Today I start writing again...really.... I promise

Last week my pathetic writing amounted to about 3,ooo words. For the first time in seven months I took three days off writing during the week to save my sanity. My youngest daughter has a birthday party on Saturday and the weekend before my husband and I finally agreed on bookshelves for the living room (which we now call The Library). Ordinarily, this week would have been an extremely bad week to put up bookshelves seeing as how ten families with small children were about to descend upon us: the house needed serious cleaning, a cake needed to be baked, a pin-the-tail-on-Eeyore needed to be drawn and birthday presents needed to somehow be bought on the sly. Completely overhauling the one room you see the most when you enter our house was probably not a smart idea.

However, my husband and I have been going around and around this for the last three years when we gutted the kitchen and knocked out the wall and bookshelves in the adjoining loft to create an eating space. He promised more bookshelves even as I packed my beloved books into many, many boxes and hauled them to the basement. He's promised bookshelves for three years, but has very distinct ideas about what he wanted them to look like, which, incidentally, did not jibe with what our bank account wanted them to look like. So around we've gone, me periodically digging into the boxes in search of some book I have to have, complaining loudly every chance I get.

My books are in boxes, folks. This is not a good thing.

So when last week I showed him my new plans for bookshelves, explained the layout, where to get the materials, and expensed it down to the penny for less than one-quarter our last estimate, he nodded and said, "Let's do it."

Seriously? says I, totally not believing it. But when we go to look at the materials and he wants to bring the truck, I start to hope. And when he looks at them and says, "Okay. Do you want to start with one wall or with the whole room?" I quickly calculate the six days until the party and balance it against the very real possibility that tomorrow he will change his mind, and I opt for insanity with bookshelves over a productive week with three more years of books in boxes.

So I neglected my walking. I neglected my writing. I stayed up until past midnight every night drilling and hammering, baking and cleaning, and, about an hour before the party, finished it all.

So here is the cake:

And here are the bookshelves:
And here are some more:


Eventually I will get all the books on the shelves and they won't seem so bare, but for now I am unpacking slowly, enjoying finding the right place for each book. Hoping someday my book will be there too.

If I ever get around to finishing it.