Anna Be.

The day starts with all of Mamie’s books on shelves or in drawers, except for the ones she took to bed with her. The day ends with half of her books scattered about the house. And always there is a stack reserved on my desk, waiting for a page to be taped, a flap to be glued, a spine to be reinforced. She lives, plays and sleeps with these books, and I rarely limit her activity with them. Librarians may be renowned for casting side-eye at patrons who damage books, but that’s not my job anymore. When I worked in libraries, I had a professional obligation to protect and preserve the books. Today my obligation is nurturing my daughter’s relationship with books… and they see some damage in the process. Lucky for Mamie and her books, I am not just any librarian, but one with a special interest in book repair and preservation. I began to learn the craft of book repair in my college work-study job 20 years ago. Later as a high school library aide, I loved the opportunity to nurse w...

I'm just going to cut to the chase: We are expecting a baby. Who has time for suspense and cute reveals when you have already been in survival mode for a few months? 2016 is going to be a busy, happy year in the Beyer house.  It's going to be a busy year for the house . I will have to vacate my office so Mamie can move into that room, giving up the nursery for the new baby. We also have big plans to build out our library with floor to ceiling shelves and a work space for Nick. And paint the outside of the house. You can imagine how much of this I will do with my own two hands when I currently need to sleep 15 hours a day and spend the rest of the day feeling green.

I've already been on hiatus for several weeks for vague personal reasons, but I thought I would update with a promise to get back to regular posting after the holidays! Everyone enjoy your families, time off, and festive treats!

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Did you know the "most haunted hotel in America" is in San Antonio?  I wonder if Nick would take me there on a little ghost hunt. There are also plenty of haunted houses in our beloved Cape Cod!  I think I will stick to reading about them and pass on visiting! This one should provoke some nostalgia for my fellow Alabamians...  Remember  13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey? If not, time travel back to your childhood, and read some proper ghost stories.

This is what my dining room table looked like for about a week. Then the book stack doubled (how did that happen???), and I finally cleared it all off. Nick thinks I'm weird for using the dining table as an office when I have an actual office upstairs. I'm proud to say my real office is finally decluttered and unpacked enough to be in usable condition! And the family room upstairs is pretty well decked out with kid activities, so Mamie is occupied when I do want to work in my office. Now I am trying to gradually reduce the amount of stuff I have permanently parked on the table. However, I'm leaving up the decorations from our birthdays in September because it's still cute that Mamie comes in here saying "Party!" (Yes, I said "in here" because I'm writing this post at the dining room table. Gradual. Transition.)

(Let's take a fun look back at what I wrote about in my journal exactly one year ago....) October 22, 2014 Still awake.  Thinking mostly about tomorrow's first visit to the gym. It is so hard for me to relax about things when I am unfamiliar and don’t know what to expect.  What will probably happen: everyone will be nice, Mamie will have fun and not even miss me, the yoga teacher will be welcoming and the class will be small and moderately paced.   I will leave feeling happy and probably tired from being up this late.   Stupid coffee at 5 pm!!! Yeah, in case you didn't guess, Mamie loved the gym day care from the first minute, yoga was great, and everyone was nice. This flashback to a year ago coupled with my worries about whether I can handle a second baby have made me realize something big. If you peaked in on any moment in my life, you would probably find me worrying about something that turned out OK, if not great. Lesson: Stop being so traumat...