You guys, today is the 6th birthday of Lollygag Blog. Or it’s anniversary.
Let’s go with blogivirthday.
And for this epic blogivirthday, I’m hosting what is easily the most exciting giveaway in which I’ve ever participated.
‘Cause it’s for my book.
For the nine percent of you all who haven’t been inundated with the chatter, travails, and whining about this creative process for the past two years, lemme give you a little Cliff Notes action: It’s called Expecting: A Year of Fixing Up and Breaking Down. (And I wrote it. That part will never cease to be thrilling.)
Longtime readers of the blog know the arc of this tale: P.J. and I bought a big ol’ ramshackle house riiight around the time we discovered we were about to be parents. We thought we had homeownership and parenthood in the bag. We were laughably, deliriously incorrect.
Part humorous memoir, part How Not To guide, Expecting neatly encapsulates the topsy turvy year where everything in our lives changed- in gigantic, messy, stinky, Ugly Tear-crying, heart-busting ways.
Book jacket photo. Complete with Popeye arm and hand claw.
Here’s an excerpt:
“I felt momentarily vindicated; something was wrong and I was right! About three seconds later his words registered. Gas leaks? In the kid’s room? Why did that get to be the thing I had to be right about? He went downstairs to our boiler and found leaks leading up to it, as well as in the pipes lining our laundry room’s ceiling. He told me it was “bad.” I nodded like I had any idea what t-pipes and soldering junctions meant.
I then waited for the part that I usually liked; how he was going to fix it by the end of the day. Preferably for less than that week’s grocery bill.
I was sorely disappointed.
“Gotta turn it off. Law.”
“Gotta turn what off,” I asked. “Surely you don’t mean my sole means of warmth and food preparation, do you? When I have a newborn and two cats and a woman ill-prepared for inclement weather residing in this house at this very second? Because it’s January?”
He shrugged.
“Law.”
He went on to tell me to tell My Guy to rip out this wall here and search for the piece that…there…and if that didn’t do it (which it probably wouldn’t), to think about running a line across that. It might involve the tearing out of another wall.
Right about then I began to panic; at the overload of information, the very possibility that Nora would freeze to death in the room I had so lovingly rid of maroon paint, and the notion that this entire thing was my fault for having called in the first place.
Voice quivering (and hating myself for it), I asked the man to write down everything he had just told me. He responded that it was too much to write, and that I should just use my eyes and ears and remember what to tell My Husband.
And that’s when I began to cry. But it was the kind of cry that one tries really hard to tamp down, resulting in a truly unattractive squeaking. The kind of weeping that comes from being treated like the Little Woman; and actually furthers every bad stereotype known to [wo]man.
He shut off the gas. I even thanked him. (Manners are everything.) He left and I stared at Nora for a good few moments, unsure as to what the heck just happened. But I had a niggling suspicion that perhaps I should act.
So I called P.J.
It took a good moment or two for him to realize it was me on the other end and not some bizarrely hyperventilating squirrel. (He even kindly allowed for a few uncomfortable and confused moments where I just sobbed loudly.) He responded in true P.J. form, telling me He’d Take Care Of It.
Having left work early, he contacted Our Guy (actually a new and slightly more expensive Guy, but we were quickly losing faith in our Other Guys) and explained the urgency of the situation to him. And bless both of them; they were there within the hour.
The New Guy found and fixed the leaks without having to rip out any walls; at least upstairs. Down in the laundry room with the boiler was another, more complicated story, but he took care of it. I’m pretty sure it involved t-pipes, whatever the heck those magical things are. “
And here’s hands-down the most fantastic thing I’ve ever written on this blog: I’m giving away two advance copies of this book- yep, before it’s even available to buy outright. (Signed and everything, ’cause I’m fancy.)
Want to win one? Rafflecopter away at the bottom of this post. (Trust me, it’s painless.)
Friends, I’m so completely thrilled to share this book with you. I owe a mammoth debt of gratitude to everyone involved- whom I’m not gonna list here, ’cause they’re just gonna have to read the acknowledgements page themselves. (Lazies!) And if I may be so obnoxious as to ask one more little favor? Please help me share. Enter the Rafflecopter, post about it on Facebook, tweet, text, smoke signal, or even use a land line and call someone on your Grandma’s rotary phone. I’ll announce two book winners next Wednesday, the day that Expecting will be available via paperback, e-book, and- if I’m feeling extra generous- me sitting on the foot of your bed and reading you to sleep.
Not that it’s boring.
It isn’t.
Besides, who could sleep? This is EXCITING.
(Thanks, guys.)
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