There’s a room in our house empty of furniture, its walls displaying patches of tested paint color and spackled over imperfections. It’s the first of several interior painting projects we planned in winter and started to work on in late spring. Since then, other events and projects have taken priority and the room has sat, prepped and full of potential, awaiting a fresh coat of color with an eggshell sheen.

It’s become a bit like this blog.

The stall in publishing posts has not been for lack of writing. Lack of editing, absolutely. Each piece written in the interim is prepped and full of potential, awaiting a smooth and polished finish.

I continue to plug away at my Newbery list reading. So far, my journey through this reading goal has brought a mix of disappointment, surprise, and delight. In other words, I’m discovering some works have a better shelf life than others.

Daily life has provided some comical moments, including battling an arachnid home invasion (slight exaggeration, but I hate spiders) and forgetting … wait, what was I talking about? I’m feeling old sooner than anticipated and it’s going to make saying farewell to my 20s downright depressing. Unless I forget that too.

Drama entered with a puffed laptop battery and the most startled face I have ever seen my husband make. The apparent ticking time bomb of danger has since been disposed of properly. No spontaneous combustion. No trips to the hospital. Then came the question, should we replace the battery or the 6-year-old computer? I’m unashamed of my technology and wallet remaining in the dark ages until change becomes necessity, but we agreed on the new computer. I knew the day had to come eventually.

While this wasn’t an investment we expected to make at this time, it wasn’t hard to find the silver lining. Again, the bad battery caused no disaster and even if it had damaged the computer, I had a backup of everything. We came in under budget on another large expenditure so there was room for a computer. Plus, now I’m writing this post on a shiny new toy. (Although, sometimes I think I could be as happy with a typewriter in a quiet woodland cabin, as long as the cabin has indoor plumbing. Then again, such an Internet-free oasis would mean I’d definitely never publish a blog post. And what about spiders?)

Sometimes circumstances shuffle our priorities and projects we start may have to wait for their finish. This isn’t the same as giving up or finding excuses to be lazy; rather, it’s recognizing when other things are more important. The dust will still be there tomorrow when your family needs you today. A blog post can be saved for later when a rare opportunity arises to catch up and reconnect with an old friend. (But always back up your files in case something does fry or malfunction.)

Armed with new tools and determination, I’m opening the blog folder on my desktop to accomplish more than notes and rough drafts. And, while I’m at it, I’ll get more than test paint applied to those abandoned walls.

All prepped and full of potential, ready to get back in gear.