Morning, friends. Happy Thanksgiving to my American readers – hope you’re planning a delicious feast with your bubble! I’m looking forward to a few days off work, although I have two very busy ones to get through first (and we’ll see if my good intentions to take Wednesday off actually pan out). I’m feeling a bit gloomy, because I had really hoped to celebrate this Thanksgiving in Colorado with my brother and that’s not happening, for obvious reasons.

Anyway – it was a low-key weekend around here. On Saturday, we took the kiddos to their swim lessons and then I spent most of the rest of the day working – nothing too exciting to report. Same with Sunday: quiet, quiet. I had a 2x5K to run for the final challenge of my virtual Another Mother Runner series, so I banged those out. The highlight was the last mile; after running 2.1 of the second 5K of the day I stopped by the house and picked up Nugget for his virtual Marine Corps Marathan “semper fun mile” kids’ race. The little dude ran several races – including a half marathon – when he was just a baking nugget, and a few more as part of the stroller brigade, but this was his first “race” run on two feet! He had the best time and is already talking about getting a medal display rack for all of the kids’ run medals he’s planning to earn. That’s my boy!

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Reading. Good reading week! I’ve been putting my phone in the other room and logging my evening reading without the temptation to doomscroll; so far, it seems to be working. I finished Going Solo on Monday night (loved it!) and then was still in the mood for adventure travel reading, so I finally picked up The Grand Tour: Around the World with the Queen of Mystery, which has been on my TBR pile for too long. Finished the latter part of the week, and read through the weekend, with President Obama’s memoir (part one, there’s MORE coming!) A Promised Land. I’m a little over 500 pages in as of the publishing of this post, so I’ll probably finish in the next couple of days, and then I’ve promised myself Persuasion over Thanksgiving, before I turn to Christmas reading for December.

Watching. The usuals! The Great British Bake-Off on Friday night; The Mandalorian on Saturday night. For our family viewing, since we’ve finished our latest watch-through of Rock the Park, we’ve moved on to the recent seasons of Rick Steves’ Europe. Steve and I are card-carrying Rick Steves dorks. The kids are mostly tolerating it. Nugget has an adventurous spirit, so he’s enjoying watching and adding to his bucket list, but he tends to get bogged down in the more cultural parts. Peanut thinks we’re all ridiculous and refuses to watch with us. I guess she’s a teenager now?

Listening. I’m on a mission to pare down my podcatcher, so I’ve been working my way through back episodes for a few weeks now. A few episodes of The Mom Hour, a few episodes of Vegetarian Zen, and the highlight was a couple of recent episodes of Shedunnit. (I think Shedunnit might be my favorite podcast? Tough to say.)

Making. Uh, nothing but work product. I’m pretty overwhelmed right now – my workload is piling on and piling on, and we’re short-staffed, which doesn’t help. (We do have a new junior paralegal coming aboard, and we’re all very excited.) Cooking has been extremely limited, and baking non-existent, because we are still without a dishwasher. Our scorched, blown-out model is still sitting in the kitchen, wrapped in garbage bags, and we’re trying to minimize anything that requires us to wash lots of dishes. Thanksgiving will be a prepared foods feast, which makes me sad – because I enjoy cooking, and Thanksgiving is one of my favorite meals to prepare. But, hey, 2020.

Moving. I was a weekend warrior – those two 5Ks on Sunday, plus a walk to the frog pond in the neighborhood park. Hoping for a better week of movement ahead, but I have to get through my apocalyptic pile of work on Monday and Tuesday first.

Blogging. I’ve got a Classics Club review for you on Wednesday, and on Friday, I’ll share a post full of gratitude. Yes, even in 2020! Stay tuned.

Loving. A bit of a bittersweet one for you this week – I am absolutely loving every moment of A Promised Land. President Obama writes with such style, and his thoughtful, deliberative commentary on everything from his primary rivalry with Secretary Clinton to the competing considerations inherent in every policy he made during his time in office is a total joy to read. Except – it also makes me sad. Remember when we had a President who took the job seriously and could string more than three words together without a random capitalization or a new linguistic invention (looking at you, covfefe)? Who never flirted with inciting nuclear war over Twitter and didn’t try to stage a coup? Who staffed the West Wing with serious professionals, none of whom were related to him? Those were the days. Is it January 20, 2021 yet?

Asking. What are you reading this week?