I’ve been busy with my real job, which is a good thing, but it hasn’t left much time for other types of creating. The most crafty thing I’ve had to blog for the past week was this little needlepoint rainbow house that I found at Goodwill for 99 cents. It had a dingy frame, but I just spray-painted it with some paint I had around for another project and now I love it. The year 1981 is written in marker on the back.

We finished the bookshelves and I spent some glorious hours sorting through my long lost paperfriends retrieved from storage.

It may not look like it, but I actually did manage to do some serious purging. We took several boxes of books to Twice Sold Tales, where they were joyfully received and earned us $90 in credit. Also, one of their roving kitties delighted DandelionBoy by nibbling a steady stream of treats from his hand.

But even with all that free credit, I was forced to go to Elliott Bay Books and purchase Patti Smith’s Just Kids on Monday. I just couldn’t wait another day for the paperback to come out after listening to the two-part Bookworm interview. And as of page 113, Patti has not let me down. This book is wonderful – honest, eloquent, fascinating, empathetic, and inspiring. It’s been a torment to put it down every time I’ve had to, and I think this may end up being the first time in a very long time that I’ll finish a book in under a week. There are plenty of other more practically urgent things for me to do, but ever since the bookshelf project I have been powerless over the drive to glue my face to a printed page as often as possible.