I’ve been feeling unmotivated lately (it’s the grey and the lingering chill and the mud season preventing us from playing volleyball outdoors and everyone else’s beach vacations), so decided to resurrect an older blog feature — the weekend planning post. I never expect to get all of the items accomplished, but it’s helpful to giving me some shape to the next couple days and to use to refer back to when I falter a bit. Here is a baker’s dozen activities:

• There is a Holi celebration at Dupont Circle Saturday afternoon co-sponsored by the Indian Embassy, and I am curious about this celebration of color, spring, and the triumph of good over evil.
• It’s the member celebration sale at Politics and Prose, and while I absolutely do not need more books, I might still like to pick a particular one up, since it hadn’t yet been published when I went looking for it on my birthday bookstore jaunt last month. I should probably peek at the calendar to see if there are celebrations that will require a book in the next few months.
• Buy cleaning supplies. The main P&P store is up by Rodman’s, which is an independent shop with a little bit of everything (groceries including their renowned international section, home goods, deodorant not behind a locked case, a watch repair counter). It’s a throwback, and I need sponges and cleaning supplies and a new toothbrush and cat food and Hobnobs, so I’ll be heading that direction.
• Eat pizza. My favorite pizzeria completes that northern-D.C. triangle. I mean, at that point, do I even have a choice?
• Make bread. I literally just need to spend five minutes putting things into the bread maker and then commit to 3 hours at home waiting for the reward of a hot, fresh loaf.
• Change the cat box liner. I bought new litter earlier this week, but I’m a few days late with this monthly chore, since I haven’t yet dug out the new liner.
• Tidy the living room. (Such a short sentence. Such a Herculean task. But the only way through is through, so let’s make some inroads.)
• Hit up the farmers market on Sunday. While I can take compost to a number of receptacles around the city, the pickup at the farmers market in my neighborhood is most convenient.
• Watch the UConn-Georgetown playoff game on tv.
• Finish knitting the mitt I’ve been working on. I have an inch left, plus the thumb, and then I probably need to tear out the bind off on the first mitt and fix it, but my best guess is that’s under two hours of work. It’d be nice to have these ready to go for chilly spring evenings.
• Write a letter. I owe cards and letters to a few people, and it would feel nice to send them some cheer in their mailboxes.
• Tackle the February Into the Stacks post. I only read five books, so it should take half the time the January post took, right?
• Saturday would have been my grandmother’s 105th birthday, and it feels like I should make one of her recipes to celebrate. A cookie and a cuppa while reading a mystery feels like a good way to remember.

What do you hope to get to this weekend?

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. It was the last week for the 2nd graders’ volleyball program. There were tears and hugs.

2. It was sunny and warm last weekend and I got to sit outside both days and read.

3. I had gone to Adams Morgan to run some errands and passed by the restaurant we frequent after volleyball games during the summer. I texted John to say I was thinking of him, and not 30 seconds went by before my phone was ringing. “Where are you?! Stop walking!” He was out at a nearby bar celebrating a buddy’s birthday and came running outside to give me a hug.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. I have been lazy with my sourdough starter and had let it hang out unfed in the fridge for a couple weeks. This week, I fed it and it perked right up.

2. I had an expiring birthday coupon with Asics, and the trail runners I like for outdoor volleyball were on clearance. I didn’t need new sneakers yet, but I will certainly need them at some point this year, so it’s nice to have a new pair ready to go as soon as my knees and hips tell me that the old pair should be retired. (This is my best advice for 40-somethings who want to remain active in sports: listen to your body and replace your equipment more often than you used to.)

3. I’d seen them on other people’s blogs, but hadn’t come across them in real life yet, so Saturday, I took a snack, knitting, and a book and walked to the park via the route most likely to reveal snowdrops. I didn’t even have to make it to the Quakers’ churchyard; two doors down from me had some gorgeous clusters growing in their front bed.

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

I put this summary off, thinking I’d get around to sharing 2025’s reads before writing up the books I completed during January. But if I wait any longer, I’ll be behind for this year as well. So, onward to the ten books I read last month (and here’s hoping March is a better month for wrapping up last year):

The Librarians by Sherry Thomas

Shortly after a young widow starts working at the library near her grandmother’s home, two patrons die in seemingly separate events. But it turns out they may not be, and the employees of the branch may or may not be good suspects for their demise. If you like your murders straightforward, this is going to rely on coincidence too much for you. If you like your characters to be realistic, again, probably not your cup of tea. If, however, you are happy to read your murder mysteries with your tongue in your cheek and not to consider the circumstances too closely, I’d joyfully endorse this workplace found-family mystery.

Paper. Library copy. (more…)

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. I had a nice birthday last weekend. My friend Rebecca baked me cupcakes, my parents sent a cake, I got to talk with my BFF and others, and I had text messages from nearly everyone else. Plus, I slept in, bought myself books (including one from a new-to-me bookshop across town), ate a free ice cream cone, and had pizza for supper, in addition to watching The Princess Bride, reading, and knitting.

2. A former teammate was in town visiting her boyfriend, and we got to meet up for a late breakfast earlier this week. It was nice to catch up (and to eat cheesy grits).

3. Somehow, and I don’t even know how, I cast on too few stitches for my first pair of socks of 2026 — and I didn’t realize it until I was pretty much done working the heel. Yesterday, I put the sock on a circular needle so I could try it on before I began the foot, and it didn’t fit. But when I’d realized that 14×4≠64, I thought, “I bet it would work as a fingerless mitt,” and it does. So I only had to rip out the heel and then figure out steps for a mitt (since I haven’t made a pair in a decade), rather than rip the whole thing back. I hope to finish the first one tomorrow and immediately start on the second so I’ll have the pair knit in time for spring!

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

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic from That Artsy Reader Girl is recommendations for armchair travelers:

1. Peter Mayle’s A Year in Provence (British couple goes on vacation, falls in love with the region, and buys a fixer upper there. Hilarious to read about, but probably not to live through.)
2. The Sun Is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon (Girl and boy meet by chance in New York City and have an adventure.)
3. My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell (A widow moves her family to Corfu, Greece, in the late-1930s)
4. Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods (Middle-aged man and his out-of-shape buddy embark upon a hike of the Appalachian Trail)
5. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (No matter your opinion of Cathy and Heathcliff, you can’t deny the power of the moors)
6. Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (A teen ends up bound to the Mayan god of death and must travel around Mexico to help free him—and her)
7. Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes (A forced proximity romance between a widow and an MLB pitcher trying to overcome the yips in a coastal town in Maine)
8. Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts by Kate Racculia (A treasure hunt through Boston)
9. All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot (The fictionalized adventures of a vet in the Yorkshire Dales in the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s)
10. Empire of Shadows by Jacquelyn Benson (A woman finds a map to a secret city and travels to Belize to follow it)

Honestly, I feel like there are certain cities (New York, London, Paris…) that I could do individual lists for.

How about you? Are there books you’d recommend especially for the setting?