committees, craft and serendipity

Yesterday, I found myself in town with an hour to kill, on my own. The car needed a rego check, and Bear is home from uni for the week, so I could leave the kids at home with him. The end of the month approaches, which in my too-many-committees world, it was time to slap my treasurer’s hat on and get the banking done. Perfect, thought I, I can drop the car off, walk downtown, and get the March takings counted and banked.

The takings in question? From the library book sale. I often cast an eye over it, but generally manage to behave myself.

Back in October, I shared three of my favourite crafty books, including one I first reviewed almost a whole decade ago. At the time, I looked for it on the library shelves, with no luck. It simply wasn’t there, two or three visits in a row. In the end, I jumped online to check the catalogue, expecting that I had missed it being culled and sold, and yet, there it was. Listed as available to borrow…at one of the outreach branches an hour away, part of a rural transaction centre in one of our outlying villages. Good news, maybe? It was still in circulation, at least.

Then a couple of weeks ago I checked the catalogue again in case it had come back…it was gone. The cull had caught it. In my October post, I even mentioned that if I saw it pop up in the book sale I would grab it. The problem of course, was hoping to grab it in the thirty seconds between it appearing in the sale baskets and some other eagle eyed crafter swiping it from under my nose. I figured it was a lost cause, and was slightly bummed, and then moved on.

Yesterday, though, I was at the library, counting that self-same book sale money for the month as part of my treasurer duties. I tallied everything up, updated the financials, prepped the banking, and walked out to return various bits and pieces to the counter. I glanced at the baskets, and thought that it couldn’t hurt to have a look…and a familiar blue spine was winking back at me.

I wouldn’t exactly say the lovely gentleman perusing the baskets on that side of the table got a sharp elbow to the side on my way through, but I will confess to being on the unhinged end of enthusiastic as I snuck around with an “excuse me, sorry, can I just…that one there, can I just grab that? Thank you, sorry, thanks so much!”, and me and my long coveted book flounced up to the counter. For the princely sum of one whole dollar, and the fluke of some rather serendipitous timing, it was miiiiiiiiine.

Into my bag it went, and myself, my laptop, and my find of the day trundled off to Maccas for a coffee and some writing while I waited for the car. I was so chuffed with myself I couldn’t even bring myself to be too anxious about having been interviewed on the news about our local health service (though I remain convinced I sounded like a total idiot).

Now the real question is – which book to make first?