Month: November 2021

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It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? (November 29, 2021)

Happy Monday, friends! How were your Thanksgiving weekends? Ours took us clear across the country – on Thursday the 18th, we flew out to western Colorado to spend the holiday, and the week prior, with my brother and sister-in-law and their menagerie. We don’t see them nearly enough, and it was so good to have all of that focused time together. We stayed up past midnight, twice, drinking wine and talking about fun and serious stuff just as hard as we could. We ate incredible meals and tramped around western Colorado and the national parks near Moab, Utah, and it was perfect. (Lots of stories coming, but not until after I finish up Shenandoah and Seattle.) Flight logistics dictated that our family head home on Black Friday, so we reluctantly said goodbye to Dan, Danielle, Ollie and Marlin (the dogs) and Pancho (the cat). As sad as we were to leave, it was probably a good idea to give the kids the weekend to decompress and get back on Eastern time after all that exhausting fun; we made it a low-key weekend. Saturday was devoted entirely to bumming around the house, cleaning out and restocking the fridge, and getting ready for another busy week (including a business trip for me, it never rains but it pours). On Sunday, we made time for a little more fun – swim class, of course, and a very short hike on our favorite trail, just to get our hiking legs back after the flight. A little cooking and a cozy couch evening on the couch – perfect way to end a weekend and set myself up for a long week of work.

Reading. Some reading week – it was light, but all over the place. I had to set Framley Parsonage aside for a week, rather than carting a heavy doorstopping hardback to Colorado, so spent the flights over a different doorstopper instead – Romola, on my kindle. I’m about a third of the way through, thanks to plane reading, but set it aside to return to Framley when we got home. I finished Framley Parsonage on Saturday night, and spent Sunday over Banana Yoshimoto’s classic Kitchen. (Nice slim fast read – just what the doctor ordered.) I’m off on a business trip – more flights – so I’ll be charging up the kindle and returning to Romola with an eye to finishing it up this week.

Watching. Not much – I was too busy talking and catching up with Dan and Danielle all week. On Saturday, I did spend a few hours watching some of Miranda‘s Christmas videos on YouTube – trying to break through a post-travel grinchy mood and get in the holiday spirit. It’s starting to work, I think.

Listening. Mmmm, not much. I started In the Crypt with a Candlestick, a fun mystery by Daisy Waugh, on Audible – but I’m not into it yet. Other than that, just one episode of my favorite podcast, Shedunnit, on Josephine Tey. (So good.)

Making. It was actually a creative weekend, who’d’a thunk? In addition to a cleaned and restocked fridge (just in time for me to turn around and head back to the airport), I made: progress on Christmas knitting; gluten-free and almost-Paleo banana bread and mini muffins with sous chef Nugget; the beginnings of Christmas cards for mailing; more that I can’t think of right now because someone is whining in my ear.

Moving. It was a hiking week, for sure! Dan and Danielle showed us so many of their favorite spots – from a fun hike in Colorado National Monument, practically in their backyard, to iconic hikes in Arches and Canyonlands National Parks outside of Moab – and more. Plenty of stories and pictures coming soon; stay tuned.

Blogging. November’s reading roundup is coming for you on Wednesday, and on Friday – back to Shenandoah on a warm summer weekend. It’s cold here, so looking through my pictures from Labor Day is warming me right up.

Loving. A bittersweet one. I can’t tell you how much I loved spending the last week with Dan and Danielle. Steve and I love them both so much and we don’t see them nearly enough – and it had been way too long since the kids saw their uncle and aunt. It was an incredible week, full of beautiful vistas and the joy of being together, but that made it all the sadder to leave. I like to joke that I’m an emotionless stone, but there were some tears. Fortunately we’ll be seeing them again soon – and we all agreed that we need to make a point of getting together, whether on visits to each other’s homes or meeting up in some other location for a family getaway – at least once a year. If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that time together is precious and we will never let work schedules and everyday responsibilities (oh, and a pandemic) interfere with our family time for so long again.

Asking. What are you reading this week?

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Shenandoah 2021: Story of the Forest Trail

Another old favorite – we almost never miss the Story of the Forest trail, no matter how quick the visit to Shenandoah. This time, we stopped by the Big Meadows visitor center so the kiddos could take their Junior Ranger oath of office, then immediately struck off for one of our favorite easy, kid-friendly hikes in the park.

The trail dips downhill a ways, then meanders over gently rolling hills – nothing difficult about it at all – for a little under two miles. It’s a lovely hike for kids, since there are plenty of natural elements to keep them engaged (including a Poohsticks bridge) and you can make it as long or as short as you like.

It’s a classic wooded trail; I think quite a few park visitors skip Story of the Forest because it doesn’t boast sweeping vistas (like Hawksbill) or strenuous scrambles (like Old Rag) or roaring waterfalls (like Dark Hollow) – just a peaceful path through a verdant forest. But there’s plenty to see if you drop your eyes to the forest floor itself – like bright green eruptions of ferns, my favorite.

And forest friends, like a sweet doe and her speckled fawns. All together now: awwwwww.

I just love their quiet grace.

Spotted just off the trail: an air quality monitoring station. Unbeknownst to many park visitors, Shenandoah struggles with air quality problems thanks to surrounding industry. Air quality monitoring stations in the park perform important work to ensure that our wild space stays healthy for us all.

Just a beautiful, peaceful walk in the woods – can’t top that.

Next week: we climb to the highest point in the park.

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Themed Reads: A Little Blitzy

It’s no secret that I love a good World War II book – home front, travel, memoir, history, contemporaneous or historical fiction – I’ll take it all, and more, please. There’s a whole subset of World War II books set in London during the Blitz, of course, and it makes sense: when and where else was the indominable spirit of a nation more courageously on display? The material for writers is endless, and exemplified by Vere Hodgson’s diaries, in which she would downplay a night of heavy, horrific bombardment as “a little blitzy.” Here are three different examples.

First, the aforementioned Vere Hodgson, whose Blitz diary was published (and republished by Persephone Books) as Few Eggs and No Oranges. This is a doorstopper, but well worth the time. Hodgson records daily life in London, with all its challenges, from the early years through the end of the war. The office cat in the charity where she worked gets plenty of coverage, to bring some levity to the pages describing incendiary bombs and tragic destruction.

Handheld Classics brings us two Blitz books for the price of one – a novella, Night Shift, about factory workers in wartime London, and It Was Different At The Time, Holden’s Blitz memoir – combined into one volume, Blitz Writing. Holden’s very modern voice reminded me of Virginia Woolf a little bit, and the characters in both the novella and the memoir are so very lifelike. The description of a night’s bombing at the end of Night Shift is absolutely terrifying.

Finally, for something a little bit fun, E.C.R. Lorac brings us a mystery with a strong sense of time and place. Murder by Matchlight begins with a young man strolling through Regents Park on a deeply black night in London during the Blitz. All of the lights are out – it’s blackout, after all – and the only light is the momentary flare of a match. In that moment, a terrifying face looms up, and seconds later, a murder is committed. That is all Inspector Macdonald has to go on, and it’s not much. The mystery and characters are engaging, and there is a firefighting scene so vivid that you can hear the bombs whistling and feel the heat of the flames.

Of course, there’s more to World War II literature than the Blitz, and when I was considering the books I’ve read so far, most of them actually don’t focus on this particular horror. But there are quite a few Blitz books, for all that, and many of them are now classics for good reason.

Have you read any books set during the Blitz? Any recommendations for me?

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Gratitude

As we’re coming up on another pandemic Thanksgiving, I’m feeling surprisingly full of gratitude. It has been a hard year – in the world, a raging pandemic and an unrelenting news cycle won’t exactly let us be. And personally, two deaths in the family (one somewhat expected but never really expected, and one completely out of the blue) have brought plenty of sadness. But there’s also plenty to be thankful for – including the fact that the kids are now half-vaxxed, none of my family members have been sick with COVID-19, still, and we will be together this holiday season. And there’s been a great deal of sweetness this year, and I finally feel that I am in the place I want to be. Geographically – home in my beloved Virginia for five years now, after three cold and lonely years in New York – and professionally.

Professionally has been the biggest change, for the better, for me this year. At the beginning of 2021, I thought I was in a decent place with my career. I liked my law firm colleagues, found the work interesting, and appreciated the flexibility that my job offered during the pandemic. If this was the end of the line for me, I felt pretty good about that. The only thing I didn’t like was dealing with strident personalities outside of my firm, but I figured that was a small-ish thing in the grand scheme of all that I liked about my job. Now on the other side, after changing courses to the career I’ve wanted for ten years, I realize how deeply, desperately unhappy I was in law firm life – I just didn’t know it at the time. I look back at pictures from last winter, deep in a stressful project, and I look haunted.

I can feel the contrast now. My new colleagues are just as nice as my old ones, and the work is just as interesting, but I am finally at peace. And I can see it in my own eyes.

Aside from the health of my immediate family members, this is what I am most grateful for this year – daily peace, finally.

There are smaller things, too. Travel, over the summer and fall – and coming up in the next few months. It’s good to go places again, to see new sights and feel different trails under my feet.

And I can’t forget the deep gratitude for the chance to spend every day with my best friend.

All things considered, 2021 has been okay. I have a lot to be thankful for, and that’s a nice place to be at Thanksgiving. I’ll keep hoping for better days ahead, for all of us – starting with an end to the pandemic. But in the meantime, I am grateful.

What are you thankful for this season?

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Shenandoah 2021: Big Meadows

It would be hard for me to pick a favorite spot in Shenandoah National Park – I love every inch of the place. But if pressed, I might say that I love Big Meadows just a tiny bit more than the rest – maybe. (Then again, maybe not. It would be a wrench to have to choose; I’m glad I actually don’t.) I don’t think we ever come to Shenandoah without at least a quick pause at Big Meadows, and ideally, a nice leg-stretching hike.

Off we go!

I was thinking a lot of my grandmother, who had a great fondness for meadows. She would have so loved the expansive views and the lavish goldenrod flowers.

Bees buzzing everywhere! Go, little pollinators, go!

Don’t mind me, I’m just over here playing with my macro settings. #photographynerd

The sun was baking down and the meadow was blisteringly hot. (We were glad to have our hats and approximately a gallon each of sunscreen.)

Such a gorgeous afternoon hike – there’s no end to the little herd paths and spurs branching out every which way in Big Meadows, and there’s always more to see, whether you stretch up and gaze at the mountains off in the distance or crouch down to inspect a bee or a wildflower at close range. I just love it.

Next week: Another old favorite, and some new friends.

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Fall Colors at Green Spring Gardens

Last weekend, Peanut had a Brownie meeting at Green Spring Gardens – a beautiful park not far from our old haunts in Alexandria. We’d been there once before – for a children’s beekeeping event organized by the park – and always meant to go back. Funny we should find ourselves driving down there after moving away from Alexandria, but it turned out it wasn’t that far away. I brought my new mirrorless camera, fully tricked out with a lens that isn’t even released to traditional retail yet (I got it direct from Nikon) and planned to drop Peanut off with her troop and then take a photography walk around the gardens.

That wasn’t to be. Peanut was having a mommymommymommy kind of day and I couldn’t leave. But it turned out the other moms were pretty much all sticking around too; we stood together in a clump discussing the kids’ COVID-19 vaccines, upcoming holiday plans, sports schedules and the like.

While Peanut worked on her letterboxing “log book,” I did sneak off to photograph the Children’s Garden, at least. We had wind in the forecast and I suspected – and was confirmed by the park employee who was leading the Brownie event – that this was probably the last weekend of fall colors before all of the leaves would be on the ground for the duration.

As the temperature started dropping, I rushed off to the car to pick up Peanut’s heavy coat. On the way back, without breaking a stride, I managed to get a few more snaps of the gardens in their fall glory.

When I got back to the Brownies, they were nearly done with their projects, and almost ready to go on a walk to search for the Green Spring Gardens’ letterbox and stamp their new logbooks. All the moms (and one dad) came too.

The girls found the Green Spring letterbox by a beautiful pond, and lined up to stamp their logbooks. What a fun event! I think we’ll definitely be seeking out other letterboxes in our area so Peanut can get more stamps in her “passport.”

As for me – I got my fall color pictures after all! Still getting to know my new camera, but I think they came out well, and I can’t wait to experiment more on other photography walks.

How is the foliage where you live? Still going strong, or is the season pretty much over?

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It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? (November 15, 2021)

Yawn. Morning, friends. How were your weekends? Mine was wonderful, but tiring – I could use another day. I haven’t said that many times since starting my new job, but it’s definitely true this time: we were on the go all weekend, and I need a day to recover from all the rushing around. It was a very kid-centric weekend, which was nice – fulfilling. On Saturday, we were up and out the door early for Nugget’s final soccer game of the season. He has loved playing this fall, and I’m thinking of finding him an indoor league to play this winter, although I haven’t decided yet. Both kids also take swimming, and I am thinking of signing them up for indoor ski lessons (yes, that’s a thing!), and I don’t want to overschedule us. So the jury’s still out on indoor soccer. Anyway – the weekend. The game was a total blast (and much warmer than last weekend’s!) and after the game, the coach passed out donuts and trophies. Each kid got his trophy individually and the coach had prepared individual remarks for everyone – it was the sweetest. I tried to video Nugget’s, but screwed up and somehow pressed stop right away, but the gist was – “soccer lover” Nugget came to every game with the biggest smile, worked hard and learned so many new skills, and never, ever, got tired. Sounds about right! After soccer, we rushed home for a quick lunch, and then Peanut and I were back out the door for a Brownie activity at Green Spring Gardens, a beautiful park near our old house. The girls learned about letterboxing, made their own letterboxing log books, and then took a group walk to locate the park’s letterbox. Fun!

Still with me? Saturday was exhausting, and we moved slowly on Sunday morning. I had big plans to go for a long run, but ended up crashed on the couch with my earbuds in, listening to my audiobook. Not a bad way to start Sunday. By late morning, I had zero motivation but had to get off the couch and get the kids to swimming – same old story. But we had fun afternoon plans – a meetup with my law school BFF, Carly, and her husband and kiddos. Carly had her eye on a new-to-us playground near the National Cathedral; it was gorgeous. The kids had a ball running around, trying out the “flying fox” zipline and a steep, fast slide – and more – and Carly and I caught up on the past several months. There’s nothing like a few hours spent with a friend who gets it. We shared joys and vented frustrations, and it was good to talk and listen and be in a safe space with a friend who understands my struggles (and won’t judge) and knows that I understand hers (and won’t judge). It was needed.

Reading. So, I have an achievement to share! Last week (or the week before?) I hit my Goodreads goal for the year. I always set a goal of 104 books (sounds random, but it’s not, it’s two books per week) and I’m now sitting at 106. To celebrate, I obviously decided to read a gigantically long book. After finishing Blitz Writing midweek, accordingly, I turned to the next book in the Chronicles of Barsetshire, Framley Parsonage. I’ve been rationing these, because I love them so much. Framley Parsonage is wonderful – I’m reading it slowly and at press time am a little more than halfway through – although I think I still love Doctor Thorne the best. But Framley has the benefit of several beloved old friends appearing – the Grantlys, Greshams, Proudies, Miss Dunstable, and even Mr Harding all make appearances. So fun! And then around the margins, I’ve been listening to The Sittaford Mystery on Audible; I’m about two-thirds done and forming all kinds of suspicions.

Watching. Speaking of suspicions, the whole family is getting into Miss Marple. Steve won’t admit it, but he’s hooked. We’re working on A Murder is Announced right now. When not solving crimes, we’ve watched another episode or two of The Great British Bake-Off, and several episodes of a Pokemon cartoon (the kids got their first COVID-19 vaccine doses, and we let them pick).

Listening. As noted above, audiobook time. And lots of music, especially when driving the kids places, because they are rudely intolerant of Agatha Christie. Who are these little cretins I am raising?

Making. Progress on Christmas knitting – I made a big error in the infinity scarf, but I fixed it and I hope (???) it looks even cooler now. Please don’t tell me if it doesn’t, lucky or possibly unlucky recipient.

Moving. A little of this and a little of that – a couple of runs (I’m getting my feet back) in the cold, and some walking with my audiobook, and some yoga. Good stuff all, just need more of it.

Blogging. Well, the plan is to have pictures of fall colors at Green Spring Gardens for you on Wednesday; I took my camera and had a lovely time snapping away. But I have to upload and edit them, so we’ll see. And then on Friday, more Shenandoah. The travel posts may continue for many weeks to come and I’m not even mad about it.

Loving. It was so much fun to play in the shadow of the National Cathedral on Sunday! It’s been awhile since I have been up this way, and I forgot how much I love the neighborhood. The National Cathedral reminds me of something I’d have seen in Europe; it’s so beautiful. Peanut asked what a Cathedral “looks like inside,” so I explained it was like “an extra big and glorious and amazing church.” She nodded, said “That’s what I thought,” and went about her business – but I think we will need to make another trip out here soon, and go poke around. It’s been too long since I stepped inside.

Asking. What are you reading this week?

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Shenandoah 2021: Bearfence Mountain

Apparently, spending Labor Day weekend in Shenandoah is our thing – at least, for the last two years it has been. In 2020, we drove out for the day, but in 2021 we decided to make a weekend of it; it was so much fun that I can absolutely see it becoming a tradition. We bunked up at Skylands, a park concessions facility right in the central district of the park, surrounded by some of the best hikes for miles – perfect location. After rolling in on Friday afternoon and spending the first night exploring our surroundings, we woke up on Saturday morning ready to go.

Our first hike – of about seven we planned – was Bearfence Mountain. Although we’ve been to Shenandoah quite a few times before, we’d never hit this one before. The trail included a segment of the famed Appalachian Trail! So cool.

In researching our hikes for the weekend, I planned a mix of repeats and new ground, and I also targeted hikes that – while they may include a more “advanced” route, had an alternate route that would be suitable for the kiddos. Steve downloaded the maps into his phone, and following his directions we quickly came up against – scrambles. They started out relatively easy, but they got intense quickly.

The kids did a fabulous job following directions and climbing safely, but I started to get more and more anxious as the scrambles got more intense.

Eventually, we came up against this monster – the route to the summit. You can’t see from this picture, but there’s a sheer dropoff of a few dozen feet, at least. Although the kids had been game, I just wasn’t comfortable with them scaling this beast. Down we went.

After a huddle, we realized what had gone wrong – the map downloaded was the “more advanced” route to the summit, and while the kids had done wonderfully well with it (and wanted to continue) it was never the route I’d intended them to take. We carefully picked our way down the scrambles to the spot where the trail had split off, then we started to climb again, this time up the more “family friendly” route.

Much better.

Eventually, our circuitous route finally deposited us at our goal – the summit! Views for miles.

These boots are made for walkin’.

It was a bit more roundabout of a hike than we’d intended – but that’s fine. More time in the woods is always good, right? It is in my book.

Next week: an old favorite hike, with summer colors.

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Elizabeth von Arnim on Loving Books

What a blessing it is to love books.  Everybody must love something, and I know of no objects of love that give such substantial and unfailing returns as books and a garden.  And how easy it would have been to come into the world without this, and possessed instead of an all-consuming passion, say, for hats, perpetually raging round my empty soul!  I feel I owe my forefathers a debt of gratitude, for I suppose the explanation is that they too did not care for hats.  In the centre of my library there is a wooden pillar propping up the ceiling, and preventing it, so I am told, from tumbling about our ears; and round this pillar, from floor to ceiling, I have had shelves fixed, and on these shelves are all the books that I have read again and again, and hope to read many times more–all the books, that is, that I love quite the best.  In the bookcases round the walls are many that I love, but here in the centre of the room, and easiest to get at, are those I love the best–the very elect among my favourites.

What a medley of books there is round my pillar!  Here is Jane Austen leaning against Heine–what would she have said to that, I wonder?–with Miss Mitford and Cranford to keep her in countenance on the other side.  Here is my Goethe, one of many editions I have of him, the one that has made the acquaintence of the ice-house and the poppies.  Here are Ruskin, Lubhock, White’s Selborne, Izaak Walton, Drummond, Herbert Spencer (only as much of him as I hope I understand and am afraid I do not), Walter Pater, Matthew Arnold, Thoreau, Lewis Carroll, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Hawthorne, Wuthering Heights, Lamb’s Essays, Johnson’s Lives, Marcus Aurelius, Montaigne, Gibbon, the immortal Pepys, the egregious Boswell, various American children’s book that I loved as a child and read and love to this day; various French children’s books, loved for the same reason; whole rows of German children’s books, on which I was brought up, with their charming woodcuts of quaint little children in laced bodices, and good housemothers cutting bread and butter, and descriptions of the atmosphere of fearful innocence and pure religion and swift judgments and rewards in which they lived, and how the Finger Gottes was impressed on everything that happened to them; all the poets; most of the dramatists; and, I verily believe, every gardening book and book about gardens that has been published of late years.

No one says it quite like Elizabeth, do they?

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It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? (November 7, 2021)

Morning, friends, and happy new week to you. I hope it’s a good one! For me and for you – goodness knows I could use an upswing. Last week was not bad, per se, but not my favorite. On Tuesday we voted in elections for state offices – Governor, Lt. Governor, Attorney General – and for our House of Delegates members, while the entire country watched. I try not to get political on here, so I won’t say much about it, other than that I hope the result doesn’t do too much harm after all the progress we’ve made in the last decade. The new governor-elect is actually from my town, and his underage son attempted to vote – twice – at my polling place; it sounds like things got contentious. These are the times we’re living in. And the week didn’t get much better – a couple of unpleasant Friday afternoon surprises (nothing I can’t handle) and a personal bummer on Saturday made for a grumpy weekend. I hate grumpy weekends; I want my weekends to be happy and glorious all the time. But that’s not quite realistic, is it?

It wasn’t all bad. We had soccer on Saturday morning – the penultimate game of the season; it was supposed to be our last, but since we were rained out last weekend the league is allowing makeup games. As you can see, it was frigid. The entire field was frosted over and there were a bunch of little red-nosed soccer stars running around. I spent most of the game hopping up and down and hugging myself, and conducting a lengthy Halloween post-mortem with Nugget’s friend M’s mom Kate. Nugget did well but his feet got pretty cold; by the fourth quarter he was begging to switch to the other field, which got more sun (at his age, the kiddos play four-on-four over two small fields). The coach was reluctant to put him in, because – as he explained – they were trying to keep the score relatively even between the teams, and it was already lopsided in our favor, and Nugget is just too good. I pulled all my persuasive skills out of my bag and talked the coach into putting Nugget in on the sunny field anyway; he just had to promise to only play defense and not score more than two goals. (See, Nugget, never say having a lawyer mom didn’t do anything for you.) It took a few hours to thaw out after the game, but by midday the temps had climbed and I headed out for a run (!!!) – and not just any run: my favorite run of the season, the Marine Corps 10K (virtual again this year, thanks for nothing, ‘Rona). And then I figured I had earned a couch potato afternoon – after Nugget and I put a pound cake in the oven. Yum.

Sunday was, if anything, busier than Saturday – not the fun kind, though. After swimming, Peanut was invited to a birthday party at Dave and Busters (which necessitated a Target run to buy a noisy game for the birthday boy). Y’all. My twenty-month birthday party-free streak has ended, long live the birthday party-free streak. And guess what we found out! Dave and Busters is the new Chuck E. Cheese! Peanut hated every second, but she showed up for her friend. And we left as soon as the party was over. I was just grouchy all day – the lingering effects of the unpleasant Friday surprises at work and the personal disappointment. Well, can’t win ’em all… next week should be better.

Reading. If it wasn’t the best week in reality, at least it was a good week in books. I finished Paper Girls Vol. 1 on Monday and am already looking forward to continuing on with the series; it’s as weird-interesting as you’d expect from Brian K. Vaughn. Then I spent most of the week slowly reading Murder by Matchlight, one of the ten or so E.C.R. Lorac titles that the British Library has recently brought back into print. I loved it! After really enjoying Crossed Skis, which Lorac wrote under an alternate pen name (Carol Carnac) I started stockpiling other titles, and am looking forward to curling up with each of them in turn. Then Saturday was for the latest issue of Slightly Foxed; it was wonderful from cover to cover, as usual, but the final essay was the best. I also churned through Meet Mr Mulliner this week – between a couple of commuting days, a few walks, and dinner/dishes via Alexa – I finished the entire book, and cackled consistently throughout. (Augustine Mulliner was my favorite.) And finally – last but not least, I’m just in the beginning stages of Blitz Writing, but can already tell it’s gorgeously written and I’m going to love it.

Watching. For a week that was kind of cruddy, comfort viewing is required, and that’s all I watched. Three episodes of The Great British Bake-Off, more Miranda on YouTube (I’m almost through the backlist, whatever will I do) and some Gardeners World. It was all I could face.

Listening. As you can see (above) I am back on audiobooks after a short podcast break. After Meet Mr. Mulliner, I fired up The Sittaford Mystery, by Agatha Christie. Am only about fifteen minutes into it, so just breaking the ice. And on Sunday I wasn’t even in the mood for “convalescent literature” – only music would do, and specifically The New Pornographers. “In the Morse Code of the Brake Lights” on repeat. Can confirm loud singing.

Making. Creative juices were flowing this week. In addition to the regular rotation of home-cooked dinners: Nugget and I made this pound cake (from a Dorie Greenspan recipe – the classic “Perfection Pound Cake” out of her Baking: From My Home to Yours cookbook). We ate it with clotted cream and jam like Proper English People (please note I am neither proper nor English) and it was everything. Also made: progress on Christmas gift knitting – I’mma do it this year, people, just watch – and a completed 2020 family yearbook, because punctuality is for dorks. I haven’t ordered yet, but I will soon – my stackable coupons expire next week. I just want to let it percolate for a couple of days before doing a final proofreading.

Moving. All right, here – I finally have something to tell you. It was race week! (Sort of, because as noted above the Marine Corps 10K was virtual again, thanks to the stupid endless pandemic.) I planned to drive over to run it on my favorite trail, but in the end couldn’t be bothered to get in the car and just ran in my neighborhood instead. I even ran by the home of one of Peanut’s friends from Brownies and waved like a weirdo. Rest of the week – less exciting. Walks. Yoga.

Blogging. I have a lovely long Elizabeth von Arnim quote for you on Wednesday, and the first of a series of Shenandoah hiking recaps on Friday. Tally ho!

Loving. If you’ve been reading for a hot minute, you have probably figured out that I am in almost constant motion. Now that I am finally out of the trenches of new motherhood, and free from the soul-crushing dazed dread of a career I am only just beginning to realize I truly hated, I am back to my natural high energy levels and not a bit mad about it. But sometimes I do want a lazy afternoon on the couch (especially after a freezing cold soccer game followed by a 6.2 mile run) and I had the best one on Saturday, because of this mug and the tea that was inside it. Starting with the mug, it’s from Sussex Lustreware and I’ve had my eye on it for months, but it was sold out. They finally restocked and I pounced. Isn’t she lovely? The picture does it no justice; the pink is absolutely luminous. And of course I love the message. As for the tea inside it, I am spoiled: my best friend, Rebecca, sent me a sampler pack of August Uncommon tea for my birthday, and I broke into it on Saturday. I tried a smoky black tea with burnt sugar and banana notes, and it was delicious. August Uncommon is Rebecca’s favorite tea – she says she loves it even more than Mariage Freres. I’m not sure I’m prepared to take such a drastic step, but am willing to be persuaded. It was certainly a beautiful tea, and made more so by the love with which it arrived. I have the best people.

Asking. Why is it so much fun to crunch dry leaves? And what are you reading this week?