Like all weekends, some plans worked out, while others fell through. Turns out, everyone in D.C. thought an Asian night market sounded like fun, so when reports of multiples of thousands of people waiting in line reached us, I decided I could give it a pass. And I utterly slept through the waffles event. Apparently, catching up on some sleep was more important. Sharing laundry facilities means you can only do laundry when your neighbors aren’t. My coffee table is still covered with stuff. And we still haven’t figured out what to do about our tree trimming party. I mean, does a week of open houses sound like a good idea?

But I spent time at the garden, stopped by the library (and got a book from another that Rudi picked up for me), visited the farmers market and went past the grocery store.

I started a new book and knit (a little). I biked and drank tea. We got pizza and watched some tv (and I may have watched some of a Christmas movie). I talked with friends in town and across the country. Some of our volleyball team got together for s’mores on a roofdeck. There’s applesauce on the stove. (I really need to figure out where the food mill is hiding.) And I’ve got a day off on Thursday to look forward to.

How was your weekend?

I spent a pleasant period of time in the garden this afternoon. Despite all the leaves on the ground, I still have lots growing. I’d been worried that the frost in other areas of the District earlier this week would bode poorly for my garden, which I’d left to battle the cold on its own. My garden is tucked alongside woods, which lead down to a creek, so it’s a little more insulated against the cold than other places.

As you can see, the garden held its own. The herbs my mother sent down last month to winter in warmer climes all survived, including the lavenders that were still in pots (I put the smaller one into the ground today) and the basil, which would have been the first to shrivel had winter’s tendrils wended its way into my plot.

There are still tomatoes and cayenne peppers on the vine, as well as one or two of the tiny second crop of tomatillos that grew started appearing in September.

I’ve also got some ground crops — kale and lettuce and sorrel, as well as my three-season rainbow chard.

And while many of my flowers are past, the pansies have rallied in amongst the strawberry plants to keep some color on that side of the garden, while the lantana has had at least three rounds of blooms since I planted it this summer.

It’s been a good year in the garden, and I’m hopeful I’ll get another few weeks out of it yet.

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It’s been a week, and the weekend could not get here fast enough. To prevent it slipping away, I’m going to try jamming it full of positive things:

• Reading (and visiting a library or two)
• Eating waffles (there’s a waffle-themed event; I just have to beat the college students to it)
• Knitting
• Spending time in the garden
• Chatting with our cross-country (and cross-town) friends
• Checking out a night market
• Getting an extra hour of sleep
• Poaching quince
• Doing laundry
• Baking
• Biking to some Coffeeneuring destinations
• Finding my coffee table (the Christmas cleaning needs to start somewhere small)
• Figuring out our Christmas party (we usually cram dozens of people into our small apartment, and while we both are nearly positive everyone we invite is vaccinated — if not already boostered — it feels risky to invite them all at once this year)

What are you hoping to do this weekend?

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. We have a party of D.C.-area colleagues at our CEO’s house. It’s so good to see everyone in person after so long (and to meet colleagues for the first time whom I’ve only seen in little boxes).

2. The cider doughnuts from the new-to-us orchard an hour closer than the one Sarah and I usually go to are quite good. I suspect we’ll be back.

3. Rudi is home.

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

Someday I’ll be done with this shawl. We’re now into shawl weather, so it makes it more likely, but I’m coming up on another two color rib section and that’s my least favorite part of this knitting project. Which way will the seesaw tilt?

I did finish The Ex Hex by Erin Sterling, so I am not in stasis in all aspects of my life, which is good. It was a cute witch-themed romance, which asked absolutely nothing of me except to keep turning the pages. I don’t want all my reads to be like that (and the romances I’ve liked best the past couple years have mixed in weightier issues with the lovey-dovey stuff), but there are some weeks when that’s just what you need.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic from That Artsy Reader girl invites us to consider titles that we’d share with those who claim not to love reading.

I decided I’d break my list up into three audiences:

1. Kids:
   1. The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick: Honestly, any of Selznick’s three historical fiction chunksters would work, but I have an especial fondness for this one set in a Paris train station and focused on early film and automatons. The way he alternates narrative and visual storytelling is unlike any other author I’ve encountered, making turning the pages compelling. Plus it will give kids who don’t think they like reading the satisfaction and confidence of having finished — and loved — a 500-page book.
   2. Kwame Alexander’s The Crossover: A verse novel about two basketball loving twin brothers where the rhythm of the narrative follows that of playing the game. If you’ve got a hoops-loving kid, I think this would be a great choice.
   3. Jen Wang’s The Prince and the Dressmaker: In this graphic historical novel, Prince Sebastian and Frances, a dressmaker, share a secret, that he has a secret identity as cutting-edge fashion icon Lady Crystallia, leaving him little time for the girls his parents keep trying to pair him up with. Graphic novels are a great way to get kids who don’t love reading picking up printed material. If your kid has exhausted superheroes or collected comic books and wants to move on, this would still offer someone in a costume and figuring out how to live an authentic life when the world may not yet be ready for your truth.

   Young adults:

   4. Jason Reynolds’ Long Way Down: This verse novel takes place during a single minute-long elevator ride and deals with gun violence, family, loyalty, and vengeance, with an open ending that will leave teens talking about what happens next.
   5. Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book: This follows the story of a boy raised in a cemetery by the ghosts of the people interred there and what that means when a threat from the living world tracks him down there.
   6. Illumninae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff: This is another chunkster, but this time aimed at teens, rather than tweens, and set in space. Its epistolary style (told through emails, video logs, and other reports) makes for frequent stopping points and multiple points of view, plus there’s a killer AI who also gets to share its perspective.
   7. The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights by Steve Sheinkin: This story of fighting racism in the military during WWII is outrageous. The fact that we don’t know their story and that no one has been unable to reverse the outcome is a tragedy.

   Adults:

   8. Crazy ’08: How a Cast of Cranks, Rogues, Boneheads, and Magnates Created the Greatest Year in Baseball History by Cait Murphy: I feel like sports fans are an untapped market for nonfiction. Baseball fans, in particular, tend to be a wonky bunch, who love to focus on stats and minutia. This is a story from early baseball (1908, rather than our most recent ’08) told in great narrative fiction style.
   9. Peter Mayle’s A Year in Provence: This is a laugh-out-loud story about a couple who goes on an amazing vacation and decides they’d love to relocate there permanently. When they buy a ramshackle house in need of many repairs, they must quickly adjust to repairpeople with different life approaches, what red tape means when you’re working with a second language, and how their primary residence becomes the vacation destination for everyone they’ve ever met. If you’ve got a DIY fixer-upper project of your own, this is the read for you.
   10. Mama Makes Up Her Mind and Other Dangers of Southern Living by Bailey White: Any book that has me laughing aloud on a cross-country plane flight is probably a good one to share. And this one, about family in Georgia, is no exception.

   How about you? Any book you think would be great to share the written word with someone who may think they may not share your passion for reading?

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