Well, here we are Sunday night, a very long weekend ended.  And then the start of a long work week - definitely not used to 10 hour work days yet, dunno if I ever will.  I mean, I have in the past and I worked 12 hour days for year long ago and even longer hours on the mission field, but once I got used to 8 hours a day I was pretty good with that.  No desire to do much changing of it.

So I dunno. Around 3 o'clock in the after noon and I am ready to go home.  Instead, there are still 2 hours to burn and even if I could get off earlier, I wouldn't be able to do it for sake of my paycheck.

So anyway, went over to m'lady's house on Friday after work, hung out with her, took all 4 boys home with me - they wanted to come over - messed around on video games for awhile, around 11:30 I made them all go to bed.  Josiah wanted to go to bed anyway, he knew I was making him work all day long and he wanted to be able to go over to his GF's house after getting done with everything - a thing of which I never promised him he could do. But he was intent on trying.

So Saturday morning, the Dish Network dude calls me early, he is coming over. Great.  I call her and tell her, she said don't worry she will take care of it. Okay.  Well, when he got there, they had to go into a closet where one of the water heaters is  that has existent cable lines running through.  Kabling.  This is where the mold smell has been coming from.  The hallway floor covered in water and the wat3er heater leaking it out. Upon inspection, black mold everywhere in that huge closet. Drywall, flooring, wood beams, everything. She calls me again, very upset.  Another disaster.  Lots of them have gone on over there - it's an old house and things are wearing out and breaking down.

Well I didn't know it was a mold issue, I just thought it was an old heater that needs replaced that suddenly popped a hole - happens all the time - and needed to shut off water, unhook the thing, clean up the mess and get a new one.  I get up, get moving, get the boys up, get them moving, and we head over there. I see the disaster and gag.  You can't just put a new heater in there, yo have to deal with that mold.  I have been smelling that s*** in there for months. 2 trips before I moved out here I smelled it walking into the door.  There are 2 water heaters in the house so I didn't think about the second one, the first one blew out a while back when I was still in Phoenix and they had to deal with it.  I gave them some pointers but they had to do the work. This is different in that there is black mold everywhere.

Well, draining the water out of an old take is ridiculous. The drain cock didn't work, it wouldn't budge. I beat on it with a hammer - the heater was trashed so who cares if it's destroyed - it still wouldn't budge.  Finally ended up tilting the entire thing over - full of water easily over 350 pounds worth probably more I deal with this kind of weight at the yard all the time - and draining out, yes, 50 gallons of water.

When Josiah and I got that thing out of the house, we then started working on tearing out mold caked dry-wall and the base board and everything we could get out.  Gross.  The smell nauseating.  We got that s*** on our bodies and it wasn't agreeable to me at all, everyone knows that stuff can cause illness. After we got what we thought was everything out, I saw a long stretch of black-mold-covered drywall underneath the air conditioning unit that is also in that closet right next to the water heater.  This is a huge house, even closets that are normally small for a water heater is larger than most people's walk in closets.  I said dang, we have to get that stuff out of there, me being in no mood to get under there and get it out but also not willing to try to force Josiah to get under there, either.

I mean, a person would have to crawl under there on their belly in mold infested water to get at it and tear it out.  Josiah said okay, I'm going in!  He voluntarily crawled in that filth and got that crap out of there so my respect level for him raised considerably considering he was not getting paid and getting nothing out of it. Well, maybe.

THEN, we all left the house. Josiah and Jacob - 14 year old brother - to Josiah's work to get air blowers and a dehumidifier they use to help dry everything out in such situations and the rest of us to Home Depot to get - a lot of stuff. Water heater, fittings, drywall and related tools, plywood, etc etc.  Like almost $700 worth.

Did I mention paint? Yes a marathon day. I wanted that living room painted, or at least as much as could get done.  So when we got back, Josiah had already arrived and had set up the blowers and the humidifier. I told him we got paint, please get busy in the living room while I solder the fittings to get valves on the lines.  So I'm dealing with water lines and he got busy with the dining room. I got the other boys busy as well. It was a work day for ALL of them, not just Josiah.  Josiah I don't need to continually search out and supervise, the others? Yes.

Fast forward through a lot of stuff. I texted Josiah's gf without him know that she could come over if she so pleased and I was cool with it.  He was all kinds of happy that she was coming and I didn't have a problem with that - he worked his ass off and that to me deserves some kind of reward.

More, much more last night with other stuff going on, but I just don't have the time to type it all out.  I wish I did.

Anyway, this morning I headed over to her house. Josiah still in bed, everyone else ready to go to church. I understood exactly what he was feeling.  I was sore and tired this morning after waking up.  It sucked bad.  I just didn't want to do anything, but I did.  Got up, got some coffee, got bathed and all of that and headed over there.  Josiah sent his youngest brother downstairs to ask me if I would let him stay home.

NO. But I went up stairs and told him myself. Time to go to church, get up and get going. Father's day today. Forgot that this morning until church and pastor started talking about it.  Oh, yeah!  Well after worship was over and he got through with his preaching he asked all fathers to stand up. Yup, I have the greatest son on earth, I am proud of him, he is doing so much with his life. Then he called us all down there. Cool I went down. THEN, he asked offspring and wives to come down. Umm, those boys are  not my sons and she isn't yet my wife. Well, I thought, it's okay, I'll just stand here without anyone but I know who my Father is and He is the greatest!

And so it was. Wives and kids came down and stood with their fathers while I was standing alone.  But, I din't have a problem with it. My son is in the Philippines right  now, serving the Lord our God, and that is enough for me.  Full fledged into this a hand slaps me on the back and another on my right arm. Jacob and Josiah.  One rests his arm up against my back and another with hand on my shoulder.  Hey man, we are here with you!  Brought tears to my eyes.  A wow moment.  I found out later that the youth pastor - who was up on the stage he is also a musician - went up to them in the back row area and encouraged them to come and pray with me.  Josiah later confides that he was scared to do it - he doesn't want to come down to altar calls and such, I dunno why I will have to start digging into that, but the fact that they both came down and prayed with me just blew me away.

Well there is more but I am way past my bedtime.

G'nite.

ben