Well, it’s been official spring for a few days now, and unofficial spring – flowers blooming, Nugget in shorts – even longer, so I guess it’s time I get around to recapping the season.  It was a bit of a dud – started with a somewhat last-minute business trip and ended with the looming threat of coronavirus, with many, many hours in between devoted to getting ready for a trial that ended up being postponed.  Which means: spoiler alert, I didn’t get through too many items on my list.  But here’s the recap, in all its glory.

• Go with Steve and the kids to see #AURORAinDC at ARTECHOUSE, an innovative art gallery that fuses art with technology to create interactive sensory experiences.  (This was a Christmas present to Steve, and we went in early January before the installation closed.)  Done – this was a bit of a cheat, because we had already been to the exhibit when I wrote the list.  It was spectacular.
• Register and train for a spring 5K race.  Didn’t happen.  Work had me so busy I didn’t have time to get out on the trails and build my base back up the way I wanted to (and I know what you’re going to say: it’s important for mental health, yes, I realize that, but there are only so many hours in a day).  And now all the spring races are getting postponed because of COVID-19 anyway.

• Try a new cookbook recipe once a week!  Done – or calling it done, anyway.  Not all from cookbooks – many from the internet, especially kingarthurflour.com – and I’m not sure if it was really one a week, but I had a lot of fun in the kitchen, and that’s what counts.
• Get rid of at least ten boxes from the basement.  Not exactly – work got too hectic and I didn’t have time, plus a lot of the boxes that I would be going through are inaccessible because the movers buried them behind or underneath furniture when we moved in (another complaint about our movers, who were generally awful and rude).  I got through one box – that’s it.  Maybe now that we’re stuck at home, I can get through some more.

• Read another Trollope novel.  You know what?  I’m calling this done, even though I didn’t read any Trollope.  (I had my eye on Framley Parsonage.)  Let’s say this challenge was really read a giant Victorian doorstopper – I did that, when I read George Eliot’s final novel, Daniel Deronda.  If anything, that was a bigger challenge than Framley Parsonage would have been, because Trollope, at least, is funny.  796 pages of George Eliot is a LOT of George Eliot, you guys.
• Make vegetarian Italian wedding soup.  Didn’t do this.  It does sound good, though, doesn’t it?

• Send out some baby gifts that are long past due!  HA.  They’re still on my dining room table.  Sorry, ladies!  But I did attend a baby shower (for my work wife Connie) and obviously I brought a gift to that.  Connie wasn’t one of the people I meant to mail gifts to, because I knew I would be giving her gift to her in person, at her shower.  So mostly, I’m giving myself credit for something unrelated to this item, largely so that I can brag again about eating that amazing Baby Shark macaron.
• Clean out the container garden.  This is done, but not by me – the kids weeded the back patio and yanked out all the dead plants from the container garden.  Peanut, it turns out, is a weeding machine.  I will make good use of this newfound knowledge.

• Go for a winter walk by the Potomac.  Done, several times over.  Many a stroll down to our own sedate waterfront in Alexandria, and a wonderful, peaceful ramble alongside the more energetic part of the river up in Great Falls.
• Light candles and snuggle under a blanket.  Calling this done.  I didn’t light candles, although I really should do that.  But there was lots of blanket-snuggling, especially after our COVID-19-prompted stay-at-home time began at the tail end of winter.  Although I’m always a blanket person, so.

Look at that!  I actually got more done than I thought I had, looking back at it.  Of course I gave myself credit for completing some tasks when… well, let’s just say I am giving myself allowances right now and I highly recommend you do the same.  Spring list coming next week, because even in the midst of all this uncertainty I have to look ahead with hope.

What was on your to-do list this winter?  Did you get it done?