Mother's Daybook

Reading - I've got my stack going but its getting harder to keep going with some of them. Not that they aren't all good reads, but I've suffering from information overload and I just can't take much input, even good words. So I've trying to slowly pick away at the few I'm too invested to drop like The Odyssey and Undaunted Courage and otherwise, I'm mostly re-reading some Austen. It's always a good time to re-read Austen. It's familiar and comfortable but yet, still fresh and full of surprises. I'll read (or hear) a line and I know I've read it multiples times but this time, it will strike me as worth pondering. I also picked up a Agatha Christie mystery. Agatha Christie is not my favorite mystery writer. Her mysteries are really good but the character's aren't my absolute favorite. But she was prolific and its nice to have a lot of easy options when you are in need of a mystery. And I think this is a good time for a well written mystery for the same reason it's a good time for a re-read. Good quality writing with a assured happy ending is exactly what my brain needs right now!

Listening - Same thing with podcasts. I normally love podcasts for when I'm walking the dog but right now, I'm finding my audiobooks less overwhelming. Again, I'm sticking to Austen. I've got Emma and Pride and Prejudice going! At home, I'm doing more music than normal. Johnny Flynn and the Sussex Wit has been a delightful find. Although once again my spotify algorithms really want me to like Mumford and Sons and once again - I disappoint them. Alas and alack.

Watching - Okay, well, I did watch Emma. But I won't talk about it yet - I'm saving that for my Classics Challenge post (and if you are keeping track. I did say I would read Sanditon and I did but that show ended up being so bad that I didn't even want it to take up that space in the challenge). But we're also watching other things around here. Craig and I are watching a Great Courses UK Travel show which is keeping our spirits up about (eventually) moving. And the 4th season of Kim's Convience has just dropped on Netflix and if you've never watched it, I'd really encourage you to try it. It's nice to watch something just for laughs theses days.

Cooking - Ugh, too much! I feel like we're baking so much which is enjoyable but I'm struggling with cooking. I've messed up two big meals this week which is pretty rare for me. And by messed up I mean I took a meal to a family that just had a baby (don't worry, we doorbell dashed it) only to try our half at home and realize I left out the salt. Then the next day I cooked a roast. It was an odd recipe in that I was supposed to turn the oven off and not open the door for an hour. Well, with our oven the timer off and the oven off button are the same so I thought I turned it off but had only turned the timer off so it baked an extra hour at 475. That's a lot of extra heat! It was a bit of a tough passover meal but the kids ate lots of hardboiled eggs and matza and it was all good. I'm used to cooking for us multiple times a day but I've always been pretty bad about forgetting random ingredients and needing Craig to stop off at the store so I feel like I'm expending a lot of extra energy to make that not happen and I guess I'm making up for it with forgetting to do things when it comes to the actually cooking?  I'd really like it if everyone could just stop being so hungry for a day or two but since that's not likely to happen, I'm thankful we are trying to eat carry out weekly!

Enjoying - Spring Weather! It makes getting outisde so much more enjoyable. Getting out to walk the dog daily, normally without kids but sometimes with Lucy, is my saving grace these days. Of course, getting the kids out when possible has been nice too but I do so enjoy a little quiet time. And now that we can actually get the kids outside for a couple hour, the house doesn't seem as teeny-tiny as it did a few weeks ago. If we ever do get out of here, I am going to miss that backyard!

Playing - My ukulele. I hadn't been playing as much but its such a happy sound and its a good time for happy sounds so I got the fender free trial and that's motivated to be practice so I've been playing a lot more lately. I still can't really play around the kids because they swarm and want to play and then nobody gets to and Jude is crying because I'm a mean mommy who won't let him have it and that's NOT a happy sound. But I try and sneak in a few minutes here and there when they are playing out back. I also got the kid's set up with Beast Academy Online. They seem to think its a game. It's not a game, its a full math curriculumn. But they love it and ask for it all the time. Which is partly annoying because of previously mentioned nice weather but also quite delightful.