Author: Jaclyn

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Midsummer Musings

There’s no getting around it – this has been a weird summer.  And not the good kind of weird.  Lots of rain, lots of sadness, lots of solo weekends with the kids as Steve has been traveling every few weeks.  Lots of work stress and some disappointments on the professional front.  The garden’s a dud (but the weeds are thriving).  We’ve barely hit the trails at all, we’ve only been to the pool once, we haven’t picked blueberries and we haven’t kayaked once (unless you count a failed attempt I made while visiting my parents’ lake house – Nugget cried if I got more than five feet from the dock).  I bought the kids their own kayak paddles to use at Fletcher’s Cove and on vacation in the Adirondacks this summer, and they’re still in the boxes.  All things considered, it’s just… not shaking out.

That’s not to say there hasn’t been some good stuff.  I don’t mean to throw myself a pity party here – or at least, not for too long.  We made it to Cornell Reunion and to visit my folks (including my brother and sister-in-love), and we’ve done a little hiking – Bash Bish Falls was a highlight.  Peanut sang a solo at the camp talent show.  I started baking bread.  But even with those highlights, it just feels like the earth is off its axis.

But I’m a naturally hopeful person, and I’m convinced we can still turn this ship around and salvage one of my favorite seasons.  Our family vacation is still ahead of us and I’m looking forward to long days of hiking Adirondack trails, splashing in Mirror Lake and sipping local Lake Placid brews.  I’ve read some wonderful books and I have a big stack of more summer reads waiting for me.  And right now, as I write this, the kids are running around the house playing “Magic Tree House,” and their little voices lift my heart like nothing else.

It’s been a weird summer.  But I’m finding joy where I can, and there’s more on the horizon.

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Reading Round-Up: July 2018


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, 2018…

Slightly Foxed No. 58: A Snatch of Morning, ed. Gail Pirkis – It’s always a red-letter day when the latest issue of Slightly Foxed arrives on my doorstep!  This quarterly journal has brought me so much joy since I stumbled across it a couple of years ago now.  The latest issue was the same hodgepodge of delightfulness – this time around, there were essays on E.M. Forster’s great-aunt (which I really enjoyed, as I was reading Howards End at the same time); beards; Englishness; and Jane Austen’s favorite poet.  There’s nothing quite like an issue of Slightly Foxed for curling up with – gigantic cup of tea optional but desirable.

Howards End, by E.M. Forster – Here’s one that’s been on the TBR for ages, which I finally picked up because (1) there’s a new adaptation and I wanted to watch it but I really wanted to read the book first; and (2) I got a pretty hardcover copy from Hodder & Stoughton.  The story of the clashes and intersections between the Schlegel sisters and the Wilcox family were absorbing from beginning to end – and, predictably, I identified with Margaret and found Helen mildly exasperating.

I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness, by Austin Channing Brown – I’m not sure if lately there are more memoirs about the experience of living as a woman of color, or if I’m just more aware of them, but I’ve read several now and this is a standout.  Brown writes compellingly about names, identity, work, religion and more.  The section in which she details the microaggressions of a typical workday was really eye-opening and made me all the more determined to be a good ally.  (My friend Zan also read this book last month, although I don’t think we were aware that we were reading the same book at the time.  Go check out her thoughts on the book here.)

North and South, by Elizabeth Gaskell – Another one that I’ve been meaning for a long time to read.  I picked this up while in the first shock of grieving for a loved one who had enjoyed this book, and it was the only thing that made me feel better.  Asked to describe it midway through the reading experience, I said it was “Pride and Prejudice and labor unrest,” and I hold to that elevator pitch – but man, it is SO good.  For some reason I’d had it in my head that Elizabeth Gaskell would be a difficult read, but that can’t be further from my experience.  I’ve now read two of her books – the other being Cranford – and loved both.  I can’t wait to wend my way through the rest.

Summer, by Edith Wharton – Sometimes described as “the hot Ethan,” Summer tells the story of young Charity Royall’s awakening during an affair with the cousin of a neighbor, visiting from the city.  Typical for Wharton, the writing is spare and elegant and the scene-setting is atmospheric.  I enjoyed it all the more for having just been in Lenox, where Wharton had her country estate, earlier in the month.  (The Mount has long been on my to-do list.  I must make it happen sooner than later.)

The Coldest Winter Ever, by Sister Souljah – I picked this up because it was described as a “classic of urban literature” and was recommended on PBS’ The Great American Read.  But man alive, how I hated it.  Winter Santiaga is the spoiled eldest daughter of a Brooklyn drug kingpin, but her world comes crashing down when her father is arrested.  Winter decides she is going to do whatever she has to do in order to survive, but surviving for Winter appears to mean finding a man to take care of her, or alternatively, coming up with her own crime schemes to get money quick so she can buy designer clothes.  For a short time she comes within the orbit of Sister Souljah, a Harlem activist who comes across as completely self-righteous and sanctimonious.  Midnight, the only man Winter can’t get, and Rashida, one of Winter’s acquaintances at a group home she resides in temporarily, are the only characters I found at all worthwhile in the book.  For awhile I tried to equate Winter with other unsympathetic anti-heroines – namely Scarlett O’Hara – but it didn’t work.  Scarlett at least had something she loved outside of herself – Tara, her father’s plantation – and her schemes were all centered around her purpose of saving and keeping Tara.  Winter was only interested in Winter.  But I plugged away at it and finally finished, and it’s been a long time since I’ve been so glad to be done with a book.

Slightly Foxed No. 5: A Hare’s Breath, ed. Gail Pirkis – After the 400-page miseryfest that was The Coldest Winter Ever, I needed some quick comfort, and fortunately I had a few essays left to read in the fifth volume of Slightly Foxed (as I am reading my way through the back issues at the meditative pace of an essay or two a night, unless I need a palate cleanser from a terrible reading experience).  I think I should read through more quickly, though, because the essays at the end, when I was steaming along, made more of an impression than the earlier essays I read in snatches.  Particular highlights were an introduction to a princess who followed her Decembrist husband to Siberia, and a meander through the gardening literature of Vita Sackville-West (which is already on my Amazon wish list).

News from Thrush Green (Thrush Green #3), by Miss Read – I was still in need of comfort reading after finishing the Slightly Foxed issue described above, and there’s nothing like Miss Read for that.  I’d been saving this third installment in the Thrush Green series and I happily dove right back into that world.  In this one, marital problems abound.  Nelly Piggott leaves her husband Albert after he grouses about her cooking one too many times, and a newcomer arrives in the village with a sweet son but no husband (!!!!!) which, naturally, sets tongues wagging.  There are other domestic disturbances, too – the Baileys host an irritating family member for an extended visit and Dotty Harmer has kittens to give away.  Thrush Green is a sweet, slow-paced world where the problems are slight and you’re guaranteed that everything will turn out fine in the end.  Just what the doctor ordered.

I definitely did more reading in July than in June – I suppose I was making up for lost time.  And so many classics this month!  Time spent over Elizabeth Gaskell, Edith Wharton, E.M. Forster and Miss Read is always a delight, as is any moment I am able to snatch with an issue of Slightly Foxed.  I always end a month feeling more satisfied with and comforted by my reading if it’s included plenty of classics, and July was no exception – I guess I know what I like.

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It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? (August 6, 2018)

Some weekend!  The big news around here is that Peanut lost her first tooth on Saturday.  Yup!  She’s officially a big kid.  She was delighted with her haul from the Tooth Fairy (four quarters! so shiny!) and I now have a tooth in my jewelry box.  (Mom readers: what does one do with baby teeth?  Saving them seems weird.)  The other big news was that Peanut sang a solo – How Far I’ll Go, from Moana – at the camp talent show on Friday.  I worked from home and Steve and I both took the afternoon off to be there.  I was so proud!  Last year she hid in the back row as her group sang “This Land is Your Land” and this year she tore out in front of the audience, grabbed the mic and went to town.  What a difference a year makes, huh?

The rest of the weekend was fairly low-key, which was both bad and good.  Bad because I had a long list of things I really needed to get done – for work and for the personal project I am still plugging away at, which feels like it has no end in sight, ugh – and good because all I want lately is slow weekends.  We hiked both Saturday and Sunday – on Saturday at Turkey Run Park in McLean, and on Sunday at Mason Neck, our favorite Virginia state park, in Lorton.  We’d hoped to get out on the water on Sunday, but with all the rain we’ve had, the Potomac water levels were crazy high and moving fast – not exactly little duffer conditions.  The rest of the weekend, we mostly just drifted around.  I baked bread, Nugget and I walked to the library, and Peanut and I did some grocery shopping.  It would’ve been perfect had I just not felt anxious/guilty about the work and project stuff I wasn’t doing.

 

Reading.  Fairly slow, but thoroughly enjoyable, reading week around here.  I finished up News from Thrush Green midweek, and there is really nothing like Miss Read to beat the stress of a fast-paced and demanding life.  I love Thrush Green just as much as Fairacre by now, and it’s such a joy to spend more time in Miss Read’s worlds.  Still looking for village calm and peace after finishing News, I turned to Marghanita Laski’s novel of post-war social changes, The Village.  I’m reading it slowly and meditatively, but loving it.

Watching.  Still working our way through the latest season of The Great British Baking Show.  We’re down to the final four contestants now, and I’m in denial that we’re almost done and soon won’t have any more episodes to watch – sob.  At least the first episode of Making It is available, so I’ve got something to look forward to.  Oh, also, I’m pleased to report that the kids discovered SING last week, and I have now seen it eleventy-seven times.

Listening.  Y’all are going to think I’m a huge dork, but I don’t even care.  I have alternated between listening to The Great Courses on The English Novel via Audible and falling down a Fireside Collective rabbit hole, and I’m not even sad about it.  (Please don’t stop reading.)

Making.  More bread!  And lists – lots of lists – of hiking and paddling gear, camera equipment, hikes to do and breweries to check out on our upcoming vacation to Lake Placid.  Not much longer to wait now!

Blogging.  I have a belated list of July’s reads coming on Wednesday, and on Friday I’m getting a bit glum about what a weird summer we’ve been having.  It happens.

Wondering.  Moms, what sorts of things did you do to encourage your kiddos to read?  Peanut has the mechanical skills and is able to read quite a bit through a combination of sight words and phonics, and she’s totally book-crazy and given to carrying her books around the house and cuddling with them.  But these impulses are at war with her inner drive not to do anything an adult appears to want her to do.  I got her some super-cute early readers from the library, but she was all eye-rolly and ugh, Mom about them.  I don’t want to turn her off books, so I’m not pushing them hard, but I’d love for her to actually spend a little time with them.  Any advice?

Loving.  It’s vinho verde season!  I’ll happily drink rosé all year long, but I do think vinho verde is a summer wine.  I love the lightness and the little bit of fizz – yum.  Steve asked me to pick up some wine on Friday, and I tossed two bottles of vinho verde into my cart, and we enjoyed one on Friday evening.  Summer perfection!

Asking.  What are you reading this week?

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On Living Slow

Recently I was walking home from the Metro after another evening of working late – tired, of course, and hungry, because as usual I didn’t know that I’d be working late by the deadline to order dinner on the firm.  As I trudged up the steps to my front door, I waved hello to my next-door neighbor, who was gardening in her front yard.  She waved back, then frowned, and said “You must think that I have no life.”

I thought about that.  There she was, enjoying the peace of a long summer evening with her hands in the dirt, transplanting bunches of echinacea.  And there I was, just hoping that I’d made it home in time to kiss Nugget good night before he fell asleep (no hope on Peanut, who sacks out at about 6:45 every night).  “On the contrary,” I told her, “I think you have a lovely life.”

I wouldn’t classify life as particularly exciting at the moment.  I’m not a Hollywood starlet or an Olympic skier, or Meghan Markle.  But it sure does seem to be fast-paced.  My weeks are often spent at a breakneck speed, rushing to and from work, school or camp, and home.  From the time the kids wake up until the time they drop off to sleep, I’m either parenting – bumping around the kitchen making lunches, searching for sandals and lost toys, breaking up fights – commuting, or working.  If I’m lucky, some of those hours are made up with reading stories or playing trains.  But no matter what, it is constant.  And it feels as though it’s all happening at the speed of sound.  That’s not a comfortable or enjoyable pace for me, and I’ve found that the only way to get through this extended busy season is to take every opportunity I do get to slow down.

I’ve always been drawn to the idea of a life lived at a seasonal pace.  Even in high school, I dreamed of retreating to the mountains to live in a little cabin surrounded by lavender and mountain laurel.  I’d keep chickens, grow a big garden, and spend my days roaming the trails, swimming in a pristine lake, and writing the Great American Novel.  In the winter, I’d snowshoe through a balsam forest and then come home and curl up under a cream-colored blanket.  In the summer, I’d strum a guitar by a campfire – never mind that I don’t know how to play the guitar – and stockpile garden bounty for the colder months.  (Basically, I wanted to homestead before I knew that homesteading was a thing that happened outside of a Laura Ingalls Wilder novel.)  Sometimes, in this fantasy, I had a family.  Other times, I was blissfully alone.  Of course, I knew that it was never going to happen.  But it sure was fun to think about.

I may not be living in an isolated mountain cabin.  My busy lawyer-mom life is a far cry from the hermit life I dreamed of living.  That’s a good thing.  I’d much rather live this life I’m living, hectic as it often is.  I wouldn’t trade my husband and kids, or our bustling city lifestyle.  But I do try to slow it down, especially on weekends when I have the luxury of doing so.  I love the slow things in life – long leisurely lunches, complete with a crisp rosé in the summer.  Picnics in the sunshine.  Long walks through peaceful wooded paths; bonus points for a breathtaking overlook.  Reading for hours.  Sipping a cup of tea while watching the rain pour down outside my window.  The extended process of bread-baking.  Sitting curled up on the couch in the children’s section of the library, watching my kids play with the latch boards and bead boxes.  Knitting a shawl.  Paddling my kayak down my favorite (gentle) stretch of Potomac or around an Adirondack lake.  The rhythmic sound of my running shoes on the Mount Vernon Trail.  Long conversations with a good friend.

Fast-paced things have never drawn me.  Steve loves fast cars and shoot-em-up video games; I don’t get the attraction at all.  I’m glad he knows what makes him happy, and glad to indulge him in his own personal joys.  But for me – I want something simpler.  I want time, time with friends, time with family, time with my kids.  I want quiet, and peace, and rest, and when I get those things I try to make them last.

What slow things make you happy?  Or do you like to live at a faster pace?

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Top Ten Books of 2018 (So Far)

Well, it’s only August!  The summer is flying by – as usual – and it just occurred to me that I haven’t done a “top ten books of the year so far” post.  I’ve been seeing similar posts pop up on other blogs over the past few weeks, so maybe we’re all running late?  In any event, completely unscientifically and vaguely in chronological order, here are my ten favorite books read in the first – errrrr – seven months of the year.

Period Piece: A Cambridge Childhood, by Gwen Raverat – Steve and the kids gave me an absolutely gorgeous edition of Period Piece for my birthday in 2017, and it was a lovely reading experience to start off the year.  Raverat grew up as Gwen Darwin, granddaughter of Charles, in Victorian Cambridge, before becoming an woodcut illustrator and marrying Jacques Raverat, himself a well-known artist.  Raverat is one of the first professional female artists to gain reknown, and Period Piece, her charming memoir of her childhood, is illustrated with her own work.  I love woodcut illustration, and I love Victorian childhood lit, so basically I was here for all of it.

Consider the Years, by Virginia Graham – Graham was a genteel, upper-class lady, married and moving in the best social circles, when the world came crashing down in the form of the Blitz.  Consider the Years is her collection of poetry from the beginning of World War II to just after the war’s end.  It’s beautiful, sad, sometimes funny (oh, Nanny!) and altogether wonderful.

Behind the Lines, by A.A. Milne – Somehow, despite reading his Winnie-the-Pooh books more times than I can count, and despite being well aware that Milne also wrote many books for adults, I’d never read any of his work not set in the Hundred Acre Wood.  That is – until I saw Behind the Lines on another book blog and scrambled to obtain a copy for myself (it’s out of print).  Milne’s Home Front poetry is witty, funny, poignant and delightful – much like When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six, except with newspapers and barometers.

84, Charing Cross Road, by Helene Hanff – People have been telling me to read this book for literally years and I finally got around to it (and in great style, in the form of a fire engine red Slightly Foxed Edition – so pretty).  Hanff is a Manhattan bibliophile who writes to a London bookstore in search of some inexpensive used books to complete her self-assigned course of education and personal enrichment.  She gets the books – lots and lots of them – but something better as well: cross-Atlantic friendships with the store’s entire staff, all of whom write to her at various points.  The letters they exchange are hilarious, chatty, and sometimes sad as Hanff details the financial woes that prevent her from coming to London and having a cuppa with all of them in person.

Space Opera, by Catherynne M. Valente – Eurovision in space?!  What’s not to love?  Valente is one of my go-to preorders; I think she’s one of the most original authors writing today.  Her latest novel was such a fun romp.  Decibel Jones is a washed-up and aging glam rocker who finds himself in the unusual position of being the only hope for the survival of humanity after a blue birdlike alien arrives and informs everyone that unless Decibel and the remnants of his long-dispersed band manage not to come in dead last in an intergalactic singing competition, Earth will be obliterated.  No pressure, D!

Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen – My choice for the first read of my new book club wasn’t very popular, sadly.  But Northanger Abbey is one of my favorite Austens, and every time I read it I remember just how much I love it.  I adore naïve Catherine, sweet Eleanor, handsome Henry, and even the clueless Mrs Allen.

The Last Watchman of Old Cairo, by Michael David Lukas – I’d have picked this one up for the cover alone (I mean, does it get more beautiful?) but I had read and loved Lukas’ debut novel, The Oracle of Stamboul, years ago and was eagerly awaiting his sophomore effort.  This didn’t disappoint – it was just as richly imagined, gorgeously written, evocative and absorbing as its predecessor.  I got it from the library, but I might need to buy a copy, because I loved it so much.

Brensham Village, by John Moore – The second volume of the Brensham trilogy, a lightly-fictionalized memoir about English country life from the Edwardian days to World War II, was a definite highlight.  (I also read the first volume, Portrait of Elmbury, which was excellent, but included one very jarring paragraph with a couple of racist sentences.  I wouldn’t throw out the baby with the bathwater, but Brensham Village pulls ahead by being more charming in every respect and also, no racism.)  I have copies of each book in the trilogy in gorgeous blue and green Slightly Foxed Editions, and I look forward to returning to the world of cricket on Brensham Green, followed by pints in the Horse Narrow, very soon.

I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made For Whiteness, by Austin Channing Brown – I have been trying to stay abreast of the important memoirs about the experiences of people of color, and while there are many standouts, I’m Still Here has been my favorite.  Brown’s writing is elegant and compelling, and her life experiences well worth reading about.  I devoured it in a day.

North and South, by Elizabeth Gaskell – This classic is a must-read that has been on my list for a long time, but I finally picked it up to get me through the grief of losing a loved one too soon.  The family member we lost had loved this book and encouraged me to read it, and now I finally have.  The first few chapters may be a bit splotchy with dried tears, but I was able to close the book with a smile and think to myself, you were absolutely right, of course.

Some good reading so far this year!  I always gravitate to classics, but I did so this year more than most, as you can probably tell from this list.  There’s just something so comforting about a big cup of tea, a warm woven blanket, and a classic novel when the winter winds are howling outside (or really, anytime throughout the year, although I might pass on the blanket in the August heat).  I also think that as the world outside gets scarier and more unpredictable, my bookshelves become more and more of an escape.  Everything else is moving so fast – I just want to take things slowly and keep it simple at home, and that probably shows in the reading I most enjoyed in the first half-ish of 2018.

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It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? (July 30, 2018)

Y’all know the phrase “a Sunday well spent brings a week of content” — right?  I try to live by that and pack my Sundays, or actually my entire weekends, full of goodness to carry me through five long days of work and parenting.  But sometimes I think the phrase should be “a weekend well spent brings a week of wishing it was still the weekend.”  I know I’m going to be wishing for the weekend all week, because it was good (not perfect, but nothing ever is) and I wish it could have gone on forever.  Saturday brought a long-anticipated event – Hamilton at the Kennedy Center!  Steve and I saw the show on Broadway last year, and have been scheming a way to get back in the room where it happens ever since.  We were thrilled when we scored tickets to the touring company’s performance here in D.C. this summer – and while I’d love to make it back to Broadway sooner than later, the quality of the performances was just as good.  We danced in our seats, tried not to sing along (so tempting, though) and I sobbed through the second act.  (Forgiveness – can you imagine? – pass me the tissues.)

Sunday was just a slow, quiet day.  I baked another loaf of sourdough, this time with chopped chives and rosemary from my garden, and got an even better result than last week – wahoo!  I thought about experimenting with a different recipe, but decided there was plenty of time for that once I got the basics down.  But look out, dinner rolls and fougasse – I’m coming for you.  The rest of the day was spent FaceTiming with Grandma in Florida, reading stories on the couch, watching SING, and taking Peanut to the library (the bag of books I returned weighed more than she did – glad those are out of the house).  The only flies in the ointment were that I had to do some work, and that Nugget had a massive tantrum in the morning (and I didn’t handle it well – I haven’t been sleeping very well and I was much too tired to deal with his nonsense).  But all in all, this was a good one, and I wish it didn’t have to end.

Reading.  Busy, but spotty, reading week.  The early part of the week was devoted to Summer, by Edith Wharton, which I loved – of course.  The only way to improve that reading experience would have been to read it in the Berkshires, but one cannot have everything in this life (as Charity Royall learns).  Then I moved on to The Coldest Winter Ever, because I am trying to read more books from the PBS “Great American Read” list.  And, oh my – I can’t recall the last book that I actually finished while hating it so intensely.  I got through the first half trying to convince myself that Winter was a modern, Brooklynite Scarlett O’Hara.  By the time I realized that wasn’t going to work, it was too late to give up on it.  I can’t even tell you how happy I was to finish.  And I had to swing as far in the opposite direction as possible for the next couple of reads, just to shake that one off.  Fortunately, I had a few more delightfully bookish essays to read in the fifth volume of Slightly Foxed, and then, still looking for total comfort, I turned to News from Thrush Green, and sank right back into that lovely, slow-paced world.  Just what the doctor ordered.

Watching.  HAMILTON!  HAMILTON!  HAMILTON!  HAMILTON!  (The code word is Rochambeau, dig me?)  And at home, Steve and I are slowly working our way through the latest season of The Great British Baking Show (or at least, the latest season to drop on us Yanks) and loving every minute.  That is quite possibly the most charming, comforting show ever made.  I’m starting to develop theories for how to succeed in the tent and piling Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood cookbooks into my Amazon wish list.

Listening.  The usual – all the podcasts.  I’m up-to-date on my favorite bookish show, The Book Riot Podcast, and have been dipping into my stash of episodes of Bonnets at Dawn, including listening to a lovely episode about the girls’ week as volunteer docents in Elizabeth Gaskell’s house.  Visitors can TOUCH THE BOOKS and SIT IN THE CHAIRS?  Now I absolutely have to go to Manchester so I can sit at Elizabeth Gaskell’s dining room table in the very spot where she put pen to paper and gave life to the absolutely delightful Margaret Hale and John Thornton.

Making.  Bread, bread, bread!  Not only am I getting over my fear of yeast baking, I am absolutely falling in love with the process.  I am in the phase where I want to learn everything there is to know about bread-baking and I wish I could make a loaf every weekend.  I’m contenting myself with studying the basics and whipping up a loaf of basic sourdough every weekend, but… the artisan bread pot is coming.  It’s only a matter of time.

Blogging.  My top ten favorite books read this year – so far – on Wednesday, and musings about trying to live life at a slower pace on Friday.  Check in with me then!

Loving.  I can’t possibly express how lovely it was to be back in the room where it happens, the room where it happens, the room where it happens – Hamilton is like nothing I’ve ever seen (or listened to, and we listen A LOT) and I’m so glad that Steve is as big of a #hamilfan #theatregeek as I am.  Because it’s so much more fun when you have someone to share it with!  (Angelica, tell this man John Adams spends the summer with his family // Angelica, tell my wife John Adams doesn’t have a real job anyway…)

Asking.  What are you reading this week?

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Time For A New Classics Club List

Grinding the gears on the way-back machine, back in August of 2013 (can it really be that long ago?) I joined The Classics Club.  The basic idea behind the Classics Club challenge is this: choose 50 (or more) classics – they can be books you’ve never read or old favorites that you want to re-read – and pick a date five years in the future, by which point you will have read and written about every book on the list.  Sounds fun, yes?  Well – in August of 2013 I was a stay-at-home mom with one easygoing baby, who slept regularly and was a breeze to care for.  I’m sure you see where this is going.

Why settle for fifty when I could read one hundred classics in five years?  It seemed perfectly doable.  I tend to read about 100 books per year no matter what I do – sometimes 102, sometimes 98 – and over five years, that would average out to 20% of my reading being devoted to classics.  Considering I love classics, 20% seemed easy.  And 2018 seemed so far away.

For whatever reason, I didn’t manage to pull it off.  My five year deadline is coming up, and I have barely scratched the surface of my classics list.  I’m not actually sure why not.  Over the course of new jobs, moves, another pregnancy and newborn days I’ve kept up a steady pace of reading, yet for some reason I haven’t read the books on the list.  I can’t explain it.  So I have to admit failure on this challenge.  But I love the Classics Club community, and I want to try again.  So here we go – a new list, targeted for completion by July 27, 2023.

  • Doctor Thorne, by Anthony Trollope
  • Framley Parsonage, by Anthony Trollope
  • The Small House at Allington, by Anthony Trollope
  • The Last Chronicle of Barset, by Anthony Trollope
  • The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton
  • Sanditon, by Jane Austen
  • Wives and Daughters, by Elizabeth Gaskell
  • Mary Barton, by Elizabeth Gaskell
  • Ruth, by Elizabeth Gaskell
  • Sylvia’s Lovers, by Elizabeth Gaskell
  • Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison
  • A Passage to India, by E.M. Forster
  • Washington Square, by Henry James
  • Queen Lucia, by E.F. Benson (re-read)
  • Miss Mapp, by E.F. Benson
  • Lucia in London, by E.F. Benson
  • Mapp and Lucia, by E.F. Benson
  • The Worshipful Lucia, by E.F. Benson
  • Trouble for Lucia, by E.F. Benson
  • The Garden Party, by Katherine Mansfield
  • Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf
  • Beloved, by Toni Morrison
  • Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison
  • East of Eden, by John Steinbeck
  • The Greek Myths, by Robert Graves
  • The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas
  • Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston
  • Silas Marner, by George Eliot
  • Daniel Deronda, by George Eliot
  • Romola, by George Eliot
  • The Pickwick Papers, by Charles Dickens
  • Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens
  • The Song of the Lark, by Willa Cather
  • Everything that Rises Must Converge, by Flannery O’Connor
  • Delta Wedding, by Eudora Welty (re-read)
  • The Iliad, by Homer
  • The Odyssey, by Homer
  • Three Men on the Bummel, by Jerome K. Jerome
  • The Professor, by Charlotte Bronte
  • Shirley, by Charlotte Bronte
  • Agnes Grey, by Anne Bronte (re-read)
  • The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Bronte (re-read)
  • The Floating Admiral, by the Members of the Detection Club
  • The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
  • Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville
  • The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien
  • Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe
  • Where Angels Fear to Tread, by E.M. Forster
  • The Priory, by Dorothy Whipple
  • The Village, by Marghanita Laski

And there it is!  Only time will tell whether this attempt goes any better than the last.  If only I could figure out where my roadblocks were for the past five years – it’s not like I haven’t read 100 books, or a bunch of classics.  Maybe I just picked the wrong one.  So – anyway – here goes nothin’.

Do you participate in reading challenges?  Which ones?  (Like I need more…)

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2018 Goals: Midyear Update

It just occurred to me that we’re more than halfway through the year now, so a check-in on the goals I set at the beginning of January would be timely.  2018 hasn’t been the great year I was hoping for – both in the world (I suspected this) and personally, so far.  The first half of the year saw me putting in so much time at work that there has been little time to do anything else.  I’m not afraid of hard work, certainly, and I’m grateful to have a job and to be busy – but when you’re working every weekend until the end of April, it’s hard to find time to consistently do anything else.  Any spare time I have had this year has been reserved for the kids and for Steve.  Some years are like that, and again, I’m grateful to have them all and for this life that I am leading – but in the second half of the year, I am hoping for a little more time for me, too.  I know where I’d like that time to come from, so we’ll see.  With that disclaimer:

Outdoors/Fitness

  • Another 12 Month Hiking Project.  This is one area I can say I’m succeeding in!  It helps that hiking is something I can do with my family, and something that 3/4 of us really enjoy.  (Peanut isn’t always excited about trail time, but she’s learning that this is something we do as a family.)  I’ve been out on the trails every month of the year and have taken you along for the ride.
  • Complete the 52 Hike Challenge!  Again, I think I’m on track with this one.  I’m a bit behind – at 24 hikes for the year, so far, but with a hiking vacation coming up I’m expecting to make up the difference by fall.
  • Get into a workout routine.  This hasn’t happened yet – displaced by work and a preschooler who seems to wake up earlier every day.  It’s easy enough to say “just get up early and work out,” but when the three-year-old gets up at 5:00 a.m. as it is, how much earlier am I supposed to be waking up to sweat?

Relationships

  • Be a “yes mom.”  I’m trying – I’m trying hard at this one.  “No” has never been my default, as it is, but I’m working hard at thinking before I say no to the kids.  You want to go to the playground?  Sure.  Paint this rock at the kitchen table?  Why not!  Check out a stack of mind-numbingly awful Disney-themed easy readers from the library?  Go nuts (but I may sneak-return them when you’re not looking).  I’m sure there are times when I do say “no” unnecessarily – what parent doesn’t? – but I am trying.
  • Try to chill out overall.  This one – well, again, I am trying.  But it’s not going as well.  I’ve been feeling ground down by work pressure that has seemed never to end.  I recognize that we all have our pressures, and I am in a better position, thanks to all the hours I banked in the first half of the year, than my colleagues who are worried about making their billables as the end of our fiscal year approaches – barring some catastrophe, I’m in good shape there.  But it’s not been easy to chill out in general, when I have been working as much as I have.  It had to happen, but I could sure use a pressure valve, and I won’t make that my family.
  • Go on dates!  I’d give myself a solid C in this area.  We are going on dates, in large part because Steve recognizes that we have to throw our babysitter some work or she’ll stop responding to us and won’t be available when we actually need her (i.e. when the nanny calls in sick).  We’ve had a few dinners out, and we’re seeing Hamilton at the Kennedy Center this weekend (!!!!!).  But as with everything else, I could do better at this.  Part of my issue is, I feel like I get so little time with the kids as it is, given the crazy hours I’ve had to work this year, that I jealously hoard any hours I do get with them.  But I do recognize that it’s important to nurture my relationship with Steve, and that our healthy marriage is a gift we give to the kids – and date nights are a part of that, because we need that time for the two of us.  Getting into that mindset has helped a lot with my guilt at leaving them when I don’t have to, and having a couple of trusted babysitters (including our beloved nanny) has also made a difference.  Maybe we’ll make that grownups-only Billy Goat Trail hike happen this fall after all…

Personal / Self-Care

  • Pack my lunches.  Another solid C.  I was doing so badly with this at the end of 2017 that there was really nowhere to go but up, and up I have gone.  I don’t pack every day, but each month I’ve done a bit better.  Again, it’s been hard because of the volume of work I’ve had this year.  When you’re putting in 65+ hour workweeks (something that has happened, more than once) then any additional task seems so onerous as to be impossible.  I also pack lunches for the kids every day, and sometimes filling those two lunch bags require all of the mental energy I have in the morning – I have nothing left to devote to deciding what I will pack for myself.  But as with many habits, it does get easier.  It’s not easy yet, but I’m working on keeping the fridge stocked with healthy and homemade options for me as well as for the kids.
  • Step away from the screen.  What I have discovered is that there are two aspects to this goal – one is going well, and the other less well.  I read an article fairly recently that basically said, instead of worrying about kids’ screen time, worry about your own – don’t be zoned out in your devices around them.  That article made a huge impression and caused me to (1) fret a lot less about their time watching cartoons on the iPad – a losing battle, and also, see “be a yes mom,” above; and (2) make a conscious effort not to be on my phone around the kids.  When they’re present, the phone is usually in another room, unless I’m expecting an urgent call or email from work or am responding to something that cannot wait – but I don’t scroll Twitter or Facebook, or even my beloved Instagram, in front of them.  It’s definitely cut down on my screen time, which is good – for my relationship with them, and for my headaches, which my phone exacerbates.  That said, I could really do better about not mindlessly scrolling through my phone after they go to bed.  That’s my reading time, but I’ve been so mentally drained lately that I’ve turned to social media instead of books way too often post-bedtime.  I want to be better about that.
  • Explore natural healing and wellness options.  There’s very little to say about this goal.  If you’ve noticed, there’s a theme to this update, and the theme is – I’ve been working so much, I haven’t had time to do this.  As with the workout routine, packing lunches, etc. – this is a thing that I’d very much like to do, but it’s fallen by the wayside as work has consumed every free minute I’ve had most weeks.  Since I’m a naturally hopeful person, I do hope to make this a priority in the second half of the year.  But I’m not holding my breath.

Reading

  • Read fewer books.  According to Goodreads, I’d read 49 books through the end of June (and have logged five more since, for a total of 54).  That puts me on pace for about 98 books for the year, if I don’t pick up the pace – considering I had wanted to read 52, I guess this goal is a failure.  But I sort of knew going in that it would be.  I seem to land around 100 books for the year no matter what I do – that’s my sweet spot, apparently.
  • Check off some of the classics on my TBR.  Ooooh, this is one I’m doing fairly well with!  Of the 54 books I’ve read so far, about 15 of them are classics – including two Elizabeth Gaskells, one George Eliot, and one E.M. Forster, all from my TBR.  I have loved classic lit since I was a teenager, and I’ve been gravitating to it more and more as a comforting escape from the burdens I’m carrying in everyday life.  There’s nothing better than sinking into a really beautiful piece of literature.
  • Continue to make diverse reading a priority.  This is a tough one when you gravitate to classics – there just aren’t as many pieces of classic literature by people of color, due to historic discrimination.  So it takes some planning, and I try to choose diverse books for my literary fiction and nonfiction reading as much as possible, to make up the difference.  (I also try to read those classics by POC that are available – for instance, I have Their Eyes Were Watching God on my library stack at the moment, and I’m looking forward to picking that up soon.)  This is a goal that takes real planning and effort, but I think it’s worth it.  I’ve been making diverse reading a priority for a few years now, and it has enriched my reading experience tremendously.

Well, I think I’ve rambled enough.  I don’t feel like I want to write about my word for the year – begin – at the moment.  It’s on my mind all the time, and I’m trying to follow where it leads, but I don’t feel ready to talk about where this is going.  At least, not right now.

As you can see, the theme of 2018 so far has been – not enough time.  Not enough time to focus on me.  Not enough time with my kids.  Not enough time to work out, or go on date nights, or do so many of those things that make life worthwhile.  I wish that wasn’t the case; I wish I had something more uplifting to say.  Maybe reviewing the goals I set at the beginning of the year will give me the push I need to prioritize them when I can, and to be gentle on myself when work and parenting eat up the entire week and I have nothing left to give by Friday (which is something that happens, and not infrequently).  What can I say?  I’m very much a work in progress.

Did you set goals for 2018?  How’s it going?

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It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? (July 23, 2018)

Helloooooooo… happy Monday evening, friends.  Sorry for the late post.  One of those days.  The weekend was good, at least.  It poured down rain most of the weekend, but somehow that was what I wanted.  My garden appreciated it, and we were still able to get out for a quick hike at Mount Vernon when the rain broke very briefly on Sunday morning.  Backing up, though – our rainy-day activity for Saturday was a playdate at the home of one of Peanut’s new friends from camp.  I stuck around for the duration, since I don’t know the family and didn’t want to just drop her off the way I would with a kid whose parents I knew really well.  As it turned out, Peanut’s streak of picking friends with cool parents continues – her friend’s mom and I really hit it off.  We had a ton in common – both lawyers, both from New York State, both went to college in central NY, etc.  She also told me that she has been experimenting with baking her own artisan breads for a few weeks now, and the pictures she showed me of her loaves were crazy impressive, especially for a beginner!  I decided right then and there to try again with yeast baking, and on Sunday – while the rain kept pouring down – I mixed up a loaf of sourdough sandwich bread.  No specialized equipment, unless you count the sourdough starter I’ve been housing in my fridge for several weeks now (thanks Rebecca!), and for a first (ish, I’ve baked with yeast twice before, but not for years) try, I was darn pleased with how it came out.

 

Reading.  Lovely and ruminative reading week over here.  I finished up North and South mid-week and I can’t believe it took me so long to read it!  Mr. Thornton – sigh.  Then there was a bit of fumbling around to find a new book.  I started a book for book club and couldn’t read it – a very rare occurrence for me, but bad things happening to kids is one of my trigger warnings and the first few chapters were just miserable.  I pushed longer than I ordinarily would have, because book club, but about 50 pages in (out of 540!) I finally threw in the towel.  I’ll at least be able to explain to the book club why I just couldn’t.  Anyway – looking for something more my speed, I turned to another library book: Summer, by Edith Wharton.  I love Wharton but still have a handful of her books that I’ve not yet read, and this is one of them.  I’m about two-thirds of the way through it now and just having a wonderful time over it.  (The fireworks scene!  Breathtaking.)

Watching.  With much determination, Steve and I have managed to dodge the kid-thrown obstacles and gotten a few episodes into the latest drop of The Great British Baking Show on Netflix.  I think I’m rooting for Benjamina and Andrew, but I like Tom and Candice too.  Really, they’re all delightful!  What is it about that show?  Pure unadulterated comfort.

Listening.  Whenever I’m reading less, I’m often listening more, and that has been the case for the past few weeks – lots of podcasts.  I’ve worked my way through a bunch of back episodes on my podcatcher, although I still have a ways to go.  Highlight – the Bonnets at Dawn ladies discussing The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, which I read years ago.  It might be time for a re-read.

Blogging.  I’m totally disoriented this week, and have no idea what I’m going to write about.  It’ll be a surprise for you and for me!  But I will have posts for you on Wednesday and Friday, unless I flake.  How’s that for assurances?

Moving.  More of the same.  I am working on a solution to my current life-overwhelm, and if it works out I am hoping that I’ll have more time to focus on me in addition to everything else I have to do.  Details when I can.  In the meantime – the summer movement continues – hikes, neighborhood walks, chasing Nugget around the playground.

Loving.  I didn’t think I was going to have anything to say to this today.  It’s just been one of those days.  But I do want to tell you about Nugget’s compliments.  Friends, if you’ve never been the subject of a three-year-old boy’s admiration, I can’t recommend it highly enough.  I’ve been told that I’m “as beautiful as a tow truck,” which is high praise indeed.  And this weekend, Nugget told me I was “as snuggly as a bulldozer and as little as a mouse.”  Awwwww.

Asking.  What are you reading this week?

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12 Months of Trails: Bash Bish Falls in July, 2018

After we had an unexpected death in the family, Steve and I were both totally thrown for a loop and didn’t entirely know what to do with ourselves.  We’d been planning to take a long weekend and go up to New York State to visit my parents around the Fourth of July, which we thought about cancelling (they’d have totally understood).  Ultimately, we decided that we wanted the distraction and to be around family during a sad time for us, so we packed our bags and headed north, as planned.  We did the normal things for our summer visits to my folks’ – a day at the lake, pizza at Kay’s – and my parents also asked us if we felt like a hike.  We did, and they took us to one of their favorite spots – Bash Bish Falls State Park.

Bash Bish straddles the border between New York State and Massachusetts – so much so that there is one parking lot in NYS and one parking lot in Mass, and you can approach the waterfall from either.  We headed to the Massachusetts lot, because my parents told us the hike was more fun – down an actual trail, into a ravine.  (From the New York side, the approach is just a dirt carriage road – easier than the Massachusetts hike, but not as interesting.)  We loaded the kiddos up and started the hike down, down, down.

The falls were gorgeous!  And it was a hot day – the water looked so inviting.  There were people wading and swimming (despite signs warning visitors not to swim) but having kids on our backs, we stayed well up on the driest part of the boulders.

I had Peanut, who – as I told Zan on Instagram – only weighs one pound more than Nugget these days.  (Amazing.)  She’s actually a little easier to carry, because she’s taller, so her weight distribution is a little better (for me).  But since they’re basically equivalent, we just let them decide where they want to ride these days.  Anyway, even if she’s a little easier to carry, I was kind of regretting it, because she wanted to get down and swim – and when I said no, she had a good, solid tantrum right in my left ear.  Lovely.

Steve’s burden was much quieter.

Anyway, after listening to Peanut whine for 15 minutes (keeping it real, folks) I told her I was done carrying her and, also, time to go.  I plucked her out of the backpack and told her she was hiking out of the ravine on her own two feet.  Which she did, powered by her five-year-old rage, without breaking a sweat.  When we got back to the parking lot, the four adults were heaving out-of-breath and dripping with sweat, and she looked like she’d been sitting on the couch watching cartoons.  So unfair.

Bash Bish Falls, you’re lovely!  I’m so glad we got to visit and try out one of my parents’ favorite hikes – and to add another state to our total for 2018.

Have you hit the trails recently?