Good morning, friends – happy Halloween week to you all! And in other business, happy belated birthday to my best friend (it was over the weekend). How were your weekends?

Mine was good – I am continuing to find little snatches of joy, even in the middle of the pandemic. Saturday was the kids’ day – it was all about fun for them. In the morning, we hit our favorite pumpkin patch and brought home our pumpkins for the year and a dozen apple cider donuts (favorite fall treat). After lunch, we drove over to Old Town. Nugget has been begging for a stuffed lion that he spotted in one of the King Street shops, and he’d earned a reward for powering through almost two months of virtual school (not easy for a kindergartener). Peanut wanted to stop by our old favorite children’s bookstore, too, and I was looking forward to walking down some of the side streets and checking out the Halloween decorations, and to stopping in Old Town Books (my favorite indie bookstore).

Sunday was a more low-key day, but nice. In the morning, Steve and I finally finished setting up the treadmill in our sunroom (a.k.a. Mommy’s Jungle Gym), and I immediately hopped on for a 10K. Several spins in a moving truck have left it worse for the wear, but it works. I spent the rest of the day puttering. Two FaceTime dates – one with Steve’s mom, and one with my parents – clearing out the rest of the storage boxes from the sunroom, and a long afternoon in the kitchen baking bread and whipping up a neat loaf for Sunday dinner. It rained all day, but it was actually kind of nice.

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Reading. It’s been a great reading week! On Tuesday I finished my project of reading/re-reading the Gilead books in order, finishing up with newly-released Jack. I’m glad I did this read-through, but friends: four Gilead books, one after the other, is a lot of Gilead. While I love those books, it was something of a relief to get to my planned Halloween reading. I started with last year’s favorite – Pumpkinheads – and loved it just as much for 2020. Then I moved on to The Crucible, which I somehow missed in high school (the Regents English classes – standard level for you non-New Yorkers – read it, but in AP we read Death of a Salesman); it was wonderful. Now I am on to Lolly Willowes, which I’ve been looking forward to reading – I am really enjoying it.

Watching. Very exciting viewing news! The latest season of The Great British Bake-Off has dropped on Netflix – wooooooot! Oh, and we finally finished Miracle. It only took three separate sittings to get to the end; Peanut fell asleep every time, but Nugget at least made it.

Listening. I can’t remember if it was last week or the week before, but I finished my audiobook (The Art of Reading from The Great Courses) and started a new one (Mrs. Moreau’s Warbler: How Birds Got their Names, by Stephen Moss). I’m about a third of the way through and enjoying it.

Moving. I fell off the running wagon for the last couple of weeks, but I think I’m definitely back on now. This weekend was the “stack it up” challenge in my Love the Run You’re With virtual race series – 1 mile on Friday; 5K on Saturday; and 10K on Sunday. Whew! My legs are tired today. But all three runs were great – I felt strong and fast and joyful for each.

Making. I was busy in the kitchen, as noted above! Pane bianco, which I’ve been eyeing for a few weeks now (recipe is from King Arthur Baking – I’ve had really good luck with their bread recipes); lentil-walnut “neat” loaf; and a sourdough chocolate cake with coffee-flavored icing that the kids are gobbling up.

Blogging. Themed Reads for October coming atcha on Wednesday, and I don’t actually have a post planned for Friday yet. So we’ll all be surprised together!

Loving. Our Saturday walk through Old Town was cut a little short by a tantrum (the guilty party shall remain anonymous – but it wasn’t me or Steve), but I got to see a few decorated houses! I love how Old Town gets into the Halloween spirit. We had hoped to go back to South Lee Street for trick-or-treating this year, but for obvious reasons that’s not going to happen – it’s a mob scene around there, just way too crowded in these COVID times. So it was nice to walk around a little bit and check out some of the decorations the week before Halloween. We have a December tradition of taking a walk through Old Town to check out Christmas decorations, then getting a drink – I think we might need to make a similar annual tradition out of walking the Halloween decorations!

Asking. What are you reading this week?