120 degrees, Easy

Vacation Bible School starts tomorrow, so we spent the better part of the afternoon decorating the church sanctuary. It's pretty cool really. The theme for VBS is "Ramblin' Road Trip" so Brooke chose to decorate the sanctuary with tents, camping gear, a "road" made of black plastic with yellow stripes on it (complete with "vehicles" borrowed from kids at the church). I'll try to post some pictures later, but it looks good.

I forgot to mention that the sanctuary decorations included these "tree things". If I can post some pictures, I'll clearly label the "tree things". Anyway, these were stored in the church attic. Let me help you get a clearer picture...climb the steps to the baptistery, climb the ladder into the attic and then climb up into the rafters of the attic. There you will see the "tree things". Before I cleaned out the attic, this was the only place these things would fit...but "fit" really isn't a very good word. If you hold your mouth just right, twist, turn and otherwise manipulate in every way you can imagine you can get those things down. The outside temperature was probably only in the upper 80's today. Safe to say it was 100 degrees in the attic...I'm guessing it was 120 degrees, easy up there in the rafters. When I came down, it looked I took a shower with my clothes on! Of course, I smelled kinda funky, too.

Oh, but I forgot to mention one other item...actually getting up into the rafters. I had a stool to stand on and I was trying to hoist myself up into the rafters from there. Now, those of you that know me know my arm-size to stomach-size ratio does not favor pulling myself up. I don't know the exact measurements between the rafters, and although there is not a lot of room left, it is sufficient for my girth. However, I knew it was going to be a challenging climbing up to the top of the stool, grabbing the rafters, kicking my legs up onto the rafters and trying to pull myself up. To make things worse (you thought it couldn't get worse?), a couple college girls working with the children's department came up to try and help while I was doing my monkey impression. To their credit, they left rather than laugh in my face (that's what they told Brooke).

Anyway, all 30-40 "tree things" came down out of the attic. I went home, took a shower, changed clothes and drank a 50 oz. lemonade and am not much worse for the wear. The good news is, since I cleaned up the attic a few weeks ago, there is room to put the "tree things" on the floor in the attic so nobody has to crawl up in the rafters anymore.

-Rob