And so begins another week in quarantine.  What week is this?  Nine?  Nine thousand?  I don’t even know anymore.  I know there are some areas that are cautiously beginning to explore the idea of opening back up, but that’s not really us yet.  The Virginia stay-at-home order goes through June 10, summer camp is officially cancelled, and this interminable time is continuing to stretch on with no end in sight.  This week was kind of rough.  I had a lot to do at work and it felt like my to-do list just kept getting longer and longer.  Every time I would check an item off, three more tasks would find their way onto the list.  The kids were at cross-purposes all week long and all weekend too, and I have neither the energy nor the patience to deal with their shenanigans.  I’m just… tired.

Not that there weren’t bright spots in the weekend.  Saturday was a particularly nice day.  I shirked the work that I knew I should be doing, and we escaped for a hike at another park near our new house.  When we decided to move, I figured we would spend our last few months glued to our current neighborhood, wanting to experience it in full before we left (not that we’re going far, just to the neighboring county – the better public schools are the motivation for the move, plus we’ve outgrown our place).  But it hasn’t worked out that way, and we’ve found ourselves driving over to the new house three times in the past month – checking on the place, making lists of things to do, wandering around and discussing where to put the furniture – and then heading out for a nearby hike.  Even though I know we’re going to have years in which to learn every inch of our soon-to-be new community, there’s not much going on in our current city neighborhood right now and we just find ourselves piling into the car and driving west more often than not.  Anyway, this time we hit up Seneca Regional Park, which has a huge network of trails that I can’t wait to explore.  We hiked down to the Potomac, just a bubbling brook way up here.  And even though the parking lot was packed, we barely saw another soul – perfect.  When we got home, Peanut asked to bake cookies, and we whipped up a batch of Dorie Greenpsan’s “perfect chocolate chip cookies,” which we shared with the neighbors during a 6:00 p.m. porch party.  Neighbors from all up and down the street were wandering around, holding glasses of wine, sharing some connection and conversation from a responsible distance away from one another.  We enjoyed talking to a few different neighbors (although only our beloved Zoya and Robert, next door, got cookies).  So that was Saturday.  Sunday was… kind of the anti-Saturday.  It was grey and windy, we all felt lazy, and the kids stayed in their pajamas, watching TV and bickering all day.  I escaped for a 5K run – the second in my Another Mother Runner virtual race series.  But that was the only time I got out of the house.  Once again I did no work, and felt guilty – today is going to hit hard.

Reading.  Another slowwwwww reading week.  Trying to stay on top of everything else that I have to do is leaving me with next to no energy and certainly no concentration to spare for a book.  I finished Jane Austen at Home early in the week – after twelve days reading a book that would normally take me about three.  And I spent the rest of the week plodding through Merry Hall.  I thought I’d knock off the entire trilogy in a week – ha.  Both good reads, but nothing is going quickly for me right now.

Watching.  With that reading being limited, watching is definitely taking more of a front seat right now.  We’re trying to keep the kids up later, in the (probably vain) hope that they will sleep later in the morning.  Part of the strategy has been to find a couple of shows to watch together as a family in the evenings.  We’ve settled into a routine of one episode of Be Our Chef on Disney+, followed by one (or more) episode(s) of Rock the Park.  I am especially tickled that Peanut is getting into Rock the Park.  I figured Nugget would, since he loves both non-fiction (shows and books) and nature, especially national parks.  But Peanut has also fallen for the show, and both kids had me laughing the entire time we were exploring the trails at Seneca Regional Park on Saturday, as they hiked along chirping “This is how we rock the park!” and “If we can do it, so can you!”  (If you watch the show, you’ll get it.)

Listening.  No podcasts this week, actually!  I waded through my iTunes library and re-made my old running playlist – it’s a very weird, eclectic mix but it totally works for me.  It opens with “I Gotta Feeling” by the Black Eyed Peas, transitions into a live concert version of R.E.M.’s “Living Well’s the Best Revenge” and then meanders through some eighties music (“1,000,000” by R.E.M. and “99 Luftballons” by Nena) some Glee soundtrack standbys, and a lot of bass-pumping rock, and finishes with “Eye of the Tiger.”  I’ve run through it more times than I can count this week.

Making.  In addition to the aforementioned chocolate chip cookies that Peanut and I baked on Saturday afternoon, I am pleased to report that I’ve finished my 1,000 piece Cornell puzzle!  (Quarantine so hard…)  Pic above for you to admire; sorry about the glare.  It was the best I could do.  I also finished up another family yearbook – that much closer to having our complete history as a family captured, all the way back to our wedding in 2005.  I started making family yearbooks in 2014 and have made one every year since, although 2019 is still in progress.  We’ve enjoyed them so much that I went back and created yearbooks covering 2005-07 and 2008-10; this weekend, I finished 2011-13, so once I wrap up 2019 I will be up to date!  This is huge, friends.  I didn’t actually order the 2011-13 yearbook; they’re so expensive that I always wait for a 50% off deal, and right now the best deal is 40% off, which is not enough of a discount.  Soon, hopefully!

Moving.  Once again, another week in which I missed my scheduled cross-training day, but got all of my runs in – including a 5K on Sunday.  This was the second in a series of four virtual races from the Train Like a Mother Club; each race includes a medal with one letter (L, O, V, and E, and they will make one big interlocking medal at the end of the series) and this was race “O.”  I ran down to the river trail and took in the views and the breezes coming off the Potomac during my run.  Saturday’s hike was the other workout of the week; we hiked down and then UP a big hill, so I definitely felt it.

Blogging.  Another Classics Club review coming atcha on Wednesday, and then a day in the life post on Friday, showing you some of what we are up to in this very weird and anxious time.  Check in with me then!

Loving.  Our porch party was so much fun!  We mostly talked to Zoya and Robert, our favorite neighbors, over the two porch railings separating our space from theirs.  But we chatted with a few other neighbors, too – comparing notes on upcoming moves (our street is breaking up, y’all – sob) and complaining about our shared least favorite neighbor, who smokes a cigar on his front porch every night, causing windows to slam down all up and down the block.  (We call him Sir Smokes-a-lot, and he is definitely a notch in the not going to miss this column.)  Peanut wore her cheetah ears, I hung over the railing and drank boxed wine (or “cardboardeaux” as my coworkers and I call it) out of a Yeti wine tumbler, and we all toasted Robert’s son, who recently graduated from a very prestigious university up north.  I have been feeling very isolated, and it was good to get outside and do some socializing over the porch railing.

Asking.  What are you reading this week?