A good shower

A friend of mine gets has this motto that she got from her dad; earn your shower today. I dunno. Its something like that... its her motto and her dad. You get the drift.
Usually my showers are short. I try to stay under ten minutes. Seven is great. Its a water saving thing. Today, I took maybe a 12 minute luxurious shower and somewhere around minute 8 (cuz I was really done with the shower part and was just enjoying the hot water on my sore body) it occurred to me, "ER, ya earned it today."
Today I joined an all female crew who is building a house for Habitat for Humanity.
I don't typically think of myself as a slouch. I run fairly far (maybe not by Marathon Maniac standards... but real freakin far by normal person standards). I choose vacations around some particular activity and usually I wind up bruised and/or bloody. At least I have the last couple (hi JC!!!). I go to the big girls (read: hard as shit) yoga class a couple-a times a week. I walk my dogs maybe 16/20 miles a week. I spend time in the yard sweating and toiling in the dirt more days than not in the summer. I work 6 days a week every other week. You get the idea. Not a lot of moss gathers on this rolling stone.
But gentle readers... today....totally kicked my ass. I found my line of when I decide, "ya know... screw that... I am going to let someone else pick up the board."
I hammered and hammered and built a window hole thingy that got put in a wall that I also helped build.
I hate to hammer.
I am apparently, pretty good at it. My dad and mom raised me right so its not like I've never held a hammer and I'm pretty strong so I don't need a lot of wacks. And plus... I'm pretty angry so ya know... I'm good at hammering. Heh. But the bad thing about this is that you get asked to hammer all the live long day. And the lady who was teaching me how to build window holes (they have headers and jacks and kings and kings are tall and jacks are short and if you don't measure right, then you've got a big damn problem) was no joke. She'd tell me, "no, that's not straight, lets do it again." I would then start the joyous process of pulling out the stupid toe nailed nails (which means they are crooked and hard as shit to get out of two boards). I took out a lot of nails.
It was hard.
Like do you remember when I ran my first half marathon? How I almost cried because it was just so physically taxing. I wasn't even tickled to have done it because it was just so hard I wanted it to be over. Today, after being there from 8:30 to 4:00, I was tired. And the wall wasn't quite finished so we decided to put in over time. I had that same feeling of wanting to cry and go home.
It was a hard day.
But it was kind of awesome.
Habitat builds in neighborhoods like the one I came from. This street had many empty homes with high grass, and kids yelling, playing out front grown folks keeping a watchful eye for cars (and bad guys I guess). Across the way, they were having a bar b q. Oh my dear sweet Lord. Do you have any idea how good that smelled 'round 4:15? And even grandaddy came out with a drink in his cup dancing and laughing. It so reminded me of my grandaddy dancing with me. The noise of the traffic, the kid noise, people yelling... I could close my eyes and be sitting on the stoop on the 'wood. It was good for my soul.
There has been a lot in my world recently that I can deal with, but I can't do much about. Today I could do something about nails and wood that didn't want to match. And a wall that needed built. And that was good for my soul.
It was a good day. But damn. Not only did I earn my shower but I also needed one. And that was the best for my soul.
But I think my bad shoulder is going to kick my ass tomorrow.