Here are two dozen ways I’m thinking Rudi and I can get through what now looks potentially like another month of social distancing:

1. Ride our bikes places where other people aren’t. Obviously this will be other people’s plans as well, so we’ll have to think like a Sicilian.

2. Clean the Burrow. I’ve mentioned it before, but the Burrow has gotten rather untidy, particularly after all of this winter’s travel. Also, it would be great to be able to take conference calls someplace besides my bed. And to work at my desk if I so desired.
3. Garden. I’m going to go put in my pea supports this weekend on the chance that they tell us we must shelter in place at some point soon. Hopefully that way my garden will be able to limp through until I’m allowed to get back to it.
4. Learn to make pasta.
5. Learn to make macarons. (Mum has given me the means to do both.)
6. Restring my ukulele and figure out how to play “Happy Birthday.”
7. Buy a plant and keep it alive.
8. Keep the sourdough starter I was gifted today alive and make bread from it.
9. Call family and friends every couple of days.
10. Journal.
11. Read a lot.
12. Check out some tv series we’ve always meant to watch, like Parks & Recreation, The Good Place, and Gilmore Girls.
13. Fix our butcher block.
14. Go through some of the food we’ve stored for a while. I feel like we maybe have equal parts dried beans and frozen strawberries. I don’t think they should go into the same dish.
15. Visit the park every day until they tell us not to.
16. Write letters. Because then maybe people will write back.
17. Knit something big, but not overly hard.
18. Learn to knit brioche.
19. Recatalogue our music, books, and yarn.
20. Take part in online socializing.
21. Switch out my winter wardrobe for my summer one.
22. Assemble material to donate once that’s allowed again.
23. Get art up on our walls.
24. Get caught up on book reviews here on the blog. (Hey, a girl can dream, right?)

Okay. That seems like a good start.

What are you hoping to do with all your time at home?

Today was a holiday here in our neck of the woods. No, not St. Patrick’s Day, although it was that, too.

Today marked the 15th anniversary of this blog’s existence.

That’s right. I’ve been coming here off and on (and, over the past few years, on a daily basis) for a decade and a half, since March 17, 2005, when Rudi gave it to me as a belated birthday gift. This will mark the 3,640th post on the site.

I’ve shared good news and bad, laughter and tears. There have been new family members and deaths. Jobs were lost and found. I’ve shared tourist sites and local finds here in D.C. and on my travels, as well as my thoughts on politics local, national, and international. There have been many books read (and occasionally shared in a timely fashion), fewer knitting projects completed, and plenty of music videos embedded. We’ve done several years of the Virtual Advent Tour, shared more memes than we should count, and, earlier this month, exceeded 800 three beautiful things posts. That’s more than 2,400 beautiful things since I started keeping track.

To my surprise, many of you have been hanging out here nearly as long as I have. Kathy B’s comment this evening marked the 5,460th note you all have left here. When I decided that I was going to start writing here again on a daily basis, I told myself that it didn’t matter if no one commented; I was just going to write for myself. But no one writes in a public place just for themselves, and I’m really pleased that you’ve been willing to keep returning to my little piece of the internet. Thank you. I appreciate your time and interest and comments and general thoughtfulness.

Next year, my blog will be eligible to drive. I don’t think we should let it. But maybe it will be time to let it redecorate some. We’ll see…

I have charmingly managed to brick my personal laptop while trying to install an update, so this will be a quick post thumb typed on my phone. I’ve decided this doesn’t merit waking Rudi in tears to see if he can fix it for me. Perspective… I’ve got it.

But I do want to say you should come back later on in the day. Seasonal tbr posts are among my favorite Top Ten Tuesday topics, and I will take a work break to share one after Rudi hopefully fixes my computer.

Honestly, this is just going to suck.

I’ll be honest: it wasn’t my best weekend. I don’t know if it was just a week that totaled up to too much or what, but I struggled this weekend to find the positives. It’s not that there were none; it’s just that I had difficulty focusing on the daily hour of gained sunlight, instead seeing only the single hour of lost sleep. (Metaphorically, that is. I slept just fine.)

So here is the rainbow list so I don’t just remember the rain:

Rudi and I ate ice cream — twice. We perused books and music and left the store with our gift card intact for another day.

I chatted with a friend on the street, stopped at the library, read, watched a movie, and made some progress on my sock. I did laundry and paid bills and went shopping and finally took our Christmas cards down.

And Rudi and I ate a pizza outside under a sunny sky — in March.

How was your weekend?

I’m excited to have a full weekend at home after so much traveling. Here’s how I think I will spend it:

• Knitting: I am super far behind on my Sock Madness socks, which are supposed to be finished by next Saturday at noon for me to advance out of the qualifying round. I don’t know that that will happen, but it would be great if they were further along than they are now.
• Cleaning: The two things topping my weekend list are really opposed to each other. I cannot clean and knit at the same time, and the cat gets really grumpy when i tie a swiffer cloth to his belly and a duster to his tail. But, also, our apartment looks like a way station and things need to get put away.
• Doing laundry: Underwear is in a dire spot, and I have no clean sports clothes left. Plus, I have to go to a congressional briefing this week, so I should make sure I have something clean and unwrinkled for that. Also, laundry mountain could have an avalanche and suffocate us while we’re sleeping, so it’s good to be proactive about that. This will require going out to procure quarters.
• Reading: I have less than ten chapters left in my Inspector Gamache audiobook, and I can listen to that while doing other things.
• Paying some bills: This includes the mundane monthly items, but also sending our friend a check for baseball tickets and our garden our annual dues, which are both good kind of bill paying.
• Hitting up the local bookshop’s quarterly member sale: My brother gives us a gift card for the store, which sells both books and music, every Christmas. I don’t know that we need anything right now, but it’s fun to look.
• Stopping by the garden: I planted peas and spring greens a couple weeks ago and want to see if either have come up yet. And the violets, since daffodils, croci, and hyacinths are now blooming. Plus, I could probably throw some more peas in the ground.
• Going to the library: If I get going early in the morning, they’re accepting donations for the Friends’ sale for an hour, but I’m not convinced that will happen. But I also have some things to give back and a couple things to pick up, so even later in the day will work.
• Baking banana bread: To keep my colleagues from throwing away fruit at the end of the week, I told them to freeze any past-prime bananas and I’d recycle them into bread for the office. My coworker alerted me to the fact that an entire bag had accumulated while I’d been traveling, so now I need to follow through on my promise.
• Sleeping in: We lose an hour this weekend, so I should definitely try to stockpile zzz’s for the upcoming week. I know they say it doesn’t work that way, but I’m willing to believe scientists are just confused on this point.

What are you hoping to do this weekend?