Well.  Hello.  Sunday scaries hit hard this week; I don’t know why, exactly.  I do have a busy week ahead, with a client site visit, volunteer shift serving food at a shelter with the other kindergarten parents at Peanut’s school, lunch plans with a friend on secondment, and a long to-do list.  So I’ll be clinging to memories of this past weekend to get me through.  We had a nice one – on Saturday morning, we were out the door early for our annual hike on the Bluebell Loop Trail during blooming season.  This was the third year we’ve gone (here’s 2017 and here’s 2018) and it was as spectacular as ever, but rather muddier than usual.  We made it through the part of the trail with the heaviest concentration of bluebells, then turned back – which was plenty of time for both of the kids to get covered in mud.  ‘Tis the season, right?  On Saturday afternoon, Steve had to work so I took the kids to our favorite playground, where they ran around for almost three hours.  Once Dad joined us, we headed to the library to drop off a few books and pick up another (every weekend) and then walked home via Hank’s Oyster Bar.  Sunday dawned dreary and gloomy, so we piled into the car for a trip to the aquarium in Baltimore, which Nugget had earned by sleeping in his big boy bed two nights in a row without ending up in bed with us.  (Standards have really slipped around here.)  The rest of the afternoon was low-key; there was more playground-going, until Nugget poked something questionable and got dragged home to wash his hands repeatedly.  And I folded a pile of laundry and finished putting away the kids’ Christmas presents (better late than never) and I now have a clean bedroom to show for my efforts.  Huzzah!  And now another week dawns.  It’s a short one; the kids’ school is closed Friday and Monday and I’m going to try to take a long weekend too.  Emphasis on try, because long weekends are never guaranteed in law practice.  But we’ll do our best.

Reading.  I had a good reading week.  I polished off The Familiars in about twenty-four hours and really enjoyed it – highly recommend if you’re into historical fiction, witches, and stories about women’s lives.  I like all of those things, so The Familiars was my jam.  Next up, I was bad and reached for something on my own shelf instead of working on my absurd library stack, but Another Self was calling my name.  James Lees-Milne’s memoir of his childhood and young adult years – ending with his service during World War II, right before his famous diaries pick up the story – was a delight and I am not at all sorry I threw over the library books in Jim’s favor.  I got back to them soon enough, and read The Handsome Man’s De Luxe Cafe over the course of Friday evening through Sunday morning, then picked up Women Heroes of World War II.  Not exactly calming bedtime reading, but that’s what I was curled up with on the couch come Sunday night.

Watching.  Snippets of whatever the kids happened to be watching, that’s all – so, some Spider-Man, some Finding Dory, and some Star Wars (Nugget is into the prequels right now, please send wine).  An eclectic mix, I know.  But what I’m most excited about is Amazon has finally announced a release date for the Good Omens miniseries!  Mark your calendars for May 31.  I think my book club is going to be reading the book to prepare.  (“We are an angel and a demon!  We have nothing whatsoever in common, I don’t even like you!”)

Listening.  All the podcasts, all the time.  I made good progress in back episodes of Speak Up for The Ocean Blue and The Crunchy Cocktail Hour, by the highlight was Robin and Bianca discussing why it is, exactly, that we all love Mr Darcy on Drunk Austen.

Making.  No food or crafts to report, but I made a clean bedroom, and that is a big achievement indeed!  I try so hard, but certain rooms seem to become dumping grounds for random miscellaneous stuff, and the master bedroom is one of the biggest offenders.  I had three baskets of laundry to fold, several bags of Christmas gifts to be put away, a pile of junk on top of my dresser, and assorted toys scattered around.  At press time, it’s almost all clean.  The dresser is tidy, the laundry is put away, the toys and Christmas presents are in their rightful places, and all that’s left is my donation bin, which lives under the window near my closet and collects the stuff that I’m planning to give away to friends, donate, or sell to the used bookstore.  It’s almost full, so that will be a project for next weekend, maybe.

Blogging.  I have a fun excerpt from Another Self that I just had to share, so that’s Wednesday for you, and on Friday, I’m continuing – as I always do – with posting a poem a week for National Poetry Month.  Pairing it with pictures of bluebells, because everyone needs more bluebell pictures in their lives.

Loving.  This week’s shout is more of a love-hate.  I know it’s cliché, but I am loving the warmer weather.  This week was the first week of 2019 that it was warm enough to go without a jacket every day; part of my commute includes walking outside several times a day, so the end of jacket weather is a big quality of life boost for me.  And it was even warm enough for a skirt-without-stockings outfit a couple of days last week.  Yippee for the approach of summer!  (Ya girl is one of the few – sometimes I think the only – Washingtonian who will never complain about our hot, muggy summers.  Bring on the heat index!)  But the hate part is – with the warmer temperatures, the pollen has finally struck.  I’ve been managing my allergies fairly well this season.  I switched to a different allergy medication and have been really good about remembering to take it every morning.  But this weekend the pollen was literally floating in Baltimore Harbor and coating the cars, and my nose was having none of it.  I am so looking forward to the end of tree pollen in a couple of weeks.

Asking.  What are you reading this week?