Well, it had to happen.  The Confirmation box was finished just in the nick of time, and she and my youngest son Steven flew to Baltimore to deliver it to my niece Katie. After the big ceremony, everyone went back to the house for a big party. That’s where Rhonda presented the box to Katie.  I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say she dug it.

While they were gone, I had a list of to-do’s that was about as long as my arm.  I had to paint a few walls, grocery shop, laundry, drive my oldest son Dominic to two day-long events, coach basketball… well, it was crazy.

But, I had another job to tackle.  You can imagine what it was…

Yeah, wood carving leaves a big mess.  I mean, seriously. It seemed as if all of my carving tools, sanders, glue bottles.. the works were out on the bench. And, all of it was covered in sawdust, wood shavings and plane curls. The works.

So, I had to spend a little bit of time to get the place back in order.  Surprisingly, this enormous mess took less time than I thought to get whipped into shape. All of the planes went back in the till, the carving tools into the drawer, the finishing supplies back into the cabinet. As I went along, I can remember my many firsts on this project. I can remember how I thought there was no way I was going to get this done. And, the satisfaction of getting the project done in time.  This was going to be a project that I was going to remember for a while.

And, suddenly, it was done. That unbelievably daunting clean up task was complete in no time, and the shop was back in ship-shape.

Now, it’s prepared for the next project… and the memories it is going to bring.