Of Completing the Task

I have very exciting news for everyone:

The church library is hereby complete and ready for its Grand Opening in January!

I'm not sure how many people realize just how exciting this day is for me, but for those of you who may not realize, I began my training to learn how to do any and all of this process over two and a half years ago.  While I have had many a hiatus since that very beginning, work has been done since then - sometimes with the help of magnificent volunteers and sometimes with none.

For the last three to four months, at least, I have gone in (as much as I was available) two to three mornings a week (most often with kids in toe, which always makes a task more interesting, if not hair-pullingly frustrating) to take the to the work of organizing nearly two thousand books, first in one order (the order the computer wanted to print their spine labels, which was not necessarily the most logical for library organization) and then in the final order.

I have gone through the labeling process of each of these two thousand books three times (the first time with bar codes, when initially entered into the computer, the second with spine labels and the third with spine label protectors) and have stamped every single one with the name and address of our church (well, almost every single one - I did have some help).

And now, dear friends, now it is done.  And this library - my blood, sweat and tears (mostly the latter two) will be opening before this tiny little one arrives.

Rejoice!

(Please pardon the blurriness of these shots, but my actual camera was at home, so I had to go with the video camera, which has no flash.)

You can't tell, but those labels at the tops of the shelves list which call numbers are on each shelf.  They make me happy.  Plus, just knowing those books are in order makes me want to do a dance of victory.

This little mobile shelf for the children's books is also a source of happiness for me.  Isn't it just too cute.

(Also, please ignore that some of the books look haphazard as they fall over - I don't actually have bookends yet.  But that will NOT stop me from opening, so we're just dealing with it.)