That is, since I re-did my bookshelves, I’ve always been able to find whatever book I’m looking for. If it’s mine.
You see, if it’s mine it finds a home among other books of its type so I always know where to go when I’m looking for something.
But library books are another issue altogether.
Library books have no definitive home– because even when I put them dutifully away on the “library book shelf” in the living room their proximity to the ground seems to translate them, substantially, from Something-To-Be-Read (and let alone until read) into Things-To-Be-Carried.
Like all books in our house they are treated with utmost respect, but it is the respect Eliza Dolittle would get from Col. Pickering: genuine, but oblivious.
So I’ve lost the book I meant to finish next (A Curse as Dark as Gold, that I quoted from here), and it’s really annoyed me. I’ve checked all the usual places and now all that’s left is to wait till this bug finishes its sweep and we dig out the corners again.
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In the meantime I’ve dabbled with the idea of helping to organize a fundraiser that should take place in about 2 months.
The impossibility of this is emphasized on at least one web site: Nine women working together cannot produce a baby in one month! it insists. In the same way you cannot expect to put together a fundraiser faster just because you have more people.
But I have to wonder about the doom and gloom.
This particular event has been in place for more than 5 years, and involves (in an original stroke of genius) each hostess supplying both the food and guests for her table, so I think what’s left to us would be venue and program, mostly.
I said keep me in the loop, because I want to help the cause (our local CareNet Pregnancy Center) but when I shifted off my brain-storm document and back into my re-write I felt such a distinct chink of a fit it made me nervous.
Not about the fit of the writing, but about the fact that the other work was not. With my life wound so tightly just now I wonder (almost fear) if I’ve stepped into a tripwire.
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Found a redundant scene to cut. I’ll work the best parts into the later confrontation. Finished clean-up on 26 and 27.
Why was the fundraiser left to be organized 2 months out? That sounds to me like a lack of infrastructure at the organization that will probably lead to chaos. Even if the actual workload sounds reasonable for you to take on, the associated chaos and drama may take over your life…
I had to stop volunteering for my local CareNet because of the instability of their organizational structure…it led to an over-involved board and lack of clear decision-making heirarchy that made my volunteer efforts a logistical and emotional nightmare for me.
So certainly I am reading some of my own bad past experiences into this, but if you feel that gut-check, tell them you can’t help this year. Maybe you could offer to help them with the fundraiser NEXT year, starting at least six months out.
I said I’d only do it with my mom, and she and I have agreed we’re going into the opening meeting with “Not doing it this year” as one of our viable options.
Totally don’t trust myself to be wise enough, but with that older, more experienced voice I feel like I want at least to know more. Sometimes I think “faith” must be one of my giftings. In many situations I find myself seeing “impossible” as only one of a variety of labels for any given project.
I appreciate hearing your experience– I prefer the eyes-wide-open approach.