A Week in Which I Go Inside a Store for the First Time in a Year

 

I must thank you all for your helpful advice last week. I was at a low spot emotionally, and you reminded me of all the many ways I can work to get myself out of that awful place. Thank you so much. Have I told you all lately how much I love my blogging friends? I do.

It certainly helped my mood to read four wonderful books last week. I delighted in The Color of Magic and All Things Wise and Wonderful, both of which were full of humor and good storytelling. I enjoyed Tom Brown's Schooldays, too, the story of an English boy's time in boarding school, first published in the early nineteenth century. I'd especially love to know if any of you have read The Portable Veblen, published in 2016, but which I just discovered last week. It went straight onto my Favorites shelf. Quirky times two.

The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett (Mood-Boosting Books)

All Things Wise and Wonderful by James Herriot (Mood-Boosting Books)

Tom Brown's Schooldays by Thomas Hughes (1001 Children's Books)

The Portable Veblen by Elizabeth Mckenzie (Fiction)

Yes, and...Daily Meditations by Richard Rohr (Daily Meditation Reading)

The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (Chapter-a-Day Read-Along)

Tarka the Otter by Henry Williamson (1001 Children's Books)

The Little Book of Lent (Daily Reading During Lent)

Out of Eden: An Odyssey of Ecological Invasion (Naturalist Book Club)

Women Who Dared: 52 Stories of Fearless Daredevils, Adventurers, and Rebels (Women's History Month)

I finally was able to pop in for Battle of the Books, created by 1000 Books You Must Read Before You Die author Jim Mustich, and hosted over Zoom by the Cuyahoga County Public Library. The format is compelling: five people are given four minutes each to advocate for their favorite books that need to join the next 1000 BYMRBYD list, and then the audience votes. This episode featured author Thrity Umrigar, book reviewer Donna Seaman, author Andromeda Romano-Lax, blogger Anne Bogel, and professor Mary Bly (who writes romances under the pen name Eloisa James). It was great fun. You must stop in for the next battle, and if you don't subscribe to Jim Mustich's bi-weekly e-mail newsletter, you are missing out. 

It's harder than I expected to photograph a butterfly.

I'm excited to see that we have a lot of naturalist events coming up this spring. We're participating in Spring Fling, where we help birders at Quintana Neotropical Bird Sanctuary (masked, socially distant). We are participating in an eight-month long Butterfly Monitoring project at Camp Mohawk. And we will check out the sites on loops of The Great Texas Wildlife Trail in our county. 

Good Thing #1:

I went inside a store for the first time in a year.

Guess what kind of store it was?

Good guess! Yes, it was a bookstore.

Good Thing #2:

I was sure the freeze killed everything, but,

no, my azaleas are blooming.

Good Thing #3:

Our garden is in. Kale and basil and rosemary and carrots survived the freeze,

and now we have added tomatoes and green peppers and green beans and jalapeños. 

How are you doing this week?

I'm happy you found your way to the Sunday Salon. Sunday Salon is a place for us to link up and to share what we have been doing during the week. It's a great way to visit other blogs and join in the conversations going on there. 

Some of the things we often talk about at the Sunday Salon:

• What was your week like?
• Read any good books? Tell us about them.
• What other bookish things did you do? 
• What else is going on in your life?

Other places where you may like to link up over the weekend are below. Click on the picture to visit the site.

My linkup for Sunday Salon is below.