Since the weather was nice over the weekend, it was a perfect time to be outside. I had been waiting for nearly a month for the opportunity to do a few things around the house, with the only limiting factor being that it had to be a project I could begin and finish in a day’s time.

With a to-do list as long as Santa’s Christmas wish list, I can tell you that there were no shortage of things I wanted to get done. However, deciding which one could have taken almost as much time as actually doing the work.

I opted to start in the most obvious place, a handyman’s nerve center. What place could hold such importance, you ask? Why, my little storage building, of course.

It is actually a utility room attached to one end of my house, but for now, it’s all I have. Granted, I still want to get a real building constructed sometime this summer, but for now, it’s where all the work begins and ends.

Over the winter, things happen to a storage building that aren’t entirely pleasant. Since work is mainly an indoor pastime, with the exception of cutting firewood, I find that the building ends up being a dumping ground for all the things that no longer fit neatly inside the house.

Oscillating fans, air conditioners, window fans, yard sale items and general junk accumulate until the entire room is so full there is nowhere left to walk. Then, inevitably, the time comes when tools, supplies or other such items are needed and can’t be found or reached for all the other stuff in the way.

I took the day Saturday, working about eight hours to sort, shelve and stack the items I needed and discard those I did not.

I don’t think such a process is ever finished, but it is much closer now than it was before.

One of my friends donated a large plastic storage shelf and another metal one to my cause, both of which were incorporated into my utility room. That allowed me to get most of the stuff out of the floor, including the newly discarded winter items — fireplace tools, kerosene heaters, the chainsaw and a couple of tow chains.

I also managed to have a few of those, “I wondered where that went,” moments. I found things I hadn’t seen in two years or more and a few things that I had forgotten I even had. Testimony of that truth came from the fact that I had three bottles of power steering fluid, four kinds of washer fluid and three cans of two-cycle oil. At least I can hope I am well stocked into the future on such items. From my extra staples to my supply of only occasionally useful arcane tools, most everything was in place by the time the day was done.

When I first moved into the house I am in now, I was hard pressed to get everything from a 14 by 16 building into a six-by-eight utility room. I can finally say that I currently know where most everything I own is located and I can go and lay hands on it in a reasonable amount of time. Before, tools, fishing supplies and electrical wires might all be dumped into one big box somewhere on the floor underneath several other big boxes. It was like looking for a part in an unfamiliar junk yard. By the time I found what I needed, I didn’t have the time left to use it.

It’s hard to build if you can’t find your saw, hammer and nails and it’s hard to put them away again if you don’t have a designated place for them to go.

As an illustration of the situation, I was taking out a small plastic storage bin when a propane stove fell on my head from the stack and nearly knocked me silly. Luckily, I had just found my hard hat and a discarded bottle of aspirin.

Although I did have a task at hand, I took a few moments to relish the thoughts of putting some of the uncovered items to use, like a collection of lanterns and camping gear, fishing rods and folding chairs. I think back with pleasure about some of the weekends my family spent on the river with our friends, roasting marshmallows and hot dogs, fishing and relaxing under the stars. I try to forget the kid who got blistered by a flaming marshmallow, my one-night record of 37-mosquito bites and falling out of a canoe into the cold waters of New River while fishing one evening.

I’ve always been somewhat of a daydreamer, a fact that sometimes gets me off task while I’m doing things. I find I have to drive myself to keep the work moving or I’ll be watching the butterflies wisp around the yard or reading the instructions on some tool I’ve located. I’ve found I can only overcome my tendency to do several things at once with single-minded concentration and will power, both of which are often in short supply. I even read four or five books at a time. But if it weren’t for multi-tasking, as I like to call it, I wouldn’t be able to get all the things I want to do squeezed in.

You know, I sometimes get so frustrated because there are so many things I want to do with my time and so many people who want to tell me what to do with my time. I suppose everyone feels like that. It is a selfish thought, to be sure, but I already have about one-third of my life planned out. In case you didn’t figure it out, that time will be spent sleeping.

About another third will be spent on work-related activities, which can include volunteering as well as getting paid for doing things, like my job here at the newspaper.

All that is left is actually a little less than one third, which must then be divided between my family, my church and my other recreational and enjoyable pursuits.

Somehow, that ratio doesn’t seem to work out the way that I would like very often. Folks tell me that it only gets worse as time goes on. I guess that gives me something to look forward to.

I know the summer time also means more newspaper events coverage, more extra work here and there and the dreaded mowing, trimming and lawn maintenance. My land that is for sale already has needed mowing once, and combined with the 35 minute drive to get there and get back, that will absorb about three hours of my life every week until that place sells. Did I mention that I am planning a garden? At least boredom won’t be a concern.

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