Morning, folks.  How were your weekends?  Ours was busy.  The reason?  See above picture: this is Go Dog.  He’s a stuffed version of one of the dogs from the classic children’s picture book Go Dog Go (remember that? it was one of my favorites).  This Go Dog belongs to Nugget’s class, and each of the kids is getting a chance to take him home for a weekend.  This past weekend was our turn, FINALLY – Nugget has been talking about Go Dog and asking when his turn would come since September.  Go Dog has a travel journal in which each family contributes a few pages of pictures and text about Go Dog’s adventures while visiting them, and we were determined to show Go Dog a good time and give him some excellent material for his travel journal.  On Saturday, we had a birthday party to attend for one of the other kids in Nugget’s class – Go Dog came along – and then my dear friend Zan came over and we all headed out to the neighborhood St. Patrick’s Day Parade (yes, I know it’s early, no, I can’t explain why).  After the parade, we had pasta at Mia’s Italian Kitchen, walked around the waterfront, and took the trolley home.  Whew!  Go Dog was exhausted.  On Sunday, we took Go Dog to one of our favorite places – Great Falls Park.  Go Dog was impressed by the waterfall and rapids, and he enjoyed spotting birds with Nugget and tested out a whitewater kayak.  In the afternoon, we headed back down to the waterfront and had pizza at Pizzeria Paradiso – Nugget’s special request, since it was his birthday weekend – and rode the trolley home, again.  I think Go Dog had an excellent weekend.  I think the birthday Nugget had an excellent weekend, too.

Reading.  After several weeks of telling you I’m making progress on Daniel Deronda, guys, I promise!, I have a busy week in books to recap for you.  I finished Daniel Deronda on Wednesday (see, I told you I was making progress) – review coming to you this Wednesday.  Next, with a library deadline breathing down my neck, I flew through Olive, Again – Elizabeth Strout’s new collection of linked short stories about Olive Kitteridge.  For the weekend, I was in the mood for some comfort reading; it’s been a hectic few weeks, and it’s not going to let up for at least two more weeks.  And I was also in the mood to read from my own shelves, and not from the library stack.  So I picked up Ex Libris on Friday night, read that over the course of Friday evening and Saturday evening, then followed it up with Summoned by Bells (John Betjeman’s memoir-in-verse) in one sitting on Saturday night.  Ended the weekend with The Priory, by Dorothy Whipple – I’m about 120 pages in as of the writing of this post, and loving it so far.

Watching.  Nothing for myself, although I have had several more viewings of Frozen II out of the corner of my eye, and seen more than I care to admit of Trolls: The Beat Goes On!  Steve and I spent a lot of time talking about our viewing plans – we need to finish the current season of Great British Bake-Off, and catch up on Rock the Park, and watch the latest season of The Crown, and also I want to check out that CNN docuseries on the Windsors.  But as of this week, we’re all talk and no actual viewing.

Listening.  Lots of podcast potpourri – a couple of episodes of Shedunnit, a couple of episodes of The 46 of 46 Podcast, snatches of The Mom Hour and Tea or Books?, an episode of A-Pod…cast for Killer Whales and an episode of Outside/In about penguin-counting in Antarctica.  Well-rounded or all over the place?  You decide.

Making.  Nothing in the kitchen this weekend and nothing in particular on the needles, either.  I made a lot of pictures of Go Dog having adventures, though, and a five-page essay about our weekend fun to add to Go Dog’s travel journal, though!

Blogging.  I have a book review (of Daniel Deronda) for you on Wednesday, and a funny post about a dubious bookish milestone I experienced recently(-ish… back in December) on Friday.  Check in with me then!

Loving.  This article about a young girl who established read-aloud libraries in her local NICUs (part of her Girl Scout Silver Award project) is so wonderful.  I can vividly remember my days sitting next to Peanut’s isolette, reading to her from Emily of New Moon.  The kids are all right, you guys.  The kids are all right.

Asking.  What are you reading this week?