T and I have been at our new location nearly a week. We are the only couple serving this month at a Christian military boarding school for troubled boys. There are 38 boys attending at present and their ages range from 11 to 18. T and I get to be part of their worship/devotional time every morning along with other staff members. Some of the boys look so young and small sporting military haircuts. It reminds me of when N&C were that age. The difference is that these boys are here because of choices they were making at home and their family and them needed help with getting back on a positive path again. As I observe these boys every morning I wonder what their individual stories are and what brought them here. We got a little glimpse of one boys story this morning. He had written an essay which had awarded him a money scholarship for Liberty University. When he first came into the program he had a problem with drugs. Ten months along it seems he has changed his life’s path and his future is looking so much brighter. That was some good news to hear this morning and the other boys seemed genuinely happy for him as they clapped and congratulated him. What an encouragement I feel that was for the boys. They all have an opportunity to make a change and have their life go in a different direction, but they have to be willing to make that change and stayed changed.
Our first week of work has seen T and I deep cleaning a two story staff house that in recent years has been used for single males. The group that was here last month had painted several rooms and removed popcorn ceiling, so we were cleaning up the dust as well as hopefully readying the house for a new staff member soon. I couldn’t keep T from fixing a few things as well as he came across something that needed his attention. I caught him fixing a shelf in a bedroom closet and several light fixtures. On Monday we did stop several times to watch the eclipse. We weren’t sure what time it was going to start in our area but nature helped us out! As we are in Florida which wasn’t projected to be in the path of totality we hadn’t bought the special glasses, but T was able to make something from another pair of sunglasses he had in the truck for us to safely look up and see the phenomenon. We also observed the eclipse through the shadows that were being cast on the ground. I am so glad we took the time to stop as it was really cool to see. We obviously didn’t experience complete darkness like in other parts of the country where N&C are located, but there was definitely a change in how much light we had, it felt like dusk and everything seemed so quiet and still.
So you might be asking what am I talking about when I say there was some glitter sprinkled into our week. Well those ugly popcorn ceilings gave me a history lesson courtesy of my husband and the web. I had noticed while dusting the cobwebs that the ceilings that had not be redone yet seem to glisten. When I got up on a ladder I noticed what looked like glitter and thought it was a little strange. T and I didn’t talk about it while we were cleaning the house and I am not sure how it came up in conversation as we were walking Copper but it did. It was then that I found out that adding glitter to your popcorn ceiling was a “thing” back in the 1970’s early 1980’s. I even looked it up to reconfirm and found out glitter was used to “add sparkle and create the illusion of space and movement” according to ehow. Also I went down kind of a rabbit hole and found out popcorn ceilings can contain asbestos so it is recommended to have it tested before you remove it. This ceiling trend may have come back in several years ago, not sure if that’s with popcorn or without, but you can rely on the fact that you wont see any ceiling glitter in our brick and mortar house if and when we have one again.
Until next time, Lou