Where did all my Saturdays go?

Saturdays have become less of a relaxing day and more of a "work outside of the office" day. Between the demands of the recent campaign, maintenance on the house, and pitching in on service projects, it feels like it's been forever since there's been a Saturday of nothing but sitting around and doing absolutely nothing. I wouldn't trade it for anything.

As several of you already know, I spent several Saturdays volunteering for Pete Ashdown's campaign for US Senate. He didn't come close to winning, but I feel like my time was well-spent on a candidate I believe in. If you haven't already, you really should read his election night speech. It's quite stirring.

I've also spent the last month's worth of Saturdays on a big service project. Our ward's bishop has had terrible leaks in his roof for a very long time but has never had the money or physical endurance to take on the project. (One quote to convert his flat roof to a pitched roof was $12,000. Yikes.) As a last resort, he asked a bunch of us in the ward to help him out with blueprints, planning, and labor. A crew of about 10-15 of us has been there just about every Saturday, and this Saturday we've almost managed completion just ahead of a major storm system. I've been hurting in all of my limbs, but it's worth it to see the finished project and know that we've helped out someone in need who was hesitant to even ask.

This last Saturday was more taxing beyond "mere" roofing. Prior to the roofing, Shauna and I got up at 6:45 in the AM to participate in a stake project at the bishop's storehouse bagging nuts. Everyone said that it was supposed to run through noon but that they had finished around 9:30AM the previous year. This year, we clocked out around 8:30AM, a new record. I stapled bags of nuts shut until my wrists were screaming for a break.

It didn't end after the roofing either. I came home to find that Shauna had been weeding the little dirt strip between the sidewalk and curb, so I kept on trucking, cleaning up leaves until the freezing rain started coming down again.

Of course, this was just two hours shy of the arrival of our niece Brenna. We'd planned to have her spend the night since last weekend and she wasn't showing a single sign of being tired. Not only did she fall asleep after us, but she was dressed and ready for church before we had even gotten out of bed. This, of course, meant no afternoon snoozing, so now I'm stuck with the whole "you've been up for way too long" wired thing going on. Blah.

This Saturday is likely to be the last of the roofing days, so maybe I can sneak in a day of sleep and video games. Shauna might let me get away with that.