CHALLENGE ACCOMPLISHMENT # 2
THE RESOLUTION: Challenges by you
Perhaps this is not the best moment in time to have a focused writing session. But this exact sleep deprived condition was probably not appropriate for handling life endangering machinery either (especially when you are new to their operations).
You see, as a relief Life Skills Coach for people with severe ABI (Acquired Brain Injury) I am basically on-call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It is the ultimate job flexibility to be able to choose when and how much I want to work. Due to the last minute nature of the position I sometimes find myself in situations like today; unable to sleep properly past 5am on Friday and having accepted an overnight shift late in the afternoon I had to maintain conscious and vigilant attention for 27 hours. The last 8 hours of that being my caffeine induced wakefulness during my shift.
Pulling off all-nighters used to be like “It’s the weekend!”. Nowadays, my endurance has decreased and my recovery period has doubled.
So Saturday afternoon I wake up still intoxicated with fatigue but determined to succeed at my latest challenge: One Post a Day For 14 Days. Now here I am to tell you about the successful completion of another challenge put forth by my friend Jess: Learn how to and assist in the finishing of her basement.
Because I’m the kind of person that always keeps my word, I woke my enervated body one afternoon and drove to Jess’s house. My lethargic condition hardly allowed for the alertness required to learn how to operate tools that could easily leave me missing a body part. Thankfully Jess started me off slowly and I began the project by screwing into the ceiling beams the containers that would eventually connect a light bulb.
The lesson continued as I began to feel the effect of my caffeine shots. I quickly progressed to power tools and used one (I’m sure they all had names but my brain was simply not up to the remembering task) to drill screws (I think they were anyway) through sheets of drywall onto the wooden beams lining the walls around the basement. Then, I got to start putting holes in things!
Using the drill again I attached this large, scary looking probe that Jess handed me and proceeded to drill a small but rather perfect hole in one of the ceiling beams. This is were things got little messy as flakes of wooded floated down to me like snow. I lined the electricity cables through a number of beams and into their respective electrical boxes in preparation for future plug ins to appear. I had a bit more fun measuring, marking and X-acto-knifing through the drywall. Of course the most exciting part comes down to the most dangerous tool of the day: the saw.
Surely this is not the most exciting activity to write about as I am fairly certain that all Im really doing here is showing how little I know about home repairs. But I’m learning and that is exactly what this challenge and all of ThirteenSquared is all about!
Besides, there is a much better portrayal of this activity: A video!
*I will have the actual video on the blog just as soon as I figure out how to do it :P
http://youtu.be/ej-3VmS1NFU
I want to extend my thanks and a super excited congratulation to Jess & her awesome husband Chris!
One woman. One year. 41 down. 158 to go
No comments:
Post a Comment