MY EASTER GIFT TO MY FRIENDS AT WILBETH-ARLINGTON . . .

 

This is Easter weekend, and since Easter is all about new life and rebirth, I thought it would be a wonderful gift to my friends at the Wilbeth-Arlington Properties to pick up the trash.  From Thursday night to Saturday night, I have picked up 17,894 pieces of trash (including 86 nails,) and I'm not done.  

I think the last time the trash was picked up here was when I did it last summer.  It's a mess.  Every area I finished looks amazing, but I'm not going to get done before Easter Sunday.  

This morning, I went over to this little playground on Barbara Street.  It was raining, and I didn't stop cleaning this whole area until I was done.

I went back this afternoon, and there were children happily playing on the playground.  These three kids were adorable!  One boy wanted to know about about my reason for picking up trash.  

After I told him my story, he got out his wallet and wanted to give me $20!  (Where on earth did he get $20?  Or a wallet?)  I told him I'm not picking up trash for money.  I want to make our neighborhood safe for our pets and kids.

He wanted to help me, so I gave him a trash grabber. I told him I was on Channel 5 last Sunday, and all three kids grabbed their cell phones and googled me!  Then they all thought I was a celebrity!  All three wanted their picture taken with me.  

How fun is that?

I left there, and headed down to the other side of Barbara Street.  I pulled in the parking lot and ick!  Where does all this trash come from?  Why doesn't anybody living here care?

There was a couple chatting in the parking lot, and I said, "What a mess!"  The girl said, "I was waiting for a nice day, then I was going to clean it up."

The way I look at it, every day is a nice day to pick up trash, but I didn't say that.  Instead, I told them both that it doesn't take very long to pick up trash, even a mess like this, and they timed me as they watched me count the pieces.  IT WAS VERY COOL.  I made it look very easy.

There were 322 pieces of trash in this one spot, and it took me 12 minutes to pick it all up.  That means I picked up 26 pieces per minute!  And that's picking stuff out of the weeds, smashing cans and dumping my bucket into my trash bag!  Usually, I'm faster!

They couldn't believe it, and I was pretty amazed as well.  I knew I was getting faster, but 26 pieces a minute?  That's more than most people pick up in a year!

I picked up 22,268 pieces the second week, so I'm ahead of my schedule again!  And I took two days off because of rain.  I'm feeling very good about this.

Do you realize that if I can keep up this pace, I will pick up about 100,000 pieces every four weeks?  I WILL REACH MY ONE MILLION PIECE GOAL BEFORE THE END OF SUMMER!

I was a little worried that I would feel like I didn't have any time off this weekend, but if I follow my schedule, I can pick up trash and still have time to do fun things.

I took the dogs to the school to play ball.  I did all my laundry, including all my wet clothes and shoes from this morning.  I went out to dinner by myself.  I went grocery shopping.  Now I'm getting ready to watch a movie.