It’s Monday…

I can’t believe we get started in 6 days! Panic and excitement are starting to set in.
I have had the kindest, sweetest, most wonderful comments from you all thanking me for doing this, telling me how excited you are and how you have been going to the library to collect your rhyming books, organizing desks, house cleaning and getting things done this week so you can fully commit next month! I am overwhelmed with happiness! But, you must know that I am as excited as you are!

*
So, as I stared into my office with a grimace this morning, looking around at all the “stuff” that had migrated there, I realized it was time I move out of the living room and find my desk…so I got busy cleaning.

*
My office is a small, spare bedroom where my youngest daughter used to live. Once my oldest daughter left for college last August, I swooped in and claimed it, moving daughter #2 into daughter #1’s bigger bedroom. She was happy, I was happy, daughter #1…not so much! With 6 people in a family, I declared that there shall not be a spare bedroom sitting empty when I needed an office! No democracy here!

*
Now, it’s a spare bedroom/office/art studio/catch all. But, for the month of April, I have reclaimed my space!
I thought I’d share a few pictures of my newly organized writing den…I don’t know about you all but when I organize…I want to keep gazing at it. So I thought I’d let you share in the gazing too! Look away if you don’t have time to organize…we all understand and won’t judge you!

*

This is my writing desk. It’s an antique buffet that my mother had for years and I claimed it when she moved into a nursing home a year ago.  It’s very old and on it’s 10th life, I imagine.

 

*

This is my childhood desk with way too many mementos but I am a total sap for meaningful nicknacks…my husband calls it junk. I tell him it’s an I Spy on my desk. Why does he put up with me?

*

So…I Spy…

Can you find my Cowboy Jones Bobble head doll, my favorite cartoon painting of myself by Meg miller, my childhood bedroom doorknob, my “Good Things” Jar, a top that was mine when I was very young, Kit, the American Girl’s tiny typewriter that I stole when my girls outgrew AG Dolls, my favorite Walt Disney quote and my great-grandmother’s cuckoo clock. These are a few of my favorite things !

*

This is an antique chest of drawers that holds all my art and craft stuff. It goes with a 4 poster bed that was slept in by Charles Lindbergh. When and where, I don’t know, but that’s the story. It’s very old and I love it.

*

This is Lucy lounging on the daybed.

 

 

           

 

This is Gracie guarding the books…

 

           

These are the picture books and resource books that I pulled out for April. I have tons more books on shelves here and there but I gathered my favorite rhyming books and organized them here.

 

*

The middle shelf holds my all-time favorite books ever written…

If you have not read Helen Frost’s books…you must!

*

Here are the books I’m reading in April, up close…

  

 

*

Well, this has been a tour of my office. I bet it won’t look this good by the end of April but I hope there will be lots and lots of poems written, picture books read and a rhyming picture book manuscript ready to submit to my new critique group!