“A house is much more than a shelter. It should lift us emotionally and spiritually.” – John Saldino 

While I do not pretend to be an interior designer, and I certainly do not have any credibility in the handyman business, I absolutely do invest myself in doing my best when Rebekah has great ideas.

So me, my cordless drill, my Philips head screwdriver and my measuring tape all colluded to get a fairly good amount of work done yesterday and – thanks to Rebekah – it all looks pretty good.

To be honest, I am just a little bit proud of myself. Not only did I follow directions vis-a-vis where to drill the holes and how to make the blinds go in the right direction, I actually improvised where necessary and we all know that improvisation only works if you have something – some basic set of skills – to improvise from.

So now the only window coverings yet to be completed are our bathroom and the back door out from the kitchen. Which means we can move our attention to hanging paintings (of which there are many), and repairing the dining room table, and finding places to put the remaining piles of tripping hazards still scattered around the house.

In fact, I will be bold enough to say that I believe the interior of the house will be ready for me to photograph by the middle of June.

Free to write again!

Maybe then I can get going again with writing my new book, a work I had been beginning to see as something possibly definitive in my career as an author.

I was doing so well last year, with more than 100,000 words and probably two-thirds of the “first-draft” manuscript completed. But I have written less than two or three pages since before Thanksgiving!

Instead, I have been very much “singleminded” about Saint Patrick Street, beginning somewhere around the middle of October. And that’s okay, because this place is in many ways its own magnum opus in terms of being a significant expression of our collective creativity and imagination. Merriam Webster defines magnum opus as: “a great work: especially the greatest achievement of an artist or writer.”

But I have a long way to go before I can begin to immerse myself in writing again and reimagine my book in that way. Then always, especially when I become impatient with the process, it is good to remember the wise words of “The Teacher” in Ecclesiastes:

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens…”

We will get there. I know – DEREK