Monday Malarkey

Recent arrivals:

• None. But, clearly spring has arrived so you get a glimpse of tulips, this week. 

Books finished since last Malarkey:

• Nothing Left to Burn by Heather Ezell
• The Broken Girls by Simone St. James

Both of these were excellent and almost impossible to put down. I stayed up late one night to finish Nothing Left to Burn and blew off most of my chores on Saturday to finish reading The Broken Girls.


Currently reading:

• Don Quixote by Cervantes 
• The Saboteur by Paul Kix
• Orphan Monster Spy by Matt Killeen

I am absolutely loving everything I'm reading, right now, and last week was a terrific reading week. As of last night, I'm 48% into Don Quixote. Nearing the halfway point! And, I'm still every bit as entertained as I was, at first. In fact, I think pages 350 - 400 of the Edith Grossman translation I'm reading were among the best so far. Don Quixote's second visit to the inn where Sancho Panza was tossed into the air by some men with a blanket was masterful.

The Saboteur is nonfiction about a man who was in the French Resistance during WWII and Orphan Monster Spy is a YA novel about a blonde Jewish girl working in the Resistance, as well (but in Germany).  Both are so amazing that I'd really be happy to just ignore the chores, again. But, no. Someone left me a really messy kitchen (Huzzybuns experimented with his first attempt at making gyro meat) so I've done Round 1 of tackling the kitchen and Round 2 is coming up. So much scrubbing and sweeping and dishwashing to be done.


Last week's posts:

• None. I took the week off. Did you miss me?

In other news:

The week off helped restore my urges to read and write but I didn't manage to totally shut off social media. I closed Facebook completely for about 5 days and have mostly succeeded at avoiding it, so that was good. Twitter, though . . . total failure. I continued to tweet and read tweets, all week, and I really need to walk away from it for a while. I'll try to just post blog links to Twitter, this week. Wish me luck.

Otherwise, the week was a huge success. What is it about Facebook that's so stressful? I can't figure it out but I always feel better when I close Facebook. I don't think it's merely that it's a time suck -- that's problem enough, though, and just closing Facebook really helped me to spend my time more wisely. I got some tidying done in the guest room before Kiddo arrived home for Spring Break, caught up completely on laundry for a day, enjoyed my reading more than I have in weeks, and spent more time at the gym. It's been sunny and gorgeous, most of the time, with a couple random days of heavy rain. The sunshine is always helpful for restoring one's soul.

I watched Saving Mr. Banks, last week, and am still watching the first Dr. Who, now on Season 2 of William Hartnell, because I only watch an episode on occasion, usually when I sit down with my lunch. We watched Thor: Ragnarok and Logan's Run, this weekend. All were great but I found Saving Mr. Banks a little too sad for my taste and it was the first time I've actually felt like Tom Hanks slipped up. He just didn't sound like Walt Disney, to me. Yes, I'm old enough to remember Walt Disney introducing movies on Sunday nights, although I was young enough that the Walt Disney voice I hear in my head may not be accurate.

The tulip photo above is from the gardens around our Whole Foods, of all places. They always have the most gorgeous tulips in spring. Here's another one:

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