Thursday yeas and nays

Beautiful fall!

Happy Thursday, friends.

Thursday always feels like a wild card day to me. It's one of the two days each week when my daughter doesn't go to preschool, and it's also different from most of the other days because I don't have a set schedule to follow. It's almost a free day! As I was thinking about the things I need/want to get done today, I came up with this list of yeas and nays—and I learned that I can always find a lot of good if I take the time to look for it: ☺

♥ Project Runway All-Stars is on tonight. Yea!

♥ I'm way behind on my NaNoWriMo project, but I'm still plodding along. Yea!

♥ I have to write the store list for our weekly grocery shopping trip. Nay.

♥ My daughter and I are going to the library today. Yea!

♥ Yesterday's weather was beautiful, so I took the kids outside to play after school. Today, however, it's gray and rainy—not an outdoor playday at all. Nay.

♥ On the other hand, back home they already have snow, so I guess a little rain is just fine—and the leaves are still pretty. Yea!

♥ I'm almost finished with the book I'm reading, so soon I'll be able to move on to one I've been waiting to read for a while, Ted Kooser's Sure Signs: New and Selected Poems. Yea!



We can find them if we look: rainbows and silver linings!

♥ Since I cooked so much this week and have tons of leftovers, I don't have to make dinner tonight. Yea!

♥ Mount Laundry is waiting for me downstairs. Nay.

♥ Today is a new day to get things right. Yea!

How about you? What are your Thursday yeas and nays?

Wishing you all a wonderful day. ☺

Stream of consciousness--and a good thing

Today's 100 words:

I feel out of sorts, not myself, like something isn't quite right, and I don't know if it's only the respiratory infection I've had for a couple of weeks or the ear infection I was just diagnosed with or the fact that ever since the end of February, everything in my life has been go, go, go when all I want--all I need, really--is to rest, to relax, to take some time to breathe and just be because honestly, I don't know how much longer I can go on this way at this pace: too fast, so fast.

As much as I've felt strange lately, I was able to push those feelings aside yesterday when my little boy, only five years old, ran up to me in the library, a book clutched in his hands. It was a "big kid" book meant for much older children--no pictures, chapters, lots of words--but he was so excited to check it out, so excited for me to read it to him bit by bit. We started it yesterday, and although I'm not sure he has the focus yet to really concentrate on such a story, I'm so proud of him for wanting to try, and I'll never forget the excitement on his face and the look of pride in his eyes as he clutched that book. I guess it's true that there's always a silver lining if one looks carefully enough.

On books and time

Today's 100 words:

Last Wednesday, I took my kids to the library, as I try to do at least once a week. They wanted to go to the one they call the "tent library" because it features a small tent in the children's section that they both love to play in. While there, I picked up a huge stack of books for all of us and was excited to find a novel that I'd been wanting to read for a while. Now I look at my tbr pile and dream of the moment I'll have time to sit down with my new books.

Authors at work

In my journeys around the Internet today, I was excited to stumble upon reviews for The Writer's Desk, a book of photos of authors at work by Jill Krementz. This book was published nearly fifteen years ago, and although I'd placed it on my list of books I wanted to read, I'd somehow managed to overlook it. When I saw the reviews today, I felt compelled to check my library's Web site and was thrilled to find that the book is on the shelf of one of the local branches. Guess where I'll be going tomorrow?

Have you read this book? What did you think?