Sunday was rainy and cool, but Friday and Saturday were lovely spring days. I had kept Friday fairly open and was able to do some fun things with it — a walk with a friend, and a massage in the afternoon. I also blocked off a window at 1 p.m. for buying 2028 Olympics tickets. It felt a little silly but I did get tickets to some track and field events. For July 2028! I have no idea what life will look like then but probably I will be around and probably it will be fun to do. Now I just need to make friends with somebody who lives near that part of LA as lodging will no doubt be crazy.
On Friday I also helped my daughter with her church confirmation project. She needed to do a 30-day spiritual discipline project for this, and she chose to highlight 30 different Biblical role models. I’m pretty good at random Bible trivia, but I would have been hard-pressed to name the mother of Moses, Miriam, and Aaron (Jochebed! Maybe remember that in case you’re ever on Jeopardy and that comes up…). She had hand-written a very short bio and the lesson to be learned on index cards, so I typed them all up and then she cut them out and put them on construction paper on a trifold and it all looks very nice now.
We actually only had two kids at home on Friday night — the 6-year-old was off camping with another family! The 18-year-old is still at school (fun fact: he’s volunteering with the Boston Marathon today as his school is near the finish line). The 16-year-old went to the Pennsylvania Technology Student Association conference — he had one first place finish in an event and one third place finish so most likely he will be going back to nationals this summer. Very exciting. But he was gone Wednesday-Saturday so everything was a bit quieter around the house. My husband and I went out to dinner Friday night at a local place.
Then Saturday morning I had a dress rehearsal for my church choir’s Missa Gaia concert. We then performed this show on Sunday afternoon. It wound up coming together reasonably well despite being a mere 2 weeks after Easter. This is definitely a function of our having a professional jazz band accompanying us and really good soloists (our alto was shining on “Sound Over All Waters” and “Mystery” — you should check her out if you get a chance to see her perform). But the choir managed to get through it too. I was one of the wolf-imitating sopranos doing a stretto line in the Kyrie — maybe I can add that to my performance resume… (“stretto” could perhaps be another Jeopardy question/answer…)
The pink petals are raining down from the cherry trees right now and I know they will be gone soon. I’ve been trying to spend as much time outside under the trees as possible! Both the 11-year-old and 6-year-old have been climbing the cherries — they make for good climbing trees.
This week I’m doing a lot of Big Time related interviews. I’m also hosting a virtual launch party in the evening on May 5th (pub day) for people who pre-order the book. You can order it through all the major retailers (you can find links here on Norton’s webpage) or you can ask your local independent book store to order you a copy, and then if you’d like to get an invite to the virtual launch party you can fill out this form here. I really appreciate the support. I like the book and I hope you will too. The Next Big Idea Club named it one of the “12 Most Anticipated Nonfiction Books of Spring 2026” and wrote that “Few writers understand time better than Vanderkam” — I love that. Two weeks to launch!
(If it doesn’t work to pre-order, please consider asking your local library to get a copy! They often do take requests from patrons and if they get a lot of requests they will order multiple copies — I very much appreciate people asking!)
