Quite the weekend -- lots of paint and pleasant surprises -- answered prayer -- elusive electricians

The bills have been mounting so fast that I fear by the time the caboose is ready to go, it will remain empty, because all of the loan money will have been used up getting it ready and nothing will be left for equipment and supplies.

Electricians with time and reasonable bills continue to be elusive and I have yet to find one. The two local electricians are both booked solid, unfortunately, as I prefer to give my business to the local people whenever possible. One from an hour north had time, but came in $700 over the local guy (who bid before he got socked in) and he wouldn't break down what cost what for me (a deal breaker) and one electrician from an hour south has come up to look, but I don't have his bid or his schedule yet.

My family went camping this weekend, leaving me home alone (without children underfoot) to paint the exterior. I had the west end and most of the south side painted after three solid days of painting.

In church Sunday morning, I was feeling totally overwhelmed with the whole thing and was wondering if I ahd bitten off more than I could chew. God must have heard me, because I went home to change and mow the yard before heading off to paint and after I got 25 feet with the mower, it quit on me! "To heck with it -- I'm going to go paint," I thought and off I went.

I hadn't been at the caboose for 5 minutes when a friend of mine dropped by and told me she had run into a youth group from Oakley, Kansas while she was a the post office. "They are on a mission trip and they are stopping in small towns to do work for people who need it -- I thought you needed it, so I told them about you," she said.

I told her there had to be people who needed help worse than me (such as the elderly) and I called my pastor. He arranged for the kids to sleep at the church, then called around to find someone they could work for. In the meantime, they showed up at the caboose, and insisted on working there until I found someone else with a bigger need. Pastor found no one with a need -- so those kids painted the entire backside of the caboose in two hours! Talk about a blessing!

Now, if an electrician would just show up and wire the interior, I would be in business -- I just need to texture/paint the walls, sand/stain the floor and put everything in and I'll be up and running!

Here electrician, here electrician, where are you? Come out, come out, wherever you are!

The sad thing is -- I am perfectly capable of wiring the crazy thing myself -- but because it is not my primary residence, I am not allowed to. By the time I'm done with this whole thing my hubby may be so sick of it and me that the caboose WILL be my primary residence!

On a down note, I decided to look behind the walls above where the floor got burned under the stove and I found that the wall was totally burned, as well as the ceiling above it. So, quite a bit of repair work to do there -- but one of the sponsors with the kids runs a flooring business, so he quite kindly cut the burned part out for me in the floor and the wall -- leaving just the ceiling portion for my hubby to do. Another blessing!

Got to get the kids dressed and and head out to the caboose to do more work.

Happy creating!