Everyday Has a Mission... Tuesday, February 5

Standing in the massively large empty building that’s glass-littered, poop-smelling, reeking of urine, and is as dark as it is cold, I could see in my mind our dream playing out among the rubble that was once a prosperous hair shop. 

The other day I started a new approach towards starting our business.  There’s just so much for us to cover, so much for us to do.  I came up with this idea, I call it "the weekly mission board".  It’s a chart… here, why don’t I just copy and paste part of it below.  That’ll make it so much easier for you to understand.

So that’s the first couple of day's of this week's weekly mission board.  

The plan is that with each new day, together we'll come up with a collective mission/task for the day, and then one separate for each of us. Today’s mission was to attack the issue of making a floor plan. It took about 2-3hrs to measure it all on paper and then another 2hrs for me to accurately put it on graph paper. Measuring it out was definitely quite the task because of all the excessive amounts of broken glass, trashed hair salon chairs and garbage, and because my hands were shaking from the cold. Snickers thinks it's funny that my lips go blue when I'm really cold.  Am glad my bluer-than-blue lips amused him. Oh, and don’t forget the poop – the HUMAN poop! Yes, that’s right. They're like landmines littering the floor, making it tricky to walk about. Perhaps one of the demolition crew members from many moons ago was too lazy to use one of the toilets in the back, or so I thought. Apparently I was wrong however and I stumbled upon just how wrong I was when I discovered a room I hadn’t noticed before. 

I opened the door to what I thought was just a continuation of another room and low and behold, what should be before my eyes but a mattress, a sleeping bag and clothes scattered on the floor.  I froze.  I whispered for Snickers to check to see if the sleeping bag was just a sleeping bag or if it was what it looked like – a person curled up sleeping. 

No one was in the sleeping bag but someone has definitely been living in this abandoned building and they’ve been there recently.  Today I noticed a pair of jeans I hadn’t seen before.  To tell you the truth, I really felt uncomfortable and a bit sad stepping around this homeless person’s stuff so that I could take measurements.  I definitely think it's smart of them to be staying here.  The entire building is abandoned but our floor is the only floor with lots of nooks and crannies to hide in.  

It wasn't until later in the evening that the idea of a homeless man sleeping in the building started to get to me. It was well after 3am when Snickers and I finally called it a night for business talk but as he doozed off I stayed up consumed with worries about this homeless man.  The other day when Snickers and I were there I had mentioned to him that I heard something but when he came to where I was it stopped.  I think I was standing right beside where he must have been hiding because today when I went to that same spot, there was no sound but there was poop.  Snickers thinks this is funny.  He suggested that perhaps the man pooping there was a sign for me not to give him crap or he'll give me crap -- literally, nice.  

We estimate that the total floor is 58ft x 127ft (17.8m x 38.7m); it’s so much more space than we ever imagined or even need but we’re incredibly grateful and definitely feel blessed.  Snickers knew I was obviously uncomfortable over the whole homeless man situation so he tried to cheer me up by joking.  “The place is too big, maybe we’ll just let that person keep his room there.”

[side note --> after all the talk of the homeless man, Snickers then goes and tries to spook me by telling me that in the picture I took of my sketched out floor plan (see above), I apparently snapped a shot of a blood-stained floor... great, thanks.  Like I'll have sweet dreams now!!!]