Happy (almost) Peanut’s birthday, friends!  I can’t believe she’s almost seven – where does the time go?  Birthday festivities started early – Saturday was a low-key neighborhood day and we mostly just bummed around the house.  Peanut didn’t get out of jammies all day – that’s the birthday relaxation spirit at work.  Nugget and I did manage to slip out for a library run; the stack is getting out of control again, and he brought home his very first James Patterson novel.  (I’m so… proud?)  It’s a kids’ chapter book about a robot that goes to school and I have no illusions that we are actually going to stick with it long enough to finish it, but I always just go with it when he wants to check a ridiculous book out of the library, because I figure, hey, it helps with the circulation numbers.  Anyway!  When it’s almost your birthday and you love all things ocean, you naturally have to hit the aquarium, so that’s what we did on Sunday.  Sharks were the big hit this time, because of course.  I ended the weekend with some work – blah.  But better to get it over with than to have it hanging over my head as I start a new week.  And now – off we go, y’all.  Hope it’s a great one for you.

Reading.  Very slow reading week around these parts.  The only “book” I finished all week was the summer issue of Slightly Foxed, which I figured I should get through before the fall issue is dispatched.  Otherwise, I spent most of the week not reading Stories by Katherine Mansfield.  It was just one of those weeks.  Mansfield’s writing is extraordinary, but I was bogged down in work almost every evening, or just too mentally exhausted from switching my brain back and forth from parenting to work to parenting to work.  On Saturday I started Red, White & Royal Blue, despite not being done with the Mansfield stories, and got sucked into the story – I guess a light and frothy romance was what the doctor ordered.  (The writing is fine – nothing earth-shattering, but perfectly decent – but even just a few years ago, I can’t see a story like this getting written, so it feels really fresh and I’m delighted to be reading it.)  Hoping that next week I will be able to report to you that I finished the Mansfield.

Watching.  Well, we still haven’t finished Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.  So, please, no one tell me what happens.  But the kids recently discovered Despicable Me 3, and I have watched it in snippets so much this week that I think I’ve probably seen the entire movie about three times now.  Please send wine.

Listening.  Not much listening, since I was working remotely most of last week.  I switched back to Daisy Jones and the Six and listened to about an hour of that last week; I’m approximately three hours from the end now.  Not sure when I’m going to finish, but it’s definitely engaging.  The story isn’t captivating me like it has so many others, but the audio production is just wonderful.  I’m definitely glad I chose to do this one on audiobook, even if it is taking longer than it otherwise would.  It’s worth it.

Making.  No making.  Unless you count the nervous breakdown I was working on all last week, between the kids being home and in my grill and being buried under a mountain of work.

Moving.  Hyperventilating is moving, right y’all?

Blogging.  Review of Silas Marner coming atcha on Wednesday, and the Pacific Northwest recaps continue on Friday – finally in the kayaks!  Check in with me then.

Loving.  I know I am always waxing rhapsodic about my neighbors on here.  We have just gotten lucky over and over again, in almost every house we’ve lived in, for years.  And I know I say this with every neighborhood, but I think this neighborhood is the best yet.  The other night, I was sitting in the kitchen, working (what else?) and there was a knock at the door.  I scrambled to answer it and there stood our neighbors, with a watering can full of freshly picked flowers from their garden.  They handed it to me and said, simply, “Thank you for being our neighbors.”  SOB, you guys!  I just love them.  It’s so good to stick my head out of the back window and shout across the fence at people who adore us.  I’ve been starting to get a bit weepy over the fact that this house and this neighborhood are temporary waypoints, and our next-door neighbors will be what I miss the most when we do eventually move on to our forever house.

Asking.  What are you reading this week?