Celebrating today with Ruth Ayres and others who share.
Do you ever know you can do something, and also understand it will take time and help from others, but you don't want to do it?
I am doing more and more at the bookstore. Remember it's run entirely by volunteers? I love working there, helping customers, reviewing donations, that part of the job. I am on the board of directors now, so more is involved. I am the volunteer coordinator which means "asking" a lot from others. When one "asks", my belief is that I also have to step up and do some of the work as well. So. . .
We are in the process of replacing bookshelves in the basement, an eclectic mix of book ambiance that might either thrill or overwhelm one. I don't know the whole history, but shelves appear to have been placed one by one per need. They are filled to the brim, from biography to a women's section to parenting to sports and everything else you can imagine.
But, there is also a locked closet walled off at one end that houses the most valuable books, all of these listed on our Amazon site. And it is/was a mess. The final straw was a shelf that collapsed because of the weight of oversized books. I found a heap of books one day when on the search for an order.
We've found a carpenter willing to build and replace a little at a time. That's another person's job, to choose the carpenter. And we as a board chose to start with this closet. It has been my job to gather helpers, boxes, plastic sheeting, and to remove every book, keep them in order by SKU number so that those who are most in charge of orders could find them this past week. I didn't want to do it, but there was that moment when I volunteered because no one else did. Yes, I admit, I waited.
I wish I'd taken a before and after picture. I will try to at least insert an "after" later. But I, plus two others, did it. We spent Monday afternoon removing the books, placing them in boxes, marking the boxes as to which held what. Tedious, dusty, and now, with the help of one other, DONE! I am celebrating that it turned out well. The new shelves are awesome, well worth the work involved.