notes during a moment of calm

I turned in my assignments on time, Monday, with the exception of one book annotation, which I drafted tonight. I’m pleased.

The bathroom floor is 95% complete, after an embarrassingly long period of crumbling and entropy. The ceramic tiles are a beautiful blue. It’s the prettiest bathroom floor I’ve ever owned.

Madeleine and Brendan are snoozing soundly in sturdy loft beds. The futon mattresses arrived today and children tore into the packages with great glee. The sawdust is mostly gone, but the vacuum bag is exceedingly full and the kids’ stuff is… everywhere. They are thrilled.

And I promised we will dye Ukrainian eggs, tomorrow morning. (It’s oddly relaxing, I swear! Honest!)

Eric the Car Guy purchased a car for us. We will test drive it tomorrow and see if it’s a “keeper.” (It has a moon roof and a reputation for 30 miles per gallon. And it even sounds cute. I’ll keep you posted. Pssst: it’s the same color of blue as the bathroom floor!)

I fly to Seattle Tuesday, then drive to Whidbey Island Wednesday for ten gorgeous days of writing workshops and academics. I zipped open the giant wheeled duffle bag, and so far I’ve packed a) books to be autographed and books to be studying, magazines for the plane ride b) knitting, c) warm socks d) the Frisbee and hackysack. Soon I will add a billion pages of my fellow students’ writings. I hope there is room for clothes and makeup, mudboots and a coffee mug.

Remind me not to overpack, will you? And hem those new pants, so I don’t trip on them. After the Ukrainian egg dying, maybe? Still a million pounds of laundry to catch up from the week of house construction and car shuffling.

I hope to be blogging from the writing residency, though I may find out this is a crazy plan: I will be extraordinarily busy. Check in. All is going well—a bit chaotic, but well. Ask me questions if you like!