Friday Forays in Fiction: After the Afghan

One morning earlier this week as I slept with my head on the pillow about where you see the blue blanket in the pic my cat, on his way to his window perch, launched himself off my shoulder to the top of that box of books. He had misjudged the position of the Ott lamp's hooded bulb though and the lamp tumbled down, hitting my shoulder and arm on the way. I barely registered that as a split second later the box of books hit my head.

It must have been a glancing blow as I can no longer find the tender spot on my left temple just above where my glasses' ear piece rides. But I am still feeling the pain and stiffness in my neck from the whiplash it gave me.

That pain keeps the memory of that box of books up front in my mind. It represents all the things I've put on hold as I gave all my attention and time into getting that baby afghan ready to mail to my grand-nephew.

Those books are all library books, all novels, all but one large print. When I checked them out over a month ago I was anticipating a fiction binge. The first of the year. The last novel I read was the day of the read-a-thon April 9!

Pitiful.

Under the ledge there, beside the blue blanket atop my pillow, you can see another stack of books bearing the tell-tale call number stickers on their spines. Again all novels. Checked out last week on my first library visit since just before the read-a-thon. I'd been getting books and DVD via ordering from the online catalog and having my husband pick them up but that was one of the rare times I got to go pull surprises off the shelf.

On that day, last Thursday actually, I was already feeling the resentment against the afghan building. So many things have been set aside for it since Xmas. Besides reading there is writing (what's a writer who's not writing?) and research, blog surfing and blogging tasks, computer games, other sewing projects, keeping organized both physically (room), virtually (e-files), and mentally. Even some of the less urgent laundry!

Here's hoping that's all about to change. I'm still on target for putting the baby afghan in the mail Monday.