sprite writes
broodings from the burrow

May 9, 2016


weekending (and the week ahead)
posted by soe 2:15 am

This weekend included Friday pizza dinner with a friend and a trip for the three of us to opening day of the new Captain America: Civil War. (I’m #TeamBlackWidow, if it matters.)

Comic Book Day Haul from Fantom and a Violet Meringue Dessert from Je Ne Sais Quoi

On Saturday, I slept in and got some chores done. I missed out on visiting the Bahamanian embassy as part of Passport DC, but did get to my local comic book shop, Fantom, for Free Comic Book Day. I also visited the French bakery that opened where the cupcake shop used to be. They make desserts based around meringues. I started reading a new graphic novel, planted some things at the garden, and bought a case for my new cell phone. I did not write a book blog post about my April reading because I had to finish a post for work about bee swarms, and it took longer than I expected. (The book post will come later this week.)

Sheepdog Demo at MD Sheep & Wool Festival

Today, Rudi and I went to the farmers market and to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. We saw sheep and sheepdogs and ate funnel cake. I bought a skein of yarn to make Rudi a hat. He bought spices to make me dinners. We bought tomato, pepper, and basil plants to make our garden productive.

Icelandic Sheep
Jacob Sheep
Rudi Makes a Friend...

And now a look ahead, rather than backward: This week is both Armchair BEA, the book blogger version of the Book Expo of America convention, and Bout of Books 16, a weeklong readathon/reading challenge. I’ll be participating in both and blogging about them here and invite you to take part, too. I’m hoping to finish three books by the end of the week, blog at least thrice on bookish topics, and take part in at least two off-blog events (be they contests or Twitter chats or something else remains to be seen).

Bout of BooksArmchair BEA

May 6, 2016


new toy, indies, and sunshine
posted by soe 2:10 am

If it’s Thursday, it’s time to think back on three beautiful things from my past week:

My New Toy1. Last Saturday night, I ran my phone battery down until it turned off and then I plugged it in. Little did I realize that would be the last thing the phone would do, forcing me into a phone upgrade by initiating a boot loop sequence it could not escape. After several days of hemming and hawing without a cell, I splurged and purchased a current model, the Samsung Galaxy S7. Since I get a good number of years out of my phones, I figure it was worth it to spend the money on a phone that’s worth more than the trade-in value of my car. I haven’t had it long enough to form any strong opinions, but none of them have been negative yet, and it’s fun to have a new toy to set up and play with.

2. Last Saturday was Independent Bookstore Day and I treated it as the holiday that it is. D.C. is now home to five indie shops that sell new books and I made a point of it to visit all of them, including East City Bookshop on Capitol Hill, which opened on Saturday. I came home with several new books including a couple collections of poetry, a French- and English-language collection of fables, and a collection of essays about bad-ass women through history edited by a D.C. librarian.

3. It’s been a week of mostly rain and clouds, so it was especially nice when the sun peeked out on occasion — and even lovelier when I was outdoors when it happened.

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

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