Oof.  Is it really Monday?  As so often happens, I find myself needing just one more day.  One more day to get my house back in order, one more naptime to tear through boxes or scrub the bathroom or – dream of all dreams – sit on the porch and sip tea with a book in my hand while the kids sleep.  But instead I’m dashing around making breakfasts, making lunches, wiping hands and mouths and noses, pulling school uniforms out of the closet and tossing extra t-shirts into the nanny bag, and getting ready for another week, myself, somewhere in there.

We had a lovely, albeit very busy, weekend.  On Saturday morning I dragged the whole family to Loudoun County to go apple-picking.  It was the tail end of the season (somehow I thought we’d have more time down here, but we didn’t) and the only way we were able to get any apples was by hiking across a stream and finding one lonely tree with apples up top, which I had to climb and then pick the apples from the top branches and pass down to Peanut, who was waiting with a bucket.  (Also, when did she get old enough to actually be useful?  Hold me.)  We raced home with everyone shouting at the top of their lungs in their outdoor voices (gotta fight that car nap, can’t let the car nap win) and then while the kids napped the afternoon away, Steve and I ran around getting things done around the house – including putting one of our new IKEA bookshelves together!  One down, three to go.  I’ll post a #shelfie as soon as I have the shelves completed and my books out and organized and shelved.  On Saturday night, my parents came over with some family friends.  Thanks to traffic, they didn’t make it before the kids’ bedtime, but that was okay – it gave us the rare opportunity to catch up as adults, which was much appreciated.  Sunday morning, we went to a special school service at the church with which Peanut’s school is affiliated.  I’m sure it was very nice, but I spent the entire service running back and forth in the back of the nave, trying to corral a toddler who was determined to escape and run into the road.  So the less said about that, the better.  We headed home for bagels and more chatting with my parents and our family friends, until they all hit the road to head back to New York.  We spent the rest of the day on our normal Sunday activities – football (Steve); unpacking (me) and napping (kids).

Of course, with all that activity, you can probably going to guess what I’m going to say next: I didn’t read much.  Over the course of last week, I finished The Obelisk Gate, second in the Broken Earth trilogy by N.K. Jemisin.  I think I wrote about it last week, so (in the interests of brevity) I won’t say much.  It was well-written, of course, and very engaging – no surprise there.  But I’ve been stepping out of my comfort zone and reading a lot of sci-fi/fantasy this year, and I’m starting to get a bit weary of it.  I liked The Obelisk Gate, but I wonder if I wouldn’t have liked it better had I not been sort of burnt out on the genre from the start.  Anyway, my next move was straight back into the very heart of my comfort zone: a cozy mystery.  And not just any cozy mystery… the new Flavia de Luce!  I think that the Flavia books might be my favorite currently-in-progress mystery series – even edging out Maisie Dobbs.  I am loving the return to Buckshaw and Flavia’s usual exploits.  (Corpses and coppers and chemistry, oh my!)  Although I’m sure that the Nide, the super-secret spy agency of which Flavia’s mother was a member, will pop up somehow, and I’m looking forward to that because I’m quite enjoying that storyline.  That’s all the reading I managed this week.  Between a busy week and several days of tension headaches that made it hard to read during my commute, it was the best I could do.

After I finish with Flavia, I think I’m probably going to read Eowyn Ivey’s new book, To The Bright Edge of the World.  I have a few other library books on the stack that are calling me a bit more loudly, but I suspect I’m not going to be able to return that one, so I want to make sure I squeeze it in before it’s due back.  If I make it through that this week, my next read will be Love Wins, the story of the Supreme Court battle for marriage equality.  I’ve been wanting to read it since it first was published, so I’m excited.

On the blog: my extremely belated September reading round-up (oops!) on Wednesday, and a recap of our weekend getaway to Little Washington on Friday.  Have a great week, friends!

What are you reading this week?