just as we did last year, we really enjoyed meeting and working with a group of excellent human beings.

We're already looking forward to next year's trip...

Today when I woke up, I could see I wasn't feeling any better, and possibly worse, so I just stayed in bed. Nikki brought me hot tea and toast from the dining hall, and more Vitamin C packets to drink. It was kind of sad watching everyone go off to their work days, and I felt bad about not getting to say good-bye to Miss Janie & Mister Bob. Our group was planning to only work till 2:00, so they could be back in time for a service at 4:30, and then get all packed up to leave right after dinner. I figured I'd best try to get as well as I could before a 21-hour bus ride...  So I just laid in bed on my top bunk all day, not really sleeping, but just going in and out of a fever-ish haze - at one point I completely couldn't catch my breath - it was really very scary, but a very nice staff woman got me some water and ice once I finally was able to breathe.

So Nikki was assigned the task of today's photodocumentation:

A final lunch in the boat house...

 

Nikki got a good shot of the grassy marshes I mentioned before...

 

 

Some final puppy-time was enjoyed...

 

 

 

 

Nikki missed the shot because he moved too fast, but apparently Eddie said he'd always wanted to kiss a Southern Belle, and he grabbed Miss Janie and laid one on her! I gather she enjoyed it! [I think he's lucky he didn't get slapped...] 

 

The crew all signed a piece of house siding for Miss Janie to keep as a memento of the week...

 

 

 

 

 

Miss Janie gave everyone bunches of Mardi Gras beads, and they all posed for a group photo in front of the house! I was sorry I missed all that!

One of our household rules has always been that you can't play if you didn't work - meaning if you're too sick to go to school/work/whatever during the day, then you're too sick to play ball / go out / whatever later on. So since we'd been planning all week to go out to dinner tonight, I bravely (*snerk*) made it through the day so I could go out for some Gulf Coast seafood at Taranto's.

 

Good food again this year... plates piled high with crabs, boiled shrimp, etc. I only felt like a cup of gumbo, which I couldn't finish, but it was yummy!

Also had a good regional beer, Abita. You can tell I'm sick, 'cos I couldn't even finish one bottle.

TL and Frank came along with us, and Tom and his son Brian came in later so we pulled up chairs for them, too. I guess I mostly just sat there and held my head, so Nikki walked me home early. Bleah. I went right to bed pretty much.

 

Wow, when I woke up today I could barely move. Fever, chills, stabbing pains in my head. I was feeling perfectly fine even as late as 10:00 last night! I got up anyway and shuffled into the dining hall for some hot tea, which I drank in a semi-conscious state with my head in my hands. Breakfast was ready early this time, so I went up and got some "oatmeal bake" - it seemed like something I would probably like under different circumstances, but I was only able to take a few nibbles. I think lots of people were very solicitous of me during breakfast, but really I was pretty out of it. After taking an Advil and a cup of Vitamin C, I decided to still go to work though, figuring I would feel better if I got out and did something, and I could just choose something to do where I could take it easy.

 

I did help (slowly, with breaks) to start painting the living room walls a nice off-white shade. Miss Janie said she loved it!

After a bit, though, I took some more Advil and went and laid down in the van - I guess I napped because when Nikki woke me up it was lunchtime!

After lunch, I worked on painting and touching up the trim on the front porch, where Alex had caulked. That was something nice and slow and easy. At one point Miss Janie gave me a nice glass of iced tea, since she could see I wasn't feeling well. I must've done something else too, but I really can't recall what.

Here are some additional photos from today's work (others were busier than I was):

Also, Al & Alex got the whole rest of the bathroom mudded, and a decision was made to re-drywall the ceiling, which had been left a patchwork mess by someone previously.

 

Here are Brian, Alex, and TL trying to coordinate the lowering of the scaffold for the day... it was a little like riverdance...

Denise ended up having to leave during the afternoon - her aunt had passed away that morning, and she was able to arrange a flight home from Mobile Friday morning, which meant someone had to drive her to the airport this afternoon. :-(

Sorry I've only had time to post by phone today - we played card games all evening after dinner and shower, and I'm so tired I'm actually going to go to bed at "lights out" time tonight (10:00).

It rained last night, so there were little gnats out today - the kind that bite really HARD! So those of us who could, spent as much time as possible working inside. It started out as a damp day, too, but then the rain held off yet again, and it turned into a pretty day, aside from the gnats (Mister Bob called them G-nats...).

Painting the "magnolia room" - Miss Janie says every Mississippi home must have a magnolia room. By that she means that the decor will involve lots of magnolias when it's done - it should be very pretty with this eggshell paint, and the cream-colored ceramic tile she chose.

The siding crew spent most of today working on trimming out the bow window - it was very complicated with all the odd angles and the number of individual windows. They also sided the little wall by the front porch that the Entry guys had had to take apart yesterday. So the front porch is all done, except for the plank that's planned for the floor - I think the next group will be doing that, because there's something else that goes down first.

 

Just to give you a feel for the rest of the neighborhood...

Mister Bob says everyone has an El Camino, haha.

I wish I had taken some photos of the houses we passed on the way to the jobsite every day. There were clearly quite a number of them that hadn't been cleaned out yet since the hurricane, and lots of others that were in progress.

 

 

 

A few more work photos:

At the end of the day today, I volunteered to be one of the ones on the 2nd van, so others could get back to camp earlier this time. It was actually pretty interesting... first we had to stop at Lowe's to pick up some pipe for this other jobsite we were going to, then when we arrived there, they were ready to pack up most of their tools - they figured they'd be done with their job mid-day tomorrow. They had just finished hanging a front door on the little house - that wasn't part of the original scope of work, because the owner hadn't requested it, but the crew saw it was needed, so they fixed it. I talked to the owner a little bit, a young woman living alone (I don't think there were kids). She said when she first came back after the hurricane, she thought her house was OK because it was still standing, but when she opened the door, water gushed out, and everything inside was all a jumble. She said she had to wade through hip-deep water to get to the house, and then found out later that the local alligator farm had lost a lot of its residents!

Dinner tonight was beef stew, not too bad - hearty anyway. Also more of the pasta salad we had last night, which is really very good. After dinner and cleaning up, we all ended up back in the dining hall playing cards while they showed a video about Biloxi right after the hurricane. Nikki taught us to play Egyptian Rat Screw, which I'm afraid is one of those games I'm no good at - requires faster reflexes than I'll ever hope to have. Then Gordon came over and introduced himself, and showed us how to play Left-Center-Right, which was a fun little dice game (he pointed out that it's more fun with dimes than with chips...). Then we taught Gordon how to play spoons, which as usual, got a little violent! I'm a little better at that one, but still no match for the lightning-fast reflexes of my progeny, so I spelled s-p-o-o-n first, and went to play Left-Center-Right with another group. All in all, a very enjoyable evening of fun and games!