Rob stirs and rolls over, and this must awaken me ever so slightly because I remember him kissing me on the cheek before he settled back into sleep.

been reading: Once Again to Zelda by Marlene Wagman-Geller

This was another gift from JLD & HFD. I'd heard of this book and had wanted to read it at some point, so I was delighted that they happened to buy it for me for Christmas.

In the book, Wagman-Geller shares the stories behind the dedications of various works of literature. For example, the book takes its title from the dedication in The Great Gatsby, in which Fitzgerald recognizes his wife, Zelda. Most people who have studied Fitzgerald know that the life he shared with his wife was fascinating, exuberant, and tragic, much like the couples who populate his writing.

But I was not familiar with most of the tales revealed in this book. Interestingly, nearly all of them involve tragedy. Surely Wagman-Geller chose to relate the most interesting stories, but the commonality of personal suffering among the writers was still rather surprising.

The other common component did not surprise me, however. Dedication. On the part of the writer, of course, but also on the part of the writer's partner. In many, many cases, a writer's wife would work full-time to support the family while he stayed home to write. This was a leap of faith, considering there was no certainty that he could write or that even if he could, he would ever profit from it. That kind of believing in and supporting someone is admirable, and certainly worthy of being immortalized in the dedication of a classic work of literature.

Lots of interesting tidbits in this book. Like the curious circumstances surrounding Lewis Carroll's relationship with a little girl named Alice, for whom he names his Adventures in Wonderland. Or that Mark Twain had many cats, whom he carried on his shoulders and named things like Lazy, Pestilence, Famine, Satan, and Sin. Actually, I was surprised by much of what I read about Mark Twain. I've always thought him a gruff, sharp-witted, intimidating man. Which he very well may have been, but the things I learned in this book altered my perception a bit. Of him and many others.

I will say that Wagman-Geller cannot resist a cheesewad ending and she wraps up each essay in a truly unforgivable eyeroll-provoking fashion. But I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and I will never again jump into a novel without reading, and wondering about, the dedication.

Cat Man Do
TV Dinner

This is what my life looks like. It's uncanny. If you have cats, you will surely relate.

I had two weeks off over the holidays, and I was very much looking forward to doing a whole lotta nothing. Sleep in, read, and play the Wii. Those were pretty much my plans. That, and one thousand family events.

But it turns out? I'm not very good at doing nothing. For a weekend, I am. But for longer than that, I need to be doing something. I was bored by the 2nd day. So I decided to redo one of the rooms upstairs, which has been next on my list of house projects.

This room stood empty for a long time, then it was the designated "Naughty Room" for the cats. Most recently it has been our junk room - filled with out-of-season clothes, suitcases, unused frames, just all that stuff we have but don't have a place for.

My plan all along for this room was that it would be the library. Which I feel compelled to pronounce as lahhbrary because having a library in one's home feels so 18th century pretentious or something. I envision some man, the sort who goes fox hunting, retiring to the lahhbrary for the evening in his dressing gown and with his pipe.

The shape of this room is a challenge - the ceiling slopes down on two sides, which gives it character but doesn't allow for tall furniture. There really isn't much room for shelves, so it's a pretty terrible room for a lahhbrary. But I didn't have a better use for it, and I really wanted to get at least some of our books out of boxes in the basement.

We won't spend much time in this room, so I didn't want to spend much money on it. I bought two new shelves and the papasan chair, but pretty much everything else was stuff I already had. Well okay, so some of the decorations I bought specifically for this room...years ago. Seriously, years ago. I tend to do that - have a vision for a room and buy a bunch of stuff for it, even though I have no intention of remaking the room anytime soon. This annoys Rob. Especially when years later I tell him, "And I decorated it all with stuff we already had!" Which is, technically, true.

The before. The room had been sponge-painted green, with tan trim and white ceiling.

After painting. The trim looks white in these photos, but it's actually the same color as the ceiling, which is like a linen. Walls are "macadamia."

Left side.

Right side.

Wide-angle shot. (Which makes the room look way bigger than it is.)

(Still shopping for a rug....)

It's still not the best room in our house, but considering the odd shape and the fact that I didn't want to spend much, I'm pretty happy with it. And I'm thrilled to have gotten rid of the junk room! (I've been organizing closets, which is where some of that stuff went. The rest was either tossed or stashed in the basement. Organizing the basement is another project on the list, one I'm putting off as long as possible.)

My brother helped me tons with the painting, and the whole project took less than a week. Still, with all the other holiday events we had, I spent pretty much all of my free time working on this room. And then proceeded to complain, of course, about how I didn't have any time during my entire break to do nothing.