Oh, my, goodness, you guys.  Is it really Monday already?  This was a really weird weekend.  Lots of fun family activities interspersed with crazy stress.  Work last week was about as stressful as it’s possible to get and I spent the weekend still reeling from it, all while dealing with an outbreak of “threenager” drama the likes of which I’ve never seen before.  I think Peanut may have set a world record for most time-outs served in a single weekend (and we’re getting to the point where Steve and I have both acknowledged to each other that the time-outs don’t seem to be at all effective, and we need a new plan for dealing with preschool shenanigans).  But between all of that craziness, we actually had a lot of fun.  On Saturday morning we were out the door and off to the farmers’ market.  I’ve been looking forward to checking out the farmers’ market in our new ‘hood (well, not so new anymore – we’ve been here since January) and it happened to be set up right in our favorite park – the one where the community pool, sandbox, and our favorite playground are located.  We strolled up and down the line of vendors, then let the kids play for awhile, hit the library (oh yeah, the library is right there too – it’s basically heaven) and then doubled back to grab some kale, chard and strawberries.  On Sunday, we took a family hike to Tifft Nature Preserve in the morning and then in the afternoon, while Peanut napped, Nugget and I had a date in East Aurora for the summer art festival, followed by the children’s museum.  Not a bad weekend agenda, especially when you consider we squeezed all that in around eleventy-seven time-outs.

With all the stress-fun-stress-fun, it was another not-great week for reading time.  I squeezed in pages here and there, wherever I could, but it’s hard to string thirty minutes together with a book these days, and even harder to focus when I do.  I am hoping that life will settle down soon, and that we’ll get back in a good groove soon, but at the moment we’re in survival mode in a big way, and that’s not really conducive to lots of reading (as you’ll see on Friday, when I share my June book reviews).  Still, I finally managed to finish The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two, the third in Catherynne M. Valente’s transcendant Fairyland series.  I loved it, of course, but agreed with the majority of Goodreads reviewers that it wasn’t the strongest of the series.  (My favorite is still the second, The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There, because how can you not adore a book with characters like the Duke of Tea and the Viceroy of Coffee?)  Then I finally got back to the newest doorstopper Romanov bio, which I’d had to return unfinished to the library and which I have again after dutifully waiting my turn – again – on the holds list.  It’s wonderful and thorough and all the things that doorstopper non-fiction should be, but it’s a bit dense and I’m not getting through it quickly.  I’ve just finished up the chapter on Alexander I and Napoleon, though, and am about to start the third and final section – “The Decline” – so I expect the pace will pick up.

Plans for reading this week: if I finish The Romanovs, which I hope to do over the next few days, I think I’ll be turning to The Badass Librarians of Timbuktu, racing another library deadline.  I’m trying to get to Inbox Zero on my library stack and it’s quite the task.  As for blogging, I’ve got a 2016 resolutions update on Wednesday (spoiler alert: I’ve done nothing) and my June reading round-up on Friday.

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Book Date.  Thanks for the inspiration!

Have a great one, everybody!  What are you reading this week?