This weekend was actually what I wish for so many weekends to be — relaxing.

It was decent amounts of productive and pleasurable, some one on one time with Bergen (he and I went to lunch together – he’s such good company), a dinner out celebrating with dear and precious friends, a vintage market, a game night with the kids, two mornings of sleeping in.

There’s not another weekend like it on the books for a month or more.  (And we’re hightailing it to holiday season so I might as well admit that there’s not another weekend like it scheduled until 2019).

Which reminds me of this quote by Tolkien from The Hobbit.

“Now it is a strange thing, but things that are good to have and days that are good to spend are soon told about, and not much to listen to; while things that are uncomfortable, palpitating, and even gruesome, may make a good tale, and take a deal of telling anyway.”

I just finished reading The Hobbit with my students.  I’ve probably read that book 15 times.  It might be the book I have read more frequently than any other book in my life.  Primarily because I taught it to students for about seven years in a row.  Jane Eyre is a likely second and Hannah Coulter a third.  What books have you read more than three or four times?

I’ve been overwhelmed at the response from all of you guys from the video I shared of my storytelling event.  Seriously.  SO many kind and encouraging comments that I cannot even believe it.  I even received an email from my web hosting site saying my viewership was unusually high and succeeded my limit apparently.  Or something like that.  (I’m often guilty of not closely reading emails that seem to require no actual response from me.)  But for real.  Thank you.  For watching the video and reading the post and saying nice things and giving me good words and making me feel like I had accomplished something. It meant a tremendous deal to me – your generous words.  Thank you.

This little red locker made its way home with me from the market.  I was only purchasing a stool when I asked about the wooden locker and he said he’d drop the price since he already had to swipe my card.  So, you know, who am I to say no to that?  Pretty much, if it’s red and chippy and sort of like a locker, I’m in.

Chippy red paint is kind of my love language.

I’ve been listening to Typeology – a podcast about the enneagram (a personality test) – a lot recently and cannot seem to settle exactly on which type I am.  But I listened to a podcast with Annie F. Downs as the guest this weekend and she’s a 7 and she said a few bits that resonated deeply with me.  I think I’ll let her words sift a little longer through my thoughts and then write about them.  

The kids and I are challenging ourselves to go to bed on time this week.  An ice cream date this weekend is the reward if we make it through one week with enforced appropriate bedtimes for all (me included).  I also bought a cheap alarm clock so that my phone is not within arm’s length of my bed.  Small, incremental improvements.

I’m stoked for this glorious improvement in the weather and disheartened by the daylight savings time that makes the world dark before 4 o’clock practically.  

And that’s all the rambling I’ve got in me tonight.

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