Here’s Dad’s office Before:

 

It’s hard to see, but the L-shaped desk was in the middle of the tiny room. The filing cabinet was in the far corner so you had to climb around the back of the desk and over all the computer cables to reach it. Two smaller filing cabinets under the desk, and an extra "drawer" unit kind of floating alongside the desk. Very little floor space, really.

Here’s the After:

The desk moved forward so that it’s directly under the window, its drawer unit back under the desk where it belongs, the printer cart next to it, and the filing cabinets–the tall and the two short–lined up in the corner in a straight line from the door. And, finally, that big, long, rectangular picture hung up on the wall. It’s a print of a golf course that Dad won at some golf tournament or other, and it’s been on the floor, leaning on the wall in our hallway for a couple months now.

The Reward:

The reward for all these labors? A homemade apple pie that I baked after work last night. The crust, I admit, came from Pillsbury, but the filling was all mine. I told everybody that I "wung" it . . . as in, the past-tense of "wing it," because, of couse, "winged it" just didn’t have the same flair, you know? The family chewed on that verb form for a while while I cut the pie . . . As a rule, I use language correctly, you understand, and don’t usually make up my own words, so they were a little shocked . . . especially when they thought, at first, that I seriously thought that "wung" was the correct, Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary-endorsed word. I mean, really, you’d think a person couldn’t play around with words around here . . . and, also really, when did the rest of MY family become so obsessed with words, anyway? That’s usually my job!

But, anyway, the pie was worth it. I think I hit the proportions of sugar, spices, cornstarch, etc. just right. Heaven knows that it smelled, well, heavenly, while it was baking last night.

Knitting? I’m almost done with my Ribby sleeves. One more sitting, I think, and they’ll be done . . . just so long as the ball of yarn holds out. I’m working both sleeves from the same skein at this point, and it’s going to be close as to whether it makes it. I sincerely hope that it does, though, because having to wind a fresh ball of yarn just to finish an inch or so of sleeve would be more than a little frustrating.

I haven’t done any spinning lately. I’ve been spending a lot of time trolling the internet for business kinds of things. There have been some really scary money conversations around here lately, and the need for some (or, really, a lot) of extra cash is kind of crucial. Please send good vibes, thoughts, prayers for our success, would you? And, hey, if I opened a CafePress store with pictures of yarn and fiber and stuff on things like notecards and calendars, would any of you be interested? And, darn, this would be an extraordinarily good time, cosmically-speaking, to get that book of mine published. I keep promising the fates that, if I manage to sell it, the money’s going to the good of the family, not into my pockets for frivolous spending . . . that kind of good-faith karma should help, right?

Oh, and I’m so glad I posted that blue-sky picture earlier today, because we had RAIN here today. As last days of summer go, it was kind of a bust, like summer just gave up and said, "Fine, be autumn already. Whatever."

Of course, we had plenty of things to do inside, so I suppose it was kind of a moot point for us, anyway.

Hope you’re having a good weekend! The plus side to the family visit today? It feels remarkably like a Sunday, which means tomorrow–if I’m lucky–will kind of feel like a bonus weekend day. Which is also good, because Chappy needs to catch up on his napping. He was a busy boy today. He definitely had fun playing with his uncle . . . when, you know, he wasn’t helping direct furniture moving.

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