Will Work For Others

I hate painting. I hate cleaning. And I'm not really fond of yard work.

But if you ask me to do any of these things as a volunteer activity or to help a friend, I'll say yes. And I'll enjoy it! There is something about doing work for someone else that makes it feel less like work than it does when you are doing it at your own house.

Painting is probably my least favorite of all chores. It's not the actual painting that sucks, it's the prepping and the cleanup that I hate. When we painted the dogs room a few years ago, I never did pull the tape off. Well, I did...eventually...but it was two years later! I'm telling you...I hate painting!

My work had a volunteer day for Homeward Bound. I'm a joiner. I signed up. And you guessed it, the task was painting! So I put on a brave face and showed up bright and early. I am shocked to admit that I had a blast! I've never had so much fun painting. It might have been the company or it might have been the fact that we were painting a children's classroom that provided plenty of options for silliness:
Laura, Deb and I finished the classroom (yes, prepping and cleaning up, too!) and moved to another classroom. Look at me! I'm painting!
Cleaning is my second least-favorite chore. I hate it so much that I hire a cleaning lady to come to my house every week to do it for me. It's the best use of my money EVER! But recently, a friend was putting their house up for sale and needed help cleaning. Like a sucker, I said yes. I spent hours cleaning grout with bleach and a toothbrush. Seriously.
And I didn't hate it! I even ruined my favorite sweat pants, and I still didn't hate it! (I should never be trusted with bleach, by the way.)Most recently, I volunteered with Sarah and her boyfriend to glean citrus for St. Mary's food bank. Never mind that I have an orange tree dropping fruit all over my yard and attracting roof rats. I don't want to do my work! I want to do other people's work!

A small group of us went to our assigned house in Scottsdale to do 4 orange trees and 3 grapefruit trees. That didn't sound insurmountable. I was wrong! These weren't wimpy trees like the ones I have in my backyard. These were huge citrus! Luckily, Buckley helped:
We worked and worked and worked. We were only half done with the first two trees and the bin was already this full:

I have never seen such prolific citrus trees EVER. Apparently the key is fertilizer. Who knew? :)

While Sarah and the other volunteer pulled the fruit from the ground, I climbed the tree to get the top fruit. Me in a tree:
Me in a tree:
Me REALLY in a tree:After we finally finished the 3 trees in the front yard, we started in on the backyard. This was the grapefruit tree I worked on. Eventually, Sarah had to come help me because the grapefruits were never-ending!
We took a break to meet Sherman:
At 1:00, we finally called it a day. Though there was still one orange tree to be picked, the bins were full, we were pretty exhausted and my hands, arms and legs were covered with scratches. Overall, though, it was a great volunteer day! I will certainly do it again next season.

Anyone got any work that needs to be done? I'll do it! Meanwhile, I'm looking at my dirty house, my walls in need of a fresh coat of paint and my orange tree needed to be picked....