Museum After Hours and Cleaning a School

     It is mid-summer in Redding, California. The 10 day forecast is over 105 degrees everyday. I am so thankful for air-conditioning at work, in my car, and most of all ~ in my apartment. I spent 28 years of my life living without air-conditioning in this area. I will never forget what a blessing it is to get a Redding Utility Bill in August that tells me I enjoyed not sweating 24/7 through July.

    My summer job the past two years has been as a custodian at my elementary school. I do sweat a lot during my 8 hour shift for those 2 months. Today was no exception. I spent my first couple of hours shampooing a carpet. The classroom had cooled to about 75 degrees by the time I was finished and I think I had the room at about 80% humidity. We have these amazing industrial fans to dry the carpets.

I am feeling like I am in a tropical jungle and turn on the blower. All of a sudden I am now being attacked with blow darts from pigmies in the jungle. Actually, it is push pen flying off the wall from the posters that the teacher had left on the wall. I rolled up the big poster and collected the little posters. The teacher can thank me later for cleaning off her walls.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

    As a child this was a common title for the first paper of the school year assigned by teachers. For some people it really is a vacation. That word makes me think of going to a lake or a National Park, perhaps a topical island without unseen natives attaching with blow darts. For me it is the four weeks before university classes begin again. Meanwhile, I shut Molly in the bathroom at 5:45 a.m. and head to school until 2:30 p.m.

    For these precious four weeks I am enjoying a swim at 4 p.m. and not settling into 3 hours of homework. My first day of Summer Break I came home to a "kitty mess" in the bathroom and washed a load of rugs before my swim. Today I stopped and visited my Dad and his sweet wife, Rita. 

    To celebrate completing my classes I saw the King Tut exhibit at the Turtle Bay Museum.  There was a small display in one of the cases of Japanese Kimonos. I wear a Kimono often but not the traditional Japanese style. My Kimonos are light cover ups for short sleeve dresses. 

These are my signature style at school. On Saturday I had some time to spare between appointments and stopped in at the Good Will. To my great surprise, they had a real Japanese Kimono. It was priced at no more than a blouse.

    As there is a couple of strings hanging off one sleeve I believe it has never been worn. It has the traditional bell sleeves and fit me perfect as a dress. I look forward to wearing it this winter with black leggings and a turtle neck. It is my favorite color, hand sewn, and silk with a cotton lining. The front has a double breasted snap enclosure. Someone did an amazing job making it and I feel honored to own it now.

    

    Molly-cat is not too thrilled with my leaving so early. She does seem to think that I should leave by 7 a.m. on the weekends. She goes to the bathroom door and meows at me. I get up and brush my hair, she sits on the counter like she does every morning, I give her a treat, and close the door. Then I go back to enjoying my coffee.

    The past five weeks I have cleaned classrooms from top to bottom. We have moved entire classrooms for teachers swopping rooms. Each room has every chair and desked cleaned, windows and shelves washed, and floors shampooed. Little carpets are shampooed and hung outside to dry. I got to paint the employee kitchen one day and tomorrow I get to paint the inside of classroom doors. The fellas have started power washing the outside of the school and will do the outside touch up painting.

    This summer we housed a summer camp at the school so the last two weeks I work will be mad-dash to clean the four rooms that they are using. We also have a annual carpentry project in a classroom that we pray will be completed so that we can get the carpet cleaned before needing to move the teacher into the empty classroom. The fellas also did an amazing job refinishing the gym floor while I was working on classrooms. The most fun thing I got to do this summer was strip and wax floors. My favorite thing is the painting. We always have a lot of cleaning to do before painting, but painting is the icing on the cake.

    Call me weird, but I love cleaning. I love lifting and toting, and I love painting. I did all of those things along with some landscaping for over 10 years while my children were at home. It is a lot of hard work and I do sweat a lot! I could not do it all year around anymore, but for two month in the summer it is a great way to make money to pay the rent. 

    I look forward to school this year in my new position. The children will be arriving in less than a month. Meanwhile, I have 12 more days to polish up the school. Then Molly gets to go to the kitty B&B while I get some giggles and hugs from the grand-girls for a couple of days. 

    For the next three weeks I will be drinking a lot of water and getting my little swim time after work. Molly, hopefully, will not be making too many crazy messes. Next month I will have my birthday and enjoy some time off to change hats. 

The King Tut. a special drink for 

Museum After Hours.