Thank you to our most recent volunteers - Josh, his daughter Mia, and our good friend Tom - who put in a lot of hard work & sweat on Wednesday & Thursday as we kicked off 6 weeks of volunteer work efforts over at GTD Central Command (aka: my house) =)
I can't express how much of a blessing this middle-of-the-week crew was! They took time out of their personal lives (and Mia from her spring break) to help get the ball rolling, get the momentum started, and get tasks completed as we prepare for our summer camps in 6 weeks!!
As many of you know our family is in the middle of Caregiving for my awesome Mom and I haven't had any time to work on several important projects. So I've got a lot of GTD projects & home improvement work to get done before our summer camps begin. I posted a request on social media for volunteers and we got a good response! (Thank you awesome people!) Each Monday I hope to get the volunteer work schedule posted for the week ahead. There are so many moving parts and layers that we usually can't plan beyond 1 week.
Thanks to Josh, Mia, & Tom we were able to remove everything from the GTD storage container (we call it The Green Monster) and seal the floor with EpoxyShield.
Unfortunately, about 12 years ago I left a can of turpentine inside The Green Monster and failed to fully tighten the cap. All of the turpentine evaporated out of the can and into The Green Monster and soaked into anything & everything that was inside the storage container - including the wood floor. Everything was contaminated! I have not been looking forward to this project!!!!
Back in November I threw out about 75% of the contaminated and unsalvageable items, but kept the remaining bit hoping to salvage it. I then pressure washed every inch of the interior, especially the wood floor. A little research revealed that vinegar and aeration was all I needed to remove the remaining turpentine.
Everything has been airing out for 4 months. A few weeks ago Carson and Logan began pressure washing some of the plastic storage bins and wiping them down with vinegar. And it worked! The vinegar and airing out neutralized the turpentine!! The smell ("the beast") was defeated!! So I mopped The Green Monster floor with vinegar and let it air out for a couple more weeks.
On Wednesday the crew sealed the floor and then we began the monotonous task of wiping down a ton of storage bins, inflatables, and the remaining contaminated gear with vinegar. And I'm happy to say it worked again!! Vinegar is like a cure-all for many things!
It took several hours to wipe everything down and keep flipping them so they could fully air out & dry out. But it worked great and now we have 50+ plastic storage bins ready to be used. That means we are ready to start moving a ton of GTD gear out of the garage and my house which overflows with GTD stuff to the point that I look like an episode of Hoarders.
And, if that wasn't enough, the crew also had time to help me construct another rack to hold kayaks & canoes. We got so much done! Aaaaaand they put us in a great position to build on their progress this weekend. We are assembling another crew of workers for this weekend to pick up where they left off. Let me know if you want to help keep the momentum going!! We will be working 9a - 6p on Saturday & Sunday.
Thank you again Josh, Mia, Tom, Dad, Carson, & Logan for getting this ball rolling!! I is forever grateful!!!! God bless you guys!!!!
