Long weekend

Our four-day weekend started off at the dentist. Gillian had to have a baby tooth pulled extracted so that the permanent tooth might have chance to come in properly. Our dentist is a close friend, and is right around the corner. It was pretty tough watching someone I like hurt someone I love.

But Gillian did great. She had two shots of Novocaine and only felt the pressure. I managed to keep a poker face watching. G kept calm and was a fantastic patient, and the tooth - root and all - was left for the tooth fairy in one piece.

Ward took the day off on Friday (he has a lot of "use it or lose it" vacation days, so we'll have more time with him through the end of the year) and we went down the shore. I've always wanted to visit Delicious Orchards in Colts Neck, which did not disappoint. Gorgeous produce, like what you would see arranged on a platter in Martha Stewart Living...very reasonable prices. From there we continued south to my favorite restaurant supply store.

The forecast was that the clouds would give way to afternoon sun, but when that didn't happen we had to cancel our plans for a picnic at the beach. The strong waves made for decent shelling, but the cold and damp forced us to a restaurant for lunch after 15 minutes.

Sunday was the day to stop procrastinating on a home project.

The arrival of the piano in September forced us to do some redecorating to accommodate it. The breakfront in the living room was temporarily (yeah, for only two months!) moved to the dining room while we decided what to get rid of. That meant that the dining room looked like a furniture store, with everything jammed in. Ultimately we decided we could part with the tv armoire...if we inched into the 21st century and bought a flat screen tv as our family Christmas present and put it in the shallow book closet. The breakfront could then take the place of the armoire.

I found a great deal on a 32 inch Panasonic (a big difference from our old 21-inch!) a few weeks ago, and cleared out space in the closet. But the books have been sitting on the floor in the tv room since. I am ashamed to admit it has become typical of me to start a project and then not quite finish it (or to think of a project and never quite start it). We decided to put bookshelves on the wall in the bedroom. I bought the tracks, shelves and brackets over a week ago but didn't have a block of time big enough to get them installed.

I finally put them up on Sunday morning, and then spent the next few hours organizing and clearing out. I wish the prefab shelves would have been a little longer; we really need more space. But we decided to triage the books, keeping only those we would reach for to read in the bedroom. Travel books, coffee table books, reference books...they have to stay downstairs. Here's the result:



Tomorrow we plan to empty the armoire and move it out, and move the breakfront in. There's still organizing of the remaining books, photo albums and movies to come, but that can be done a little at a time. (I hope!)