Happy day-after-Superbowl-Sunday, friends!  (Or, as I like to think of it, No More Football For Months Day!)  We hosted a very small Superbowl party – just us, Zan and Paul, and Rebecca.  We all had a fabulous time eating yummy snacks (Zan brought veggies and hummus; Rebecca brought vegan queso, chips and guac, and a healthy chocolate chip cookie cake – made from chickpea flour and sweetened with dates; and I contributed tempeh chili, seitan Buffalo wings, jalapeno-cheddar cornbread, and a raw corn, tomato and avocado salad) and not really watching the game.  Well, the boys watched the game.  The girls watched the commercials and chased the kids around.  Nugget was excited to throw his (stuffed) football with Uncle Paul, and we all ended up tossing it around the living room and screaming with laughter.  It was just what the doctor ordered.  Well, until Nugget got overtired and started screaming with not-laughter.  The rest of the weekend was pretty low key.  On Saturday, Nugget and I went to Falls Church to check out Rebecca’s farmers market while Steve took Peanut to a friend’s birthday party.  I squeezed in an hour of work on Saturday morning, which felt like nothing at all, and Nugget and I did a big grocery run and a diaper bank drop on Sunday morning.  It was a good combination of errands and friend time, and I’m not ready for it to be Monday.  But at least we have the Olympics to look forward to!

Reading.  It was another fairly slow week on the book front.  Between working another 50+ hour week (which is becoming the norm) and then spending most of the weekend either socializing or running errands, book time was limited.  I finished Salt Houses mid-week, on the very last day of January.  As I mentioned in my reading round-up, it didn’t really do it for me.  It was a lovely book, but neither multigenerational family sagas nor linked short stories are my cup of tea, and this was both.  Next I turned my attention to Salvage the Bones, since it was due back to the library on Saturday and not returnable.  It was very hard to read.  The chapters on Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath were breathlessly enthralling and well-done, but the rest of the book was tough.  Part of it focuses on dog-fighting, and I had to skip those sections.  It was one I felt like I should read, so I did, but I didn’t enjoy the reading experience.  So it was good to turn, after that, to something warm and comforting – Thrush Green, which is actually a re-read for me.  I am trying to participate in the year-long #MissReadalong on Instagram, but am behind – Thrush Green was January’s book.  I enjoyed it last time I read it, but am loving it even more now that I’m a couple of years removed from finishing the Fairacre books and am not constantly comparing it and missing the characters from that series.

Watching.  The Superbowl!  Haha, just kidding.  I barely even looked at the commercials – I watched a few of them, but I was mostly engaged in getting the food ready or parenting during the party, so it wasn’t a big night in front of the TV.  Earlier in the week, when I was feeling fried, Steve and I watched the Bears Ears National Monument episode of Rock the Park, which was sad – it looks like such a special place, and it’s heartbreaking that our government has stripped it of federal protection.  Then on Saturday, looking for some comedy, we checked out the first two episodes of The Good Place, which was as funny and delightful as my friend Susan promised it would be, and we will definitely be watching more.

Listening.  I hopped around all over the place on my earbuds last week.  A couple of podcasts – The Book Riot Podcast, to stay current; the final episode of the first season of Annotated, which I had been saving; and several chapters of Harry Potter and the Sacred Text.  Some Forlorn Strangers, some Decemberists, and a few movements of Holst’s The Planets performed by the London Symphony Orchestra.  See?  I told you I was all over the place.

Moving.  Should I take this category out?  Other than some walking on the weekend, nothing.  Working these crazy hours is hard.  My beloved yoga and barre3 classes have fallen by the wayside, and forget about running.  I have some events I want to do this spring and summer, so I need to get back in the habit lest I find myself completely out of it when it comes time to start training.

Blogging.  Some bookish musing coming to you on Wednesday, and a quick (mostly pictures) recap of all the hikes from my monthly hiking project from 2017 on Friday.  Check back!

Loving.  Dates with Steve!  We have been wanting to add to our roster of babysitters, and we tried a new one out last week.  She fed the kids dinner, played with them and put them to bed, while we enjoyed a five-course Japanese dinner and then wandered over to a wine bar we’d not yet tried and split two flights of wine.  She did a great job, the kids had a wonderful time, and it was so refreshing to get a mid-week night out as just grownups.  Related: I love living in a walkable neighborhood!  Dinner was two blocks from my house and the wine bar was one block, and it really helped curb my new-babysitter anxiety to know that we were a two minute sprint from home if anything happened.  I don’t know if we’ll stay in our current neighborhood forever, but it sure does have some major points in the plus column.

Asking.  What are you reading this week?

Yawwwwwwwn.  Monday already?  This weekend FLEW.  Last week was insanely hectic – I ended up working 65 hours, and while it was a great (and helpful) boost for me, it was also exhausting.  Work was life – waking up early, churning it out all day, rushing home to make it just in time to tuck the babies in, and then right back onto the computer.  In law firm life, weeks like that are a double-edged sword.  On the one hand, a few weeks of hours like that can make a big dent in billables for the year, and that’s definitely a plus.  On the other hand – I am wiped out.  At the end of the week, all I wanted to do was hang out and pal around with the little ones, so that’s what I did.  Saturday was the nicer weather day, and the kids had been begging for the zoo, so that’s what we did.  We weren’t able to see the elephants, because they were off wandering somewhere, but the cheetah habitat was finally open again, so that was a highlight.  In the afternoon, I squeezed in more work while the kids slept, but once Nugget rolled out of bed we headed over to his second-favorite playground (he felt like mixing it up) and both worked off our excess energy climbing on stuff, racing up and down the basketball court, and kicking a playground ball around.  Sunday was dreary and rainy.  I didn’t work, which felt weird after putting in at least a few hours for the past three weekends.  But I did get about five loads of laundry folded, and cleaned up my room and the family room.  Having those spaces neat and orderly feels like such a relief.  And now it’s back at it for another week.  Hoping for balance this week – I’d like to keep the hours going, but maybe with a little more sleep too.

Reading.  A slower week, which is very much as expected, given how much I was working.  I spent most of the week reading Jane Austen: The Secret Radical – pretty much just on my commutes and a tiny bit before bed each night, and I eventually got through it.  The best part was discussing it with my friend Susan, who was reading at the same time (and was a few chapters ahead of me).  We ended up chatting up a storm about it in the office cafeteria on Friday morning while the rest of our coworkers looked on, confused.  After saying goodbye to Jane, I picked up Salt Houses, which is due back to the library next Saturday and has holds, so it can’t be renewed.  I’m enjoying it, but finding it hard to get into given the way it jumps around in time.  It’s beautifully written, though.

Watching.  Very little watching this week – the theme is going to be “I was so busy working that I hadn’t time for anything else.”  But on Saturday night, Steve and I reinstituted our movie night tradition and finally watched Hidden Figures, which was as wonderful and powerful as expected.  I usually only watch TV about one night per week, but my brain has been so fried that I ended up watching TV on Sunday, too – Steve suggested an episode of Victoria, and it was just what the doctor ordered.  Albert’s note-taking on how to please a lady!  Victoria’s Bo-Peep bonnet!  Royal wedding hijinks!

Listening.  I’ve switched back over to Harry Potter and the Sacred Text.  I took a break for a few weeks after finishing Season 1, but the time seemed right to pop back in for Season 2.  I listened to the first episode during a commute and the second while folding laundry on Sunday.  Still totally obsessed with the Forlorn Strangers, too, and I’m also rotating through my favorite Decemberists albums because THEY’RE COMING TO D.C. IN APRIL and I HAVE TICKETS.  And the Andalusian tribes setting the lay of Nebraska alight, ’til all that remains is the arms of the angels…

Moving.  The only moving I did this week was running laps around the basketball court with Nugget.  Literally I think we probably ran about a mile that way.  But other than that – nothing.  See above: 65-hour work week.  I am hoping for better next week.  I need yoga back in my life.

Blogging.  January hike coming to you on Wednesday!  I can’t tell you how excited I am to start another year-long hiking commitment.  Spoiler alert: we walked under a bridge and I have had the Red Hot Chili Peppers in my head for a week as a result.  And then on Friday, my January reading round-up.  I am currently eight books ahead of the pace I need for my goal to read 52, so things are clearly going well.

Loving.  So, I got the iPhone x last week.  Steve has been bugging me to get a new phone since October (when Nugget knocked my old one out of my hands on Halloween and shattered the screen on the OTX cobblestones) but I wanted to wait until I was actually due for an upgrade.  The day finally came and I took myself down to the Verizon store and picked out a new phone.  But what I’m more excited about than the phone, is the case.  I got one of those Lifeproof cases!  Since I am notorious for shattering iPhones (Halloween was the third shattered screen I’ve had, and it already had a couple of cracks in it even before the trick-or-treating incident) I figured this was a good investment.  It’s shockproof, shatterproof, dustproof and waterproof.  The question is – is it toddler-proof?  We’ll find out.  But this week I am loving having a whole, non-cracked phone with actual battery life and an intact case.  It’s the little things, right friends?

Asking.  What are you reading this week?

Well, another week – here we go, I guess.  It doesn’t feel like much of a change to me, because I worked basically full days on both Saturday and Sunday.  Which is good, because I needed the hours – in law firm life, staying billable is a constant and mentally exhausting struggle – but I could have really used the brain break.  Maybe next weekend.  Maybe not.  Anyway, in between all the work – even getting up at 5:15 on Sunday to sit down in front of my legal research, gahhhh – I managed to squeeze in some reading – finishing a book I needed to get done – and the first two hikes of my 52 hike challenge for 2018.  We looped Theodore Roosevelt Island, an NPS-managed site that was open, if not staffed, despite the government shutdown, then hopped in the car and drove another ten minutes up the parkway to Scott’s Run Nature Preserve, a Fairfax County park with a cool waterfall.  Pics on Instagram, if we’re friends there, and I’ll be recapping the first of the two hikes for 12 Months of Trails in the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned.  Other than that – not much to report about the weekend.  We’re delighted that the weather has warmed up a little bit, and we got in a good stroll down to the waterfront on Saturday afternoon in preparation for two hikes on Sunday, and let the kids run around on the grass to burn off some of that winter energy.  We all needed to burn off some energy, actually.  There’s been a lot of sitting at desks and huddling indoors recently.

Reading.  As you can see, my resolution to read fewer books in 2018 is going AWESOME.  /sarcasm.  Seriously, that was one that I made pretty loosely, just to create space for the chunkier classics that I want to read, so if I end up reading more than 52 (and let’s be realistic, I will end up reading more than 52) that’s okay.  Anyway, last week was quite the banner week for reading, and especially for diverse books.  I finished the Nafisi book and the Adichie book on Monday, then blew through Exit West on President Obama’s recommendation (of course, he was totally right, and it was wonderful).  The Witches of New York took me a bit longer – read on Rebecca’s recommendation, I liked it better than the last book she recommended to me (Beautiful Creatures, which I couldn’t stand – at one point I found myself folding laundry in order to avoid it); this one, I enjoyed but wouldn’t call a favorite.  Finally, I turned to Amina’s Voice, YA about a young Muslim girl who overcomes her shyness to speak out for her community.  I just sunk into it on Sunday night, but I’m loving it so far.

Watching.  Very little.  I’m still screened out from last weekend’s epic marathon of Cars and Star Wars (Nugget is feeling much better) and didn’t want to watch anything at all over the week.  On Saturday I requested Rock the Park, thinking we should have at least five episodes queued up in our DVR, only to discover that the DVR hasn’t been recording those episodes – even though I swear we have set it to record them about three times.  Womp womp.  So instead we watched the BBC/Smithsonian documentary The Coronation, which was fascinating (and, as British TV tends to do, made me want to book a plane ticket to London immediately).

Listening.  It was all podcasts this week.  I’ve been craving my book podcasts and I keep cleaning those out of my podcatcher, which means I have a huge pile of backlog parenting podcasts – my other favored podcast topic.  Highlight: I caught up on The Book Riot Podcast, and hearing their take on Fire and Fury was very interesting.

Moving.  Some walking this weekend, in the fresh air – yay!  We took a nice long ramble around the neighborhood on Saturday afternoon, and two hikes on Sunday.  One of the two – Scott’s Run – involved walking down and then up a huge hill, which would have been challenging even without forty-ish pounds strapped to my back and whining in my ear.  Need to get back to formal exercise, though – I miss my yoga and barre classes!

Blogging.  It’s a reading-heavy week – on Wednesday I’ll share Part II of my 2017 reading retrospective, and Friday will wrap up the look-back with Part III.  I’ve also gone over my calendar and plotted out a bunch of posts coming up over the next few months, and they’re going to be quite book-heavy.  I’m always mulling over where I want to take my blog, and I am thinking that in 2018 and onward, I’d like to veer more toward books (with liberal helpings of hiking and travel) and away from kid-focused posts.  The kids will still make appearances, naturally, and I’ll write their birthday posts and similar things, but as they’re getting older and I am looking to reclaim some of my own interests, it feels right to take a step back from parenting content and toward other (less personal) topics.  Hope that’s cool with my friends.

Loving.  I hardly ever talk about food in this spot, but I have a food item – a treat, really – to share with you today.  As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I listened to the 50th episode of my favorite podcast, Tea or Books?, which was a Q&A.  One of the listener questions was about the hosts’ tea-drinking habits, and after some rather heated banter about tea itself, they buried the hatchet and agreed that their favorite snack to enjoy with their tea was dark chocolate digestives.  Well, I love digestives, and after I heard Simon and Rachel vouch for the dark chocolate variety, I couldn’t stop thinking about them.  Thanks to the magic of Amazon (although the Wegmans international aisle sometimes has digestives, so I suppose I could have checked there) I had a four-pack of dark chocolate digestive packages on my doorstep in two days, and I have indeed been enjoying one or two with my tea.  Podcasts!  They really do make the world better!

Asking.  What are you reading this week?  Do you like digestives?

Hello to all of my friends – who is enjoying a three-day weekend?  I have the day off today (although I have some work I need to do, so hopefully I am able to make that happen at some point) but Steve has to work.  So we are going about our business, mostly, except with two littles underfoot.  This was a rough weekend – more for poor Nugget than for the rest of us, unfortunately.  On Saturday, we had a fun play date planned with Peanut’s BFF and her mom at a local indoor play spot.  Unfortunately, Saturday morning is the busiest time of the week for the play spot, and Peanut ended up crying because she was overwhelmed, which led to her BFF crying because Peanut wouldn’t play.  Sigh.  BFF’s mom and I agreed that the next play date should be something a little more low-key.  Nugget had a fantastic time climbing in the two-story play mat area, kicking a soccer ball with Steve, and playing “pit crew” with a race car made out of play mats.  Unfortunately, it seems he also brought a souvenir home with him – in the form of a tummy bug.  On Sunday he greeted Steve by declaring he was going to climb out of his crib, actually climbing out of his crib, and then confessing that his tummy hurt.  And it was downhill from there.  Steve and I were both vomited on (him once, me twice) – keeping it real, folks – and poor Nugget was trying so hard to be perky all day but couldn’t keep anything down.  He seems to be feeling a little better today, but we’ll be having a cozy day to make sure of that.

Reading.  Pretty good reading week.  On Monday I finished Letters to a Young Muslim, which was thoughtful and lovely.  Over the next couple of days I finally finished up the second issue of Slightly Foxed Quarterly (I’m working my way through the back issues) and for the rest of the week, I’ve been slowly reading through The Republic of Imagination, Azar Nafisi’s exploration of “America in three books.”  Her writing, as with Reading Lolita in Tehran, is gorgeous – but I’m not loving this book quite as much.  Reading about her immigrant experience is fascinating, but I don’t know that I agree with her choices for three books that are representative of America (which is fine – she’s the author; she gets to choose) and I also felt like some of the connections were a bit tenuous.  Still a lovely reading experience, though.  I’ll probably finish today (I’ve been promising myself for three days now that I’d finish “today”) and next up, I think, will be Exit West, which I am reading because President Obama said it was good, and that is reason enough.

Watching.  Lots of watching this week, which I suppose accords with a slower reading week – but it all took place over the weekend.  On Friday night, Steve and I reinstituted “movie night” and watched the first episode of Victoria – and then proceeded to watch three more episodes over the course of the weekend.  I also spent most of Sunday watching movies with a sick little boy.  Since the patient gets to choose the movie/subject matter, we watched Cars, Cars Toons: Mater’s Tall Tales (four times), and The Empire Strikes Back.  I’m pretty screened out, but I see more TV in my future, at least today.  Anything to make the puppy feel better.

Listening.  Well, the New Year’s episode of The Home Hour was hilarious – Kirsten and Graham talking about fashion is really something.  (In 2018, “utility jumpsuits” will be a trend, which is “a jumpsuit that, like, you’d wear if you work for the telephone company, and it has pockets for your tape measure.”)  Also, am I the last person on earth to find out about the Forlorn Strangers?  I downloaded their album and can’t stop listening.

Moving.  Not.  Enough said.  Maybe if it warms up I’ll get out for a run?  I was hoping for a hike over the weekend, but with a sick toddler, that went by the wayside.  Poor little guy.

Blogging.  Sharing my 2018 goals on Wednesday (and as of press time, I still haven’t fixed on a word for the year) and the first part of my three-part 2017 reading retrospective on Friday.  Check back!

Loving.  I am really loving my music player on my iPhone lately.  I’m not a huge music person and usually choose to listen to a podcast or audiobook, but I have lately rediscovered the music player and I’m alternating between show tunes (The Book of Mormon), new folk/alternative (Forlorn Strangers – my genre of choice) and classical (Charlotte Church, Holst’s The Planets, etc.).  Of course it’s wreaking havoc on my podcast-and-audiobook progress, but I’m really enjoying having music in my ears again – something that I haven’t regularly had since law school.

Asking.  What are you reading this week?

Please forgive me, you guys.  I rarely do these “look what I got!!1!1!!” posts – rarely, maybe never? – but I was getting ready to clean up and put away everyone’s Christmas gifts and, well, I had such a spectacularly bookish Christmas that I can’t help but run here to share with the only people who truly understand me (you guys).

I mean, really:

After a year of restraining myself from book-buying, thanks to Project 24, all I really wanted for Christmas was BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS.  So that’s pretty much all I asked for – books and a few pieces of camera equipment I’ve been eyeing.  But really mostly books.  And my family and friends rallied spectacularly, as you can see.  Between Steve, my parents, my brother and my in-laws, I unwrapped:

• Comic Poems (Everyman’s Pocket Poets – I am slowly building a collection);
• Mango and Mimosa, by Suzanne St. Albans (Slightly Foxed, and out of print; I ordered this myself and then handed it off to Steve with instructions to give it to me for Christmas, and don’t tell me that’s cheating on Project 24, because la la la I can’t hear you);
• The School at the Chalet, by Elinor Brent-Dyer;
• The Fifth Queen, by Ford Madox Ford;
• I Capture the Castle, by Dodie Smith (beautiful deluxe hardcover to replace my unsatisfactory movie tie-in paperback);
• The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien (to match my Folio Society Silmarillion);
• The Odyssey, by Homer (the new Emily Wilson translation!);
• Devotions, by Mary Oliver (thanks, Mom!);
• Deep Thinkers, by Janet Mann (gorgeous book about my beloved cetaceans from my brother and sister-in-law);
• Obama, by Pete Souza (Steve said that Santa felt I might want some comfort reading);
• The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien (to go with The Hobbit and The Silmarillion);
• A five-book boxed set of out of print Folio Society reissues of Jeeves books (another one I ordered myself and handed to Steve to wrap after some short lamenting about Project 24, which I snapped out of quickly when my friend Susan told me, “Baby, this is Jeeves.  You do what you need to do.”);
• Persuasion, by Jane Austen;
• Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen;
• Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen (Steve ordered my three favorites from the Folio Society, and please don’t @ me about Emma; it’s not in my top three and I AM OKAY WITH THAT);
• Winnie-the-Pooh, by A.A. Milne; and
• Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, by J.K. Rowling (the illustrated edition, which is just stunning and a gorgeous addition to the HP shelf).

Looking at it all written out like that, I recognize this list is truly absurd.  But it had been a very long year of self-discipline in the book-buying realm, and the thought of cozying up with these books this winter is delicious indeed.

Did Santa bring you anything to read this year?

Busted!  No weekend highlight picture for you today, my friends.  This was such a low-key weekend that I actually didn’t take any pictures.  Can you believe it?  Well – I took one picture, of Rebecca mixing us up some old fashioneds, but she didn’t like the way her hair looked and I deleted it.  And that’s it!  But the takeaway from that should be – YES, Rebecca is here!  New friends: Rebecca is my very very very very bestest best friend in the world.  We met as college freshmen and pledge sisters and quickly became inseparable, and we have been friends ever since.  Rebecca was in my wedding and she is godmother to both of my children, and Peanut and I were in her wedding this fall.  But we haven’t lived in closer than D.C./Virginia Beach since college – other than one summer when she did some professional training in D.C. – and for long stretches of our friendship, we haven’t even lived on the same continent (Rebecca has worked for long stretches of time in Africa and the Middle East).  Anyway, she has MOVED TO NOVA and I am beyond excited.  She arrived on Saturday afternoon and our first order of business was to spend Sunday together.  Peanut and I swung by to see her new apartment and then we all hit Target together (she is in the moving phase where you go to Target A LOT and I have small children so I always need something there) and then spent the afternoon at my house.  It was as fabulous and amazing as I imagined it would be to have my best friend living in my local area and I can’t wait to see her all the time now.  The only negative was that I felt rotten all day.  I let myself get too hungry (Nugget ate my breakfast) and got a headache, then I ate too fast and got digestive pyrotechnics.  Fun stuff.  But – REBECCA IS HERE!

Reading.  I was actually hoping to read less this year (more on that when I talk about my 2018 goals in a week or so) but it seems I am already failing at that goal.  Early in the week I finished Origin, the new Dan Brown, which I started in 2017 – it’s always interesting to see what the first book of a year ends up being.  Then I tore through Period Piece: A Cambridge Childhood, by Gwen Raverat, and looooooooved it.  First five star book of the year!  I have a gorgeous Folio Society edition that Steve and the kids gave me for my birthday, which I had been saving, and it was the perfect antidote to a bitterly cold week.  I savored it over several days, but finally had to finish it – lucky for me, my library holds came in to distract me and I am now almost done with Letters to a Young Muslim, which is fascinating and illuminating.

Watching.  I am sorry to report that Steve and I finished up Season 2 of The Crown and are now bereft.  It was better than I was expecting – after hearing that the focus of the season would be on Phillip (all the eyerolls – did they not have any interesting women to write about? be better, Peter Morgan) I had really low expectations.  And while it was far from a perfect season of TV, the big budget and gorgeous settings and costumes do cover a multitude of sins.  Now we’re looking for the next show to get sucked into, and I think we’re going to make the very short leap over to Victoria, although I am also trying to convince Steve to give Alias Grace a chance.

Listening.  Podcasts, podcasts, podcasts.  I was saving all the new year’s episodes of my favorite podcasts for this week and I have been enjoying lots of chat about resolutions and fresh starts – one of my favorite topics.  But the best listen was the fiftieth episode Q&A of my favorite podcast, Tea or Books?, which I was hoarding and which was delightful – of course.

Moving.  I need to get back to the yoga and barre studios, but I have been waiting until the January crowds ease up.  It’s been kind of a rough week; I’ve been feeling a little off (not pregnant) and while a workout would probably actually make me feel better, it’s fallen by the wayside.  Plus with the bitter cold weather, a run is just not going to happen, unless I wend my way down to the treadmill at work, and I’m not sure I’m that desperate.

Blogging.  So sorry, y’all, but I have a bit of a braggy post coming on Wednesday.  I had an amazingly bookish Christmas and while I rarely post “look what I got!” blogs (although I enjoy reading them on others’ blogs) I just couldn’t resist showing you all the books I unwrapped – they are just so beautiful.  And then on Friday, I’ll share my December hike, which – well, it’s a bit of a stretch to call it a hike, but I’m going to make that stretch.  It was the best I could do last month, so go with it.

Loving.  On New Year’s Eve, Steve and I and the kids piled into the car and headed over to my high school BFF, Jenn’s, house, for a playdate.  The kids had fun palling around with Jenn’s daughter (who is a little older than Peanut), Steve watched football with Jenn’s husband, and Jenn and I chatted as fast as we could and caught up on all of the gossip.  (A mutual friend is mad at Jenn because she insulted James Oglethorpe, the founder of Georgia.)  Anyway, as it often does, our conversation turned to running and food, and Jenn mentioned that she had not been feeling herself and was planning a cleanse for January.  I said I didn’t want to do a cleanse, but I also was not feeling myself and could use an accountability buddy to help me make sure I was prioritizing my own well-being in addition to everything else I had going on.  Jenn and I immediately signed up to help each other stay on track with our goals, and have been exchanging almost daily text messages ever since.  I gently remind her to stay hydrated, and she browbeats me into taking five minutes for myself each day.  It’s lovely to be more connected – while we adore each other, we both tend to get busy and let communication slip – and to have a coach and cheerleader as we chase our personal and professional goals for 2018.

Asking.  What are you reading this week?

Oof.  I’m so sorry, you guys!  I totally flaked on you.  I promised that last week I’d show you the kids’ Advent book haul and some of our seasonal fun to date, and then I went completely dark.  Everyone’s fine, by the way.  (I have friends who still remember that time in 2012 when I went dark for two weeks because I’d had a surprise baby.  That hasn’t happened – swear.)  I don’t have a great explanation for you, just a parade of excuses.  It was a crazy week at work.  One of my colleagues is leaving our firm (heading to a dream job, and we’re all delighted for him!) and I’m probably going to be the one who will be absorbing most of his work, so it was a bit of a whirlwind of a week.  (This is a welcomed professional development for me, too.)  And then at the end of the week, Steve went up to Buffalo for a work obligation and took our family laptop with him.  I had my work computer, so no trouble working, but I don’t blog from there, and my plans to get my posts scheduled in advance went awry.  As did my reading – it’s been that sort of a week.

As weekends go, this was a pretty good one.  I didn’t get everything done that I’d hoped for – my garden, which died in the first frost of the season, still desperately needs cleaned up – but I did a ton of food prep on Saturday, and finished my Christmas shopping on Sunday.  (A few small tasks remain – like getting something for my secretary, and having Nugget make a gift for his nanny – but the main list is done.)  And in the meantime, we fit in a trip down to Mount Vernon to visit with Aladdin the Christmas Camel.  The season is never complete without a trip to see Aladdin, and the kids had fun racing around the wide green lawn, playing tag with a new friend, and admiring the cows, sheep and hogs on the farm.  And now it’s just one more week until Christmas!  There’s so much I need to do – I haven’t wrapped a single gift, and I need to get packages mailed out – and so much I want to do, like checking out the holiday trains at the Botanic Garden and squeezing in one last play date with my law school BFF and her family before they pull up stakes for Malaysia in early January.  I’m trying to take some time and soak in the fun stuff, too.  It’s all good.

Reading.  Bit of a slow week, which should not surprise anyone (see above).  I finally finished The Shell Seekers, which was delightful.  (I recommended it to my BFF, Rebecca, who immediately downloaded it on audio and twenty minutes after I’d originally texted her recommending it, texted me: “This Nancy character is a trip!”)  And then I went back to my kindle, and Christmas at Thrush Green, which is gentle and slow and warm and comforting and everything that I have been needing.

Watching.  Is there any question what I’m going to say?  We are enjoying the hell out of The Crown and already dreading it ending.  How will we ever wait until Season 3?  I know – I’ve been itching to re-watch the Africa episodes from Season 1, so we’ll probably do that.

Listening.  Podcasts, as usual, but the most fun has been – I found our Laurie Berkner Christmas CD, which we’ve had for a few years but which was AWOL last year, and the kids and I have been having a ball driving around and singing along loudly to the carols.  (Parents: if you haven’t discovered Laurie Berkner yet, you’re missing out.)  The only bad thing is that I admitted to the kids that the song Do You Hear What I Hear makes me cry sometimes, and now Nugget asks me if every song on the CD makes me cry.

Moving.  Uhhhhh, well, I haven’t really done much.  It has just been such a hectic week with the school Christmas concert, all the changes at work, and the impending holiday – I haven’t had time.  Unless you count running up and down the stairs after Nugget, which I suppose should count.

Blogging.  Let’s try this again, shall we?  Kids’ Advent book haul on Wednesday and our December fun to date on Friday.  I promise for real this time.  Check back!

Loving.  Can I brag about this mom hack, guys?  I had about 250 extra breastmilk storage bags left over from my pumping days, and a ton of homemade broth that I needed to portion out and freeze, and I’ve been scratching my head trying to figure out how to store the broth in small enough receptacles that it wouldn’t take three weeks to thaw when I wanted to make soup.  How about killing two birds with one stone?  (I hate that phrase.)  On Saturday, as part of an epic food prep marathon (that seriously went on for hours, you guys) I portioned out and froze about twenty five-ounce baggies of homemade broth, thanks to Medela.  Moms: if you have four boxes of breastmilk storage bags knocking around your pantry, as I did, DO THIS!  I am so excited, I’ve been peeking into the freezer about five times a day.  It’s almost as satisfying as seeing all of those bags full of breastmilk (I imagine; my supply was terrible so I never had that many bags in the freezer at any given time).

Asking.  What are you reading?

Happy new week, my friends!  I hope everyone had a relaxing and restful weekend.  I didn’t, since I never do, but I hope you did!  We are deep into the festive season around here, but Steve is also still not feeling well, so we have cut down on our holiday activities, since there’s only so much I want to wrangle both kids for.  Peanut is (finally) growing out of the loooooong running-away phase, but she still tears around like a maniac and then falls down and gets hurt, and Nugget is a constant flight risk.  Playing a man-to-man defense is pretty much the only way to do anything in public with them and have it be enjoyable, and when the defense is down a man – well.  On Saturday, we had plans to attend the Scottish Walk (which is the big holiday parade in our town) with some friends, but Steve didn’t feel well enough to go.  I didn’t want to disappoint our friends, or Peanut – who knew that she had plans with her BFF, S – so I decided to take the kids myself.  S’s family parked at our house and we walked to the parade together (I love living in a walkable neighborhood!) and we had a great time.  The parade, obviously, has a Scottish theme, so there were lots of kilts and bagpipes.  There were also vintage cars, Miss Virginia, the local high school ROTC, and even our Congressman walking with his wife and wearing a red sash that said “CONGRESSMAN.”  (I’d have recognized him without the sash.  I spend a lot of time thanking his office for his sane and sensible votes, especially on climate issues.  My Congressman is THE ACTUAL BEST.)  Anyway, the best part of the parade was Clan Ramsey, which dressed up as characters from Star Wars.  There were stormtroopers and Imperial officers in kilts (!!!), R2-D2 in a kilt (!!!!!!!!) and even Darth Vader in a Santa hat.  (Nugget, predictably, shouted “HEY, IT’S MY BUDDY!” at Lord Vader.)  After the parade, our friends came back to our house for cocoa, and then headed off for their afternoon plans – and that was pretty much the end of the excitement for our weekend.  I spent both Saturday’s and Sunday’s naptimes working, and Sunday morning at the grocery store.  We ended the weekend as we almost always do – making our library/playground/firehouse circuit – but just me and the kids.  Actually, that was kind of exciting.  I picked up the new Andy Weir book, Artemis, from the library, and the firefighters have a brand new truck.

Reading.  Another busy week!  Last week, I finished Crazy Rich Asians, the second in Kevin Kwan’s hilarious Crazy Rich Asians trilogy.  Looking to balance library deadlines, I didn’t jump right to Rich People Problems (the third) but picked up What Happened instead, and finished it on Sunday evening.  This is going to sound weird, but What Happened was delightful.  Yes, it was super sad – of course – and maddening, because Secretary Clinton would have been such a fantastic President.  I’d have loved to see that massive infrastructure and jobs initiative she was planning come to fruition – but instead we are stuck with a destructive misogynistic megalomaniac that 3 million fewer people voted for.  But the book was still delightful, because Hillary’s writing voice is so frank and friendly (I remember that from Living History too) and now that she can say anything she wants, she’s also kind of salty, which I love.  Her writing about her family – especially Chelsea and the grandkids – brought tears to my eyes.  Anyway, I knew I was going to need to take a breath after What Happened, so I started two books on Sunday – Christmas at Thrush Green, for the #MissReadalong that just started up on Instagram – on my kindle app, and Rich People Problems from my library stack.  I am only about 30 pages in and already there has been a familial kidnapping from an elite private school, and a Singapore Airlines jet with 440 passengers has been rerouted by the Secret Service so that a passenger can be whisked off the plane to attend to a VVIP patient.  And Nick and Rachel have ordered dinner.

Watching.  Last night, I said (breathlessly, in between spasms of laughing) to Steve that I think Parks & Recreation might be even more fun on re-runs.  I think that’s true.  Knowing as much as I now know about the characters and what lies in store for them, I was laughing even harder at Ron and Leslie’s battles with the library (“The library is the worst group of people ever assembled in history. They’re mean, conniving, rude, and extremely well-read, which makes them dangerous.”) and at the team’s “camel” entry to the City Hall mural contest.  We have an ongoing joke that Peanut is going to turn into April Ludgate – the film footage of knee surgeries attached to April’s mural entry is totally something Peanut would do.

Listening.  After finishing the first season of Harry Potter and the Sacred Text I decided to take a little break and try to catch up with the rest of the podworld.  My podcatcher is still looking out of control, but I’ve made some headway and listened to all of the holiday gift guides on there – the Read-Aloud Revival gift guide for young readers was particularly good, and I also got some good ideas from The Mom Hour‘s episode on gifting for babies and toddlers.  I’m looking forward to The Home Hour on favorite Christmas traditions next.

Moving.  Well, last week wasn’t a very good week for movement.  I had a super busy week at work, and exercise classes kind of fell off the agenda.  I’ve got another busy week coming up this week, but I need to figure out a way to cement workouts in the routine.  Often, between the day-to-day of a busy job and parenting (especially when Steve is not feeling up for much kid-wrangling) workouts are the first thing to go, but that’s not really fair to me.

Blogging.  Lists galore this week!  I will have the wrap-up post for my fall list on Wednesday, and my winter list coming on Friday – check in with me then, and do let me know what’s on your winter lists, so I can borrow your ideas.  Haha!

Loving.  I sat down with my calendar the other day and tried to map out all of the holiday activities I want to do and there are SO MANY.  We live in one of the top holiday towns in the country (no joke, US News ranks holiday towns, and last year we were in the top ten) with multiple parades, beautiful classic decorations, and activities almost every weekend.  It’s not actually possible to do everything I’m planning, but it’s so much fun to try – and in January, I know I’ll be glad I made the effort.  I just love the holiday spirit around here, and I love experiencing all the delights of the season – not just Christmas morning – through Peanut’s and Nugget’s little eyes.

Asking.  What are you reading this week?

Happy Monday… evening… to you, my friends!  Sorry this post is coming so late in the day.  I usually try to have it up in the morning, but things have been moving at a whirlwind pace over here.  So – let’s catch up!  For my American friends – did you have a lovely Thanksgiving?  I hope so!  We sure did.  My parents arrived on Tuesday and just left this morning, and I was hardly at my computer (other than for work, of course) between then and now.  I put in a full day at the office on Wednesday, but came home ready to have a wonderful weekend full of family time.  As you already know, we had a fabulous Thanksgiving.  On Friday, we hung around, enjoyed family time and decorated the house for Christmas.  The kids loved decorating the Christmas tree – maybe a little too much.  Nugget is completely obsessed with his vintage fire truck ornament, and I’m sort of afraid he’s going to snap it (it’s the 2016 White House ornament, so not exactly replaceable – much like the 2016 occupant of the White House… please come back, President Obama!).  I also found some of my prized (breakable) ornaments hung near the bottom of the tree, and fortunately was able to rescue and move them before anything too destructive happened.

On Saturday, we all loaded up and drove out to Little Washington – for non-locals, that’s Washington, Virginia, a tiny town nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains near the entrance to Shenandoah National Park, which also happens to house one of the most acclaimed restaurants in the world, the Inn at Little Washington.  Steve’s mom had very generously given us a gift certificate to the Inn last Christmas, and we finally got the opportunity to use it.  The meal was just as splendid as we expected, and will definitely rank among the top dining experiences of our lives.  After dinner, we even got the special treat of being escorted back to the kitchen, and having the privilege of meeting Chef Patrick O’Connell, the famous chef-owner of the Inn.  Chef was a gracious and kind host, and the kitchen – every inch of which was hand-sourced by Chef himself, on his travels around the world – was amazing to see.  We worked off the incredible meal on Sunday, hiking with my parents and the kids to one of the highest overlook points in Shenandoah National Park – more on that to come on Wednesday.  It was a wonderful weekend!  And now I’m back to reality.  I can already tell this week is going to be off-the-charts in terms of the stress level.  Well – at least I have the memories of an amazing meal and a gorgeous hike.

Reading.  It’s been a bit of a slow reading week around my parts.  That’s to be expected with all of the socializing and family time I’ve been enjoying for the past few days.  But I did manage to finish The Stone Sky – which was good, but I was confused throughout most of the book.  It would’ve helped to read the trilogy in closer succession, I think; reading the books as they were released, I’d pretty much forgotten everything that happened in the first two books and spent way too much time puzzling over questions like wait, who is Ykka again? and what the heck did Nassun do to Jija?  Anyway.  Next I picked up The Shell Seekers and I am loving it, but also wanting to take my time and savor it – which is fine, because I discovered that I have to leapfrog China Rich Girlfriend due to library deadlines.  So I’ll be starting that as soon as I press “publish” on this post.

Watching.  The usual.  Lots and lots of Curious George – especially A Very Monkey Christmas – and Star Wars.  George and Vader are the big celebrities in my house.  I tried to get the kids to watch my favorite Christmas movie of all time – A Muppet Family Christmas – but it was a non-starter.  Booooooo.

Listening.  Not as much earbud time as I usually get in over the course of a week, because I had two fewer days of commuting (<–no complaints).  But I’m almost done with the first “book” of Harry Potter and the Sacred Text – just eight minutes to go in the final regular chapter episode, plus the wrap-up episode!  I am still loving, loving, LOVING this podcast.

Moving.  Not a bad week of movement.  It was lacking on the yoga front, but I was really craving some cardio, and I squeezed that in with a five-mile turkey trot on Thanksgiving Day, and a 1.6 mile hike up and down Stony Man Mountain on Sunday.  Moving my legs felt good.  Must keep it up.

Blogging.  I have a great week of content for you!  On Wednesday I’ll be sharing pictures from Stony Man Mountain, which will count for our November hike, and on Friday, I’ve got my November reading round-up post coming to you.  Check in with me then!

Loving.  Waking up to this morning’s news that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are engaged was such a delight!  They look so happy and in love, and I was smiling all day thinking about the royal wedding (Peanut is excited!) and – whenever I got a break – reading news coverage.  The proposal?  LOVE.  Prince Harry dropped to one knee as Meghan was “attempting to” roast a chicken.  Can we get a collective awwwww?  And Harry saying that Meghan and Princess Diana would have been “best friends” and “thick as thieves” brought a tear to my eye.  I love the British royal family and I DON’T CARE WHO KNOWS IT.

Asking.  What are you reading?

Hello.  I would like to share with you the most amazing book!

I have been itching to see The Book of Mormon ever since it opened to such acclaim on Broadway, but I was never able to make it happen.  The touring cast appeared in Buffalo three times while I lived there, and I could never get a babysitter!  We finally saw the show on Friday night at the Kennedy Center, and it was everything I expected, and more.  Wildly inappropriate, of course, but also absolutely hilarious.  As you know if you’ve been reading these Monday posts for a hot second, I’ve been listening to the soundtrack on repeat since we got back from our trip to see Hamilton on Broadway, but – once again – seeing the show in person was ten times better than listening to the soundtrack.  Elder McKinley – sequined-vest-wearing, tap-dancing Elder McKinley – was my favorite part of the show.  Well – second favorite.  Seeing Steve laughing helplessly was my favorite part.  (He had not listened to the soundtrack, and said afterwards that while he loved the show, he thinks he would have enjoyed it even more if he had known the music in advance – more than just the standards “Hello” and “I Believe.”  We’ll make a theatre geek of him yet, kids!)  The rest of the weekend was pretty low key.  It was Steve’s birthday weekend – the big 4-0, you guys! – and what he wanted was a laid-back weekend at home, so that’s what he got.  On Saturday we walked out to the library and the playground, but that was the extent of the activity.  And Sunday was even more low-key – Nugget and I made a grocery run, but other than that, we just hung around the house.  I read like a maniac, Steve watched football, and the kids played and watched cartoons to their hearts’ content.  I gifted Steve with a camping growler and a cozy down blanket from REI – hoping we get some use out of both of his presents this summer!  (He also is getting a very extravagant experience gift as a combination birthday/Christmas present – racing three supercars around Dominion Racetrack – but that’s not until July.)  All in all, I think he had a great weekend – the perfect balance of fun and relaxation, and even a date night to a musical with all the swears.

Reading.  I had a great reading week.  I began the week with We Were Eight Years in Power, the new collection of essays by Ta-Nehisi Coates.  The essays had all been published in The Atlantic, so I’d actually read a few of them, but it was a privilege to revisit them.  Coates is an extraordinary writer, and he never fails to make me think and question.  Once I finished the Coates, I turned my attention – finally! – to The Blue Castle, which I am reading for the #ReadingValancy readalong.  It was an absolute joy, and I read like a fiend all weekend, then was terribly sad when it ended – the mark of a great book.  I ended the weekend on the couch with The Stone Sky, the final volume in N.K. Jemisin’s The Broken Earth trilogy.  The first two books were so well-done; I’ve been eagerly anticipating the third – but dreading it a little, too, because Essun’s journey through motherhood is absolutely searing.  Anyway, I’m just a very little way in, so too soon to say how it’s going.

Watching.  Another great week, because I watched live musical theatre again!  Before this year, it had been so long since Steve and I went to see a show, that seeing both Hamilton and The Book of Mormon in the same year feels decadent in the extreme.  We had a fun date night on Friday and spent the evening at the Kennedy Center with Elder Price, Elder Cunningham, Elder McKinley, Nabalungi and the gang.  It was everything I could have hoped for.  Pink sequined vests!  If you can see it – do.  We just loved every minute.

Listening.  So, a few weeks ago, my friend Susan and I attended an “Austen in Autumn” happy hour, put on by our local JASNA chapter.  (That’s “Jane Austen Society of North America,” for the uninitiated, and yes, it’s a terrible name.)  At the happy hour, we discussed everything from our “favorite Austen rogue” – I named John Thorpe as my favorite, because we’ve all dated John Thorpe, amirite ladies? – to medieval IT support.  Susan and I left high-fiving each other for being social and making new friends, and I also had with me a podcast recommendation – for “Harry Potter and the Sacred Text.”  The premise, in a nutshell, is this – hosts Casper ter Kaile and Vanessa Zoltan, both Harvard Divinity School graduates, discuss and analyze a chapter of the Harry Potter books in each episode as they would analyze the Bible, Torah or Q’uran.  First they talk about the chapter of the week through the lens of a broad theme such as “friendship” or “commitment” or “white privilege.”  Then they move on to a spiritual practice such as lectio divina (sacred reading) or spiritual imagination.  And finally, they each choose one character who appeared in the chapter, and they give that character a personal blessing.  You guys.  I am binging it.  I cannot stop listening.  I am kicking myself that I didn’t know about this podcast back in September, when they did a live episode in D.C.  Because I seriously – seriously! – can’t get enough.  They are a few chapters into the fourth book now, and I predict that both my podcatcher and my Audible account are going to be seriously neglected until I catch up.

Moving.  So – as full of activity as this week has been in other areas (see above) there wasn’t much moving.  I skipped yoga and barre on Tuesday and Wednesday, because Steve was still under the weather from last weekend (actually, he kind of still is even now) and I didn’t want to leave him alone to start the kids’ mornings.  I did make it to power yoga on Friday, because it was my last class with my favorite instructor before she heads off to Africa and the Peace Corps.  But other than that – it was a slow week.  I am feeling the effects, too – I need more movement next week.

Blogging.  Coming up this week, I have a loooooooooong post with my musings on The Blue Castle on Wednesday, and on Friday I plan to tell you about our Thanksgiving celebrations.  Check in with me then!

Loving.  There is so much I could talk about this week.  Renewing my old love for musical theatre!  The upcoming Thanksgiving holiday!  But more than anything else, I am loving Steve on his birthday weekend.  We have been together for a really long time – we started dating when I was 19 and he was 23 – and it’s hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that he’s 40.  I feel so honored to be the person by his side as he journeys through life.  He’s everything I dreamed of in a husband – kind, caring, loving, a wonderful hands-on father, and a true adventure buddy.  Happy birthday, Prince Charming!  Here’s to many, many, MANY more.

Asking.  What are you reading this week?