Ode to the old office/baby room/playroom/guest room
Yesterday I sent the last of the copy edits back to my editor. “We’re really working at the fine details, here, aren’t we,” I commented as we mulled the addition of a “now” here and the removal of italics there. It’s very satisfying to know that a project has been carefully shepherded all the way down to the finest nuance. And just like that, the builders are also dotting i’s and crossing t’s in the new office space. The tile floor has been laid and grouted. Today the electrical work gets started, and tomorrow the trim is installed. Kevin has worked hard to paint walls, ceiling and boards. By the weekend, I will be moving this desk and this computer and this chair downstairs, to my new room.
So it seems fitting to thank this makeshift space in which I’m sitting right now. This is the room where the bulk of The Juliet Stories were written. This is the room where I started my blog. Over the years that this room has served as my writing space, my desk has always been right here, facing the wall nearest the door. I can turn my head to the left and look out the window at power lines over the street, which doesn’t sound very poetical until you consider the birds I’ve seen gathering there, and the squirrels dashing like high-wire artists. One of those squirrels made it into the very last paragraph of The Juliet Stories.
My desk has always been here, but the furniture behind me has changed over the years. Not so long ago there was a crib and a change table and a rocking chair. Now there is a pull-out futon for guests and/or for cozy reading before bed (Albus’s favourite spot.) The closet is crammed with Playmobil. There is an ugly chest of drawers from Ikea to which I cannot wait to bid adieu. (Filled with dress-up clothes.) There is a homework desk, now, too; and homework gum in the tiny set of drawers that serve as my office storage area.
As we look at reconfiguring the rooms, we still have some unsolved problems. Albus will be moving in here, and AppleApple will be claming the boys’ former room, with the two littlest moving in together in what is now the girls’ room. Where will the guest futon go? Will we miss having a communal playroom with shared toys? What will our family policy be on privacy and open doors? Is it time to set up a shared computer space downstairs for homework purposes?
Furniture we’re lacking as we prepare for the move this weekend includes: a bunk bed for the little kids; mattresses; desks; storage cubbies and/or shelves. I’ve been hunting kijiji listings. It’s going to be a busy weekend, a messy weekend, a weekend of playing around with space and imagining and painting and cleaning. It likely to be an unfinished weekend. This won’t all get done in one fell swoop. But it feels like an early Christmas gift, and everyone is excited. Change is exciting. It’s the act of imagining oneself into the future, imagining what might be, what could be. It’s a good time of year for this. We’ll stir things up.
And then we’ll settle in for the winter.
:::
Also, total aside, but did I really used to have straight hair? Like, just a few years ago, as shown in that top photo? Because it’s pretty curly/unruly these days.
Last week in suppers: Halloween hangover
**Monday’s menu: Sweet potato chili with cornbread.
**Original plan: I’d scribbled “red sauce” onto a notepad for Monday after discovering a half-basket of soft tomatoes. But then Kevin read this recipe in the Globe and Mail, and it called for tomatoes, too.
**In the kitchen: Soaked and cooked black beans first thing in the morning. Chopped veggies and prepared the chili in the afternoon, while simultaneously carving pumpkins. Easiest cornbread recipe ever.
**At the table: Who’s hungry? Who am I kidding? It’s Halloween. We’re about to gorge on candy!
**The reviews: Only one child out of four loves cornbread. A second child will agree to eat it when it’s smothered in chili. And the littlest only wants bread with jam and honey. Ever.
**The verdict: This recipe is a vegetarian keeper. But I skipped the cinnamon sour cream called for in the original.
**Tuesday’s menu: Beans and rice, tortillas, chips, toppings. Retro broccoli salad.
**Original plan: Can’t read my writing. Does that say Mashed Potato Soup?
**In the kitchen: Lots of leftover black beans, reheated after swim lessons. I baked brown rice in the afternoon and also whipped up the broccoli salad.
**At the table: Very hungry active children devour gigantic servings. Two reject broccoli salad. One demands a tortilla with jam and honey. And then he learns a new word: Protein.
**The verdict: I could eat this broccoli salad all day long.
**Wednesday’s menu: Being fed by Grandpa.
**Original plan: Something in the crockpot.
**The verdict: It’s nice to be fed by someone else (hamburger stew with bread and cheese, and ice cream for dessert.)
**Thursday’s menu: Baked potatoes. Cheese sauce. Brussel sprouts and broccoli. Sweet potato soup.
**Original plan: Lentils. But when I saw big beautiful russet potatoes in the grocery store (shopping while hungry for lunch), I had to have them.
**In the kitchen: Scrubbed and baked potatoes after kids arrived home from school. Made soup. Whipped up cheese sauce. Sauteed veggies. Got a little frantic from the multi-tasking; caved and let little kids watch a movie.
**The reviews: “Don’t worry. That’s not squash soup. I watched Mom puree it. It’s probably carrots.”
**The verdict: Didn’t even need the soup. Baked potatoes are the ultimate comfort food. I love you baked potato.
**Friday’s supper. Gallo pinto (beans fried with rice.) Leftover sweet potato soup. Steamed green beans (the last of the local beans, I am sure.)
**Original plan: Leftovers. That’s my plan and I’m sticking to it.
**In the kitchen: Fried chopped onions in oil, added cumin and ground coriander seed, and then stirred in leftover rice and beans. Nothing could be better.
**The reviews: I was not home to receive compliments because AppleApple had her soccer marathon, and I went for a short run in preparation for Sunday’s actual marathon.
**The verdict: I love leftovers. Especially on Friday evenings. Who has the energy for anything else at this point in the week?
:::
**Weekend kitchen accomplishments: Four loaves of bread. One batch of waffles (no leftovers.) Really good granola.
**Weekend non-kitchen accomplishment: One marathon.
What I did this morning: Hamilton marathon
Before.
Oh man, I look nervous. This is a totally unconvincing smile. You can see it in my eyes: Do I really want to do this?
Someone stop me, please.
Hours later, only 200m left to go. Fooey removes lollipop to cheer her mother’s approach. Her mother is feeling, oh, a million bajillion times better than she did in the previous picture.
There I go down the homestretch. A huge feeling of wow. Forty-two point two kilometres completed. Time on the clock: 3:42:13.
“I still can’t believe you ran a marathon today, Mom.” – AppleApple
Yeah. Me neither, kid.
(For the completely and totally unabridged version, please visit my triathlon training blog.)
A checklist of housecleaning chores … prepare yourselves for a thrill-a-minute post
Yes, I like checklists. Don’t you? Checklists are a more routine form of the to-do list, of which I am also very fond. And, yes, I like routine too. Let’s hope my family agrees, because this checklist is meant as a guideline for a weekly all-family all-in housecleaning project (or perhaps bi-weekly or tri-weekly; we’ll play it by ear, or by dust, crumbs and debris, as the case may be.) I hope to offer some reward beyond a clean house, lovely though that is, such as Family Housecleaning followed by Family Movie Night. This idea remains, at the writing of this post, a dream yet to be implemented. I will let you know what happens next.
Checklist of chores for Family Housecleaning
Every room
1. pick up toys, books and oddments off the floor
2. find homes for toys, books and oddments (on the nearest surface does not count)
3. dust
4. vacuum
5. check windows: do any need to be cleaned?
Bedrooms
1. organize toy boxes, book shelves, and the stuff that collects on top of dressers
2. check under the beds
3. change sheets and pillowcases and check blankets (do they need to be laundered, too?)
Bathrooms
1. clean toilets
2. scrub shower doors and bathtub
3. clear all counter tops and clean
4. clean sinks
5. clean mirrors
6. check under tub for toys
7. mop floors
8. check: do soap containers need to be refilled? toilet paper restocked?
9. check shelves for clutter and dust, and tidy/clean if necessary
Kitchen
1. clear all counters
2. organize and find homes for everything cleared off of all counters
3. wash counters
4. wash sink
5. wash cupboard doors and backsplash
6. check inside cupboards: any spills? anything need to be cleaned?
7. wash stovetop
8. check oven and fridge: do either need to be cleaned?
9. mop floor
Dining-room
1. clear dining-room table
2. wipe down table and chairs
3. clear buffet surface and wipe clean
4. tidy games-and-puzzle cupboard (optional)
5. mop floor
Living-room
1. find homes for random piles on homework table and on tv cabinet
2. clean piano
3. water plants
4. tidy toy cupboard and art section
5. mop floor if necessary
Front hall
1. put away shoes and boots and jackets and mitts
Hallway and stairs
1. vacuum stairs (including basement stairs)
1. mop hallway if necessary
Basement
1. to be cleaned and tidied as needed
:::
Question: Anything you’d add to the list?
How much do you care about a question mark (?)
Ah, the best laid plans. I am sitting at my desk and working, and sat and worked most of yesterday too, but I’m not writing reams of words into a new book; instead I’m going over the final copy edits for The Juliet Stories, which arrived on Wednesday afternoon. I was almost afraid to open the file. When Hair Hat was being published, lo these many years ago, I enjoyed every stage of the editing process … right up until we got to the copy editing. Suddenly, I disagreed with the editor, and strongly. You’ll remember that my one real job was at a newspaper where I worked my way up to being a copy editor. So I was feeling pretty confident that I’d turned in a clean manuscript to my publisher.
But the copy editor didn’t think so.
And, listen, she was right and I was right. We were both right. The copy editor’s job is to use a fine-toothed comb and to insist on grammatical correctness and stylistic consistency, by which I mean adherence to the style guide used by the publisher, and not style as in stylish. And that was where we disagreed. I wrote Hair Hat in a deliberately flat and uninflected (stylish) style. I didn’t even use question marks. I wanted the reader to arrive at conclusions without being dragged there by me, the author. The copy editor wanted all questions to end with a question mark.
I just couldn’t do it. It sounds ridiculous to get upset over punctuation, but by God, I just could not compromise. And it pained me. I like to make people happy (even more so at the time than I do now.)
So when the copy edits landed on Wednesday afternoon accompanied by a long message from my editor explaining the process, I went all fear and trembling. It’s been a fabulous editing process up until now. Would the copy edits do me in? Well, I’m only about halfway through them now, but the answer so far has been a gentle, no. These copy edits will not do me in. Am I a more relaxed person, now, than I was before? Is my (stylish) style in The Juliet Stories more compatible with traditional grammar? Or have I just accepted that some disagreement will be part of the process, and conflict doesn’t upset my stomach in the same way that it once did?
I have to go with door number three. I’m still a pretty finicky person. I can get very excited over a semi-colon, let me tell you. And my (stylish) style in The Juliet Stories, though different from Hair Hat, is unique, and sometimes idiomatic rather than grammatically correct. I don’t always agree with what the copy editor has suggested, but I’m okay with that; we don’t have to agree about everything, and I get that this time around. She’s done a bang-up job on this book. The fact checking is amazing. And I’m taking notes on her highly effective use of italics.
I’m back at it again today. Thankfully without dread.
Where does that leave my ambitions for a November writing month? I’m sticking with the original plan, just pushing the start date back by a few days. The copy edits are due back at the publisher on Tuesday morning. The amazing thing is that the builders say my new office will be DONE by Wednesday. In some strange confluence of otherwise unconnected endings and beginnings, that means that I will start my new book in my new office, having dotted all i’s and crossed all t’s on this one.
It’s too much to think about. So I’m off to think about italics instead.