On Friday, one of my outside counsel said in an email that he hoped I’d have a fabulous weekend. I thanked him for the sentiment but confessed that looming over my weekend was a triple threat – a baseball game, swim lessons, and a birthday party (which I was dreading for several reasons). That’s pretty much what we had on the agenda – no hiking, no paddling, basically no grown-up fun; it was all about the kids.

Not to say we didn’t have our nice moments. On Friday evenings, Steve and I try to have an informal date night in the family room – we banish the kids to play on their own, and we watch a movie or play a game. This weekend, we watched the new Death on the Nile, starring Kenneth Branagh and Gal Gadot – with wine. It was a good way to start a weekend that was otherwise given over to other people. On Saturday morning, Nugget’s baseball team faced the mini Royals. Our coach was out of town, so Steve filled in as relief coach and pitcher while I snapped photos, sprayed a cloud of OFF around my hat to keep the annoying gnats away, and anxiously watched Peanut out of the corner of my eye (she has a tendency to creep into the dugout and get yelled at by one parent who is taking this whole little league thing way too seriously, like who cares if she goes into the dugout you guys, but whatever). Then rushed home to get ready for swim lessons – which I ended up skipping. I had a call planned to help my dear friend Vanessa prepare for an interview with my current employer; I’d budgeted 45 minutes or so but ended up on the phone with her for three hours – worth it, though, because she wants this job so badly and I want so badly to have her company at the office again.

On Sunday, Nugget and I had grand plans to bike the C&O Canal Towpath in the morning, but the day dawned dreary and we were both bleary-eyed after a wakeful night – Nugget had a rough nightmare and we ended up hanging out together in the family room from about 1:30 to 3:30 in the morning. Nugget was still a little shaken up by his bad dream (he didn’t want to tell me the details) and begged off biking. Instead I spent the morning on my Peloton, and then Nugget accompanied me to Target to restock some house linens and buy a birthday present for Peanut to take to her party in the afternoon. The birthday girl recently moved to Maryland, so we hauled ourselves through Beltway traffic to the party, which was the usual emotional roller coaster and I was reminded of why the only thing I really didn’t miss during the height of the pandemic was kid birthday parties.

Reading. Last week was weirdly stressful, even though I didn’t have anything in particular going on; I think I’m just tired. Usually that would mean a slower reading week, but not this time. I finished up The Morville Hours on Tuesday and then blazed through the latest issue of Slightly Foxed in a day (had to get to it before the summer issue arrived in its brown cardstock envelope). Spent the rest of the workweek over Unearthing the Secret Garden, which I really enjoyed, and then turned to Nancy Mitford’s The Blessing over the weekend. I’m about two-thirds of the way through and enjoying it immensely. And during the Saturday-into-Sunday wakeful night on the couch, while Nugget calmed down by playing his Nintendo Switch for an hour in the middle of the night, I read Debbie Tung’s delightful collection of comics about being a bookworm in one sitting (because The Blessing was upstairs on my nightstand and I didn’t want to risk waking Steve up by creeping in for it). Like I said, it was a weirdly stressful week in life, but definitely a good one in books.

Watching. This and that, here and there. There was Death on the Nile on Friday, as noted above. And on Sunday night we had a family movie night and I got to pick, so we watched the first act of Hamilton – it had been too long! During the week… I’m sure I’m missing some, but we were on a travel kick and watched a couple of episodes of Rick Steves’ Europe about the Alps, and an hourlong special called Hidden Poland. I’m getting itchy to go back to Europe.

Listening. Still deluding myself that I have a realistic chance of cleaning out my podcatcher, so a few more episodes of The Mom Hour – working my way through about fifty-three downloads. (I “mark as played” the episodes I’m not interested in listening to, which hides them, so these are all episodes that I actually anticipate getting to at some point or another.) A couple of old ones about preparing for summer vacation, which felt timely again.

Making. I finished my Costa Rica photo book! Got another promotion for unlimited free pages, so it was time. I had to just make myself sit down and do it – I don’t mind playing with layout, writing the captions, and choosing backgrounds and embellishments, but the process of loading up the photos and then dragging and dropping them into the storyboard – an essential step before the fun parts of photo book creation can begin – just feels like an interminable chore. But I got it done, and now I’m anxiously awaiting that orange box.

Moving. It was not the best movement week, until Sunday. No hiking – no time over the weekend – and no workouts more intense than neighborhood walks, because I just didn’t feel like I could manage anything else. But on Sunday I spent a much-needed hour on my Peloton with Cody Rigsby, and felt like a new person afterwards.

Blogging. April reading round-up on Wednesday, and back on the dinosaur trail on Friday; check in with me then!

Loving. New La Croix flavor alert, you guys! When Nugget and I were at Target yesterday, I spotted an eight pack of “beach plum” out of the corner of my eye and said, “This I’ve got to try.” It’s so good, you guys. Not going to replace my beloved coconut or pure, but so good.

Asking. What are you reading this week?