Five Random Things

Random thing No. 1: I finally painted the downstairs bathroom this weekend. And when I say finally, I mean it’s been half-painted for about a year. Let me just put the size of this bathroom in perspective for you: a regular-sized bathmat is just slightly too big to fit between the bottom of the commode and the pedestal of the sink. Yeah, took me about 20 minutes to paint the darn thing.

Random thing No. 2: I started using a pink pen for my log. For some reason, the other day I thought I ought to bring some color into my log. Maybe it will make me feel better about ugly numbers.

Random thing No. 3: When I first discovered that I love to write—which was in sixth grade, by the way—I used to keep a piece of paper with what I thought were good titles for books written on it. I remember it as one of those small, yellow, legal pads with titles like Castles Made of Sand and Why Me? Well, I have written another title down. It’s a pretty good one, actually. I’m not revealing it, though, in case someone else thinks it’s a good title and takes it for their book. I’m thinking it’ll be for my autobiography.

Random thing No. 4: I cleaned out the closet in my son’s room on Saturday. It was overflowing with gift bags and shirt boxes that I was saving for wrapping presents. I went through it with a when-was-the-last-time-I-used-that attitude and wound up getting rid of tons of stuff. I discovered that I have a really horrible habit of keeping old shoes. I used to keep the kids old shoes thinking that they would be good hand-me-downs, but I’ve decided that shoes are something we ought to get new. At least when we’re kids and our feet are growing at a marathon pace and we’re still learning to walk. So I put most of the kids’ old sneakers in a bag to give to one of the charities in town. I did, however, keep the big kids’ first pairs of shoes for sentimental reasons and some nice sandals that can be re-worn just fine.

Random thing No. 5: It is officially “deadline drought” season at work where we have no deadlines between approximately the end of April and the middle of July. This is the time when the field editors go searching for stories that will supply the magazine for the remainder of the year. However, for non-field-editors like me, this is a season that is both welcomed and shunned. It’s great to be able to catch up on stuff that had to be put on the back burner throughout the busy season, but it’s so, so easy to keep that stuff on the back burner and really take it easy for a while. The days can really drag during the summer.