The Sunday Salon

It wasn’t much of a week for reading or writing, but it was productive despite having a miserable cold. I coughed so much that by Friday my throat was raw. When I went to bed, I woke up every hour to sip water and keep myself hydrated. My throat hurt so bad, I was tempted to get up and drive 12 miles to the nearest town (where something might be open) and seek an open supermarket to buy some Advil. When it comes to medicine, our shelves are as bare as Mother Hubbard’s. But I wasn't sure I'd find anything open, even in Pullman, so I sipped water and sucked on cough drops instead.

Painting/remodeling update: The laundry room and the kitchen/dining/family room walls now have fresh paint. I'm not too sure if I'll be able to live with the color I painted the kitchen/dining/family (lime green), but that is for another time, maybe April, should I decide to repaint. Anytime before that, and hubby would think I'd lost my mind. In April, he'll be busy doing spring fieldwork, and maybe I can sneak it past him. 

It could be that the color's fine, but I need only to change the tile back splash  in the kitchen instead. 

And maybe the curtains on four windows . . . (Sounds like I need to repaint.)

My husband, seeing I’d already spent six hours taping the kitchen/dining/family room and understanding the painting wouldn’t be finished by dinnertime, and probably not even by bedtime (and not wanting to be watching O’Reilly while I was hovering around, painting), stepped in and offered to help. 

Lest you get the wrong idea about him, I will admit that earlier, I had expressly told him he didn’t need to help, because he still faces the mammoth job finishing the painting of the outside of the house, or completely repainting it, as he didn’t finish the job last summer. It's awaiting him this spring like a bad hangover. 

With his help, we made short work of the painting.

After painting, I cleaned and ruthlessly reorganized the kitchen, bathroom and laundry cupboards, as well as the pantry. The main floor is now streamlined, which says a lot for me, as I'm someone who can't seem to stop adding things to my home decorating efforts. I'm like a bag lady with a big, wildly colored patterned bag, alas.  

Apparently my son-in-law and daughter were even commenting on it, after seeing my persimmon colored laundry room, and my lime green kitchen/dining/family room. Apparently my daughter said to him, "If she's like this now, what will she be like at 80?"

I also spent some time this week on my A-Z posts. I’ve been wanting to do this project for  a couple of years, but there wasn't time. Finally, the time has come, and the added benefit is that others will have access to the interesting information. I’ve decided on 27 different character combinations, and found images of each type, movie stars and other famous people known to be the particular personality type. The image pairings are all queued into Blogger, and I'm beginning to compile and synthesize the information about the relationship you'd find pairing the people together. I’m loving what I'm seeing emerging.

As for reading—no reading this week, but I did buy or download three books:

 City of a Thousand Dolls by Miriam Forster. Unfortunately, I was too sick to attend Miriam's book signing in Moscow on Friday evening, but I'll read the book in the next few weeks. Miriam is getting a lot of good buzz for her debut book.

 The Madman's Daughter by Megan Shepherd, which was released a week ago. It sounds creepy and intriguing.

 Buzzbooks 2013. Anyone can access this for free on their Kindle. It's 475 pg preview of what publishers view as the biggest spring and summer books of 2013 in adult fiction, debut fiction, nonfiction and young adult. The young adult titles The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau, The Moon and More by Sarah Dessen, and Far Far Away by Tom McNeal.

What's up for next week? On Monday, I’ll paint our bedroom, and then it will be ready for new carpeting, which I need to select and schedule for installation. That can’t happen until our son-in-law finishes the third-floor bathroom, which should be done by Tuesday.

I'll get back to reading Golden Heart Contest entries, and there might be time to write my query letters and begin querying agents. We're still two weeks away from our Florida vacation, and so I think those things are within the scope of reality. 

One of these days, I'm even going to start scrapbooking again. 

If you're wondering about my diet/weight loss progress, I've lost one pound since our California vacation, which means I lost a pound last week. 

Here's the current state of our bathroom remodel: Son-in-law will be installing the solid surface surround and the tub today. The former tub was large, but this one is four inches deeper and one foot longer. I love my daily bubble baths and have missed them for the past two weeks. 

How was your week, reading, writing or otherwise?