Sam's Year of Service Adventure

 Today I was with resources again.  They needed me since we are having our resident Christmas party today.  I started the day by delivering some gifts to VSR and Bentley.  When I got back, Cristal needed a lot of help moving gifts from our classroom to our boardroom.  I got most of the work done, but I got interrupted because I needed to go meet Junk Shot at the pantry to get some food from them.  They were cleaning out one of our apartments, and they found a lot of canned goods that were still good, so they brought them to our pantry.  I got to drive the Volkswagen to the pantry since Doug was out and about in the van.  I also picked up my lunch from the pantry.  When I got back, I ate lunch and then finished moving the gifts to the boardroom.  When I was done moving gifts, I took some other gifts over to The Ridge.  On my way back from The Ridge, I stopped at Natural Grocers and did the pickup.  I took the food over to the pa...

 Today I was with resources.  I started the morning by sorting last week's bread.  Then we headed to Sprouts to do a pickup.  Then we took the pickup back to the pantry and got everything organized.  It took so long to organize that by the time Jenni was done organizing, I had finished cleaning.  When we were done at the pantry, I took some eggs with me since I forgot them on Wednesday.  We went back to the office and picked up the bread that we needed to deliver to Westside.  When we got back from Westside, we took lunch.  After lunch, we got ready for the Girl Scouts to come later in the afternoon.  When we were all set up, we decided to go to a few libraries since we had some extra time.  We didn't do a whole lot of libraries, but we did use up a good amount of the afternoon.  We got back to the office around 3 and made sure we had everything ready to go for the Girl Scouts.  When they arrived at 3:30 I spent the rest o...

Today I was in charge of breakfast, so I made pancakes and sausage patties.  After breakfast, we headed to church.  We had a sextet music group today, which was fun to listen to.  After church, we had our Christmas potluck, and there was lots of good food.  After church, I took our van over to one of the support commitee memebers house to take a better look at what was wrong with it.  We were able to jack it up and get underneath it.  We found that a wheel was bent, which caused the steering rack to go out.  After everything was diagnosed, they gave me a ride home, and I relaxed for the rest of the afternoon.  In the evening, we started Knives Out.  

 Today I made some frosting so I could eat cinnamon rolls for breakfast, and then didn't do much the whole morning.  I made some mac and cheese for lunch, and then after lunch, I was suddenly motivated to go outside since the temperature was 70 degrees.  I took a Pike Ride and went to Garden of the Gods, and rode the main loop there a few times.  It was really nice weather.  While I was riding, I met a guy with a pet llama, so I stopped to pet it.  When I was done riding the loop, I rode down a big hill into Old Colorado City and rode back to the house.  When I got home, I relaxed for a while until it was time for supper.  Someone from the church brought us some pulled pork, which was delicious.  After supper, we watched a movie before going to bed.

 Today, resources borrowed me from maintenance.  They needed help delivering gifts.  First, Doug and I took a load of gifts to VSR.  Then we came back to the office and took a load of gifts to Bentley.  We have so many gifts at Bentley that we are filling an apartment with gifts.  After Bentley, we went to Care and Share to pick up some butter and cheese. We also got some soda and chips while we were there.  On the way to Care and Share, we stopped and washed the van.  After we picked up, we had to put stuff away in the pantry.  Then we went back to the office and took a load of gifts to The Ridge.  When we got back from The Ridge, we had lunch, and we actually sat and talked together for once, which was a nice change.  After lunch, I took another load of gifts to Bentley and then another load to The Ridge.  When I was done running gifts, I wrapped one present for Jenni and then helped organize the classroom and the storage roo...

 Today I was with maintenance.  After the morning meeting, I rode with Frank over to Colorado West to do inspections.  After inspections, we had to go over to UT to unclog a toilet.  Thankfully, it was not too bad.  After that, we had to go back to the office so I could climb on the roof and try to find where a squirrel got in.  I found one of the fans not running, so we are guessing that was the issue.  After that, we went to Woodbine and put up a notice on everybody's door to tell them to get their cars out of the way for tree trimming tomorrow.  Then we went to Kittyhawk to look at a door screen that needed to be replaced.  We figured out what we needed, went to Lowe's to get the screen, and installed it.  After that, we went back to Woodbine to try to complete some work orders, but no one answered the door.  Then we went over to AC to meet the leasing agents and break into one of the storage units because the resident did not li...

Today was pantry day.  Since the E-bike has no brakes, I put the trailer on my regular bike so I got a good workout heading to the office.  We started by going to the pantry and doing a few small things while we waited for the volunteers to arrive.  Then I headed out to Trader Joe's.  We completely filled the van up, and then they brought us out more stuff, so I had to make 2 trips.  I used my whole morning just doing the pickup.  When we had everything put away, I went and picked up Doug at the office so he could use the van to go and look at another van.  When I got back to the pantry, I had lunch, and then we opened.  It was a very steady day but an easy one.  Everyone was in a good mood, and we were able to give out lots of food.  We had lots of meat and eggs.  At the end of the day, we packed up and headed back to the office.  At the office, we put stuff in the fridge and loaded my box in the trailer.  The ride home w...

 Today I was with maintenance.  After our morning meeting, I rode with Tony.  We had to drop off some papers at UP and UT before heading to VSR.  I was working on making readies all day.  I started by doing some painting and patching in one unit.  I also had to spray a lot of Kilz to cover up crayon on the walls.  Around lunch time, the cleaners were ready to clean that room, so I stopped for lunch and then moved to another room.  In this room, I fixed the TP holders and the towel racks.  I also touched up the kitchen and bathroom cabinets.  I also did a bunch of other little things.  When we were done at VSR, we went back to the office, and I taped some of the walls so Tony could paint.  Then I headed home.  The wind was really strong, so the ride home was not very fun.  When I got home, Michael had supper ready.  We had a lasagna.  After supper, I led a learning component.  It did not go as well as I ...

 Today I was with resources.  I started the morning by picking up at Sprouts with Jenni, then getting everything organized and cleaned in the pantry.  When I was done at the pantry, I took some stuff back to our storage cellar at one of our properties, then made lunch.  Since there were no good prepared meals this week, I improvised and cooked some noodles and put chicken and cheese on them to try and make a chicken parm.  It turned out all right.  After lunch, I loaded up the leftover Christmas trees and some other Christmas decorations and took them over to Goodwill.  When we were unloading, there was a box full of the glass balls that hang on the tree spilled everywhere.  It was very embarrassing, but thankfully, we didn't break any, and we got it cleaned up.  When I got back from Goodwill, I took some gifts over to Bentley and VSR.  When I was done delivering those gifts, I loaded up again and took a load of gifts to The Ridge. ...

 This morning I made breakfast.  I made Sunday morning chocolate along with scrambled eggs.  After breakfast, we had church, and I was the only participant well enough to attend, so I rode with Christian and Leigha between the 2 kids.  At church, it seemed like everyone was waiting to greet us to see the new baby.  After the church service, I went over to my host family's house for lunch.  We had a mimosa soup that was so good I had to get the recipe.  After lunch, my host family took me bowling along with their son and his friend.  It was a very enjoyable time, even though I didn't play very well.  After bowling, I headed home, and then Christian and I went shopping.  We went to King Soopers first and got groceries, and then I went to the hardware store for some zip ties, and then we went to the thrift store, where I got some wrapping paper.  When we were done shopping, we went home to put the groceries away, and while we were doin...

 This morning we did another escape room.  We went back to the same place and did a different one that they offered.  It was much harder than the other one, and we did not escape.  I also did not like it as well as the first one.  When we got back, I relaxed for a while before having lunch with Christian and Leigha.  I did the dishes since I was not the one who had to cook.  After lunch, we played Wingspan, which was really fun.  After the game, a piece to fix our dryer showed up.  Christian and I got it installed, except we didn't have zip ties, so we didn't get to test it out today.  When we were done with the dryer, I did some of the kitchen work that needed to be done.  After that, I held baby Josiah for a while so Leigha could do some work on the computer.  He ended up sleeping on me for several hours, and when it was supper time for me and time for him to eat, he did not want to wake up.  For supper, Christian had ma...

 Today started with decorating the office for Christmas.  We set up some 6-foot nutcrackers and a Christmas tree.  We also hung some decorations from the ceiling.  When we were done decorating, I headed out with Dion to do maintenance.  We started by going to Colorado West to pick up some stove burners.  Then we went to Moreno to open an apartment for the carpet guys.  After that, we went to Woodbine and trashed out an apartment.  Then we went to Santa Fe and trashed out 2 more apartments.  We also installed the stove burners there.  Next, we went to Home Depot to get everything we needed to get the Moreno apartment ready for a new tenant.  When we got back to Moreno, we got to work doing all sorts of things.  I put new bowls in the stove, hung blinds, fixed some drawer handles and put in a new lock, put up some lights and changed some light bulbs, replaced some outlet and light switch covers, fixed a TP holder, and cleaned som...

 Last night was another eventful night of sleeping with a toddler.  She took over the whole bed, so I did not sleep very well.  My plan this morning was to go into work late so I could take care of Naomi until Christian and Leigha got home.  Around 7:45, I got a text that said they would not come home until tomorrow, so I quickly made a plan to take her over to Hannah's house so I could get to work.  She really didn't want to go over, but eventually she was ok with going.  I took her over driving on the iceiest roads I had ever driven on.  After I dropped her off, I went straight to work.  When I got to work, I started by taking some gifts over to Bentley and VSR with Doug.  After we had dropped off the gifts, we came back to the office, and I loaded up the gifts for The Ridge and took them over there.  When I got there, I helped the leasing agent clean out a closet to put the gifts in.  There were lots of things in there that we to...

This morning, I got a call from Trilby at about 3am that she needed help with Naomi because she was very upset for some reason.  I went down and slept with Naomi the rest of the night once I got her back to sleep.  In the morning, it was pantry day.  We woke up to a few inches of snow already on the ground, and the snow continued for the rest of the day.  I had Jenni pick me up because I can't bike in that much snow.  When we got to work, we tried to make the meeting short so I had more time to go do pickups, since I had to do Sprouts and Trader Joe's this week.  The roads were horrible, so it took me forever.  I also had a lot of trouble with my windshield wipers icing up, so they didn't work very well.  Trader Joe's had put the food outside, so all the boxes had a bunch of snow in them.  When we had everything put away in the pantry, we only had 5 people signed up, which was not good because we had a lot of food to give away.  When we ...

 Today was another busy day.  I started by going to Goodwill to pick up some books.  After Goodwill, I went to Care and Share and picked up some food for the pantry.  I took the food over to the pantry and unloaded it, and then went over to Woodbine and unloaded the books.  When I got back to the office, I picked up some wrapped gifts and delivered them to Bentley and VSR.  I found out that the family we adopted lives at Bentley.  When I got back from the gift deliveries, I helped sort the rest of the gifts.  Then it was time for lunch.  After lunch, I went and picked up food from Natural Grocers and delivered it to the pantry.  We got a lot of meat and eggs, which was good, but by this point, we are overflowing with both.  We had so much meat that I had to take a bunch back to the office to store.  When I got back from the pantry, I got sent back out to pick up a bike from the Pines that a resident wanted to donate.  When...

 Today was a busy day.  When we got up there was some snow on the ground.  I got picked up for work since I had gifts to take to the office for Adopt a Family.  When I got to work, we had our meeting, and then I headed out to Sprouts.  The roads were pretty bad on the way there, so the van was sliding around a lot.  We got a good amount of meat at the pickup, so that was good.  When I got to the pantry, I had to clear the sidewalk so I could haul in all the food.  Once I had everything inside, I put everything away.  Once I was done inside the pantry, I finished clearing the sidewalk around the pantry.  When I was done clearing snow, I went back to the office to get the bread to take to Westside.  They were inside one of the churches today since it was cold and snowy.  After I dropped the bread off, I went back to the office and had lunch.  After lunch, we went and picked up 25 Christmas trees from a person who recycles fa...

 Today we started the morning with breakfast and a business meeting.  Then we headed to church.  My family met me at church and joined me for the service.  After church, we went to Louis Pizza.  It was some good pizza.  After lunch, I said goodbye to my family.  When we got back to the house, I left soon after to go shopping.  I also had to get gas and propane while at the store.  When I got back from the store, I had time to relax for a while, and we played some Terraforming Mars.  We ate leftovers for supper and then played some video games and watched a movie to finish off the evening.