Sunday afternoon Melanie came in to talk to Sherry, Kathy and me because we’re back to really only being busy on the weekends since the kids are back in school.  Melanie reiterated that she guaranteed us 40 hours a week through Labor Day weekend, so mid-week we need to check in with her in the morning to get an assignment for the day.

Monday morning, Mark and I went in at 8:00 and Jeff told us he was assigning us to repaint the parking lot.  All the words and stripes have faded.  The parking lot is black asphalt and the temperature was in the 90’s.  Yesterday (Monday) I kept having to sit in the shade and drink water to cool off.  Mark gave me his bandana wet with cold water to try to help me cool off, too.  I felt like a wimp and I was afraid my bosses would be unhappy with me, but they were supportive of me cooling down because my face kept turning red.

This morning we went back and continued working on the repainting project.  This time I spent the hottest part of the day working on a side of the parking lot that was mostly shaded.

What was involved in repainting the parking lot was putting down a knee pad, getting down on our knees with a three inch roller, and painting as far as we could before the paint in the pan dried in the sun.  This afternoon we got to paint one section with handle extensions on our rollers because it was a large section where we used wider rollers.  It felt good to be able to stand.  When we were having to kneel, our knee pads got hot and the parking lot was too hot to set our hands on.  We wore rubber gloves and our hands sweated inside them.

We finished the parking lot two hours before quitting time this afternoon so I had time to work on my display cases for this next weekend.  When we finally went home, we put Epsom salts in our tub and soaked our aching muscles and feet in it.  We’re both really sore and very grateful that today was our Friday.  On a good note, we’re proud of the work we did.  It looks so much better up there!