It's Quiet Uptown

It's early-Sunday-morning-quiet in the Bookworm house right now.  Mr. Bookworm is snoring rather than writing and Little Lion is right beside him, having crawled into our bed sometime in the night. It's peaceful.  I much prefer this quiet to the one when my little family is out of the house, when it's too quiet for me.

Of course I can't sleep.  I'm on call and though we don't always get calls in the middle of the night (Thanks to the CHOC nurse advice line), I still sometimes expect it. So I'm up debating working on this blog versus working on my YA novel or MG novel.

In the early morning hours, my house is still warm.  Mr. Bookworm strung up some colorful Christmas lights around one of our back windows last Christmas and they are on all night long.  It makes me happy when I wake up early.  Since he's usually the first one up so he can work on his own writing before the hustle and bustle of the day, I assume they make him happy too.

We're due for a Spring cleaning.  Way over due. We've been in this house for eight years and have accumulated way too many toys, and, yes too many books.  We plan on building a Little Free Library for kids and that's where our extras will go.  It's a tiny house, one my mom dubbed "La Petit Maison" when we first moved in.  It's fitting.  Like a cottage, full of warmth and love.

And stuck in my head right now are the lingering notes of "It's Quiet Uptown", a sad song about grieving that occurs toward the end of Hamilton.  (Yes, Hamilton songs are always stuck in my head these days, courtesy of my girls.)  And though we as a family have also survived the "unimaginable", when I have quiet moments like this at home, I think about how strong my family is.  And, yes, these are the times when I admit that I was/am strong too. 

It was harder to admit it back then. But I can say it now.

It's quiet in my small little house.  But it's a calm quiet.  A peaceful quiet.  A full one, just like my heart.

[Photo above of our Christmas lights and a family photo of us with Macy on the day she was born, and the day she died.]