Life: It Goes On - May 22

It's been a quiet but strange week around here. Mama E flew home on Tuesday which meant that Tuesday night was the first night we'd had an empty house in five days. While it was nice to not worry about what we'd eat for dinner and just crash on the sofa after dinner, we kind of missed having Mama E, Miss S and Mini-me around. 

Plus, with my house still in decent shape and no projects in the near future, it was strange not to really have anything I had to do. You'd think that would mean I'd have gotten a lot of reading done but I just couldn't get into any of the books I had going. I even tried a few pages of several books that should have interested me but didn't just now. 

This Week I'm:

Nebraska's own Hannah
Huston on The Voice

Listening To: Podcasts - I'm so far behind on all of them. I got through about half of the NPR Books episodes, several Futility Closet episodes, and some Story Corp episodes. Of course, I'm still listening to The Girl Who Played With Fire in my car. That will take at least a couple more weeks. Can I just say that it has gotten so complicated that I often have no idea who the characters are? 

Watching: The Voice (sorry for the voting spam on Twitter!), Mr. Selfridge (we introduced Mama E to this one and she was a good sport and acted like she was interested), and baseball. I know you'll find it hard to believe, but The Big Guy actually went two evenings without turning on the television!

Reading: I'm struggling with Adam Haslett's Imagine Me Gone. It's gone an entirely different direction than I was expecting after the first few pages. Dark humor, multiple points of view as it skips through time, no real clue where this is going. I've decided to start Beryl Markhams' West With The Night as well which I am enjoying but won't read as my primary book until I finally finish Imagine Me Gone. 

Making: I grilled steaks and made a tater tot/cheesy casserole (for you Midwesterners, this was not your grandma's tater tot casserole!) for Mama E's last night but otherwise we've been using up leftovers. Which ain't a bad thing when those leftovers include gingerbread, homemade ice cream, and ham!

Planning: Mini-him's move the end of the month. Again. Didn't we just move him in?  On the plus side, I can finally get the sofa out of my bedroom!

Thinking About: Doing some painting. The powder room is definitely getting painted today. And, finally, I think we've settled on a color for the front door. I think. Well, we're down to two choices anyway - charcoal grey or tomato red. Could we have picked two more different colors?

Enjoying: A beautiful weekend and a visit from BG's cousin and his wife who were here from L.A. We had inherited some old pictures from his side of the family so they had fun going through the envelop we had for them. 

Feeling: Adrift. Not quite sure what to do with myself. It's not like there aren't plenty of things I should be or could be doing. I just can't seem to make myself care about them enough to do them.

Looking forward to: Seasons of Reading's Sci-Fi Summer Read-a-Thon. I know you're thinking "But Lisa, you don't even read sci-fi!" And you're right. But...The Martian. I need to read The Martian. Also, on NPR's list of 100 sci-fi books, The Princess Bride is included. I'm not sure why but I'm going to run with that idea and try to knock off both of those books.

Question of the week:  What do you do with yourself when you fall into the doldrums?