Mornin’, friends.  How were your weekends?  Other than flying by as usual, ours was nice.  We started Saturday morning off with a walk to the farmers’ market – something I would really like to be in the habit of doing, but that we hadn’t made happen in too many weeks.  Our market is year-round, but it definitely gets bigger in the warmer months.  At the end of April, spring produce was everywhere, and I finally got the asparagus I’ve been craving for weeks now.  We also bought some pastries, and Nugget stole my spinach croissant and made hilarious faces as he ate the croissant while carefully avoiding any vegetables – ha!  The rest of the day, we mostly stuck around home.  It was a scorcher – 95 degrees! – so we kept the kids in air conditioning.  I did a run out to Lowe’s to pick up some supplies for the garden, and spent a very hot hour dragging patio furniture around and transplanting a few plants into larger pots.  I’m pretty sure I killed our snap peas.  (Hoping for a miracle.)  Sunday was a little bit cooler – not much, but enough – so we drove down to Leesylvania State Park to explore the trails.  It’s not a huge park, but it’s all on the water, so the views were gorgeous – witness above.  The park is on the Potomac, but downriver a ways, where the waters start to open up as they get closer to the Chesapeake.  There was a sandy beach where people were already swimming, and a few boat launches.  So it was a lovely, albeit short, hike.  We ended the weekend splitting up the kids – Steve helped Peanut clean her room while I took Nugget for a bike ride to the playground – and then I stayed up way too late finishing my book, and am now of course exhausted to start the week.  What else is new?

Reading.  So, a pretty productive reading week.  I finished Pachinko early last week and managed to get it back to the library without an overdue fine – hurray!  Turned then to Hag-Seed, Margaret Atwood’s retelling of The Tempest for the Hogarth Shakespeare Project, and absolutely loved it.  I’d expected to like it, but was surprised by just how much I enjoyed the reading experience.  Finally, I quickly blazed through A Field Guide to Awkward Silences, Alexandra Petri’s memoir of all of the ways she has embarrassed herself, and as expected, it was a hoot.  (Petri is well-known inside the Beltway as a humor columnist for The Washington Post, but she deserves to be more widely known, as she is a riot.)  I finished it late last night, so next up, I plan to go back to one of the books I’ve shelved (literally) to make time for these library books – all of which had loudly ticking deadlines – so I’ll either resume my acquaintance with Count Rostov or with the people of Barchester.

Watching.  Not much this week, since I was trying to push through the above-noted library books before their deadlines.  But we did watch the thrilling conclusion (no I’m not kidding) of Pride and Prejudice, and I think Steve really enjoyed it.  He loved seeing Lizzy tell off Lady Catherine.  And on Friday night, I was craving an old movie – I really wanted to watch Bringing Up Baby, my all-time favorite film.  Sadly, our DVD has not turned up post-move, and neither Netflix or Hulu obliged.  So we ended up watching To Catch a Thief, which is nothing like Bringing Up Baby, but still a good time.

Listening.  I think the only listening I’ve done all week was to the Sorta Awesome parenting confessions episode, which I listened to in the car on the way to and from the gardening center over the weekend.  I just have been wanting a little more quiet recently, so Audible has mostly been off.  But I did enjoy the one podcast episode I listened to.  Perhaps more listening to come this week?

Moving.  Well, I realized that as busy as my work-weeks are, the only way I was going to get any kind of movement in was if I worked it into my workdays.  So I dusted off my DeskCycle and got some pedaling in every day while I worked, and squeezed a couple of yoga routines in at lunchtimes.  That, plus Saturday’s gardening and Sunday’s hike, made for the most active week I’ve had in awhile.  Still not what I’d like, but at least better than wishing for movement!

Blogging.  I had fun sharing poems every Friday in April, and I hope you liked my choices!  This week, back to regularly-scheduled programming.  On Wednesday, I’ll share my April reads, and on Friday, the first of what I hope will be many garden updates.  Check back!

Asking.  What are you reading this week?