Yes, yes, I know we already had a weekend this year. But I was still on vacation, so it didn’t count.

But this weekend it does, and after the exhausting events of this week — a full week of work and an attempted political coup in my city (seriously, who offered to hold 2021’s beer?) — I really feel like I deserve to suck out all the marrow of life over the next 48 hours:

Here’s what I’m thinking:

• Go for a bike ride.
• Read outside. (It’s supposed to be nearly 50 and mostly sunny.)
• Knit. (I’m hoping to finish a project this weekend.)
• Send some mail.
• Bake.
• Watch the new version of All Creatures Great and Small.
• Take part in the Bout of Books Twitter chat. (Note to self: set your alarm now!)
• Figure out if there’s some useful action I can take to help alleviate feelings of horror about this week’s insurrection. (If you’ve found one, please share it in the comments. I know I’m not the only one looking.)
• Wash handknits. (It’s always my prettiest laundry day.)
• Work on my best-of-2020 reads post.

How about you? How are you going to spend your weekend? Jamming in activities or resting up from them?

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Despite the horrible things that went on across our country yesterday, the Democrats did win both Georgia Senate seats and the electoral college results were certified.

2. Spending down my flex spending account for 2020 involved several steps, including a trip to the eye doctor, which resulted in my getting a new contact prescription for bifocal contacts. It’s really exciting to be able to not wear my glasses out to be fogged up by my mask and to still be able to read on my outing. I expect this to be a game-changer on nicer weekend days.

3. I didn’t do a great job baking during my holiday break, but I did make a batch of Spritz cookies on Sunday evening. If you were to ask me what Christmas cookies are, I’d probably point you to Spritz, so it did feel like a win to get them made (even though doing them mostly alone is way less enjoyable than making them with my folks as usual). For someone who hasn’t made them on her own in two decades, I was surprisingly well prepared to do so, with a never-before-used cookie press tucked under a shelf and a pleasingly deep collection of sprinkles.

What’s been beautiful in your world this stressful week?

I just don’t have the words to express the whirlwind of emotions I felt today, as we careened from the high of winning the Georgia Senate races to the low of racist domestic terrorists storming Congress at the behest of the President.

D.C. went into a lockdown at 6, so I did take a break from work in the afternoon in an attempt to get some extra groceries. I didn’t make it to Safeway before they’d locked their doors, but I did manage to find most of what I was looking for between the mom & pop shops and drug store.

But, honestly, it was exhausting being out, looking over my shoulder at anyone who passed me by, wondering if they were a threat. They’re staying at all the local hotels and at many of the Air BnB’s in the area, including one a couple doors down. (A pair of them mistook Rudi’s red baseball cap for a MAGA hat the other day.)

So, in the end, I hurried home even before I needed to. I finished my work, answered all the tweets and texts from those worried about me, called my folks, and took a fitful nap.

It was quiet in our neighborhood tonight. There are no cars on the road or passersby on the sidewalk, which is disquieting. There is an uptick in helicopters overhead (albeit less than during this spring’s protests or during the last Inauguration), which always adds a level of constant uneasiness to daily life.

Two more weeks. It’s a false goal, of course, because all of these dangerous jerks will still be here, lurking beneath their rocks, and now recruiting more to their cause who saw heroes in the display of toxic masculinity today. I despair for America tonight, which just seems like a lot when this morning was so hopeful.

Brandi Carlisle and Rufus Wainwright do a magnificent cover of Sandy Dennis’ “Who Knows Where the Time Goes?”

It feels like the right question to ask as we approach day 300 of life being off-kilter.

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday topic from That Artsy Reader Girl invites us to share ten books we’re excited to see coming out in the next six months. I don’t tend to have my finger on the publishing pulse, so this topic is always fun as I scroll through upcoming new releases.

Here are ten that I’m looking forward to:

1. Angie Thomas’ Concrete Rose (next week)
2. Renée Watson’s Love Is a Revolution (Feb.)
3. Muse by Brittany Cavallaro (Feb.)
4. Talia Hibbert’s Act Your Age, Eve Brown (March)
5. An Unexpected Peril by Deanna Raybourn (March!!!)
6. Kate in Waiting by Becky Albertalli (April)
7. Mackenzi Lee’s The Nobleman’s Guide to Scandal and Shipwrecks (April)
8. Peaces by Helen Oyeyemi (April)
9. Beth and Amy by Virginia Kantrell (May)
10. The Road Trip by Beth O’Leary (June)

How about you? What books are you looking forward to seeing on the shelves between now and June?

This week kicks off Bout of Books 30, and I’m going to join in as a way to ease into 2021. What is Bout of Books and why should you join in?

The Bout of Books readathon is organized by Amanda Shofner and Kelly Rubidoux Apple. It’s a weeklong readathon that begins 12:01 a.m. Monday, January 4, and runs through Sunday, January 10, in YOUR time zone. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are reading sprints, Twitter chats, and exclusive Instagram challenges, but they’re all completely optional. For all Bout of Books 30 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. – From the Bout of Books team

I’m going to share my participation a couple times this week. There are no blog challenges this time around, but since I’m not on Instagram, I might just put my answers here anyway.

For instance, I’m currently listening to Samantha Irby’s hilarious collection of essays, Wow, No Thank You. On paper I’m reading One Day in December by Josie Silver, but I might put it aside in favor of something else this week.