Month: August 2023

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Anticipating Autumn 2023

Yesterday morning as I was driving to work, I listened to the latest episode of a favorite motherhood podcast – the hosts were catching each other up on their summer adventures and, at the end of the episode, they shared a few goals for fall. I famously love summer and openly hate on back-to-school (for many reasons which I will not share), but I also love fall. So where’s the line? Anticipating fall feels like wishing time away, but ignoring it and refusing to get excited about my other favorite season feels like wasting time. I’ve reframed the whole conundrum as “we’re midway through my favorite half of the year and I’ve got so much more to look forward to!” and it’s a nice place to be.

So in that spirit, while I’m by no means ready to say goodbye to summer, I am ready to at least start thinking about fall – anticipating my favorite parts of the season and setting some small goals that I’d like to work on.

Anticipating…

  • Seeing the leaves change at my favorite local park. While I love being surrounded by green all summer long, there’s nothing like those reds and oranges.
  • Related: taking a fall hike in Shenandoah National Park. I don’t have any current plans to get out there, but it’s only a little more than an hour’s drive and totally doable for a day. Shenandoah is one of my happy places.
  • Sipping hot apple cider! To be perfectly honest, I am not a pumpkin spice anything person. But apple cider – yes, please.
  • Travel baseball! We’ve never done fall baseball, but it’s going to be a busy season at the ballpark between Nugget’s 9U travel team and regular Little League (which is required for all travel team members). Talk to me in November and I might be over it, but I’m excited right now. It’s so much fun to watch the joy and pride on the little guy’s face.
  • Pumpkin and apple picking. I love a pumpkin patch – and an apple orchard – and while I know the days of my family willingly cooperating are numbered… I’ll never stop trying.
  • Crisp mornings on the deck. I like to wrap up in a cozy blanket and take my tea and book outside in the mornings, but the current weather – still in the 90s – doesn’t allow for the blanket part. A nice cool morning in the 60s would be perfect. Not colder, let’s not get carried away.

Planning…

  • My biggest goal for the fall is to make progress on unpacking. This summer, what with travel and work and running to camp and baseball and all of that, I fell behind a bit. I’ve set a goal to have the living floors of the house unpacked and organized by October 1, and then I’m going to turn my attention to the basement with the ultimate goal of finishing by Christmas. So unpacking and organizing is going to be my new hobby for most of the rest of 2023.
  • I always run the Marine Corps 10K at the end of October and I’m planning to do that again this year. No time goal, but I’d like to work more runs into my weekly schedule (I’ve been distracted by the Peloton for a long time, and I can’t deny that it is fun, but I need to mix it up).
  • For awhile now, I’ve been meaning to learn more about vitamins and skincare and come up with a better, more personalized routine. No time like the present – maybe I can harness some of that September energy and finally do this.

So that’s it! Lots to look forward to in the coming season, and just a few things I’d really like to accomplish. But first things first – it’s still 90+ degrees outside and I’ve got more summer to enjoy.

What are you looking forward to doing this fall?

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The Week in Pages: August 28, 2023

Family, I cannot believe August is almost over. Where did the summer go? This is the time of year when I start to feel very conflicted, because I love summer and fall in equal measure. So I’m… sad that summer is ending, but at the same time… happy about the approach of fall. Hang on, let me overthink this. In the past few years I’ve tried to look at the changing seasons from a different angle – less “I can’t believe summer is ending” or “I can’t wait for fall” and more “I’m midway through my favorite half of the year, there’s so much more to come.” Some days it works better than others.

Anyway! That digression aside, it was a good week in reading. I’ve spent time with two audiobooks: Bookworm, which I finished early last week and absolutely adored, and The Book of Delights, which I’ll wrap up today. At bedtime, Nugget and I finished up Winnie-the-Pooh and are now casting about for our next read: I still have not unpacked my books – this week! – and Nugget has been wanting chapter books at bedtime, so we’re stuck with my kindle. We gave Just William a try last night, which I loved and found hilarious when I read it last year, but Nugget didn’t find as funny. Tonight he wants to see how the first chapter of Swallows and Amazons reads. So we’ll see.

Moving on to my own print books, I also finished The Greengage Summer early last week – so, so good. You can tell it’s good when you’re so reluctant to put it down that you read the final few chapters while absentmindedly stirring dinner on the stovetop and end up slopping tomato sauce everywhere. Unusually for this season of life, I have a library stack right now – so that was my next stop. I’d reserved The Maid because I wanted to make sure to get to it before the second book in the series comes out this fall. I enjoyed it, but I didn’t think the author entirely played fair with the ending, which disappointed me. Still a good read, but not destined to become a favorite – for that reason. Finally, another library book – an impulse grab off an endcap while browsing the stacks after picking up The Maid – I embarked on a literary tour with Novel Destinations. Usually a bookish travel book flies by for me, but I’ve been plodding through this one a bit and am only a third of the way through despite starting it at the end of last week. It’s fun though, so I’m chalking the slow reading pace up to being busy with unpacking and house projects over the weekend, and not able to sit and read as much as I ordinarily would. I’ll finish it up this week, and then no idea what comes next: I’ve got two more library books checked out, so maybe one of those, but I also want to get to Brat Ferrar soon.

One of the things keeping me busy this past weekend: a Sunday morning 10k. It was hot and muggy and it took me three miles to get into a groove, so not the best race. But I got it done.

What are you reading this week?

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Antarctica and Patagonia 2023: Whale-mina Bay

We had a lot of downtime on our Antarctica trip: between four days crossing the Drake (two in each direction) plus all the time in transit between adventures, there was lots of opportunity to chat with fellow passengers. And a frequent topic of conversation was: what brings you to Antarctica? It’s not exactly a hop, skip and jump from anywhere: everyone on the ship had gone literally to the end of the world to be here. You don’t generally do that for no reason.

Quite a few of our fellow passengers were joining the coveted Seven Continents Club. (Hope that’s me someday, but I’ve still got three to go.) Others were there to cross the Southern Circle or to step foot on mainland Antarctica. When asked “why Antarctica?” by fellow travelers, I’d usually demur: “because it’s there.” (Quoting George Mallory on climbing Everest.) But that actually wasn’t the truth. Yes, I wanted to come to Antarctica because its very existence was drawing me there. But there was something in particular I was looking for.

On the Antarctic Peninsula, along the route frequented by tour operators, is a bay called Wilhelmina Bay. On the surface, it looks much like any other bay along the craggy Antarctic coastline. Towering black mountains, blue ice glaciers, a heavy marine layer and occasional bursts of blowing snow from the katabatic winds. But under the surface, there’s a confluence of krill in such numbers as to draw, at any time, dozens and dozens of whales – so much so, that the bay has earned the nickname “Whale-mina Bay.” When I started researching a possible Antarctic voyage, all the way back in 2018, Wilhelmina Bay jumped off the (web)page at me. It became the fulcrum around which all of my Antarctic dreams swung: the idea of kayaking in this remote wilderness and seeing a whale.

I wasn’t picky – I’d take any type of whale and any behavior. And while I’d love a close-up visitation, just to be there and to share space with one of these giants – that’s all I asked.

For days before, knowing we were headed for Wilhelmina Bay (our kayak guide, Jess, celebrated a birthday on our trip and used her birthday wish on my dream), I was a mess. What if we didn’t make it there? What if we couldn’t kayak? Worst – what if we didn’t see a whale? Steve told me to get a grip and try to just look forward to it without turning it into a fountain of anxiety. But I couldn’t. It was a dream that had been living in the very center of my heart for years, and on the eve of it finally coming true, I was afraid I’d come all this way, and get so close, only to miss it.

We did see a big mammal right off the bat, but it wasn’t a whale – it was a massive leopard seal, hauled out on the sea ice.

This was Steve’s absolute favorite moment of the trip. (Being taller, he had a better view than I did of the leopard seal, and a better sense of its scale. But I could see it fine – and it was gigantic. Pictures do it no justice; its head was the size of a male lion.)

We bobbed around watching the seal for awhile, but then YT’s radio fizzed to life. There was a whale in the vicinity.

Dreams. Do. Come. True.

I’d thought that if I did see a whale from my kayak, I’d be in floods of tears. But I was just at peace – just being there with this majestic animal.

I still can’t believe this afternoon was real and that it really happened to me.

Reluctantly, we tore ourselves away from the whale (actually, it left us after a few of our fellow kayakers decided to try to get closer than the whale wanted) and headed slowly back to the ship. We changed into cozy clothes and climbed up to the observation dock, not wanting to miss a moment as we cruised out of Wilhelmina Bay. And as we slowly motored out to sea, whales began surfacing all around our ship – so many that we couldn’t tell which direction to look; there were whales to port, whales to starboard, whales surfacing off the stern, whales diving off the bow: we counted more than forty. We had to scrape our jaws off the deck before heading inside.

What a gift this place was. Thank you, Antarctica.

Next week: we paddle the sparkling waters of Cierva Cove.

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Bookshop Tourism: The Bookstore Plus, Lake Placid, NY

I have many fond memories of childhood visits to Lake Placid – an Alpine town nestled in the heart of the Adirondack Mountains, with the honor of being the Olympic host city in both 1932 and 1980. Although the Adirondacks are fun any time of year, when I was little we mostly went in the winter, to ski at Whiteface Mountain – so the bulk of my Lake Placid memories are tinged with cold: learning to ice skate on the Olympic Oval, skiing every trail on Whiteface many times over, tubing down a long slide onto an icebound Mirror Lake, and ducking into the charming shops along Lake Placid’s main drag to get out of the cold. Some of those shops are long gone and live only in my memory (like a hat emporium where I tried on every piece of headwear in the store, once, or the absolutely captivating toy and game shop where I could get literally anything personalized with my name – oh, the possibilities). But one shop that has remained and still graces its customary spot in town is, naturally, my favorite: The Bookstore Plus.

It really is a bookstore plus, by which I mean it’s so! much! more! than just books. (Not that I need anything more than books, mind you.) There’s a well-curated stationery section and lots of art supplies if you’re inclined that way, which I am not. But the books are really the hero – there’s plenty to choose from in every genre and for every taste, but The Bookstore Plus really excels in local offerings and Adirondack-themed reading. (For example, that gorgeous art book in the picture above – Great Camps of the Adirondacks – Steve bought and presented to me as an anniversary gift the last time we were in Lake Placid, back in 2021, and I’ve spent many happy hours turning its pages and gazing enraptured at the lakefront real estate.)

See what I mean? There are entire shelves of books dedicated to the Adirondacks.

Including this series, which looks fabulous. I didn’t buy this, and now I wish I had, along with the rest of the books in the series. They look absolutely hilarious. I can only hope they’ll still be there the next time I make my way to the Adirondacks.

Instead, I made my way here, to my favorite part of any bookstore – the classics section. There’s a good one at The Bookstore Plus. I picked up a lovely hardback edition of Walden (I know Thoreau was not a Barkeater, but a book about life in the woods seemed fitting, I didn’t actually own a copy, and I’ve been gradually buying the Gibbs Smith hardback editions of nature classics.) I never leave a bookstore empty-handed.

I also almost bought the two Elderly Lady books – An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good, which I borrowed from the library a few years ago and loved, and An Elderly Lady Must Not Be Crossed, which I have not yet read. If I wasn’t trying to avoid overloading my luggage, I probably would have grabbed them.

I’ve bought many books here over the years (and had many books bought for me before I had purchasing power of my own – thanks Mom and Dad) and it never fails to make me smile, to see The Bookstore Plus with its whimsical window displays and wide selection of Adirondack (and other) reading material. Can’t wait for my next visit.

Do you have fond memories of book shopping on childhood vacations?

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The Week in Pages: August 21, 2023

Well – it’s Monday morning, and not just any Monday, but the first day of school! Gulp. How did summer go so quickly? Nugget was more excited than I have seen him in a long time – possibly more excited than he was on Christmas Eve. Peanut was… quietly enduring. (A note: I think it’s just wrong that school starts before Labor Day. Just wrong. I can only conclude that the school district is burying my comments from the annual scheduling survey. Get your tinfoil hats out, people!)

Anyway – as you can see from the above, despite the busy week of getting ready to go back to school, plus the ongoing unpacking push (last week was “clothes week” and I am SO happy with my newly organized closet…) I still managed to push through a lot of pages. First of all, in the “finished” category – Nugget and I wrapped up Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire after months of reading half a chapter to one chapter at bedtime every night. On audio, while commuting, running errands and unpacking, I whipped through At Bertram’s Hotel, which wasn’t my favorite of Miss Marple’s outings but was nonetheless time well spent. (As time with Miss Marple always is.) And finally, on paper, Bricks and Mortar, which is a story of an architect and his family in the first decades of the twentieth century – I liked it, but didn’t love it as much as I thought I would.

Whew! Still with me? Moving on to current reads, I have three on the go. Nugget and I started reading Winnie-the-Pooh at bedtime and are rolling right through it; we’ll finish it this week. Nugget was a bit skeptical (I think he may have through Pooh was babyish – at first) but he cackled through the chapter in which Pooh and Piglet think they’re tracking a Woozle through the snow but are actually just tracking themselves, and I think he’s a convert. On audio, I’m reading and loving Lucy Mangan’s memoir Bookworm. (I feel like we could be good friends. Anyone else?) And in print, I’m finally getting to The Greengage Summer, which has been on my TBR for years. So, so good!

Looking back at this list – I don’t know how I have made it through so many books this past week, but I love it! Reader power!

I can’t believe it’s the first day of school already – hold me. Summer vacation went by way too fast.

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Antarctica and Patagonia 2023: Danco Island

A new day brought a lot of excitement when the expedition guides unveiled the agenda: starting with a morning’s shore landing at Danco Island. Danco is considered one of the biggest penguin hotspots (coldspots?!) in Antarctica, so the penguin-huggers and bird nerds were pretty excited. (Don’t worry, there was excitement ahead for the whale lovers, too.)

Because ocean conditions were again good, we started out in the kayaks (as with any shore landing, half the guests went zodiac cruising and half were onshore at any given time, and the kayakers were paddling). The icebergs around Danco were absolutely glorious.

Our paddle started out under grey skies, but not long into the morning, the sun broke through the clouds and we saw some stunning blue sky.

Towards the end of each paddle, whenever it was feasible (i.e. we were far enough from the ship and zodiacs not to hear engine noise), our lead guide YT would gather the group together and direct us to be as quiet as we possibly could for two minutes. We’d bob around in the water, dipping our paddles in only when necessary to avoid bumping into another boat, and just listen.

We’d hear seabirds and penguins calling, ice cracking, waves lapping, and even occasionally a glacier calving. These were some of the most peaceful, serene and present moments I’ve ever experienced.

Eventually, it was time to leave the kayaks behind and go explore Danco Island. We unloaded at Big Bertha and steamed off for our shore landing.

Perhaps Danco was over-hyped, but it wasn’t the penguin mecca I’d expected. There were plenty of penguins, certainly, and they were waddling around adorably, doing penguin things. But there were more penguins at Port Charcot and Neko Harbour.

Any penguin time, however, is great!

Steve and I explored the island a little bit, but I didn’t want to walk around too much. At this point in the trip, going from penguin colony to penguin colony wasn’t that satisfying. What I really wanted to do was set up camp in one spot and stay there as long as possible, immersing myself in the penguins’ world and watching their behaviors. So after we’d seen the entire walking route the guides mapped out, Steve and I stood on a rock looking down on the beach and just watched.

Penguin rager!

One interesting observation – made by Jomi, the trip ornithologist, and pointed out to those of us who were standing around watching – was that the penguins on the beach had chicks. Gentoo penguins generally do not nest on the beaches, so this was a bit surprising. No idea why – perhaps just a side-effect of the weird nesting season that saw chicks being born at staggered intervals all summer instead of in one big baby boom?

I guess we’ll never know, but it was fun to watch, all the same. I filmed for a bit, caught a handful of penguins going for a swim, and just enjoyed taking in the bustling scene. At one point, everyone jumped out of the water in one big wave…

And then we saw why…

A Weddell seal, cruising by the beach looking for lunch. The penguins all stayed safely up on dry ground – or ice – until the seal was gone. It would be anthropomorphizing to say they looked nervous, but they were definitely on high alert.

Every day I’m shuffling.

(Who’s that^ guy? Wink.) It was a fun morning on Danco with my favorite paddling buddy! Before we knew it, we were hustling back to the zodiacs, ready to head back to the ship and warm up, because we had the most exciting activity of all on the schedule for the afternoon…

Next week: the whole reason I went to Antarctica!

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Reading Round-Up: July 2023

Reading is my oldest and favorite hobby. I literally can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t love to curl up with a good book. Here are my reads for July, 2023.

A Sultry Month: Scenes of London Literary Life in 1846, by Alethea Hayter – This group biography of several writers and artists living and working in Victorian London was well-written and interesting. It’s quite cerebral, so word to the wise – save it for a time when you’ve got the energy and attention to devote. Like, maybe, not while you’re moving house.

The Thirty-First of June, by J.B. Priestley – I absolutely loved this fun and silly romp. An Arthurian princess looks into a magic mirror that shows her the face of her beloved and sees a low-level advertising firm employee in 1960s London. With the help of two feuding magicians, the two end up time-traveling to meet each other, but they keep missing one another. A fast read and absolutely hilarious.

The Last Chronicle of Barset (Chronicles of Barsetshire #6), by Anthony Trollope – The final installment in the Barsetshire series and the finally book on my Classics Club list, finishing this was bittersweet. It was a good story with lots of old friends. Fully reviewed here – I loved it.

In This House of Brede, by Rumer Godden – Everything I read by Rumer Godden just blows me away. This “contemporary” chronicle of nuns in a Benedictine abbey was gorgeously written and the main character’s story was heart-wrenching.

One Summer: America 1927, by Bill Bryson – We 2023 Americans think that we’re living through hectic times in the news cycle, and we are, but it’s not for the first time. 1927 was a very eventful summer, for example. Charles Lindbergh flew across the ocean, Babe Ruth broke his home run record, Sacco and Venzetti were executed, and so much more happened – the main plotlines aside, every chapter is filled with interesting little detours and hilarious Bryson-esque asides. I listened to this on audio – read by the author, it was a fabulously engaging listen; I kept finding myself inventing errands to run so I’d have an excuse to drive around listening more.

Swallows and Amazons (Swallows and Amazons #1), by Arthur Ransome – I’ve been meaning to read this for years – literally for years – and always thought it would make a perfect summer read. So it did. The story of four siblings and their friends, who sail and have adventures on an idyllic English lake one summer, is a total job. I’ve been trying to convince Nugget to let me read it aloud to him at bedtime, because I already want to revisit it.

House Woman, by Adorah Nworah – This was a book club choice that I didn’t love, to be honest. Thrillers are not my jam and some of the details really bothered me. It’s a good premise – a Nigerian woman is lured to the United States and held captive there by friends of her parents – but I didn’t care enough about the characters to find it tense or exciting.

The Jasmine Farm, by Elizabeth von Arnim – I’d heard this lesser-known von Arnim was even more charming than Father, which I adored. I don’t know that I would go that far, but this story of a judgmental aristocratic woman and her collision with a social-climbing actress in a rustic little farm in France was fun. The problem was that it took too long to get to the good part. But any von Arnim is going to be a worthwhile read for me and I can certainly see myself returning to this one – just maybe not as often as I return to The Enchanted April.

Whew! This post took a long time to write up and publish, but I can certainly say that July was a good month in reading. While I didn’t love everything I read last month, there were some real highlights – The Last Chronicle of Barset stands out, as does One Summer. Lots of good summer reading, too – quite a few of the books I read last month take place in the summer season, which is of course why I saved them to pick up at this time. I’m starting to pay more attention to reading books in the season they’re set, and while it doesn’t always work out it does add to the experience.

How was your July in books?

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The Week in Pages: August 14, 2023

Welp, it’s Monday, I’ve been back from vacation for over a week, and routines are happening again. Our road trip through New England actually brought more reading time than vacations usually do – all that car passenger time; I’m fortunate to be able to read in a moving vehicle – and I’m glad to report I was able to keep up the momentum over the week at home, notwithstanding it being rather a stressful one. As we rolled back into Virginia last Sunday, I started The Growing Summer by Noel Streatfeild, which proved to be a quick and delightful read. I blazed through, finished it on Tuesday, and turned to a book that has been on my TBR for ages: the Australian classic Picnic at Hanging Rock. This tense and atmospheric story of an unexplained disappearance of several girls and a teacher from a posh girls’ school actually takes place in February, which is the height of the hot Australian summer. So I was torn: should I read this in the heat of my own summer, or save it for Valentine’s Day reading? In the end I opted for the summer reading experience and it was definitely the right call to read when the mercury is through the roof – the heat is such an important part of the story, I think reading it in winter would have felt odd.

So much for my finished books: on to current reads. (One is missing here: Nugget and I read reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire at bedtime and we’re almost done – down to the penultimate chapter. So that’s a current read but it takes so long I don’t include it in these posts until we finish it, which will probably be this week.) After Picnic at Hanging Rock I was originally thinking I’d move on to The Greengage Summer, but I think that might be another tense read, so I decided to put it off and read Helen Ashton’s quiet domestic novel of a family and their various houses, Bricks and Mortar. I’m working on some DIY renovations around my unpacking schedule, so a house novel felt like it might be fun for this week. And speaking of those DIY renovations, yesterday was dedicated to priming and painting the kitchen cabinet doors, and that’s a task that always goes more quickly with an audiobook. I started At Bertram’s Hotel on Audible and listened to about a third of it while working on my paint project (before switching to Taylor Swift to get my energy up). Between commutes and errands, I expect I’ll finish it this week – it’s not very long.

This turned out to be rather a bigger project than I thought it would, but I’m almost done! Nineteen cabinet doors, all given a coat of primer and two coats of paint on each side yesterday – oof, and you can bet I’m sore today. I’m reinstalling them in the kitchen, updating the handles, and then they’ll get one little touch-up in a few spots and I’ll be DONE applying lipstick to this pig.

What are you reading this week? And any home renovation projects underway?

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Antarctica and Patagonia 2023: Humpbacks in Paradise

After our exciting morning at Neko Harbour – first an absolutely stunning paddle, followed by a mainland landing and penguin-watching – we headed for another breathtaking Antarctic location: Paradise Bay. Although the cloud cover that had descended just as we were landing at Neko stayed around all afternoon, there was no wind and the ocean conditions were good, so kayaking was a go. Yay! We launched from Big Bertha as usual and I was immediately wowed by the incredible mountains all around us.

One of the things the trip photographer had told us was that the icebergs seem to glow from within when the skies are moody. It was definitely true.

Paradise Bay promised some fun sights. First, we paddled by Base Brown – formerly a British outpost that is now in the hands of the Argentinians, it has an interesting history. As we’d learned in one of the history lectures we attended to pass the time while crossing the Drake, Base Brown was burned down by a doctor who was over-wintering there when it was still a British base – apparently he couldn’t handle the darkness and loneliness. Over-wintering in Antarctica is definitely not for everyone.

We paddled right under the sea cliffs on which Base Brown perches and I tossed off a comment to Steve, over my shoulder, about “that crazy doctor.” One of our kayaking buddies, who happens to be a doctor – a psychiatrist, actually – was paddling by just as I made the remark, and shouted over: “What? You mean me?” Nope! The other crazy doctor! Just keep paddling, nothing to see here.

The penguins seemed comfortable enough at Base Brown.

After we had a chance to check out the scene, our lead kayak guide YT beckoned to us to follow him over to a big nesting colony of Antarctic cormorants.

The cormorants were perched all over a massive sea cliff – it was a really impressive sight. And they had two chicks!

We spent awhile bobbing around under the sea cliffs watching the cormorants. Steve and I joked that Antarctic cormorants must be better at flying than other cormorants, or maybe they climbed up there. We love to rag on cormorants. Who doesn’t?

There were a couple of solitary penguins too.

After Base Brown and the cormorants, we paddled around a bit more looking at the stunning scenery. Paradise Bay was well-named, indeed.

Ahhhhh – too beautiful. Before any of us were ready to say goodbye, it was time to load up Big Bertha and head back to the ship to warm up. One by one, we clambered out of our kayaks and into the zodiac while guides Jess and YT bobbed in their red kayaks offering helping hands. As we settled into Big Bertha, with just the guides to follow, we heard a theatrical shout from YT, and then a splash. A similarly dramatic scream from Jess, and another splash.

Mark, our zodiac driver, immediately ordered us all onto one side of the zodiac. Thinking he was going to capsize us next, one of the group said “Mmm-mmm!” and immediately adjusted her wool hat. But Mark didn’t capsize Big Bertha, and the guides had not simultaneously lost their minds. It turned out this was a rescue drill for Mark, which – as the kayak group’s safety zodiac driver – he is required to complete once a season. He never knows when the guides will intentionally capsize themselves, so he has to be ready at all times to make a rescue.

Working as a team to help Mark, we hauled Jess and YT back into the zodiac, where they sat on the floor looking cold and drenched. Definitely time to go back to the ship and warm up – or was it?

As we steamed towards the Ocean Diamond, we caught sight of something exciting off in the distance – a black back in the water! Mark asked YT and Jess if they were good to stay out for just a bit longer. They confirmed they were warm enough, and we zoomed off to have a look at a whale.

We got a bit closer, then killed the engines and watched our new friend diving and surfacing. This was a quite young juvenile – not quite a calf, but young enough that we were surprised he was on his own. Hopefully he was just having a little explore and wasn’t separated from Mom.

What a lovely way to cap off a fun and engaging paddle! First Base Brown, then cormorants, then guides in the water, and now a playful humpback whale!

Thank you, Antarctica, for delivering treasured memories once again.

Next week: more penguins in one of their favorite spots – Danco Island!

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Reflections on Finishing the Classics Club Challenge

Five years. Fifty classics. I’ve-lost-count-of-how-many pages.

I can’t resist a reading project; I know this. Give me a challenge to attack or boxes to check and I am all over it. (My kids, by contrast, aren’t even interested in the library’s summer reading program – which comes with prizes. Prizes. Who are these children?) This was my second – or maybe third – round of the Classics Club Challenge, which sets the audacious goal of reading and reviewing fifty classic books in five years. In a previous round, I set the even more audacious goal of reading 100. I figured, I read over 100 books in a year; 100 classics over five years – less than 20% of my reading – should be no sweat. Joke’s on me; I discovered that while far more than 20% of my reading is devoted to classics, I tend to read classics other than what is on my challenge list. Apparently the quickest way to guarantee that I won’t read a book: put it on a list. Who knew.

I’m going to try to remember that. Because I did read some really wonderful books over this round of challenge reading, and it would have been a shame to miss out. There were re-reads, like The Tenant of Wildfell Hall… new favorite series, like the Chronicles of Barsetshire or the Mapp & Lucia novels… hilarious books like Three Men on the Bummel… lesser-known treasures like The Priory…

Still, I did note that especially once I got to the end, I was getting weary of the project and weary of the books I’d gleefully listed out five years before. I didn’t want to read these; I still wanted to read classics, but different classics. I’d made the cardinal error of making reading feel like school. (And I liked school.) It was almost reading slump territory.

I am glad I did this project. I read some really spectacular books, and the review requirement forced me to think about them critically and carefully. I discovered some new-to-me favorites, and I’ll certainly be going back and re-reading many of the books on my Classics Club list. But I think I need a good long break before I do this particular challenge again – if at all. I’d rather just read what I feel like reading, without the pressure of checking something off a list. And the funny thing about that is: what I feel like reading is generally classics, so I’ll still be working my way through plenty of those.

Still, I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t have some goal or project or another in mind. And I do, rather.

A few years ago, I was heavily addicted to library books. I was walking to the Barrett Branch library in Old Town Alexandria at least twice a week, and maybe more, and bringing home stacks. And as I read my way through library book after library book, I sometimes glanced at my own shelves and sighed; I never seemed to have time to read the books that I’d deemed worthy of a permanent space on my shelves. How could this be? Then the pandemic hit, and my library visits screeched to a halt – and I was forced to read from my own shelves. This was just the spark I needed. Even after the library cautiously reopened for curbside pickup, I only returned sporadically; it was too much fun to read my own books, like I’d been wanting to do for years.

Of course, over the three years since my enforced return to my own bookshelves, I’ve added more books (and another shelf). Because of course I have. So I am not sure I’ve actually made much progress towards reading everything I actually own – classic.

So that’s my new goal, or really, my ongoing goal: to read my own books. It’s a loose goal, or a non-goal. There’s no timeframe and no rules: I just want to keep reading my own books and maybe someday get down to Inbox Zero on the bookshelf situation. Maybe I’ll do this methodically or maybe I won’t – I haven’t decided how I’ll keep track, if at all, and I know I won’t read according to any order or system. I’m just going to pick up books from my shelves that look good in the moment and try not to buy too many more for awhile. We’ll see how that goes.

Have you ever done a reading challenge? Did you find it valuable or did it kind of ruin the books for you?