Shelves and Memories


I decided to set up shelves in the old shed similar to the setup in the new shed. Penny and I went to Lowe’s to get materials to make shelves. When we got there she suggested we look at the plastic and metal pre-made shelves to see what they cost. We found we could get the shelving we needed at about double the cost of lumber. Considering the time savings and the fact that my hands are still healing the extra expense seemed prudent. So we loaded up the trailer with shelving and brought them home.


I spent a few hours assembling the shelves. These are plastic shelves with pieces that just slip together with no tools required. Assembly was easy except for the fact that the cold temperature we are experiencing made the plastic brittle enough to crack when I press fitted the support tube into the shelf. I reverted to using WD-40 to lubricate the fittings and a hair dryer to make the plastic flexible again. I was able to use the couple of shelves that cracked as a top shelf. Up there the cracked piece wasn’t needed to hold any tube and so all the shelves are 100% functional.


I began sifting through the stuff in the old shed and there are some good memories in some of the boxes. I ran into some of my lesson plans from my Religious Education days. I have a copy of “Kids Komandments” – 10 commandments my junior high class put together to vent a little. It includes “Kids shall have credit cards” and “Kids should be able to sleep in the mornings instead of going to CCD”. There were some of Christy’s Prom pictures and a whole large container of stuffed animals and high school stuff from Karen’s room. Another box had some of my files from 1991.


Tomorrow begins the task of setting up the shelves in the shed and deciding what stays and what goes. One item that is taking up a lot of space is paperback books. We have well over 1000 of them currently stacked in drawers from our old bed. These were left after the garage sale about 3 years ago. It’s always hard to throw away books. I’ll probably keep some and box up the rest and dump them at Goodwill or a used book store. I may be lucky and find that moisture, heat and time have made them unusable – then it will be easy to chuck them.


The weather is going to start warming tomorrow and will be more pleasant for the next few days. Who knows, maybe I will actually have our stuff in some semblance of organization before it rains again. I’ve got a lot of stuff sitting in the back yard right now. If rain comes too soon I’ll have to hastily put things back under cover and that would spoil this organizational “surge”.