Apparently the desire to leave my house and see people again makes me want to buy new clothes. Friday I bought a couple casual tshirts online during a sale. Saturday I took myself to TJ Maxx for the first time since the pandemic and came away with several tops I could wear for work calls and a sundress I need to try on for Rudi. Yesterday, I ordered shorts, none of which may fit. But apparently I’m tired of the clothes I’ve been Zooming in for the past 15 months. Now, if I could just find some underwire-free bras for a reasonable price and get a Target BOGO sale on underwear, I’d be a very happy camper!

Somehow I thought when I saw this week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic from That Artsy Girl, Book Titles That Are Complete Sentences, I thought it was going to be hard to compile. But I like title challenges more than I like cover challenges and figured I could scroll through several pages of my Goodreads lists and find enough to qualify. Turns out, not so much! It only took me the first two pages of my most recent reads to compile 10, all read within the past 19 months:

1. Sal and Gabi Break the Universe by Carlos Hernandez
2. Take a Hint, Dani Brown! by Talia Hibbert
3. Nothing Is Wrong and Here Is Why by Alexandra Petri
4. Get a Life, Chloe Brown! by Talia Hibbert
5. Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky by Kwame Mbalia
6. I’m Not Dying with You Tonight by Kimberly Jones and Gilly Segal
7. Size 12 Is Not Fat by Meg Cabot
8. Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts by Kate Racculia
9. Look Both Ways by Jason Reynolds
10. Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes

While most of these books have been written in the past couple years, the Meg Cabot dates to 2005, perhaps marking it as a forerunner in the category.

Bout of Books 31 wrapped up tonight, and while I didn’t complete all my goals, I’m counting it as a success. I finished my audiobook, Abby Collette’s A Deadly Inside Scoop. It was sort of a middle-of-the-road cozy about a young Black woman who stumbles over a dead body the same day she relaunches her family ice cream parlor. Her father ends up being the main suspect, so she and her BBC Mystery-loving best friend find themselves trying to clear him. I don’t know I’ll keep reading the series, but I’m glad I read the first one, particularly because BIPOC sleuths are hard to come by. I started George Saunders’ A Swim in a Pond in the Rain because it’s overdue and I want to see if I should request it again, buy it, or just return it and give it no further psychic energy. (I need to read a few more pages before I can decide.) So that was where my print mojo went, rather than to the graphic novel, which is what I’d planned to finish.

I did make it to all three Bout of Books Twitter chats (the two official and the bonus one), although only one of them did I arrive on time. Oh well.

Today was a day for doing a couple things at once. I listened to an audiobook while having breakfast. I did laundry while taking part in the Bout of Books Twitter chat. I snacked in the sun while reading. I listened to a band while knitting. I finished my audiobook while sleeping on the couch.

Okay, I confess: that last one ended up being too much. While technically both happened at the same time, I had to rewind the audiobook to catch the end of the book.

But still!

Things I’m hoping to get to this weekend:

• Do my taxes.
• Clean up some portion of my apartment.
• Spend lots of time outside.
• String the peas up higher. (They’re growing like weeds.) Also, remove more weeds.
• Go to the library.
• Stop by a craft festival.
• Wash laundry.
• Pick up my knitting.
• Finish my audiobook.
• Shop for some graduation gifts for my interns.

How about you? What’s on your to-do list?

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Most of my volleyball teammates and I went out after the game. One exchange elicited the sort of uproarious laughter that leads to tears. I can’t remember the last time I’ve laughed that hard.

2. Another cyclist and I pass on the multi-use trail. He has a pug riding in each pannier.

3. As I was biking home tonight, there was just the slimmest sliver of a waxing crescent moon off to the west. (If you click through to Flickr, you can make the picture bigger. I’m down near the Capitol in the shot and you can see the lower part of the Washington Monument through the trees at the bottom left. Also, a couple of those sprinklers over the Mall were really misaligned. I did not make it past dry.)

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