Escape from Northern Virginia - Day 3

Just a few quick photos for today. We worked long and hard on days two and three. We finished we what came to do and a bit more. The homeowner expressed thanks for all we did and showed real appreciation for us being here. We are all tired, but feel good that we made a difference for this one family here on Staten Island.

Mike cuts a piece of casing for one of the windows.

On the Corner of Patterson Avenue – Escape from Northern Virginia, Day 2

Day two was a long one. We got started a bit after 9:00 AM but did not stop until sometime after 8:00 PM. Good progress was made. We finished casing out the windows, leveled out the living room sub-floor, installed most of the flooring in the living room, finished the doorway between the kitchen and bedroom, finished hanging the kitchen cabinets, finished the new wall area that we created when we installed the garden window in the kitchen and prepped the garden window to be cased. Plus, Bruce, our skilled carpenter, took a couple of hours to help do some tile work at another house on the island.

Escape from Northern Virgina - Day 1

Wednesday night a small team of folks from Galilee United Methodist church in Sterling Virginia piled into an SUV towing a small trailer and drove north for an early start to the final weekend of the summer. Our Labor Day destination was the New York City burough of Staten Island. Shortly before midnight, we arrived on the Southern tip of Staten Island and settled in at Bethel United Methodist Church for the night.

Counting Change

"A man can know his father, or his son, and there might still be nothing between them but loyalty and love and mutual incomprehension." - from Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

A couple of weeks ago, this 1949 quarter emerged when we converted my loose change into an Amazon gift card at our local Coinstar machine. Besides being old, this quarter is of value because it is 90% silver. Until 1974, many US coins contained some silver. Quarters stopped being made from silver in 1965. The internet tells me this quarter is worth between three and four dollars. For me, for a brief moment, it was worth a lot more.