Life: It Goes On - September 14

Surprised to see me? Me, too. I hadn't meant to take any break at all, let alone a six-week break. After I'd already been MIA a while, my email got hacked and I had to change passwords on every device which took a ridiculous amount of time. I won't swear that I'm back to regular posting but I'm going to try. 

Last Week(s) I: 

Listened To: I just finished Colson Whitehead's Sag Harbor. Prior to that I listened to Stephen King's 11/22/63. Today I started 

Tanarive Due's The Reformatory. 

Watched: If you know me at all by now, you'll know that I've spent the last couple of weeks watching college football and volleyball and now NFL football. We finished the last episode of Shrinking, which we're sad to be done with. Back to Ted Lasso we go for our show that makes us laugh and also gives us all of the feels. And, since I've been gone, I've been to the movie theater to see adaptations of both Hadestown and Six.

Read: I've been really lax with actual reading lately, despite having several library books sitting on my side table. Right now I'm reading Maggie O'Fallon's Land. My goodness, but her writing is always so wonderful. 

Made: As it's been summer, it's the usual salads, BLTs and pasta - basically anything we can make using tomatoes. I did make a Tang pie for a family dinner that was a hit. Yes, that Tang - the powdered orange-flavored drink mix. Which I will never drink so it's a good thing we liked the pie because I'll be making it again. 

Enjoyed: So many things, including: 

1. Mini-me and Ms. C came to town for a wedding and I was able to have my whole family together for the first time in 7 years. How we laughed, ate, hugged, and took pictures. 
2. Some friends and I sent to hear Ariel Lawhon speak about her latest book, The Pirate Queen, on Saturday. If you get a chance to hear her, we highly recommend it. 
3. Our quarterly sibling dinner. Thanks to a plumbing issue, last minute changes to the menu (to reduce the dishes that needed to be washed) had to be made. But we enjoyed the food and even more a lovely evening on the patio. 

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This Week I’m:  

Planning: I pulled up the last box of my parents' memory books and my goal is to finish going through those this week. 

Thinking About: How I find my reading focus again. 

Feeling: It's been grey and gloomy the past couple of days so I'm feeling slow. 

Looking forward to: Book club tomorrow, dinner and a movie with Miss C on Thursday, and a fun brunch with Miss C and a couple of friends of hers and Mini-him on Sunday. 

Question of the week: So what have you been up to the past few weeks? 

Life: It Goes On - July 27

Happy Monday! I'd say from "exceedingly hot" Omaha, but I think it's exceedingly hot everywhere right now. Needless to say, I've spent as much time as I could inside and left the yard work to the Big Guy, who handles it much better than I do and normally does most of that kind of work anyway. 

This weekend he also had to help Mini-him finish moving out of his apartment; the two of them made a lot of trips to the storage unit, which is not air-conditioned. By the time they'd get to my house, they were both drenched with sweat and I felt sorry for them. Not sorry enough to go help them, but sorry enough to make sure they both got cold drinks, had food ready, and that the house was a little cooler than usual. 

Last Week I: 

Listened To: Elizabeth Gilbert's All The Way To The River. 

Watched: The Odyssey with friends Saturday night. Two days later, I'm still processing it. The movie making of it is great, the acting is great, but the story is, of course, so dark and some of it is really hard to watch (Circe turning the warriors into pigs, for example). Still, I'd recommend it. 

Read: Not a lot, I'm sorry to say. Too busy working on a project. 

Made: Sunday was Mini-him's bday so I made his favorites, Asian chicken salad and red velvet cake. 

Enjoyed: If you've been around a while, you'll understand that I enjoyed getting a lot of work done working on clearing out my basement. In the past week, I've gotten through 11 of the memory books that my parents' left behind - sorting into piles for my family, my sister's family, and my brother's family, as well as a pile of things that will need to be copied. Half of the total in the books went to the trash, as well as most of the binders. It feels good to have gotten so much of that slow, tedious project done. 

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This Week I’m:  

Planning: I have 18 more of those books to work on, but not this week. This week I'll work on other things in the basement as much as I can. Then we have some fun things planned that will take up big chunks of the week. 

Thinking About: My daughter was assaulted at the restaurant she works at yesterday. Under what circumstances is it acceptable for anyone to lay hands on a young woman because of food? BG and I would like her to press charges, but she's probably right that nothing would happen (the guy's a big deal in town). Still, Papa and Mama Bear are furious. 

Feeling: Work's been stressful, leaving me exhausted every day. 

Looking forward to: A friend and I are going to see the movie version of Hadestown tomorrow night. 

Question of the week: Have you ever seen the musical Hadestown performed?

Life: It Goes On - July 22

Happy Wednesday! Why yes, yes I am only getting to this three days late. And no, no I did not get any reviews posted last week. In fact, I have 4 reviews to finish and 8 that need to be started. I've been reading, but I'm beginning to wonder if my desire to blog has run its course after 17 years. 17 years?! I never would have thought I'd be doing this for 17 years when I posted that first introductory post. But I do still want to put down my thoughts about the books I read - may just need a better way to do them. 

Last Week I: 

Listened To: I finished John Kenney's I See You've Called In Dead, George Orwell's 1984, and Marjan Kamali's The Stationery Shop. Today I started Elizabeth Gilbert's All The Way To The River, which I picked up because it was available while I'm waiting for one of my holds to come in. 

Watched: The last of the World Cup matches, but nothing remarkable since then. 

Read: I finished Elizabeth Strout's The Things We Never Say and George Saunders' Vigil. Tonight I'm starting Douglas Stuart's John of John. See - I told you I've been reading! 

Made: Ham and cheese wraps, pizzas, taco salads, nachos, and caprese pasta. 

Enjoyed: Lots of quiet time, got my hair done, went for ice cream and drinks with friends and Mini-him, and book club last night. 

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This Week I’m:  

Planning: I've put a plan into motion that's convinced the Big Guy to work on the basement with me and I'm so excited to get started on it with him. I started this weekend and am making slow, but real, progress. I'm not using any of the methods I've learned over the years, but I think it will work well for us. 

Thinking About: In a week we will no longer be empty nesters. It's only for a few months, but it's definitely going to take some adjusting to for all of us. 

Feeling: Work has me feeling like we've had 3 Mondays this week. 

Looking forward to: We're going to see The Odyssey at the IMAX on Saturday. 

Question of the week: Have you seen it? If so, did you reread it before you went (or read it for the first time)?

Life: It Goes On - July 13

Happy Monday! Gracious, did yesterday ever get away from me! In fact, the entire weekend did. Mini-him is getting ready to move "home" for a few months so we've been working to get a bedroom ready for him to use and he has started moving things in here and to storage. I used to think I would always be eager to have one of my ducklings move home. Turns out, I'm not that eager after all. But you do what you need to do to help a kid out and it's only for a couple of months so we'll deal with it. And it has helped me get more things out of the house, so it's a win in that way. 

Last Week I: 

Listened To: I finished John Green's Everything Is Tuberculosis and started John Kenney's I See You've Called In Dead. 

Watched: More soccer and Enola Holmes 3. 

Read: I finished Dolan Perkins-Valdez's Happy Land and started Elizabeth Strout's The Things We Never Say. 

Made: Lavosh pizza with Alfredo sauce, chicken, bacon, mushrooms, onion and mozzarella pearls. Delicious. Will I ever remember to make it again? Probably not. 

Enjoyed: Dinner out with the Big Guy at one of our favorite places and then movie night. 

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This Week I’m:  

Planning: Work will continue on making room for Mini-him while I can still convince BG to get rid of things to make room. 

Thinking About: A couple of trips we're hoping to make in the next few weeks. 

Feeling: Lazy today. 

Looking forward to: Spa day, a.k.a. getting my hair done. 

Question of the week: I just noticed cobwebs in my office and now I can't remember the last time I cleaned the walls in here. How often do you clean your walls? Do you dust them or wash them down every time? 

Life: It Goes On - July 5

Happy Sunday and happy day after the 4th of July! I hope you all are having a wonderful holiday weekend. I struggled with celebrating this year; but, in the end, celebrated what this country was founded on and what it could be. We've had a lot of clouds of late, including a 2" rainfall on Friday evening; but today is starting off sunny, which always gives me more energy to get things done. 

Last Week I: 

Listened To: John Green's Everything Is Tuberculosis. 

Watched: So. Much. Soccer. 

Read: Still reading Happy Land, although I need to finish it pretty soon as I have 5, yes 5, books ready for pick up at the library. 

Made: Fettuccine carbonara, blt salad, and last night we bbq'd chicken thighs and I made homemade ice cream and chocolate sauce. This may be the first 4th in 20 years that I didn't make red velvet cake but since I always make it for Mini-him's bday in July, I've decided once a month is plenty. 

Enjoyed: A quick visit from Miss H during the week. Time with family yesterday and dinner and fireworks with friends last night. We didn't have to buy a single firework; we just sat in a neighbor's driveway and watched displays going off all around us. 

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This Week I’m:  

Planning: On working some more on the basement. I've made good progress last week which was an incentive to keep going. Now if I can just keep the Big Guy from pulling things back out of the donation pile, I'll make even better progress. 

Thinking About: A couple of trips we'd like to take this summer and maybe even a real vacation. 

Feeling: A little sad. I'm really missing my parents this weekend. They loved the Fourth of July. I've told you before about the neighborhood breakfast my parents started in 1976; this year was the 50th anniversary of that first breakfast and my dad had so hoped to be alive and able to go to it. 

Looking forward to: I think a quiet week. Although I haven't looked at the calendar yet, so I may well be forgetting something. 

Question of the week: How did you celebrate yesterday? 

Life: It Goes On - June 29

Happy Monday evening! This past week was not an intentional break at all. Started last week with a nasty cold that turned into almost a week of sinus headache and I've been almost useless unless it absolutely had to get done. At least I did get some reading done, so there's that. 

The Last Two Weeks I: 

Listened To: M.L. Stedman's A Far-Flung Life and Susan Jane Gilman's Undress Me In The Temple of Heaven. Today I started John Green's Everything Is Tuberculosis. 

Watched: More soccer than I've watched in all the rest of my life combined. Also, The Penguin Lessons, starring Steve Coogan, which is based on a true story of the same name written by Tom Michell. Coogan plays Michell, who saves a penguin in Uruguay and then the penguin decides to bond to him. Michell ends up taking the penguin back to Argenitina, where he is teaching in the 1970's, and the penguin helps him become a better teacher and better person. We both really liked it a lot and would recommend it.

Read: I finished Peter Geye's A Lesser Light and Monica Wood's How To Read A Book. Yesterday I started Dolen Perkins-Valdez's latest, Happy Land. This is my fourth of Perkins-Valdez's books, having previously read Wench, Balm, and Take My Hand. 

Made: BLTs and blt salad, homemade Mac and cheese, stir fry, smoothies. Mostly easy, comfort food. It will be much more of the same this week, what with the heat wave we've just started. 

Enjoyed: Book club friends and I went to hear Lisa See promote her latest book, Daughters of The Sun and Moon. Learned a lot; she does a great job. We followed that with dinner and drinks and it was such good therapy. 

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This Week I’m:  

Planning: Miss H is coming up tomorrow night to pick up a new car and will be spending the night and a chunk of Wednesday here so I've taken Wednesday off to spend with her and I'm hoping to get through some more of the things she's still got at my house. 

Thinking About: How to celebrate the Fourth. 

Feeling: Still lethargic but at least able to finally convince myself to get some things done. 

Looking forward to: See Planning. We haven't seen Miss H since Christmas! 

Question of the week: I feel like this has been a banner 12 months for books and I'm struggling to keep up with the ones I want to read. What's one book you've read in the past 12 months that you can't recommend enough? What's one you'd suggest I skip? 

Life: It Goes On - June 14

Happy Sunday! It's a beautiful day here in very busy Omaha. The College World Series kicked off on Friday, farmer's markets are in full swing, there's an outdoor art festival, and Wicked is in town this week. Which of those have we enjoyed this weekend? Not a darn one. 

Well, that's not entirely true. The Big Guy did go to a concert Friday night with a friend (he's always up for a concert!). By and large, though we steer clear of downtown this time of June, except the going down for maybe one game each year. Instead we've thrown windows open and spent a lot of time on the patio. 

Last Week I: 

Listened To: I finished Sarah Waters' The Paying Guests and started M.L. Steadman's A Far-flung Life. Unfortunately, I'm not sure I'm going to get that finished before it's due back. By the time I get it again, I'll have forgotten what I already read!

Watched: The NBA finals, the College World Series, some World Cup, and the final episode of Emily In Paris. 

Read: Still plugging away on the Peter Guy book. It's really good so I can't figure out why I can't make myself pick it up more often. 

Made: Homemade ranch dressing with mayonnaise with lime juice and a restaurant packet of Hidden Valley Ranch dressing. I really didn't believe those two ingredients could make that much difference, but they certainly did. 

Enjoyed: Girl therapy Friday evening. A.k.a. happy hour with a friend that started in a restaurant and ended on my patio. It was a rough week and that time Friday was just what the doctor ordered. 

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This Week I’m:  

Planning: Despite the forecast for a nice week, I'm bound and determined to make a dent in our scary basement. I have a couple of days off of work this week that really gives me time to make a dent. 

Thinking About: How you are only as happy as your saddest child. 

Feeling: Like taking a nap. Even though I slept plenty last night. 

Looking forward to: Getting my hair done this week. 

Question of the week: It's a busy time of year for sports. Are you a fan of baseball, basketball or soccer?