Thursday evening Karen stopped over and was updating us on our church festival’s preparations. She was the coordinator for a couple of the areas, including the Raffle Tickets. This event is the biggest fundraiser that our church puts on every year. The proceeds go to support various activities in the church, to help with major repairs, or for various other projects that need to be addressed. So it’s kind of a big deal.

The raffles that we hold are for some pretty good prizes such as a new iPad, $1000.00, a 55″ TV, a restaurant gift card tree (this year worth around $400), and other big prizes. The problem is that people have a hard time figuring out where they are suppose to buy their tickets. We have tables set up in the gym with the chinese auction items, bingo games, tickets, and even a concession area. During the conversation Karen mentioned that it would be nice if we could have a tall sign that said ‘TICKETS” so that it would be easier for people to know where to go.

Now mind you, the festival is only 48 hours away and Jay says, “I can do that no problem” He starts to outline what would be possible and what materials he would need. Of course, his mother really isn’t sure what he’s talking about when he says that he can use three pieces of Luan for the blanks, etc. I volunteered to run to the home improvement store on my lunch break the next day to pick up the supplies.

That night I was volunteered to paint them (since I’m the finishing department).

Saturday morning Jay headed down to the work shop because he had a LOT to do. He’d already created the template for the ‘Tickets” that he would laser cut from vinyl.

We were using our old flag pole that had been sitting in our shed for the last three years. I made Jay take it down because the wind had bent it enough that it had a ‘gangsta lean’ to it. I told him that we were way too white to have a pole with a ‘gangsta lean’, so down it had come and went to live in the rafters of the shed. Until this weekend.

Now, as Jay is explaining what he’s going to do in my head I’m thinking, “You are WAY over-engineering this! It’s just a simple sign!”

Before I had to leave to visit with my friend and her kids on Saturday I watched Jay begin to cut and chisel the hole out of the major support feature of the sign.

This thing is STOUT! At this point I actually did tell him that I thought he had over-engineered it. I should know better, though. The Jay knows what he’s doing.

Sunday morning I helped him load the pieces into the car, and then he headed off to church. He was part of the chicken grilling crew so he had to be there early. After mass was over I went out to see how things were coming. He had already set up the sign and took me to see how good it looked.

Both his mom and the coordinator of the festival had been so happy and very impressed. The whole thing disassembles for easy storage. We used a sack of Quickrete in a 5 gallon bucket for the base. Next year Jay’s going to make a bracket for the ticket turner so that he can secure the pole to it. This year he just used an eyelet and some wire. But it worked! And you could see it really good when you walked into the gym from the dining hall. Jay definitely earned some gold stars for that one.

One other project that has been keeping him busy this week is the bird bath.

You know, the one that was stored in our library all winter… and spring.. and I was beginning to fear all summer, too.

He took it downstairs and fixed the broken ledge on the middle tier.

Then he worked on getting the pump installed.

Finally, he modified the pieces that allow the water to pour from one tier to the next. He tested it this past weekend and it works great! The only thing left to do is fix the outlet on the front porch. It has been open to the elements for the last three years since the porch was fixed. We couldn’t use the outlet cover that had originally been used because the concrete guy had to raise the back edge of the floor high enough to shed water AWAY from the house (not INTO the house, like it was doing before). So once that is done we can put this outside, hook up the extension cord and plug it in!

This is how my library looks now:

I’m so happy!! We’ve actually made progress on something!