Morning, friends.  How were your weekends?  Mine was better than last weekend, but that’s a low bar to clear.  It got started late – for the third week in a row, I worked until after 10:00 on Friday night.  But at least I didn’t have to work the rest of the weekend, other than a few minutes on Saturday morning to knock out one task.  The rest of the weekend, I mostly drifted around.  On Saturday morning we were out the door early for Nugget’s teeball assessment.  The poor little guy was nervous about it, but once he got going, he had fun – I knew he would.  That was pretty much the only thing we did on Saturday.  It was cold, and we just ended up staying home all afternoon; I don’t even remember what I was up to.  On Sunday, we headed out for a hike at Huntley Meadows, one of our favorite local spots.  It’s a quick and easy loop trail, but it was a beautiful bluebird day and we saw lots of wildlife – including four or five red-headed woodpeckers, a great blue heron, and (very exciting!) a pileated woodpecker.  When we got home, I made a quick run to the grocery store for the week’s lunch supplies, then came home and whipped up some green soup and a batch of soft pretzels – yum.  Ended the weekend by FaceTiming with my brother, which is always fun.  It all went way too fast, and now it’s a new week, and I am not ready.

Reading.  Consistent with a week in which work was absolutely crazy – not quite 70 hours, like the week before last, but upwards of 60, and totally exhausting – I did not get much reading done.  Some days, like Friday, I didn’t read at all (gasp).  I knew that I would probably be late in the office, and rather than take Metro home I drove into the city, so obviously that takes the commute reading out of the day.  And if I’m working until after 10:00 you can bet I’m not taking lunch breaks, either.  So I’m still on Daniel Deronda.  If I was reading anything but George Eliot, I probably could have gotten through at least a book and a half even during a hectic workweek, but Eliot requires time and attention, which are two things that have been in short supply recently.  I have about 240 pages left to go as of the writing of this blog post, so I’ll definitely finish it this week, no matter how the work schedule looks, and have a review for you next week.

Watching.  I’m glad to report that I have finally seen Frozen II – and then seen it five more times.  I missed out on it in the movie theater, but now that it’s out digitally, we downloaded a copy for the kids, and they watched it six times this weekend.  My initial reaction was a lot of “WTF is this” and some Jack Sparrow-style “I wash my hands of this weirdness” but it’s grown on me and now I… think I kind of like it?  The best part, clearly, is Kristoff’s 1980s-montage-style music video, sung without even a hint of irony.  I laughed until I was literally sobbing.  Please tell me that part was supposed to be funny?

Listening.  I was on a major outdoor podcast binge this week, because that was about as close as I was going to get to a day in the woods.  I listened to about seven episodes of The 46 of 46 Podcast and am now all caught up.

Making.  Aside from reams and reams of work product, I made some velvety green soup to take for lunches this week, and – this is very exciting – pretzels!  I used this recipe from King Arthur Flour, and found it surprisingly easy and not at all time-consuming.  Pretzels are one of those things that I thought would be super difficult and complicated to make, but they weren’t at all.  Eight minutes of kneading, a 30-minute rise, and no boiling – and they tasted incredible, like NYC street pretzels.  The recipe made a batch of eight, and we only have one left – Peanut and Steve ate most of them yesterday.  Aside from the fact that a few of them came out looking like elephants (note to self: only one twist) I was really pleased with them.  And Steve told me he thought they were as good as the traditional German pretzels made by our friend Stephen (who grew up in Switzerland and worked in a bakery in Bavaria) – I don’t think that’s true, but it was a very nice compliment.  And a lesson learned: don’t assume a recipe is going to be difficult or complicated, and just try.

Blogging.  Another bookish week, per usual.  February’s reading recap is coming atcha on Wednesday, and I have another book review – E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India this time – for you on Friday.  Check in with me then!

Loving.  It was a total delight to FaceTime with my brother this weekend.  We decided back in January that we were going to have a standing FaceTime date for the first Sunday of every month, but then we missed February’s appointment (it was Superbowl Sunday, and we both forgot).  We talk on the phone frequently, but he usually calls in the evening after the kids have gone to bed, and we have both wanted Peanut and Nugget to see their uncle more often, even if a phone screen is the best we can do – at least until we are all together for vacation this summer.

Asking.  What are you reading this week?