Any self-respecting writer who spends ten days in Rwanda should come home chock full of blog material. So, where are the posts?
I have no idea. Maybe I’m not a self-respecting writer. Maybe I’m still processing. Or maybe I’m just a lunatic who does nutso things like buy a puppy and rearrange her house before the jetlag even has a chance to wear off.
Yeah, let’s go with the last one. Before I try to make up for my glaring silence on what I saw/learned/felt in Rwanda, I feel the need to fill you in on what’s happened since.
Let me start at the end:
We arrived home on Friday, August 8. By the time we cleared customs at Dulles (a complicated affair since my name never made it on the flight manifest), drove 3 hours home, and sludged through the rest of the day until a reasonable EST bedtime, I’d been awake 44 hours.
My sweets slept like weaned babes in the backseat while my swollen ankles and I drove home. Thank you, Starbucks, for keeping us and everyone within crash distance alive.
Saturday we unpacked, did laundry, and tried not to kill each other.
Sunday, we bought a puppy.
We named him Jetlag. It seemed appropriate.
I know what you’re thinking – we’re impulsive crazycats. But you should know we planned this whole thing weeks before we traveled. So, I guess that makes us premeditated crazycats. Is that worse?
Puppy ownership wasn’t the only plan we made before Rwanda. We’d also decided it was high time our dining/craft/school/play/storage room stopped being schizophrenic and became an office: MY office! I’ve never had my own office, so this was a plan I fully intended to set in motion at the first possible opportunity, jetlagged or not.
All this to say, Monday through Saturday of our first week home involved patching and sanding drywall, painting, assembling IKEA furniture, and mopping up puppy urine every five minutes. But, honey, it was worth it:
Look! Look! My bookshelves actually have BOOKS on them! Not Legos, craft kits, or commercial-sized reams of construction paper. BOOKS!!!
Trade secret: I can write nonfiction at a desk, but the intensity of creative fiction requires comfort. A shout-out to the local Re-Uzit shop for having awesome furniture at dirt-cheap prices.
Office finished, I passed through the next week in a blur of illness, continued sleep deprivation (why do puppies feel the need to pee every three hours?), and back-to-school madness.
Which brings me to today. (Deep breath…) My kids are at school. All three of them. For the whole day. This will only be true two days each week, so I plan to use my Tuesdays and Thursdays to write, write, write. In MY OWN office, of course.
Of writing projects, there is no end. My novel has been sorely neglected over the summer, far more so than my blog, if that’s even possible. Then there’s our business blog (I Married a Contractor), my work with Imana Kids, and a few other brainstorms brewing. Also, I’ve taken on being a Show Hope blogger, which means I’ll have monthly blogging assignments related to orphan care and adoption.
Over the next few days/weeks/months, as emotions settle and thoughts process, I will tell you about Rwanda. For as busy as I’ve been, time has not been the only hindrance in posting. My thoughts and emotions are still a discombobulated Rubix Cube. Until I’ve had a chance to wrestle some of them into sequence, nothing I say will make any sense.
Speaking of a discombobulated, nonsensical mess, I still need to deal with the aftermath of my office project. Because when you clear out one room, it inevitably requires that you mess up and then clean every other room in your house. This, currently, is my dining room:
Note the dishcloth on the floor. In all likelihood a pee rag my kids or husband used to soak up puppy urine. And I’ve been walking by it, in full knowledge of its probable use, for two days.
If that makes you feel better about your life, you’re welcome.
Adieu for now, patient friends.
Good job, Allison. Love the puppy, and I relate to the rag on the floor in my life too.
Thanks, Jeff. I love how you refer to the rag on the floor as if it’s a metaphor. I wasn’t thinking of it that way, but there’s truth to it, unfortunately. 🙂
Oh, most definitely an appropriate metaphor for me, too!
I have office envy! Can I come hang out there? 🙂
P.S. I will admit to thinking a new puppy was crazy. 🙂
P.P.S. I think you are awesome.
Lisa:
1. Yes, you can. Anytime.
2. The feeling is mutual. (About thinking I’m crazy, and thinking you’re awesome.) 🙂
Alison, I appreciate that you are waiting till all of this settles before you write. From reading all of your past posts, I know waiting will be worth the time. I feel I should offer to sit your dogs at least once a week too 😉 BTW, I don’t feel better that your house ‘is such a mess’, rather it is now confirmed we are more alike than I thought. <3 Birds of a feather….
Thank you, Marty! In that case, maybe you should see my basement. 😉