Today, I spent time at the farmers market, at the pool, and at the garden. I also fit in a nap on the couch, doing laundry, reading and eating pizza in the park, and talking to Karen on the phone.

I could get used to this…

Another belated post. This time, I’d forgotten to recharge the computer, and I decided rather than posting from my phone I’d just wait and post in the morning.

Yesterday was a very nice start to the three-day weekend. I slept in and then took myself out for a mobile brunch (a bagel with cream cheese from my preferred local bagel shop and tea from the coffee house) on my way to the library-garden-pool loop.

Then in the evening, I met up with Anna and her boyfriend, Greg, for a nearly perfect evening at the ballpark. (Perfect would have involved the Mets winning.) The weather was ideal and the game was followed by fireworks. Anna is one of my long-time volleyball teammates who’s currently recovering from an ACL tear that happened during a game this spring, so I hadn’t seen her in quite some time. But we enjoy each other’s company and always have lots to talk about. And Greg is also great, although we’ve had fewer opportunities to get to know each other.

I’m looking forward to seeing what today holds (I’m about to feed the cat and hit the farmers market.) Scattered showers are predicted, which won’t affect my ability to swim, but may make lounging poolside less desirable. We’ll see.

Have a great Sunday!

The computer and I dozed off together last night, so I’m posting this this morning instead:

It’s a long weekend this weekend, meant to honor laborers. I don’t begin to think I have a hard job. No one asks me to run into burning buildings, nurse sick children, stand next to speeding cars on triple digit days, teach those who don’t want to learn, or deal with irate members of the public. I get to do interesting things that let me learn and that help people. But the work dynamic has been changing this summer, and while I have been trying to breathe into it, like a challenging yoga pose, I am tired and I am emotionally sore, and I am tempted to spend the weekend in the mental equivalent of child or corpse pose, disengaged from everyone and everything.

And while some of that is necessary, I don’t think three whole days of it really benefit me in the long run. I should get outside and get some fresh air. I should tend my garden and spend some time seeing the things that tender, careful nurturing have brought forth. I should get some exercise, either on a bike, or swimming at the pool. I should eat a ton of vegetables (and maybe some pizza). I should lower the height of Mount Laundry and do some more cleaning.

I have plans to go to the Mets-Nationals game tomorrow and will bring a volleyball teammate whose been out of commission for a while and her boyfriend. I will visit the library and escape into some novels. And I will knit those six rows of ribbing so I can get back to the part of the shawl that interests me. And I will get lots of sleep.

What’s on your radar for this weekend? A last trip to the beach? Recovering from the first week(s) of school? Hiding from the hordes?

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. The washing machine has been fixed. The technician wasn’t sure he’d figured out what was wrong, so he programmed both the washer and dryer to give me a free load to test it out.

2. Thunderstorms rumbled through the wee hours of a night earlier this week as the remnants of Hurricane Ida pushed her way past us. While this kept others awake for hours, Corey and I were happy to note it didn’t sound like we were personally under attack and easily went back to sleep.

3. The upside to water dripping through our light fixture is that our landlord decided it was simpler just to buy a new one rather than trust that this one wouldn’t set the building ablaze. The new one doesn’t flicker and crackle (the light bulbs on the old one lasted decades, but made you wish that they hadn’t) and gives off a nice, bright light. Overall, an improvement.

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

I was going to take a photo of the shawl, but it’s only six rows longer than it was last time I shared a picture. In six more rows, I get to leave the ribbing section behind for now and go back to the mosaic design. So, hopefully next week there will be something discernible to show.

On the bookish front, I’ve picked up Pride and Premeditation, Tirzah Price’s riff on Austen’s most famous novel. In her version, Mr. Bennet is a Cheapside solicitor and Lizzie occasionally helps look into cases for him. Mr. Collins is his self-entitled barrister and Charlotte Lucas his secretary. Hoping to convince her father to officially hire her on as a barrister, Lizzie pursues a murder case, in which one Charles Bingley is accused of murdering his no-good brother-in-law, Mr. Hurst. But Lizzie must contend with the most irritating barrister already on the case, a Fitzwilliam Darcy.

I’m also still listening to Queen Elizabeth and her assistant private secretary, Rozie Oshodi, work out a murder mystery. (Or, now, it seems we might be up to three, although only one of them has happened on castle grounds.)

Back in June I decided to splurge and take part in That Artsy Reader Girl‘s #GiftmasinJuly swap. I assembled my box and shipped it two states over, where it arrived just at the end of July. My recipient was kind, specifically calling out some of the fun, random things I’d picked for her, as well as books from her wish list.

This week, it was my turn to be showered with gifts. Look what a great job Jana did with the wrapping! That framing does not happen by accident, and I pointed that fact out to Corey.

Things with my original Santa hadn’t worked out and while I’d been disappointed, I understood that can happen once in a while. The swap’s host, Jana, however, was unwilling to accept that someone hadn’t gotten a box. She reached out to her legions of followers, and she and ten of her elves pitched in to send Corey and me fantastic gifts.

I’d had a long day, and was happy to space out the opening of my gifts, but Corey was having none of that. He hopped right up on the chair and immediately plucked a gift for himself and ran off with it!

I retrieved the package, but decided we could open that one next. A ha! A peek under the wrapping showed me that he hadn’t picked that gift at random!

A whole family of mice toys to play with! Corey thought it was great that he could take them all with him to lie on top of in case I thought I should get to play with them! (I finally cut one loose for him this afternoon for ease of tossing around, but left the other three together for now.)

After that, he was perfectly content to leave the rest of the packages to me. And I drew out the unwrapping in between chores and a nap and supper and going to bed, because a long, crummy day deserves to be followed by an equally long period of delight.

And look how delightful that is, nearly 12 hours later! Four books, including one I’ll save for December and three that I’m going to have a hard time picking amongst for which one I read first. They’re all exactly the sort of books I’ve been enjoying since the world shut down. There were two new nail polishes (I had to talk myself out of painting my nails while on an all-staff call today, but I will probably reward myself for getting through whatever flooding comes my way tomorrow). There were two new pairs of socks — one with Jane Austen and one with doughnuts! There were new pens in cheerful colors and chocolate to make the next long day easier! And then Jana also included local goodies — Stephen’s cocoa mix and Lehi Mills brownie mix. (Jana, Rudi is at his mom’s house in Salt Lake as I type this, and he immediately brought up Footloose when I read him your note.)

I don’t know that I could have asked for a nicer care package for #GiftmasinJuly. Thank you Jana! And thank you to @Mrs_Ally_Kent, @shek1029, @elleyotter, @hermitlibrarian, @xbackstagetweet, @DaisyKatieReads, Anne Phelps (who I know IRL, but who didn’t know it was me she was pitching in to help), @bookishallison, @literaryetc, and @pageoflovealexa! Your kindness went above and beyond, and really helped to turn around a bad day and to set a better tone for many days to come!