Big and little challenges

Today's little challenge? Picking out the cabinets, cabinet options, countertops, hardware, and flooring for a new kitchen. I did it on-line and emailed the results to my sister's fiancé, otherwise known as my "contractor." It took about 30 minutes.

Yes, I know people who, like Edina in an episode of Absolutely Fabulous, can spend weeks just picking out cabinet handles. Edina and Patsy even flew to New York to check some out--only to come home and find that Edina's daughter has had the kitchen completely overhauled in her absence.

That's what I'm aiming for, except this is real life, not a situation comedy, so I actually have to make some decisions. But in a perfect world I'd say "stainless steel appliances, white cabinets, whatever floor and countertops look best--use your own discretion" and magically it would be done, and if not perfect, would be close enough to what I like.

I'm actually as close to this as a non-fictional character can get, and I am not complaining at all that I'm not spending weeks obsessed with drawer pulls; it's a kitchen, people. Not the Red Room at the White House.

So the big challenge is today's Brownie project, which I dreamed up and will be leading at this afternoon's meeting.

I wanted the girls to do a service project and one that doesn't affect our immediate community (we already did a trash pick-up at a local park.) You know, one involving outreach.

So we're making May baskets for the residents of a homeless women's shelter in Chicago. We're making the baskets out of brown paper shopping bags, which the girls will decorate, and we'll fill them with shower gels and nylon shower puffs and lotion and sugarless gum and other sweet-smelling stuff that I'm going to go out and buy at Costco any minute now.

So here I am wondering whether I need to cut the brown paper bags and staple the handles myself, or would it be better for the girls to do that themselves? And should we remove the price tags or leave them on? And of course, I'll need to try to explain why some people are homeless. And explain that spring is a good time for fresh starts, and that we want to help these women make a fresh start in their lives.

So that's today's big challenge. And it makes redoing a kitchen look like an airplane crossword puzzle. Maybe even easier.