I miss your tea

I think about my former clients all the time. What is really fun about being a public defender in a rural county is you get to know people, not just the frequent fliers but also the places they go, the people they associate with, and the other things happening in their lives besides their court cases. It makes me feel like a townie in the best sense. 

A few weeks before I left, I paid bond on a case where I felt the bond determination was especially unfair. This was a kid who had never been to jail before, and a case with a high likelihood of dismissal, and so even though the clerk scoffed at my naïveté, I didn't lose sleep over it. After he was released from holding, he came to my office and sat at ALR's desk and cried and cried, and I worried about what would become of him. 

After I left the public defender's office, I checked in on the case once or twice, along with at least a dozen more, but eventually I forgot their names. Whenever I learned of a not-guilty in that county through the listserve, I would text my replacement congratulations, cheering for the outcomes he had been able to secure for my clients which I had not. I never learned what became of my sad sap, but I hoped he was safe.  

Well, today I got his bond payment back in the mail! His case number was printed on the check, but the case was not in the court portal. I spent a few minutes searching for the case but eventually gave up, presuming from the fact that the bond was even returned signaled that this was was dismissed and sealed like I expected it would be. But in the time spent perusing the names of defendants who came after I left, I found myself so saddened by how many names I recognized. This kid may have dodged a bullet, but many of my other frequent fliers had not. 

On our evening walk last night we saw a fist fight break out. There was a gaggle of adolescent boys, maybe 14 years old, huddled out front of the McDonalds. One of them ran a few paces away, turned back and squared up, and no word of a lie, the rest of them pig-piled on him. They were pulling his hair, yanking on his clothes, punching his chest and head. I watched helplessly, torn between wanting to intervene and not wanting to be responsible for escalation. 

Because we had been out walking, we knew there were two cops just 300 feet down the road, and as a car laid on its horn at the kids, I willed these dum-dums to break it out before they caught the attention of the police. I realized that was probably a perverted reaction--I should have wanted some kind of intervention for the poor kid getting wailed on, but I was worried about his assailants, too. 

I don't know why I root for the wrongdoers. Why it's easier for me to have compassion on the struggling criminals than the meritorious innocents. In my rural county it was a revolving door of people hurting people, one week a domestic violence victim, the next week a pants thief. All people unable to get out of their own way because of myriad factors, but most likely because of poverty, and most fundamentally because of sin. 

We are all sinners. We keep passing through the revolving door, of hurting others and being hurt. And strangely, that's not necessarily bad news, because it means we have (for now) escaped the ultimate accounting for our sin. Our God is slow to anger and withholding judgement to just give us a fighting chance at hope, redemption, righteousness, that we might be healed despite the brokenness we sustain. 

My clients, they suffer. Life has broken them even more than the criminal justice system might. I cheer when they avoid judgement for their actions not because I condone their wrongdoing but because I feel in their frustration and desperation that the natural consequences of brokenness in this world are already taking them to task. We sinners are getting what we deserve and also not getting what we deserve every day. And it's perverted to think that our communal suffering is a form of grace in motion, but also I want us all to know grace. 

(P.S. That bond payments are returned to payors via mail months after a case has been resolved does a terrible disservice to those who have no disposable income to be bailing out. I used to think bail bondsman were a scam, but now I get that it's better to be parted from your money forever for less than to shell out beaucoup bucks but have that money enslaved to the bureaucracy.)

Kicking butt and making frames

Airstream work took a pause in November because of our vacation and then Thanksgiving, but December has been an exciting month! First we moved our Airstream indoors--its first road trip in over 20 years. It was a fun premonition of prepping to move on trips to come: setting up the stabilizers with the tow hitch, checking the brakes and taillights, strapping everything down. We have not yet been baptized in the couple trials of coordinating trailer parking, but we got a foreshadowing. 

Having the trailer inside is even more of a value-add than I had expected. I'm not anxious about mice, bugs, water getting in. No more worrying about the battery freezing. No more dirt, sand, and mud getting all over our materials and tools. And when we have the space heater going, I am not freezing my buns off! Even though it's not in a convenient location, I am optimistic we will be able to make some strides thanks to the shelter. 

So, for example, we have framed in the bathroom walls. We used metal studs for the curved part of the wall, cutting triangles out every 8" or so to make the curve and riveting it to the skins. We used regular wood studs for the rest. Making sure the walls were square was tricky because nothing inside the trailer is square, but we adjusted the hitch and used a level. 

We had been storing the old walls since demo and finally they came in handy! First cut on the curve was perfect, we only had to do one more cut on the bottom. It was nice to have something go smoothly for once, haha! The inner-most wall is a bit of a puzzle because of the air conditioner and the back fan--we carved a diagonal slice out of the stud for clearance, but the plywood sheath on the walls should cover the carve out. We might notch it out altogether depending on how it looks as we polish it up. 

Yesterday we divided and conquered: Peter teamed up with Amanda to do the dry plumbing for the sink and shower, while Prudence and I tackled the bed frame. The sink and shower vents are in, as is the shower drain! Peter has also made a rough plan for the pee diversion to feed into the same drain line as the shower. The sink drain line is in place, but is obviously awaiting the sink itself. 

Working on the bed frame was a huge self-efficacy boost for me because usually I am the watcher/tool passer, but Prudence wouldn't let me get away with that. We used the pocket hole jig that Peter got for Christmas on some 1x1s and made a frame to anchor to the floor (as opposed to the walls) that the plywood base can rest on, above the electrical components box. (We used four (4) boards 77" long, twelve (12) boards 15" long with pocket screw holes each end to make two ladders, and then six (6) boards 29.5" to connect the ladders. Easy but satisfying!)

We left space at the "head" of the bed to build a cabinet for access to the drain and vent pipes running there. The "foot" of the bed will be pretty much flush with the street-side trailer wall. We will make one more "ladder" to support the far end of the bed, but we have to work around the back hatch and the battery, so we had to wait on the project manager before tackling that one. 

The outlets and overhead lights inside aren't working because of a short somewhere. At first this was a demoralizing discovery because installing the ceiling was a giant pain, and the thought of having to un-do and re-do it made me want to throw a temper-tantrum, but then Peter recalled a spark during the installation of the front end, so we are thinking maybe that's where the short is. Next time I think we will attempt to find/fix the short, and also add some wood framing to the air conditioner hole. Maybe build the seat for the shower and put down waterproof lining for all the places the drains run. 

For Christmas, Peter finally caved and said he will get me a mini wood stove, but it remains to be seen where it will go. We can avoid putting more holes in the ceiling by using the hole from the original stove exhaust vent hole. But we had Will run the propane so that the range can go in that spot. We had talked about switching the range to the street-side for weight distribution, but rerouting the propane may prove too intimidating. Anyway, Peter's love-motivated pro-wood stove gesture was as touching a Christmas sentiment as a person could want. ^_^

We have a ceiling!

Progress has slowed down a bit, in part to the loss of light and impending cold. Will installed some more lights for us, a city water intake, a drain valve, and he repaired our porch and overhead door light. Last thing he's slated to do for us is to rehab the taillights, and then I think it might be the end of his assistance for now. 

We discovered last month that one of the elders at my childhood church renovated a 2007 Airstream a few years ago. He had a lot of good ideas for waterproofing and it was fun to talk shop with him, but we also learned he was renting barn space and it sounds like a great option for getting some carpentry done during the winter! 

Speaking of carpentry, we built, insulated, and installed a wooden box over the wheel well. I am always so impressed with Peter's spacial reasoning and creative problem-solving. I thought making a box would be easy, but I was immediately overwhelmed by the most basic questions that I don't even have the language to even ask. When Peter works, I don't see the method in his madness, so part of me is a little skeptical, maybe even doubting, that he is seeing and addressing the problems I don't know how to work out. 

But then, voila! He creates something sturdy, lightweight, functional, and I am oh so impressed! 

We had snow one day, and when we arrived at the farm and stepped inside the trailer, I immediately saw all the condensation in the ceiling--even though it was freezing inside there, it was apparently still warmer than outside--so much water! There is no good solution to this, as far as my research reveals, but I continue my lobbying for a mini wood-burning stove. 

We set about the arduous task of putting the ceiling back in. We used zip ties threaded through holes Peter drilled in the ribs to hold wires in their indents and it was so refreshing to be able to walk the length of the trailer without getting whacked in the face by a wire! We riveted the ceiling panel tracks into place (omg, they look so terrible, I did not get anywhere near all the paint off them) and closed off our access to the wall wiring for good. Hopefully we ran wires to everything we need! 

In the walls we had used a layer of Reflectix against the skin, but after reading that this had no real effect without an air gap (except maybe as a vapor barrier) I was keen for an excuse to leave it out of the ceiling. The wires made insulating very cumbersome, and the spray glue we had was trash, so we had to work quickly. We enlisted Aidan to hold one end of the ceiling panel, I held the other end, and Peter put a few clecos around the skylight to hold the middle while he helped us push one side in place. Aidan and I pressed the panel against the center of the ceiling, while Peter worked to pop the other side into the rail. It went way smoother than I expected! 

One issue with doing a side bath is that the bathroom wall is likely to encroach on the part of the ceiling that will be covered by the air-con shroud. We attempted to ameliorate this some by moving the mounting bracket as far over to the opposite side as we could. We also installed the frames for the Fantastic Vents. We didn't cut them to follow the contour of the ceiling, so there was a gap in the center where the ceiling skin pulled away from the frame. We fixed the look of this by stuffing extra insulation in there to force the ceiling skin down to meet the frame. 

Last thing was to extend the vent pipe from the drain valve and then bolt the electrical components platform into place. Peter dry-fitted all the venting several weeks ago, but it was covered by a blanket of leaves and has disassembled itself with the passage of time. But plumbing is next! Maybe at a new location . . .

Primer & a turning point

Only a few hours put in this weekend. We sanded down all the bumps from the drips from last week's priming attempts. The paint was actually pretty thin, so the texture wasn't as bad as it looked and I was less mad at myself. Still, Peter did the rest of the painting because, well, he deserved a turn. 

We finished priming and also put a second coat on there. We also towed the Silverado out of the way so we could hitch the trailer to the F-150 and take it on a jaunt around the yard. Very cool to see it moving! Wheels, tires, axles, and shocks all seem to be functioning properly. We asked Will to bail us out with wiring the brakes and the tail lights, and we are thinking about towing it to a friend's house so it's a little closer for purposes of working on it through the winter. 

The ceiling is still not installed, in part to spare Will the aggravation when installing a few additional lights this week, but also it's just a pain. Maybe we are a little insecure, too. Last year we buttoned it up around November, but now that we are at the fun part it seems a shame to press pause for the winter again. 

Venting, plumbing, and framing are next. Wall and bed frames need to be built around the vents, so I guess vent pipes come first. Plumbing is our next summit. Also need to box and insulate the wheel wells. But it seems like there are a million other little tasks to occupy ourselves with. A little TLC for the windows, their fixtures, and their frames, replacing rusty external rivets, rehabbing the faded blue paint, addressing the red numbers and external stickers, creating a spare tire holder, sanding and painting the hitch, repairing the canopy, et cetera, et cetera. I feel a little overwhelmed, but luckily I'm not the project manager. ;) 

The amazing thing is, we have a portable camping shell with working lights and fans and propane, and even if we take our sweet time with the inside, it is so satisfying to have covered all this ground the past six months! 

OMG SOME PAINT YESSSSSS!

Rolled into our worksite just after 7am and got to work. Peter patched (1) around the back window, (2) a slot in the back wall where the shower was, (3) where the hot water heater was, (4) the original location of the outlet we moved, and (5) the fridge vent. He also made wooden mounting plates for our two new 12v outlets. He filled the tires to the appropriate PSI.

Then he turned his attention to a house projects, specifically, replacing the tiles in front of the fridge, which involved cutting away the rotted subfloor, fitting a thin plywood board to reinforce the floor, and laying tiles. (No grout or sealant because the tile mastic needed 72 hours to set.) 

I was on paint-prep duty. I finished sanding the walls, then I sanded the aluminum, then I washed the walls with TSP, then I wiped them down with water. I taped all the windows and fixtures over with newspaper, and then I used self-etching primer on the two end caps and aluminum patches. (It took 4 cans! Omg!) 

Like, it sounds like not a lot, but for some reason it took me like all day. 

I spent a little time looking around for the paint sprayer, but unable to locate it, so I left for a run with the sisters. When I got back, Peter had found the paint sprayer and was testing it with some old blue paint, but the sun had already set and the Alabama game was starting and it didn't seem to be working properly, so I thought, well, paint next weekend . . . 

But my husband is not to be deterred like that. He made our 3rd Home Depot run of the day (first, rivets, second, insulation and more self-etching primer, third, nozzle for paint sprayer) and we got to painting around 8pm. And actually the painting part itself took maybe 15 minutes. We didn't get enough primer! Probably some waste during the testing/unclogging portion, and then I sprayed it on too thick before I got the hang of it--I was so dismayed to see some dripping in some parts! The key is to hold it at least 14" from the wall, and to hold it sideways like you're a gangster about to fire a Glock semi in the movies. 

Next weekend, we will (1) sand down those drips and thick spots, (2) get the ceiling panel attached and (3) finishing priming. May we will just throw the final paint color on there, too, while everything's taped up? 

Concern

My husband read Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, but it was before we were even dating, so I didn't get the benefit of his audible processing of the material. My friend turned sister-in-law* also read Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and she got to me first with this message:

We each have a circle of concern and a circle of influence. If we focus on our circle of concern, our anxiety and powerlessness will expand until we are so immobilized that our circle of influence shrinks. Conversely, if we focus on our circle of influence, it will continue to expand until we have more control over the things that concern us. 

This blew my mind. 

Because how often have I dreamed of hiding away from it all? Just finding myself a spot of earth in the middle of nowhere, so I could live simply and quietly, not hurt anyone and not be hurt by anyone. Sometimes I just want to disappear. If I can't make the world a better place and alleviate any suffering, why should I even be here, making things worse with my shallow existence?  

Reading the news and cringing at all the pain in the world, both up close and far away. A client struggles to come up with $20 additional dollars to pay for the required flu vaccine. Getting texts from my former admin at the public defender's office about a frequent flyer client. Uighur people in China in modern-day concentration camps. Refugees and asylum seekers biding their time in the crime-plagued border towns. Families I love battling autoimmune diseases, mental health episodes, financial hardships, and relationship dysfunctions. The persecuted church. 

Bad things happen. The world is broken. We are broken. The only place we can go to escape the weight of all these brokenness is the arms of Jesus and the seat of His promises that He is coming back for us and He is making all things right. 

So, there is an escape. And that escape is not daydreams about traveling or backpacking, it is not the zany antics of Malcolm's family. The escape isn't online shopping or cooking or yoga or face masks. Not that any of these things are bad or wrong, but I am still using them to soothe an anxiety that they cannot soothe! 

The escape is in obedience to Jesus. In remembering and encouraging my friends. In taking care of my husband. In working as unto Him in my job. In praying for those who suffer and are persecuted. In studying His words and promises that I will not forget what He said. In serving strangers with my time and money. 

Only He can help me grow my circle of influence so I am not swallowed up entirely by my circle of concern. Only He is my escape. 

*If you are the wife of her husband's brother, you are sisters-in-law, and this is the dream of most friends, that you marry a pair of attractive brothers and your kiddos grow up as cousins, I am living that dream, y'all!

End cap completion!

Friday night we rolled in like ghosts and loaded up, eight--yes, eight!--tires into our Toyota Camry to try to squeeze them in with an oil change. It was only $25 per tire to swap them out and balance them! (Also I learned what it means to balance a tire, lol.) The wheels were too old for the place to guarantee the tires for warranty purposes, but they put new valve stems on there and they look 100. 

Peter finished bolting the shocks into place with the tires off and successfully made his own washer using a fat titanium drill bit. (Glad I did not see that project in process!) While the tires were off, he used some Rust Reformer paint to hit the exposed frame in that area--the steel was in great shape already, but some extra protection is good for peace of mind. 

I spent some time with the wire brush on the drill trying to polish up the hubcaps and they are 90% of the way there, save for some stubborn spots. Now that the wheels, axles, and shocks are all set, and the jack still works, we can tow this thing to the welder to get that one outrigger fixed! (Okay, after the brakes get wired in and we replace our taillights--still flummoxed.)

Inside the rig, I worked on prepping the walls while Peter (and Amanda, thank the Lord!) worked on the back end cap. It is a thing of beauty to watch them work together--they are in sync, Amanda can anticipate what Peter will need handed to him next, they see the same problems and speak the same language, and also, she never skips arm day--she is strong! 

It made me feel bad for a sec--the wife who will never be as helpful as the sister--but I was cheered to think that he still chooses to let me partner with him in this project and takes the time to teach me things even though this doesn't exactly come naturally to me. 

So I took some Bondo and patched empty rivet holes, small rips, and places where the vinyl had peeled away from the aluminum. In some spots I used heaps of the stuff, which mean sanding it down took foreverrrrr, but I was pleased with the end effect. I also continued my battle to scrape paint off from around the front windows and doors, as well as the door frame. Like I wish I knew what primer they had used for that first facelift painting, because it will not budge! 

The back end cap looks so nice. Peter used a thicker gauge for the height of the curve and for the center piece, and the original gauge for those two pieces on either side. A compromise for weight and strength. Each slice ended up with more like 9" width instead of the 11" in the front end cap, and so the middle piece is 2'. But it looks tight, strong, and symmetrical, and the fact that it doesn't "match" the look of the front end cap shouldn't matter since the view of it will be interrupted by the bathroom wall. 

Fewer electrical probs this time around, too. We only used one power tool at a time plugged into the trailer outlets, and compressor stayed plugged in to the house. We plugged into the living room outlet instead of the outside GFCI outlet. Surge protector did the same thing where it blocked power to the system, but after a few minutes it self-corrected and started working fine. And the battery charged! 

We bought some Zinsser Bullseye 1-2-3 Primer, painter's tape, and some self-etching primer at the end of the weekend. Now we just need to figure out how to support the wires in the ceiling and squeeze insulation in there, and we can hopefully close the ceiling up and prime that ish. Also, patches. 

Some small things

Got off to a late start thanks to my ill-fated decisions, but Peter was a good sport and he bought me a chicken biscuit. 

We are getting the hang of the electrical set-up. First I noticed that with the shop-vac and the air compressor both running via the outlets, the inverter was blinking overload, so we switched to running the air compressor directly from the house instead. Then the surge protector inside of the Airstream started blinking a red light that said "CAUTION WHEN BLINKING" and wouldn't send any power to the inverter. Strangely, the fans (which are 12v and theoretically hooked up to the battery, which had plenty of charge) would not power on either. 

And then after maybe 2 minutes of us staring at it and thinking, it fixed itself. This happened a few more times. Throughout the day, I would hear the inverter running while we were only using AC power, which troubled me a little because I thought shore power should be able to bypass the inverter, but once or twice the "AC Mode" indicator was glowing, which comforted me. 

What did not comfort me is that when the surge protector detected an error and blocked incoming power, the power tools we had plugged in would continue running off the battery like nothing was happening--a cool feature for uninterrupted power use, but now how I'm wanting to use our battery. I am regretting having it wired to bypass the fridge, because it seems like we actually would have enough power to run it off our battery. 

Also, the 12v lighting worked even when the battery switch was off. How is that possible? This is the disadvantage of not doing your system yourself--you don't know how to troubleshoot it! 

First, Peter installed the shocks. He used blocks and the hydraulic lift to force pressure on the tires until the wheel mount was aligned, and the shocks fit right into place like Colin said they would. The washers that came with the new one weren't quite right, so he reused the old ones. And we were one short! So Peter made his own by using a fat drill bit to widen another washer he had. Such a problem solver. 

After that, he came inside the rig with me and riveted in the rest of the upper walls, which took some finessing to preserve the tension in the curve, especially around the vista windows, where you can't rivet due to the sliding window shade. He also wrapped up with the rivets in the front end cap. We are still waiting on the aluminum for the back end cap. He ordered a thicker gauge for more support. 

I think he's glad he started with the front end cap, because if he had started with the back, he might have lost his enthusiasm for it, but the front one looks so good! And I think the back one will look nice also, even if it's not perfect. 

My contribution was to try to strip some of the lingering paint lumps off the skins and also the rods that hold the ceiling in place. I also used some 60 & 120 grit sandpaper on the multitool to prep the walls for painting. It was so nice to have our fans going while we were working in there! And the light! We got some Bondo to patch areas where the vinyl has pulled away and also too-large rivet holes. We also got some self-etching primer and TSP. So close to painting, so close!