Reading: Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver [affiliate link]. I quite like it. Not so much the trick she's doing with the last sentence of a chapter also being the title of the next chapter, but rather because I love her writing. It's so rich. I re-read The Poisonwood Bible [affiliate link] every few years.
Listening to: My regular favorite podcasts have felt, suddenly, far too violent and upsetting to listen to. My therapist said it's because my mind is preoccupied with Miles, who is in such a vulnerable stage of his life, and that my aversion to topics I once couldn't get enough of is probably only temporary. So true crime is off the table, at least for the next little while. Instead I'm listening to This American Life and Radiolab in the car, and '80s pop on Pandora at work.
Making: The entirety of my creative energy is being taken up now by one big, challenging, lovely knitting project. I'm one-third finished, and I'll share it here soon but I can't now because it's a gift for a dear friend and I want it to remain a surprise.
Watching: All the "Schitt's Creek" we can get our hands on. The original "Charmed." Godzilla (1998), which you are probably not surprised to learn really does not hold up well. The new season of "Queer Eye," of course, but only one episode every few days to make it last longer.
Planning: To sit on some couches at Ikea this weekend. I'm fancying this one and this one (although I'm feeling a bit skeptical about only one armrest!). Other than that, to be outside as much as we can bear! Happily, the picture above is a few weeks old, and the backyard is no longer covered in snow. We've made it a habit to turn Miles out for a quick postprandial frolic in the yard before bedtime each night, giving him space to craft his own uninterrupted outdoors play. I try to stay out of it while he selects a stick to clutch while marching around, to see how far he can get up the steps of his slide without my help (which, obviously, he gets in spades when wanted). "He's figuring it out," Kristie whispers to me and we watch our child negotiate his way through wildhood. We fold our arms and speculate on which new little behaviors are borrowed from his peers at daycare, and he calls to the neighbor's dog, leashed in the next yard. The fresh air is doing us all good.
