Why is it that after a long weekend that the workweek, which should feel short feels twice as long as normal, and the next weekend, which should feel like a typical two days feels like you’ve barely had time to get home from work before you’re heading back in?

Anyway, this weekend started with two-thirds of the original Ghostbusters (I misjudged the start time) at the park near my house. (My main thought while watching it? Why is it that those guys didn’t have to prove their prowess to people once they started catching ghosts? Why did everyone just assume they were? Did the writers of the new Ghostbusters film feel their crew had to justify what they were doing because we are more jaded and suspicious than we were 30 years ago or because they were women? I get it’s fiction, but it made me think.)

Yesterday I slept in and then read from about six different books. I took myself out to dinner when Rudi had a volunteer thing, and then I went grocery shopping. I painted my nails, drank cocoa, and (after my nails were dry) ripped the problem sock back to before I screwed it up and got it sorted back out.

Today, we went to the farmers market, watched the final stage of the Vuelta a España, and then went out for the afternoon. We walked over to the Adams Morgan Day Festival, which was more scaled back and focused locally than it’s been lately, and ate cookies from The Cake Room (where we ran into our garden manager) and Indian food from Jyoti.

We then headed to the garden, where we watered, harvested some tomatoes (I may have crowed over two plum-sized tomatoes the squirrels hadn’t bothered to eat), four beans (two long ones and two purple ones), basil, and a potato, and ripped out a couple of tomato plants that had gone by, as well as the kale decimated by bronze beetles. I did not harvest a cicada I originally mistook for a weird pepper. We concluded our outing by heading up to Politics and Prose for their member sale, where I bought some presents. We returned home for a traditional summer supper of corn on the cob and capreses.

As I said, over too fast!

How was your weekend?

Three beautiful things from the first week of September:

1. I bought a seersucker dress back in the spring before the weather was warm enough to justify it, put it in my closet, and then never thought about it again until I was contemplating what to wear during our latest heat wave. Since I’ve been feeling mopey about wanting to buy new clothes lately (why is it that several decades out of school, I still think I need a new outfit come September?), cutting the price tag off the dress felt especially good. (Plus, a coworker complimented me on it!)

2. I swallowed back the fear of rejection and asked someone I only know slightly to a movie based on a book we’ve both read. It doesn’t come out for another six weeks, but she said yes!

3. Last night after their ride, Rudi’s bike group went out for pizza on their club’s dime. When they were divvying up leftovers, they asked if he’d like to take a few slices home to me. They made for a delicious supper.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?

Yesterday I finished Another Brooklyn, which meant I had choices when it came to picking out a new book to pack this morning. I had plans to attend a baseball game this evening and rain was a possibility, so I decided to plumb the depths of my personal collection, rather than endangering library books. Fannie Flagg’s The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion, a gift from Kate during last winter’s Ninja Book Swap, caught my eye, and I started it while waiting for a delayed train this morning.

The ball game didn’t end up happening (or, rather it happened yesterday, without us), and Sarah managed to catch me to let me know not to come just as I was passing the turn-off to the library. Taking this as a sign, I wandered in and picked up the second book in the Phryne Fisher series, Flying Too High. (Did you know in the books, there’s a Mrs. Butler, as well?) I spent the evening reading it.

The knitting is the mate to this spring’s Sock Madness Slip-Stripe Spiral, and I’m nearly to the heel. I don’t love the pattern or the yarn combination, which makes it slower going than it ought to be, but I expect it’ll be finished by month’s end, when I may want to wear wool socks once more.

Yarning Along with Ginny.

Today’s post is part of Karen’s Weekending roundup and Carole’s Ten on Tuesday meme:

We started the weekend with a picnic at the Yards. It was Julia’s birthday, so Sarah picked up cupcakes. I have not been feeling especially social lately, so I’d given myself permission to leave anytime after I’d wished Julia a happy birthday. I stayed until the park closed when we all went our separate ways.

I admired a rather spectacular sunset. I understand Hermine made for gorgeous evenings up and down the East Coast. (It was also lovely on Saturday as I was driving over the Key Bridge.)

Rudi and I went to the pool on Saturday. It was in the 70s and breezy and there were clouds that kept covering the sun. It was not crowded. We returned today for the final day of the season, and it was mobbed. So crowded that they’d run out of sign-up sheet space and just waved us in. The water was chilly, but the deck pavement was warm. I may have napped in between swims.

We did some grocery shopping. We picked up important things like whipped cream and Oreos and olive oil and cat food. We also went to the farmers market, where we bought more important things like tomatoes and celery and onions and milk.

We tried to go to an outdoor movie in Rosslyn, but it turned out to have been canceled. (That part was poorly advertised.) We came home and watched Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban instead. Last night, I stayed up late and watched 13 Going on 30. I’d forgotten Mark Ruffalo was in it. He seems like a nice guy, so I might watch more of his films just because he’s in them.

I got to see the Netherlands Carillon. It was … fine. One would assume it’s more impressive when someone’s playing it. The views from it of D.C., however, are stunning.

I slept in this morning. I probably could have slept more, but it felt productive to get up before 11.

I washed a lot of laundry and a lot of dishes. I put some things away. I probably could have done more of that, too.

We watered the garden and picked basil and three potatoes I could see poking out of the ground.

I read Clare Legrand’s Some Kind of Happiness. If you liked A Monster Calls or A Bridge to Terabithia or Wildwood, I’d recommend this.

How about you? What did you get up to this weekend?

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Friends have just moved back to the East Coast from California, and we got to celebrate by having supper with them.

2. We played a hard-fought and ridiculously close quarterfinal match in volleyball, but ultimately lost. This meant I got to celebrate the end of volleyball season with a half hour at the pool before it closed.

3. Rudi got the all-clear to return to cycling post-surgery.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?

After work, volleyball, the garden, and the pool, I decided to head down to the new café near my house that opened a couple weeks ago, Emissary.

My chai was a little weak (I miss the homemade chai from Bakehouse, which closed their coffeehouse to focus on their bakery back in the spring. Emissary’s won’t replace it.), but the cannelé were tasty. Right now, Emissary is too expensive to become a go-to stop, but it’ll be a nice treat occasionally.

Yesterday, I started reading Another Brooklyn, a novel reminiscing about coming of age in the titular borough in the 1970s. Newly released by Jacqueline Woodson, author of the verse memoir Brown Girl Dreaming, it would be obvious even without knowing that that this was written by a poet, with lyrical, yet slightly distant, prose the defining characteristic of the novel thus far.

I’m listening to a couple of YA novels, as well: David Levithan’s Boy Meets Boy, which sounds like it’s narrated by Michael Cera (who co-starred in Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, the novel of which was co-written by Levithan) and Tamara Ireland Stone’s Every Last Word, which I just started listening to tonight.

On the knitting front, I’m into the gusset decreases of this sock, but I’m debating ripping back some. Whenever I started the heel flap, I accidentally did a single row of slip-stitch heel set up on the instep needle before moving onto the heel stitches. I fixed it tonight, when I went back to knitting in the round, but the half row is tight and I’m concerned it will be noticeable when worn. I tried it on and didn’t pick up on it, but I’d hate to be wrong after the fact. Plus, the sole stitches might be looser than I want on this size of needle. I’ll make a final decision tomorrow after I’ve had some sleep and some time away from it.

Yarning along with Ginny.