Yay! I am back in Brooklyn.

More tomorrow.

Thanks to Kwana for letting me know about this:

“People who consumed several cups of coffee every day were less likely to die of heart disease than those who shied away from the stuff. Heart disease is an umbrella term for conditions including heart attacks, stroke, and arrhythmia. . . [W]omen who drank four to five cups per day were 34% less likely to die of heart disease, while men who had more than five cups a day were 44% less likely to die.”

And just ’cause, here is another picture of the slowly-finishing up house:

Okay, so I’m no Dooce, but in this case, it doesn’t matter that I’m kind of a lame photographer. Here is my backyard, and my orchid in bloom:

So the Spouse and the Eight Year-Old and I had a housewarming party on Saturday, which was fun; a lot of friends from disparate groups came, and that’s what we love, the mingling of folks who would otherwise not meet each other (we had a NUCLEAR PHYSICIST in the house, as well as a cartoonist who came up with the “-saurus,” stuff, like “Aerobicasaurus,” or however it was spelled, of a dinosaur in Jane Fonda gear. So, like that, and it was fun).

It meant, however, we were working until 2am every night getting stuff put together/put away/put down (no, wait, that was me. I got put down. Ouch, smack!)

And now the real life starts: I am going back to the gym, I am finishing the revision, I am starting a new book. Yay.

Isn’t summertime grand? I have heard the living is easy. Not so sure about that.

As anyone who has spoken to me, read this blog, walked by me randomly or any other brief contact knows, we just moved into our first owned house. Yay.

When we moved in, we knew we hated the cabinets, and also knew we had no money with which to fix them (we joke that instead of being made of MDF, mid-density fiberboard, they’re LDF–low-density fiberboard. Oh, aren’t we cards).

Even before construction started, we painted them orange on the inside to make them pop, a trick we found in Domino Magazine. Which was fine until we chose soft, subtle colors for the outsides of the cabinets. Suddenly, the orange looked garish, plus the paint kept flaking off the cheap cabinet material.

So the Ambitious Spouse (clearly not me) got the idea to wallpaper the insides, after I’d sent him here to a wallpaper site I found.

And last weekend, he did it. I painted the insides of the cabinets white and he papered, and here are the results:

I think they look awesome. Really suits our mid-century modern style, and the cabinets don’t make us cringe anymore.

So, honestly, for anyone who’s moved, how long does it take until everything is done? Should we be feeling like big losers because there are still boxes in the dining room? And many, many things in the basement? It’s been a month, and in that time, we’ve been working on things (and working, and working, and–), but it still isn’t where we think it oughta be. Are we deluded? Or losers? Either way, it’s not good.

Anyway. More pictures.

So, Megan, you unearthed the camera, and the first thing you take pictures of is . . . YOUR BOOKS?!?

Yes. Deal with it.

The Canterbury cup is a Wedgwood my Dad had since before I was born, I think. He had a gazillion pens in it, so I am carrying on the tradition (plus it has a broken handle).

Yesterday I was beyond wiped. Just plain exhausted. Today? Yay! I have energy! And the Must Do It Now Spouse and I are communicating well. Whew. Sometimes our different styles work for us, sometimes not so much.

And today we get carpet installed in the family room, which means BOOKS will be removed from Boxes and placed lovingly on Shelves.

And tomorrow I plan to write. Really. I do.

So I came back from the New England Conference all fired up to write, and–there are boxes to unpack. And freelance work to be done. And did I mention the boxes?

What I have to do when I get a minute (ha! The irony!) is figure out where my time goes. Not here; this takes me all of about five minutes a day. Finding new Clive pix takes longer than writing my posts. I really want to start writing again, but I have to be focused and have a goal, or else it’s just meandering. So that’s my goal: Find a goal. Find time to write. Stop wringing my real and virtual hands over my lack of time.

Yeah, I’ll be getting right on that.

That staircase below is not mine, it’s just GORGEOUS.

Things are being unpacked. Tempers are being unleashed. One of us wishes it were time for beer all the time.

And I STILL haven’t opened a book. So, so busy!