We’re three days into a week where I declared at the outset that I wanted to spend more time at the park. How am I doing on that goal? To be honest, not great.

I’ve finished work no earlier than 8 p.m. every night this week. Two days I never made it outside the door of my apartment and the most exercise I got was walking to the bathroom or shuttling between the rocking chair and the couch.

So the highlight of the week was yesterday, when I did leave the couch, shutting the laptop in time to put on sneakers and leave the house and do a few laps of the traffic circle at the end of the block. I then sought higher ground at the park so I could catch the sunset.

Probably the nicest sunset I’ve seen this year, it was the sort of evolving beauty that you look at one second and think, “Wow! That’s amazing!” And then twenty seconds later you’re thinking, “What was I talking about? THIS is so much better than that was.” And so it continues until suddenly the show is just over, the screen goes black, and the house lights come up, and you’re able to think, “What a phenomenal show! That was totally worth the price of admission.”

Flickr is down, so instead of my sunset shots, I’m going to give you a sense of what’s going on in the Burrow in the early morning:

Smelling: Overripe strawberries in the berry bowl on the table.

Feeling: A warm, soft Corey awkwardly tucked under my arm and draped on the edge of my lap in front of my laptop. Tired, from having dozed off on the couch before I got the dishes done and because I’m PMSing. Mentally exhausted from having put in two really long days at work (albeit from my couch and rocking chair), without having checked off a whole lot from my to-do list (my mother would tell me to put all the things I did do onto my list, but that method just makes me feel worse). But also hopeful because I only have two meetings scheduled for tomorrow and I have blocked hour-long chunks on my calendar to try to move projects forward. (If this fails, I’m going to have to ask my equally harried boss for some help in managing my priorities.)

Hearing: Birds in the trees, because it’s after 3 a.m. Cars passing by, because we aren’t as shut down as we used to be. Occasionally, a light rustle from the window well, where I assume a bug is out for an early-morning stroll. The fan in the bedroom whirring.

Tasting: Chocolate. Do you think Hershey kisses taste different from Hershey eggs or bars? Why do you think that is? Does the unique shape require a slightly different recipe?

Seeing: A super messy living room. I really need to do something about that, but after the long work days, I’m really lacking the energy/enthusiasm to move forward on any other task at this point.

Feel free to give me a sense of how you’re doing in the comments.

The library hasn’t been open since I posted my list of spring tbr’s, but that’s not going to stop me from giving you an entirely different list of top ten books on my summer to-read list:

1. Clean Getaway by Nic Stone
2. Love, Creekwood by Becky Albertalli
3. Nothing Is Wrong and Here Is Why by Alexandra Petri
4. By the Book by Amanda Sellet
5. Sal and Gabi Break the Universe by Carlos Hernandez
6. The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune
7. The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters by Balli Kaur Jaswal
8. Gloom Town by Ronald Smith
9. Jo & Laurie by Margaret Stohl and Melissa de la Cruz
10. So You Want to Talk about Race by Ijeoma Oluo

How about you? What are you planning to read during the warm months?

I did pretty well on this week’s list.

I rode my bike over to Georgetown on Saturday to get quarters and then also stopped to treat myself to takeaway lunch and to buy groceries.

We got three loads of laundry done when we were indoors.

We did a lot of thinning of bunching onions, violet leaves, and mint/lemon verbena at the garden. And I hacked back some of the vines from the outside of the fence.

We bought pizza for supper Saturday night.

This morning, I came home from the farmers market with lots of goodies, including the first cherries, green beans, and zucchini of the season.

I read in the park and saw the sun set each evening. I hope to continue the trend.

It was a beautiful night at the park.

We’ve made it to the weekend again, and honestly it didn’t get here fast enough. I’m feeling burnt out and exhausted, which seems ridiculous for a life that involves rarely leaving my couch. Which is probably the problem, come to think of it.

So this weekend, I’m hoping for less couch time and hoping for more time:

• Riding my bike — maybe I’ll be super ambitious and bike over to the Arlington library to return a book.
• Walking — if I get up early enough, I should head over to the bank in Georgetown for quarters.
• Tending the garden — I have some old potatoes that should go in the ground, and I’d like to plant some beans. Plus the herb section of the garden is being overrun by lemon verbena and mint that should be cut back.
• Baking — I should take advantage of the cooler weather and Rudi’s planned absences to fire up the oven.
• Reading and knitting in the park — The weather is supposed to be just gorgeous. We were outside until nearly 10 this evening and weren’t the last ones to leave.
• Getting takeout — I’m thinking pizza for supper and a drink from one of my local shops.
• Sending some mail — I was really good at reaching out to friends earlier in the pandemic, but I’ve fallen back on bad, non-card-sending habits that I’d like to break.

What are you hoping your weekend includes?