We are still in the lull between sports (baseball starts next week), so that makes for more open space on weekends. It has its ups and downs. The kids spend a lot of time on the computer or their kindles (or the TV) and I feel like as I turn off one screen they drift to another one. Also, it’s tempting to feel like I should be doing more chores if I’m around the house, so I’ve been deciding one weekend project ahead of time. This weekend it was cleaning out the back packs. There was a lot of stuff in there. At least I didn’t find any rotting food (that has happened in the past).
There was some good stuff. On Friday night my husband and I went to our daughter’s preschool fundraising gala. We were bidding on silent auction items via phone this year, which was efficient, if a little odd feeling at a party. I kept pulling out my phone when I got texted about being outbid. We had a lot of conversations where people would all pull out their phones and then apologize to each other. Sometimes it turned out I was bidding against the people I was talking to! I wound up with some Eagles tickets, a gift certificate to a boutique, a gift certificate to a dance camp I think my daughter will like, and a storage basket decorated by her class. This is my 6th silent auction for the preschool, and I’ve finally realized I don’t actually use baskets of bath candles and soaps, which I am always tempted to bid on. Just donate the money instead!
Saturday we all went to the 9-year-old’s karate belt graduation. He started in December, and just earned his yellow belt (the second one in the sequence). My husband wound up leaving with the toddler, who wasn’t good about sitting. The other kids weren’t that great about sitting either, though we did all like watching the “demo team” of older kids who were juggling knives and nunchucks and doing acrobatic choreography.
During nap — and then during two hours later in the evening — I started reading Jayber Crow, by Wendell Berry. This was another Modern Mrs. Darcy recommendation (it’s on her list of books she’s read multiple times). I read 180 pages on Saturday and then read the other 180 pages yesterday. I’ll write more about it when I do my monthly book round-up, but I think the strangest part is realizing it was written in 2000. It has a lot in common, stylistically, with the Edith Wharton and Willa Cather stuff I’d been reading lately.
Speaking of reading, at my daughter’s parent-teacher conference last week, they told me she was sort-of-reading. I took home an extra set of those Bob books (very simple books with mostly 3-letter words). We sat down on Sunday afternoon and she did a lot of sounding out but recognized enough sight words that she could read the books. It was very exciting! I have had dreams of her being able to read by the time we go to Hawaii for vacation in a few weeks. It would be nice to have one other thing for her to do on the 
plane. That’s highly unlikely, but hey, I can dream.
Saturday night, my husband and I had an in-home date night dinner (steak and asparagus). Sunday morning he let me sleep in until 8:30 a.m. It was kind of ridiculous. I am not sure why I slept that long. I had to race to get myself and the kids ready for church, but it was kind of nice.
Both days I ran along the Schuylkill River trail. On Saturday it was 70 degrees, if drizzly, and I ran 6.2 miles. On Sunday I thought I ran 4 miles, though my phone said 3.6. I don’t know if there’s a way to dispute the step counter on one’s phone…
Sunday afternoon I parked myself at Panera to do some work, mostly editing the book. It’s nice to get a change of scenery from time to time. The place wasn’t that busy, so hopefully they were OK with the close to 3 hours I spent there…
In other news: The time perception survey I mentioned last week will go live tomorrow. I hope you will consider taking it. You will need to recount how you spent the previous day (roughly) and answer questions on general habits and feelings about time. It will take 6-10 minutes, and for every completed survey (up to the total needed) I will donate $6 to either The Nature Conservancy, Doctors without Borders, or Boys and Girls Clubs of America. On the last page of the survey, you will be able to select which non-profit to support. I will post the link tomorrow. Thank you!
Photos: The yellow belt; my spot at Panera with Green Goddess Cobb and cappuccino.
I love how you are incentivizing participation in the survey. What a great idea!
@Lindsey D- here’s hoping it works!! I hope to be writing sizable checks to all three charities soon. I’m curious to see what the split will be.
The preplanned weekend chore helps so much! I rarely feel like a weekend is wasted if that gets done. I also feel like Panera has upped its game lately – we went for lunch yesterday, as the open-on-Sunday options here are rather thin – and I was surprised at how much better it was than it’s been.
@Meghan – it was pretty good. And not terribly busy and the tables were spacious enough that it worked to work. I will probably try working there again. It worked out a lot better than Starbucks (which does not have sufficient tables in our area!)
@Meghan – hi! I follow you on Instagram too 🙂 Good to hear Panera has gotten better. I stopped going there for a while, but there is one super close to home with free wi-fi. I’ll have to reconsider when I want to sit in a cafe and get something done ;D Thanks for the suggestion!