Part of being human is what I call “getting carried away”, and I do it a lot. It usually results in doing things that I didn’t plan on doing, but which turn out to be satisfying. That’s what happened yesterday. 

The family resource center where I volunteer has recently moved to a new facility. In one of the new rooms we plan to have a boutique for new moms. It will have everything they need for babies, and young children. It’s presently full of bags of donated clothing, blankets, diapers, furniture, clothes racks, boxes of hangers. There was a narrow path through it, but it was a little treacherous. 

Next to it is another slightly smaller room full of toys and furniture donated from a daycare center. Boxes, bags, more furniture, and a lot of “stuff” are stacked in there as high as my head.  

I entered these spaces with one task in mind. I wanted to finish up a display item. It’s a nice piece of furniture with a wooden, two drawer base. It has a top portion with glass on the sides and door. I was attaching a plywood back that I had covered with fabric to the top. This piece of furniture was partially buried in the middle of the room. I had to move a lot of things to access it. That’s where the whole thing started getting out of hand. 

I realized that I should have a place to put the piece of furniture when I was done with it. That required moving three heavy tables, a dozen folding chairs and three large pieces of kitchen countertop. Since there really is no storage area for items like this, I decided to create one. I decided to use half the toy room for storage. That required moving half of everything out of the room. It was a game of moving piles of things from one place to another. I knew that it would all have to be moved again to a better place. I was hoping the better place would become obvious, or that the stuff would shrink during the process. Most everything I moved was large, awkward, and not on wheels. Fortunately I have been moving furniture most of my life and nothing scares me. 

It was hard, but strangely, it was fun. I also like doing this kind of work alone. That way people are not trying to stop me or tell me it can’t be done. Yes it can be done. I did it. 

I finally had enough space cleared to work with the display case. To nail the back in place, I really needed to put the glass top on the floor. I tried to tape the glass door shut, but that was not too successful. I actually considered leaving that project until I had another person to help. But I was on a roll and wanted to finish what I’d started. It was a miracle I got the top off the base without breaking any glass. It was a second miracle that I got it back and in its place along the wall. 

Now it is full of colorful quilts for babies, and I am only slightly sore from my workout. Never mind that the hour I had intended to spend turned into five hours of “getting carried away”. It was a very satisfying afternoon.