Twenty-six days till we move.
I’m returning the last of my library books and relying more on audiobooks as we pack up our life from the past six years.
Decluttering Tip
If you get rid of something, make a note of it. As I packed up our art supplies, I spent forty-five minutes searching my small house for eight containers of tempera paint. I can only assume I decluttered them a few weeks ago, but I can’t be sure. I have a nagging suspicion they’ll turn up after I tape up this box.
Packing Tip
Number the boxes as you go and keep track of their contents in a small notebook. If the move is complicated, you can also color-code the boxes with different shades of duct tape. That way, on moving day, you can tell everyone, “pink goes to the kitchen, and green goes to the attic,” and if you need to find something quickly, you’ll know that “pink box #3” has the frying pan.
Am I the Drama?
The Complete Works of Shakespeare:
Sonnets 1-12,King John, Richard II, Henry IV, Part 1, Henry IV, Part 2,Henry VHenry VI, Part 1, Henry VI, Part 2, Henry VI, Part 3:
What is there to say? The Plantagenets are still struggling. There are some great moments from these plays, but really, there’s a reason no one knows much about them.
The Complete Plays of Chekhov
The Skin of Our Teethby Thornton Wilder:Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams:
Having read A Streetcar Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie, and now Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, my main lesson from Tennessee Williams is how unbearable life in the American South was before air conditioning. Also, people are miserable.
A Man for All Seasonsby Robert BoltBecket by Jean Anouilh:
Chef’s kiss. This has some of the best speeches and characters that I’ve read this year. Also, I don’t know why I love wicked, selfish, unhappy characters in Becket or The Lion in Winter but hate them in A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Someone please explain this to me.
Oedipus Cycle by Sophocles
Medea by Euripides
Next Steps
Oedipus Cycle by Sophocles
Medea by Euripides
Other Things I Finished
Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes
Crosswicks: A Circle of Quiet by Madeleine L’Engle
Bad Therapy by Abigail Shrier
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
Keep the Aspidistra Flying by George Orwell
Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan
The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine (I read aloud this favorite childhood book to my daughter, and it was a precious time that I’ve been looking forward to since before she was born)
Currently Reading
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
A Bad Place to Be a Hero by Jerry F. Westinger
Baby-led Weaning by Gill Rapley
The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution: 1763-1789 by Robert Middlekauff
Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools by Tyler Staton
Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne
A Favorite Quote
“It all comes,” said Rabbit sternly, “of eating too much. I thought at the time,” said Rabbit, “only I didn’t like to say anything,” said Rabbit, “that one of us was eating too much,” said Rabbit, “and I knew it wasn’t me,” he said.
“In Which Pooh Goes Visiting and Gets Into a Tight Place,” from Winnie-the-Pooh
I’m reading and re-reading The Bridge of San Luis Rey and hoping we can talk Thornton Wilder next time we catch up. And I never read Ella Enchanted until I was an adult and loved it! So fun you can introduce Emma to that one.