Last night I had practice with the choir in the local theater for a charity concert put on by many local choirs. The concert is tonight, so will probably be late before getting home. Derrick went back to Albuquerque last night, but will return in about 2 weeks to look after the pets and water the plants while I go to yet another camp in the mountains. This time it's a working camp at an Apache Indian reservation. I will be supervising about 10 groups of 5 kids each group as they work on houses of needy people. I have done similar camps 5 times before, and really enjoy doing this. One thing for sure, at the end of this camp I will be extremely tired. I'm hoping Derrick will stay a few days after I return so I can give him a mini birthday party. His big day is 7/19, but he's celebrating on that day with friends in Albuquerque and I don't want to interfere, so will have his celebration with me early.
I'm still working on my house, but can definitely see an end in the not too distant future. I'm still waiting on the contractor to finish the outside of the house. He patched all the cracks in the stucco and he still has to prime paint those repairs before painting the entire outside of the house and garage. Hopefully he will finish this week - has been waiting for a day with no wind, but here in the desert this time of year it's impossible to not have some wind. I finally made the decision to have someone come and replaster the inside of my swimming pool. Along with that means I have to get the pool guy out to make sure the pumps and everything is working OK. It's an indoor pool which means it never gets direct sunlight to heat the water. I have some sort of solar system on the roof to heat the water, but since it's been unused for the last 4+ years, it may not be functional. Having all of these repairs is the result of us not living in this house since 2002, and having it rented for 6 years. The renters were not nice to the house, especially the last ones who really did a lot of damage. It was because of them that I left the house empty for the next 4 years.