I spent about six hours at my writing student's home today, helping her mother reclaim the storage area of the basement. Ah, there is nothing I like better than to roll of my sleeves, dive in, and organize another person's mess! When we were done, there was a large open space that the youngest boy and I have eyed as a great hide-a-hole for all his Lego toys. He thinks the "secret" spot is great. I am salivating over the prospect of getting all his Legos out of sight. Really, those little bits of plastic reproduce themselves all over the house!

I think one of the reason's I enjoy working on home improvements in the P house is that it is the sort of place I would like to have one day. Yes, because of the larger size, but the rooms and layout and location are all the sorts of things I would like. Of course, I would have one of the bedrooms devoted to a library with wall-to-wall shelves! My writing student's parents have made some truly solid choices in renovating their home and it is becoming a perfect fit for their family.

The other reason I like hanging out over there is G's generosity in preserving the childhoods of her children. They write, act, and film in these crazy plays with all this costume stuff that practically takes over the freshly cleaned playroom in the basement before I can even get the vacuum cleaner away. Yet, despite her desires for a more organized home (perhaps a futile longing with 5 kids who are not keen on housekeeping), G doesn't bat an eyelash at the chaos. I deeply admire the choices she and her husband have made in giving their children time to play and be involved in community sports, arts, and music...especially given the personal sacrifice the two of them have made in carting 5 kids here and there so that they can be enriched by those experiences. Who wouldn't want to slave labor in a storage room to support a family such as this?

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I did finish entering the books from the built-in shelf. Not including the cookbooks (I decided I could live without them being on my spreadsheet), I have 142 books in this location. The task is taking longer than I thought because I added a few more fields of information to my spreadsheet, such as if it is a first edition, if it is a multicultural book (if so what culture), and if it is an antique (I have a respectable number of books from the 1800's). I think I am up to the letter "O" on the spreadsheet columns.

I figured out that I have nine locations left (10 if you count the stash of books I found on the top shelf of my closet). If I get one location done a month, then the resolution project will be completed on time. And...if I look a it that way, I am done entering books for the month. Now I can turn my attention to the annotated bibliographic notecards that need to be entered into an identical spreadsheet.