Life: It Goes On - February 19

Happy Sunday! It's sunny today and will be (for us this time of year) warm today. We got 7 inches of snow this week so as I look out the windows, everything remains snow covered. Not yet that ugly, patchy, dirty snow but a beautiful white covering over all of the grassy areas so it's pretty to look out and see. I worked from home the day it snowed and was reminded, once again, that snowy days are my most productive. I know so many of you talk of curling up in a comfy chair with a cup of tea and a good book. But me? I want to be in the kitchen, making just the kinds of food a snowy day calls for. Fortunately, working from home allowed me to both work and cook. 

Last Week I: 

Listened To: In an effort to work through some of the books that have been sitting on my shelves for years, I decided to get back to requesting audiobooks that I already own in print. So this week I checked out Nine Perfect Strangers, by Liane Moriarty. I'm a big fan of Moriarty's but nearly 3 hours in, this one is really grating on my nerves and I'm not sure I'm going to be able to finish it. To be far, it may be the reader as much as the book itself. 

Watched: Some Emily In Paris, some Wednesday, some of The Crown and a fair amount of college basketball. The other night, when I finished an episode of Emily In Paris, I was surprised to find that I only had one more episode left in season 3 and pretty bummed to find out that season 4 will not be released until the end of this year. Do you watch it? I have a feeling that, when the series comes to an end, I'm going to be disappointed by an ending that seems foregone. 

Read: I'm finishing Lawn Boy today. I really, really need to pick up my reading. My loans for three Netgalley books will expire this week (and I never know if I'll be able to reload them) and I picked up three more books at the library the other day. 

Made: Steak, green bean soup, nachos, Thai chicken peanut noodles. The Big Guy, in his infinite need to buy bargains, bought five pounds of green beans the other day and the only way two people were going to get through them was to turn them into soup. It's a pretty easy recipe and now I'm thinking I need to make it again soon while I can still remember the ways I thought of to tweak it. The same goes for the Thai chicken peanut noodles; not so much that I will tweak the ingredients as that I will tweak the way I cook it. 

Enjoyed: A quiet week, including a Valentine's Day dinner in the dining room. Basic food (steak, baguette, green beans (yeah, those again), chocolates. But I set the table with a vintage tablecloth, china, crystal, and flowers and threw on my Spotify love song playlist so it was lovely. Oh yeah, and BG got me chocolate whiskey which we enjoyed with our dessert and it was marvelous!

This Week I’m:  

Planning: 40 Bags In 40 Days started Wednesday! BG is on board (at least in theory) and we are determined to reclaim our basement. Today I'll put together a plan of attack and I'm almost as excited about the planning as I am about the doing. 

Thinking About: Last night I dreamed that the house I grew up in had sold. Today I'm thinking about what still needs to be done with it to make that happen. As hard as it will be to say goodbye, it's time. 

Feeling: My sleep has been better lately, the sun has been shining, the days are longer and I'm about ready to lighten my house - I'm feeling good!

Looking forward to: Booking our tickets to Alaska this week. I'm going to try not to think about being shut in a tin can thousands of feet in the air for five hours at a time and focus instead on what fun we'll have. 

Question of the week: Every day I have a checklist of things to get done that day and most days I do a pretty good job of checking everything off. But yesterday I went down a task rabbit hole. In getting out cleaning products, I realized I had a bag of potting soil and remembered that many of my plants needed more soil so I stopped and did that, for example. Do you ever start cleaning and find yourself doing tasks you hadn't expected to do?