Working. Sort of.

Scott is here to work on the manuscript. Apparently it's better than I thought it was, because we haven't gotten as much work done as we did the last time we got together. Maybe it's because we're here. My family hasn't seen Scott in two years, so there is catching up to be done. We have gotten some work done, though, and a few decisions made. His part is essentially done. Mine has barely begun, but my work is cut out for me.

Oh, and that scene I lost? Scott doesn't have it either. Looks like I'll be reconstructing it.

Space: The Final Frontier

It's no secret that, as a family, we like books. We have our own darn library. We also have three large cherry bookcases that Eric and I bought in our first year of marriage. When I say large, I mean 7' tall, and about 3 1/2' wide and deep. The depth has been an issue for me in the last several years. Clutter has also been an issue. I come from two long lines of savers, and I have a lot of odds and ends that have been in the family for three or four generations. Most of it is not stuff that I'm particularly attached to; I just don't know what to do with it. Taking it to an antique store to try and sell it is too much for me to consider right now.

Don't ask me why I didn't think of it sooner. I was staring at the piles of books in the loft, thinking how awful it looked, and it dawned on me that the books on the cherry bookcase were pushed all the way back. I just happened to have a plastic storage box in reach, so I filled it up with my inherited oddments, pulled the books forward, and stuck it behind them. Voila! Increased storage space! In a fit of efficiency, I even got the camera and snapped a few pictures.


I was part-way into the task when I thought about taking pictures. It looked worse when I started.




















Of course, when I finished the cherry bookcase, the pine one looked even more pitiful, and I did have stacks of books just sitting around, so I kept going.













I think I might be on to something.

I know some of you are thinking, "Oh, that's brilliant. Yeah, the stuff is put away, but now you're going to forget where it is."

That's probably true, but hopefully this post will be a trail of breadcrumbs for me. Besides, it's all in the same room it was in originally.

Regardless of future consequences, I'm rather pleased with myself and may even look at doing this with the downstairs book cases.

Trapped

I woke up early this morning, so I brought my book downstairs and poured a cup of coffee. When I fed the furries, I got two out of three. I figured Tess was sleeping with Alex; if she's downstairs and hears a can pop open, she's usually front and center. (No, it doesn't matter what's in the can; I opened a can of pineapple one day and she gave me a dirty look when I let her smell it.)

I settled in with my book and a while later I heard, "Meow?" Then I heard it again, and I thought, "Surely Tess didn't get out in the garage last night." Three times is the charm; I put the book down, chased Chloe out of the laundry room, and checked the garage. No Tess, but she heard my voice and yelled louder.

Tess loves to sleep in laundry. If there's a basket up high where Chloe and Ryan can't see her, she'll sleep in it indefinitely. I guess she thought the dryer was just a big basket. The door was open last night, closed this morning, so it must have been too dark or too late to see her in there when it got closed.

Goofy cat.