Bruises, Book-Moving Spree, & Publications

I'll be the first to admit that sometimes I'm just a wee bit nuts.
Okay, sometimes more than a wee bit, but I'm not going to discuss that here (Oops, wait a minute; keep reading.)

Anyway, I know I cannot be the only one who does this:

I have a very dark, painful, BIG bruise on the inside of my leg right above my knee (no, I'm not taking a picture - it's as big around as an average orange), and I have no idea how it got there. I don't remember whacking it, but I am very aware of it everytime I cross my legs when I'm seated or when I'm lying down on either side and my knees are touching.

I have tried to figure it out, but no recollection.

I have been doing this my whole life, even when I was a kid. Come to think of it, my kids do it, too. I don't disbelieve them when they say, "I don't know" to a horrible looking bruise on their (usually) shins, even though it HAD to be painful when it happened.

For me, I think it must happen when I'm concentrating on something else. For this particular bruise, it must have been sometime during the recent book-moving spree, but I cannot remember when.

Book-moving spree:
Two doors down from The 123, there's a fellow who's vacating the 4th floor. He doesn't live there -never has- but he has been storing things there for years. For the past two weeks he has had a crew of men sorting through and moving everything. He offered all the old books to me (okay, he offered after I asked, because I am a bibliophile) and I couldn't turn them down. I didn't even look first, I just said, "I'll take them!"
Thankfully, the guys helped me move them down the stairs (Thank you!). All three LONG flights of stairs. They had a dolly cart and were able to haul 5-6 boxes each trip. I ran up and down the stairs and hauled one box each trip (I counted it as my workout for the day). We stacked them randomly just inside the door of The 123, which means we were in the way of construction. So, I had to move them UP the stairs (all 22 of them) to my office (without exaggerating, there are 30-40 boxes of books, so I counted hauling them up to my office as a workout, too.)
The past couple of days, I've been unpacking them from their boxes and stacking them randomly on the floor, just to get an idea of what's there.
A large percentage of the books (20-30%) were published before the turn of the century. The LAST century (publicaton dates between 1850-ish and 1899!). A smaller percentage are related to West Virginia, so I'm excited to go through those more closely. There are magazines (in wonderful shape) from the 1920s, 30s, & 40s. There's Girls Life and Cosmopolitan, among others. The oldest (in good shape) that I've found is a Cosmopolitan from 1894!

The one thing that has struck me as significant in the cursory inspection is how similiar the ads are to today's "Buy Me!" freak show. Even in the 30s magazines, there is no hint of the Depression; they intend to sell their products, Depression be damned. I guess I always had this idea that we are living in an increasingly materialistic society - and it was a relatively new state of being. If I can extend my idea of relative, I may be right, but from what I've seen of the 100 year old magazines, not much has changed in the world of materialism and advertising in that amount of time.
As I go through all these books and mags in detail, I'll share some of the more interesting things I find.

Publications:
My deadline last week was for the 100th Anniversary Celebration of Mother's Day article for the Wonderful West Virginia Magazine. This is the first time I was asked to write an article (normally, I write the article -or have an idea for an article- and approach the editor of the publication I would like to publish it in) and I did not hesitate before shouting, "Yes! Absolutely! No Problem! When do you need it?" If I hadn't been so excited, I probably would have tried to sound less desperate, but being asked, instead of having to ask, made a HUGE difference to my ego. Desperate or not, I wasn't turning it down (I also don't care if I was asked because I'm the only contributor who lives in or near Grafton - I am still happy).

For those of you who don't know, the observance of Mother's Day as we celebrate it today (and as it was signed into law in the United States) originated here in Grafton, Taylor County, WV. The International Mother's Day Shrine, on the National Register of Historic Places, is located on Main St. If you're looking for something to do with your mother, this is a great place to visit. Mother's Day would be a good time, but our small town will be packed. However, you don't have to wait on Mother's Day, you can plan to come at any time; take at look at the schedule of events for the year. I'm pretty excited about the (black-tie) Ball at the B&O Railroad Heritage Museum; it'll be like stepping back in time to the boom days of Grafton as a major railroad hub.

Anyway, this particular article will be coming out in May.

I have another one (actually, a two-part story) that's scheduled to come out in the March issue (continued in the April issue) of the Wonderful West Virginia magazine. It's about the...no, wait, I'm not telling you right now. I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but I'm getting kind of long-winded today, so I'll save it to share with you when I'm doing my usual wildly excited "I'm a published author!" publication dance (that my family laughs at me for). Maybe the novelty of publication will wear off and I'll quit dancing everytime something I write gets printed.
But I doubt it.