Goooooood morning, friends.  How goes life?  Two weeks since I checked in with one of these – whoops.  Last Monday I was just too sad about Justice Ginsburg; I couldn’t will myself to this space.  Do you forgive me?  Hope so.

So, anyway, what to report?  Fortunately, I lead a very boring life and two weeks of check-in material is about the same as one week.  I can’t even remember what I did last weekend – probably cried about RBG – so I’ll blow right past it.  This past weekend was kind of a bust.  It was my firm’s annual all-hands retreat, which meant that Saturday was a full day of conference activities and workshops.  But because: pandemic, instead of conference activities and workshops in San Antonio – as planned – I spent all of Friday toggling between zoom sessions, wondering if the partners would judge me for the wine rack right behind my head.  (My local partners in D.C. think it’s hilarious and awesome, but who knows about the rest of the firm…)  The silver lining was that I didn’t have to travel, so at least there was no rushing to the airport after the last meeting on Saturday; I just closed my computer and that was that.

Steve was determined to make the weekend decent for me, and he made sure we got out for hikes on Saturday and Sunday mornings, so that I could get my fresh air quota for each day.  On Saturday we headed to Fraser Preserve for a good shake-out hike before my big day of zoom meetings.  The kids griped the whole time about not getting to ride their bikes.  We were all tired because they’d had one of their nocturnal parties on Friday night, and I was extra grouchy about losing half my weekend to zoom, so I wasn’t all that patient with their complaining. On Sunday we hit our local favorite – Riverbend Park – and hiked downriver about a mile, then turned back.  The kids complained about being tired.  (Are you sensing a pattern here?)  The rest of the day was low-key.  They finally got those bike rides – in the neighborhood, while I fretted about oncoming traffic – and I discovered that my bike has two flats.  Super.  I made a Target run and got out under $100, so great success.  And the rest of the afternoon, I just poked around the house.  The usual.

Reading.  I’ve felt like I was cruising through books, but this doesn’t actually look like much of a total for two weeks.  Hmmm.  When these world-rocking events strike, I’ve noticed that I have a harder time reading (perhaps there’s a blog post in there somewhere) and maybe RBG’s passing affected me even more than I realized.  That’s possible.  Anyway – everything I read was wonderful, even if there wasn’t much of it.  At the beginning of last week I wrapped up Mr Tibbets’s Catholic School, which was a complete delight.  Then reached just a bit to the left on the same shelf and pulled out Brendon Chase, BB’s classic novel of three brother “outlaws” who run away from their aunt’s house on the eve of the school term, and live in the woods.  Yes, please.  I enjoyed every word and then picked up Dancing Fish and Ammonites, a memoir I’ve had on my “TBR” pile for years.  It was nothing like what I was expecting, but wonderful.  Finally – a re-read.  I’m going to read through the entire Gilead series again in preparation for Tuesday’s release of Jack.  Starting with Gilead on Sunday night and very excited.

Watching.  Less to report here: a lot of the same.  An episode or two of Rock the Park every night (whatever will we do when we’re current?) and one episode of Our Planet.  We are utterly predictable and I’m fine with that.

Listening.  I set aside audiobooks last week to try to make my way through Peaceful Parent, Happy Siblings: How to Stop the Fighting and Raise Friends for Life.  There has been an awful lot of bickering, and more fisticuffs than I would like, in my house recently and I was hoping for some strategies to get the kids on a friendlier footing.  (They do love each other, very much – sometimes too much – but they’re heartily sick of one another right now and I don’t blame them.)  This was… okay.  There were some good strategies in there, but the problem is that “peaceful parenting” doesn’t do much good when they’re both so deep into their fight that they’re just totally tuning you out.  I spent a lot of the week standing physically between them, saying things like, “I sense a disagreement here.  Let’s problem solve together!” while they ignored me and tried to rip each other’s heads off.  Also, some of the book was just unrealistic.  (Does your kid feel neglected because you work too much?  Easy fix!  Just tell your boss you’ll be leaving at 4:00 for the foreseeable future!)

Moving.  It was a good week for movement, at least.  Several runs, and the aforementioned hikes.  Plus I’ve got “Mommy’s Jungle Gym” – as Nugget calls it – all set up in the sunroom now, and I’ve enjoyed several sessions in there, doing yoga and strength training in the peaceful morning light.  Steve is setting up my treadmill and I have an indoor bike trainer coming in a month or so, so there will be more dispatches from Mommy’s Jungle Gym to come.

Making.  Meh.  Not a lot of creativity around these parts lately.  A few yummy dinners – last night featured a cornmeal-crusted flounder that I was particularly proud of; it was baked, not fried, and oil-free, and so good.  As for progress on the home front – I’m sorry to report that I did not make my self-imposed Mabon deadline for being totally unpacked.  Some progress was made, but not enough.  I need a weekend of productivity, but the problem is once Saturday rolls around I am so fried from my week of working while simultaneously being tech and emotional support for a five-year-old that I don’t want to do anything.  I just want to hike, run, and laze about with my book.

Blogging.  Last week of the month catch-ups coming atcha this week!  I’ll have a garden post on Wednesday and the month’s reading recap on Friday.  At least, I think I will.  Neither one is drafted yet.  Send beer, friends.

Loving.  One area in which I have made progress in the house is: hanging artwork.  I’ve got art up on the walls in almost every room – Steve’s and my bedroom being the only exception.  And let me tell you, it really does make all the difference in the world.  I’ve been sitting in the living room most nights, and it was already a lovely spot – between the flickering candlelight and my curated bookshelves – but now I can look over my left shoulder and see two pieces that I brought back from the Outer Banks and a painting of a woman reading by Joe Todak (a Pennsylvania artist who was a friend of my grandparents’), and over my right shoulder I have a collection of my own photographs – framed and unframed.  It’s so much nicer to be surrounded by my favorite art, and I don’t even mind the hideous band-aid colored walls as much.  This is what I do in every house: I get all tied into knots about putting holes in the walls and end up waiting for months, then I go around in a tornado of activity and hang everything at once.  Glad to have that over with.

Asking.  What are you reading this week?