Life is full of ‘almosts.’ I can’t think of any examples in which I might further substantiate my point, but I know this to be true. Today, an almost materialized like that of the snow that, all day, has been falling out of the grey, overcast sky.

Today, Pete and I had a meeting with our high powered consultant and very high powered architect. I was pleasantly surprised – the high powered consultant was very astute. She was aware that the book project has been taking up

all my time and then some, and has been, over time, a drain on me physically. This is why she did/does see the need to move along quickly on the building project.

And the architect, although not as familiar with our project as the consultant, seemed to think similarly.

It occurred to me that the building project fits into the rubric of ‘life is full of almosts.’ In this case, we almost got the slab poured and the building constructed before winter. Almost. Today was actually the first day of winter. No more rain/snow mix, but just snow. And it’s sticking to the ground.

So how am I with this? Resigned because I know, as I’ve known for a while, that the building will get built. However, today’s meeting, with the for-sure seasonal delay, forced me to come up with a winter contingency plan. Right now, there are far too many books in the Meeting House. In fact, the footprint is as big as that of Big Foot, and just as abdominal. I did in fact, pick up my computer and show the high powered consultant and the high powered architect the rooms full of books.

By agreement, the book collections are now in Milena’s U-Haul storage unit. She’s getting TOTE to pay for this. My books are squatters of sorts.

Down row, we have a lot of books in our own storage locker. One side of the locker contains the Anchorage school district children’s books. Ki Yi Yippi I o.

The consultant suggested that we contact our main grant source and either ask that funding be added to our existent grant, or for permission to apply for another grant. Most likely we’ll get it – the common refrain from grant sources is that ours is “a good project.”

My knowing that we’ll, in time, have a building and consequently more space will make me feel more confident/less apprehensive about making this request.

Now what’ll we put in the storage units? The answer is the black and yellow bins of books that are in the library room. It’ll be an easy shlepp to the U-Haul facility, and in spring (sigh) to the new building site. The books are already sorted and partially categorized, so this portion of the workload has been done. I will continue to categorize books and then get them over there.

The astute high powered consultant predicted that in five year’s time we’ll outgrow the new building and then need an even larger space. I didn’t say what I was thinking, which is that by then, Costco might be for sale. We did mention that by then, that the Meeting House might be for sale.

I never expected this project to evolve into what it now is, a nonprofit with a lot of backers, some financial, and some not.

So the ‘almost’ that I’m speaking about – rather than continue to gnash my teeth, I’m going to make the best of a long-term situation.

Next: 294. 10/26/22: Ranger and Alys Butt Heads