Glass Pumpkin Votives & Grace

A few Mondays ago I came back to the office to three voicemail messages. The very fact the phones were back working was a testiment to one of my coworkers who found a half hour he probably couldn't spare to set them back up. We had gone to new phone service and at some point they cut us over and we were phoneless. We had also managed to go away to a conference that weekend so everyone was scrambling on a Monday to get caught up. It was the same lady three times. Her voice sounded quite desperate so I called her back immediately.

She said, trying to keep her voice steady and her shit together that her husband was going in for surgery next week and would be losing his leg from his knee down  so he would be needing a ramp to get back into the house as he would be in a wheelchair. Now I have a couple of ramp projects currently in the hopper. The crew of volunteers we have are currently working on a house and as the ramps are for an eventual need, we are not in a huge rush to get them done. This one couldn't wait though. Called a contractor as we have money for crucial repairs.

This lady needed one less thing to think about so I was super pumped to find a contractor who was able to drop everything and pull the permit. Worrying about getting her husband back in the house was the least of her worries since she needed to focus on getting him through the surgery and rehab. Randomly the dude I called brought a helper who had this lady in school as his teacher, so the project took on special meaning. The ramp got finished super fast.

I talked to the lady the other day. They were still in the hospital and she couldn't talk long. She did managed to tell me how grateful she was and that she would be contributing to our building fund once things were settled in. I wish her the very best nursing her man back to health and hope we managed to make it a little less stressful.

On that note, another coworker and I took a trip to Buffalo. We were offered bathroom vanities that were donated to us from another Habitat for Humanity who got them from Home Depot. The floor models that they couldn't sell will look great in the houses we are building. While we were there, we were also offered some Egyptian glass. Since they had wayyyyy too much, we took some off their hands for our ReStore. I thought I might work on a couple to improve them....

That money too will go in our building fund...