Week-in-Review: March Madness...

OK, not really madness but I couldn't think of anything else to title it! The weather has been madness, though. Just when we think spring is around the corner, we get snow! Or nice temps in the 60s and then the next few days back to the 40s. I did get a quick gardening session in yesterday before the wind and the storms set in. All the weeds are pulled and ready for flowers in a few weeks! My crocuses, hyacinths, and tulips are coming up! I need to take a pic this week for next time.

We celebrated DH's birthday last week! It was just us. Quaint and homey. It's usually a big affair with lots of friends but of course, it is the year of pandemic birthdays. We got a good one in last year. It was literally the weekend before everything closed down and the schools closed and we all locked down. It was a surreal year and this one was the anniversary of that. So weird again. I'm hoping next year will be a little more normal! 

I made cupcakes, we ordered in Mexican food, and I made frozen daquiris. DH then spent the evening with his Dungeons and Dragons group online and overall, he couldn't complain.

I also made beef stew and brown soda bread for St. Patrick's Day. I picked up some Guinness as well and we drank those with the stew and bread and it was lovely! I wish I'd taken a picture of the bread because it is delicious and so easy to make. I think this will be my go-to bread from now on. Me and yeast don't do so well together and soda bread does not require it! And just to be silly I bought butter from Ireland and some cheddar. 

And DH got his first vaccine jab! He'll be getting his second jab in three weeks. My state is opening it up for everyone next week. I tried to get an appointment but no luck. But soon, very soon! Our mask mandate will end April 10th so I'm hoping to get an appointment before then, if not I'll be picking up my groceries from my online orders...I do not trust the people in my state to do the right thing without a lot of compulsion, unfortunately.

We also learned some troubling news about my husband's company...big changes ahead but we don't know much yet. More stress. But we should be OK no matter where we end up. It's just stressful.

Reading Life:

I started listening to Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough after all the hubbub behind that ENDING!!!! I thought I should listen/read first and then watch and compare and contrast but I have found listening to it is making me anxious...like I keep thinking of the most awful and horrible twists to this story after each new nugget of information and I started giving myself nightmares...So I think I'm just going to watch it and not worry about the book. Lol. 

I've been listening to Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer slowly and deliberately for the last few months now. Gorgeous essays that really make you think about all living things and planet Earth and our place as humans amongst it all. A love story to the Earth. I should finish in early April.  

I'm still reading The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas for my 1000 Books Project: French Edition. By the end of them month I will be halfway through. It's highly entertaining. Quite the little French soap opera of revenge! And I am still reading Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. But I have plans on finishing it by the first week of April. It's really good and I just need to sit down and finish.

I'm about 30% done with The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir. I'm reading it with my friend for virtual philosophy book club and also for my Back to the Classics 2021 challenge for the 20th century classic prompt. I'm also almost done with Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin. One chapter left! This is also for my Back to the Classics challenge for the classic by a BIPOC author prompt. It's a short book but it's a tough one. Lots of layers and lots of unlikeable characters so it's been a lot harder for me to pick up and have "fun" reading it.

And I just started Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo. I'm enjoying it so far!

I finished off Samantha Irby's essay collection Wow, No Thank You. Astronauts: Women on the Final Frontier by Jim Ottaviani, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks, and The Desolations of Devil's Acre by Ransom Riggs (The sixth and final book the Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children series).

I've also been listening to quite a few Great Courses lecture series: Myths, Lies, and Half-truths of Language Usage and Language A to Z both by John McWhorter, and The Life and Works of Jane Austen by Devoney Looser. I can't recommend her series enough! I have renewed interest in rereading her works and reading her other lesser known works as well. I'm on fire for Austen again!

Watching Life:

I'm a huge Utah Jazz fan so I've been watching a lot of their games. March NCAA basketball is also happening. I'll be catching a few games here and there as well.

I just watched A Promising Young Woman which has been nominated for a bunch of Academy Awards and it is worth it! It blew my mind and it was so well done. Plus if you are a Veronica Mars fan there are at least three actors from that series in this movie. I bet there's a connection there somewhere...

And I've been on a Star Trek kick lately so I watched a few of the original series movies with the DH. And then started watching the TNG first season. DH bought me the remastered Blu Ray whole series a couple of Christmases ago and I hadn't started them yet! What was a I thinking? It looks gorgeous in HD. They even have a little documentary on how hard it was to do this. Thank you, TNG team, for tackling this immensely difficult task!

Looking forward to:

Well, today is the official first day of Spring. We are getting the cold and rain. I usually try to do some little thing for the Spring Equinox. I'll probably make a little egg based treat, make a fun spring item and read a spring story. The story of Persephone/Kore is always a good one for this time of year.

Planning:

Spring cleaning is in the air! I've been trying to clean all the things in the kitchen. I reorganized the pantry, and am now cleaning out the kitchen drawers and cabinets. We have so much junk in there! Random cups from Denny's when Gabe was 3...So more of that this week.

Joining in with Readerbuzz's Sunday Salon