It was a stressful workweek, with lots of deadlines and quick turnarounds and making sure the people who work for me were doing a better job with self-care than my boss and I were doing. But there is no way through such weeks but through…

And we did get through it and the organization didn’t burn to the ground and people did herculean amounts of work with my thanks and we all made it to Friday night relatively unscathed. Rudi and I toasted five o’clock with Filipino doughnuts that I’d ridden my bike through the midday heat to pick up. (Thank you, past me for ordering them!)

I marked the start of the weekend by picking up some holds from the library. Rudi and I went to the garden, sighed over the tomatoes that had disappeared from our plot (and the one that didn’t, but that now has a very large bite gone from it). We picked a foot-long cucumber and gave everything a good dousing.

We ate pizza and ice cream for dinner and watched episodes of The Librarians and Parks and Recreation.

Since I didn’t do a good job of it during the week, I’m going to continue this evening’s focus on self-care through the weekend. I’ll attempt to refind my living room, which is currently buried under my kitchen — which admittedly looks amazingly spacious with only the bare minimum in it from the fridge move yesterday.

I’ll order some more masks in fun designs and cute motifs, because these are the new universal fashion accessories and I’ve had to hand wash mine twice this week. I’ll go outside in the evening when it’s cooler and sit in the park. And maybe I will give making pasta a shot (in the kitchen, not in the park). It was on my list of things to work on while social distancing way back in March — a list that looks so painfully naive and optimistic all these months later.

But whatever I do, I will not be doing work.

Most importantly, I slept in both mornings and also took a nap this afternoon after I got back from the farmers market.

The weekend included two evenings of digging in the garden — one to put in potatoes and the other to add beans. The herb section of the garden has gotten a little overrun in the last month, so I’ll need to do a certain amount of yanking in the next week to bring that back under control. But in digging up the potato bed, I did come across two small potatoes and pulled out four onions and the smaller of the two bronze fennels. And I harvested basil to top our capreses tonight.

We chatted with friends here in town, in the other Washington, in Georgia (the state), and London. It was nice to catch up.

We did grocery shopping and farmers market shopping. I have lettuce for salads and dish soap for salad plates.

I returned three items to the library and picked up one more, which I started to read tonight. It didn’t immediately hook me, so I’ll give it another try later in the week.

I ordered fancy Filipino doughnuts from a new bakery that I’ll pick up Friday afternoon as a reward for getting through this next week, which looks to be a challenging one at my couch office (there are two grants to write, 700 pages to test (not just by me) on a relaunched website, and a virtual gala to attend, in addition to my normal crushing amount of work).

Daiquiris and baked goods will have to wait until later in the week, perhaps as a reward for doing my taxes (where did I put those documents?) or perhaps just for continuing to get up each day. (I make my daiquiris without rum, so I could totally have one at 9 in the morning, right?)

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go finish turning my sock heel and then turn in.

It’s been another grueling (mostly in a good way) week at work, which means I also need to work on putting in adequate time recreating this weekend, right?

Here’s some of what I’m hoping to squeeze into (or out of) the weekend:

• Taking a trip across the river to the library. Arlington has weekend afternoon pickup hours, and I have a book on hold that will expire on Sunday.
• Video-chatting with friends. We now have a monthly chat with globe-trotting friends who used to live in D.C. (and a couple who still do).
• Drinking daiquiris. The more we have this weekend, the less we have to clear out of our freezer when our new fridge arrives later this week.
• Baking. Now that I have a/c, the thought of turning on my oven and stove no longer fill me with dread.
• Gardening. The potatoes that need planting really need planting, so I’ve moved them out into the hallway. Now I just need to dig out some beans to add to the mix.
• Knitting. I’d like to get past the heel hump of my sock. Too many of my work projects feel like this — that I’m stuck on one piece that takes all my mental energy, preventing me from moving it along to the next stage. The only way through any of these things is through, which means butt in seat, head in game.
• Shopping. Interestingly, dish soap has not magically appeared in my kitchen, but dirty dishes keep doing so. (No one said magic was fair.) The weekend is really not the ideal time to have to go to the store, but it is what it is. But I probably have some Doctor Bronner’s in the camping cube I can use if I need to, but that requires more digging in the closet than I really want to do.
• Reading. I’ll probably spend some of the time at the garden listening to an audiobook, but I’d also like to put in some time turning literal pages.
• Spending time outside. There is absolutely no reason why I can’t do at least several of the items on my list from the park. (Shopping and baking could be a little bit of a challenge, but gardening definitely is a check in this column…)
• Sleeping in. Again, a lot harder to do when your apartment is warm, so I’m really looking forward to spending a little extra time in bed.

We ate our first corn on the cob this weekend. There was a mix-up with the farm where I’d preordered them from, so it ended up that I picked up literally the last ears to be had at the market — and four of the six we ate tasted that way. But we each had one delicious ear, which totally made up for it. Beggars can’t be whiners when it comes to early corn on the cob; the privilege of getting to eat it sometimes has to be reward enough.

My friend Sarah and I met up for ice cream cones this afternoon, which was lovely. And we agreed if it ever reached a point where it felt like we aren’t living on the surface of the sun again, we’ll have a picnic.

I read a whole book yesterday, which felt luxurious. And I am nearly done with the heel flap of my sock thanks to some audiobook listening after Rudi went to bed and a prolonged transfer on the metro. (Last month, my first trip on metro since March made me feel very comfortable about mask-wearing compliance; today’s made me regret my decision not to bike 10 miles in a heat wave. I suspect it’ll be a while before I decide to take metro again.)

The pea vines in my garden are gone, as is all the twine zigzagging around to keep them upright — which felt like a big accomplishment. I did not get anything new planted, but hopefully I will get to the garden a little earlier in the evening this week and can get potatoes and beans in soon.

Our apartment-cleaning isn’t complete, but we’ve put in a good dent. But as we need both a new refrigerator and a new air conditioner (we’ve been running on just fans for more than a week now), we desperately need to wrap the process up. And I feel confident that we can very soon.

How was your weekend?

I hope you were treated to an amazing sky show tonight.