Working with my hands

Today I put together five bookcases. It was nothing too difficult; these were bookcases from Ikea, meant to be built fairly easily. I had to pound nails and move heavy boards around and screw things together. I'm sore and I'm sure my back will be screaming tomorrow, but I kind of love doing things like this. I don't often have days where I'm just physically working.

I've put together a bunch of things over these years. I almost always have at least one screw-up. It's usually a board put in the wrong way: I pull the whole thing together and there's a strip of pressboard showing. It's usually no big deal and wouldn't be worth the time to take apart and fix.

These bookcases don't have any obvious problems. Well, the first one I put together had a shelf with the wrong side exposed; luckily it was fairly easy to fix. One of the reasons I finished all the bookcases today is that I was feeling the pattern of putting them together: after the first one, the rest went together a bit easier.

A physical day means not so many deep thoughts. But it feels good to see what you did all day.