While you’d never be able to tell from this picture (which looks COLD!) it was seventy degrees in NoVA this weekend. Seventy! Degrees! In! January! Totally wild. And while I usually freak out about climate change anytime it’s unseasonably warm, this time I tried to relax and remind myself that we have always had one or two midwinter thaws for as long as I’ve lived here. So we got outside a lot this weekend, and enjoyed every second. On Saturday, we headed to Great Falls Park for a hike – us and what felt like everyone else in the greater D.C. area. It was a beautiful day and people were definitely enjoying the park. We saw plenty of wildlife, though – ducks, cardinals, vultures, geese, and the elusive Peanut-In-Jeans. Still in search of fresh air, after we got home we walked down to the waterfront, meandered around for a bit, and then took the trolley back up the street and had dinner at Hank’s Oyster Bar. (Steve recently remarked that since we’re moving out of the neighborhood this year, we should make it a point to frequent our favorite spots while they’re still walking distance. Not that we can’t pile into the car and drive over from McLean or Arlington or Fairfax or Oakton or Great Falls or wherever we land, but it won’t be quite as easy.)
Sunday was even hotter than Saturday. Nugget fancied another walk to the waterfront, so that’s what we did – coupled with brunch at Mia’s Italian Kitchen. We passed the rest of the day quietly. I wrote a letter to my grandmother; cooked up a big batch of cabbage soup with Beyond sausage, white beans, and fire-roasted tomatoes; and baked a sourdough boule in my new bread cloche. It came out decently well, but I have some practicing to do. The kids dug in the sandbox and Steve watched football. A good lazy Sunday to set me up for a week in which I have a deposition scheduled, not to mention a Very Important Meeting. Wish me luck, guys.
Reading. It’s been a busy reading week; I was flying through books left and right. On Monday I turned to my first library books of 2020 – two weeks in; are you impressed? I liked This is Where You Belong, but to be honest, it felt like a lot of common sense. And I don’t need help feeling rooted or place-attached – maybe in Buffalo this book would have helped me more, but here in Virginia I’m right at home. Next I turned to More to the Story and polished it off in a day – I loved it. A modern, Muslim retelling of Little Women by a wonderful middle-grade writer; what’s not to like? Next up – back to my own shelves for some nature writing, first with The Almanac: A Seasonal Guide to 2020 and next with The Landscapes of Anne of Green Gables. Loved both, and closed Landscapes very reluctantly. I ended Sunday by raiding my Slightly Foxed shelf and picking up Country Boy, which I’ve been meaning to get to for some time now. It should stand me in good stead this week, I think.
Watching. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, again. The kids are obsessed. I don’t hate this new jag of theirs! Peanut is worried that Hagrid is going to die, though. A kid in her class told her that he does. Steve and I both told her the kid is wrong (she likes spoilers, likes to know what’s going on) but she’s still anxious about him.
Listening. Podcasts, this week, just a few. I caught up with The Book Riot Podcast and listened to a couple of episodes of Speak Up for the Ocean Blue. But for the highlight, you’ll have to scroll down to “loving.”
Moving. Hike on Saturday, run on Sunday morning, lots of walking all weekend. Still a weekend warrior; I need to get back in the habit of gymgoing during the week. My office has a lovely gym facility. But last week I was out of the office most days, in depositions. And this coming week I have a very busy Monday, a deposition on Tuesday, and the rest of the week isn’t looking any likelier. I just have to find the time, and it sounds like excuses, but it really is hard to find an hour during the day (and it does take at least an hour, between going downstairs, changing, working out, showering, changing, and getting back to my desk).
Making. Well, mostly, I told you up above – I made cabbage soup, sourdough boule, and a letter to my grandmother. Three very satisfying things to create.
Blogging. Thoughts about resolutions on Wednesday – spoiler alert, if you don’t make resolutions, you definitely don’t keep them and mostly don’t achieve anything notable at all. Or at least I don’t. And on Friday, the first in my three-part reading retrospective, in which I dissect lots of data about my 2019 reading in the most nerdily navel-gazing post of the year. It’s gonna be lit.
Loving. I am so excited about a new-to-me podcast I recently stumbled across, friends! It’s called Shedunnit, and as Steve said, it was basically made for me. It’s a storytelling-style podcast (my preferred style, which I like much better than long-form interview podcasts) exploring golden age detective fiction with a focus on women – both the authors and the sleuths. I’m binging it, and so far I’ve listened to the introductory episode and to the first three regular episodes – about the “surplus women” in England after World War I and the Spanish Flu wiped out 700,000 men in a few years; queer stories in golden age crime novels; and a real-life murder case that inspired many of the golden age writers. The next episode is all about the eleven-day disappearance of Agatha Christie, and to say I’m giddy about listening to it would be an understatement. Golden age crime fiction is one of the greatest joys of my reading life, and I can’t wait to devour every episode of Shedunnit.
Asking. Will you please keep your fingers crossed for me during my Very Important Meeting this week? And also, what are you reading?
covered in flour 
I had started This is Where you Belong when I lived in Albany and felt like you do about it not being useful. Since moving to Denver I have referenced it and set out many of my own goals to try to make this place feel more like home. It is common sense but I love lists 😁
I can certainly see that it would be helpful to you in carving out a new place for yourself in Denver! I think I would have used the tips a lot more in Buffalo, but being completely in love with where I live now, it was mostly just interest and a recommendation that led me to the book. I will be moving later this year, but just locally, so I expect that some but certainly not all of the tips will come into play then. (All of the areas we are looking at are much less walkable than our current neighborhood, which is the one downside. We’re trading a walkable neighborhood for more space, more green, lower rent, and good public schools…) Also, I hear you on lists! I like them to.
I loved The Landscapes of Anne of Green Gables! What a gorgeous book. I bought it at the LMM conference in PEI almost two years ago and I read it again last fall. Hope your Very Important Meeting went well. This week I finished reading a novel called A Forest for Calum, by Frank Macdonald, and it’s now on my list of all-time favourites. Have you come across it? It’s set in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and it was long listed for the IMPAC Dublin Award several years ago. My mother recommended it to me. It’s about the disappearing Gaelic language and it’s also a kind of “portrait of the artist as a young man.”
I am definitely going to have to check out A Forest for Calum. It sounds wonderful! As does an LMM conference in PEI… that’s now going on my bucket list, along with the JASNA annual general meeting (one of these years). Landscapes really was so lovely. I also just got the facsimile copy of Montgomery’s scrapbooks, Imagining Anne, and am now eager to dive into that.
I’ll hope to see you at an LMM or JASNA conference someday! Enjoy the scrapbooks. I’m a fan of that book, too.
We should make that happen!
Let me know if you ever decide to plan a trip to Nova Scotia…. Or PEI. I’m thinking about going to this year’s LMM conference in PEI but I’m not sure yet.
I will let you know for sure! It won’t be this year. We’re going where we are told to go for vacation this summer – it’s a milestone wedding anniversary for my parents and they always want to get the whole family together for those. Location is TBD but will definitely be western US. Maybe next summer! I also want to wait for PEI until Emily is old enough to really appreciate Anne. She’s just getting in through the “Anne Arrives” gateway now. I have a vision of us poking around Green Gables together hand in hand – it HAS to happen!
What a lovely vision! I can already see the photos of the two of you walking along Lovers Lane or hiking through The Haunted Wood to the homestead where Montgomery lived when she wrote the novel. The “Anne Arrives” gateway worked well for my niece, quite recently. My daughter and I are thinking about going to the Anne of Green Gables and Anne & Gilbert musicals again either this summer or next. We’re big fans of both.
🙂 I’m glad to hear that “Anne Arrives” has been a good gateway for your niece! I am waiting more or less patiently for Anne to cast her spell over Peanut. I don’t want to be too pushy, because I know that will turn her off, and I want her to love LMM as much as I do! I saw the “Anne of Green Gables” musical in Charlottetown when I was twelve – I had no idea there was another show. I’m going to have to hope one or both come to DC at some point.