Why I Didn’t Do Any Writing This Week
I installed Microsoft Office Home and Student because I want to learn PowerPoint. This caused the spellcheck feature in my e-mail to change from English to French. It also converted all of my Word documents to Word 2007, which I didn’t want. I Googled the French problem and discovered many other people with the same complaint. I spent far too much time exploring my options for correcting the difficulty.
The roofers will be here early Monday morning to start ripping off my old roof and putting on a new one. They warned me to take anything off the walls that might fall as a result of all the pounding. Oh, my. I have a wall of book awards that includes a crystal vase, etched glass plaques, and other breakables. Antique stained glass hangs in several windows. A collection of small ceramic dogs live in a “doggie condo” in my bedroom. There are precious family photos and paintings. There’s the 1954 TIME magazine cover signed by Jonas Salk. There are dishes with sentimental value on top of my kitchen cupboards, and there are framed dust jackets from my books covering one whole wall. It was a huge job to remove everything and store it in a safe place. One good thing - I dusted each piece as I removed it so when they all go back up at the end of the roofing job, my house will be cleaner than it’s been in a long time.
I spent one evening autographing posters to give away at a conference in March. I will miss the first day of the conference, so I’m sending posters for those who attend that day. Next I start signing several hundred bookplates.
I took Lucy to the vet because she kept shaking her head and scratching at her ear. She had her ears cleaned and I came home with a bottle of ear cleaner. The very next day she developed an eye problem. I’m treating it with drops that I already had, and hoping to avoid another trip to the vet.
Anne and Kevin came yesterday. Kevin cleared my nature trail of all the trees that had fallen during this month’s wind storms, and Anne washed my windows for me. We managed to sit and chat for awhile, too. I am grateful for all of their help.
Oh, yes, I started organizing all my 2009 receipts. While the roof pounding goes on next week, I plan to add up all the numbers and get everything ready to take to my accountant for income taxes. I know I won’t be able to concentrate on writing (for one thing, I’ll probably have to hold Lucy to keep her calm) so I might as well get a dreaded chore out of the way.
I’ve always scoffed at people who tell me that they’d like to write a book if only they could find the time. This week, I have a bit more sympathy for them.