Minor Advances, Mostly Offset by Clutter and Disorganization

Ed took the kids to swimming today and I finished grouting the kitchen backsplash. Yay! I can finally check something off my list. We also finished the big bookcase in the backroom, only Ed tells me I can't put any books on it for a few weeks, 'til the stain/varnish stuff dries. I hope he is kidding. Now, we only need to knock out the old bookcase to the left of the fireplace, deal with any rot we find, put up insulation and drywall, and rebuild bookcases on either side of the fireplace and I will be ready to hang my maps & white board and use our schoolroom. Oh, and deal with the mountain of boxes and clutter that have accumulated in front of the fireplace and on top of our future school table. Ed and I always tell each other that we are not packrats, but we lie.
I finished Bill Bryson's The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir today. It jumped out at me from a shelf at the library last time we were there, so I had to read it. It was a very fine "pool read," and a nice change of pace from Dowling and his Latin noun cases, which I was also working on during swim lessons last week. Now that I am done with Mr. Bryson, though, and his tales of growing up in Iowa in the 1950's, I am dedicating myself to The Brothers Karamazov, which is my next book for the book group, and which I had intended to give myself a couple months to read. Nothing at all about The Brothers says "pool book," and I know with absolute certainty that I will Not have it finished by the second Tuesday in August. I didn't finish the last book, A Connecticut Yankee, either, so perhaps I will get tossed out of the group? I don't think they would, but my record is not looking so good.