the weekly workbook no. 1
Last week was a bit of a blur, as they all seem to be these days. This year I’ve been pretty consistent with sitting down to do a weekly reflection section (thank you, ClubMakse) and it always amazes me how much I forget (good and bad) by the time the week is over.
My middle kid was doing a summer program at UT Austin, which meant driving back and forth from downtown twice a day for most of the week. That got old fast. But my oldest and I took advantage of our proximity to the LBJ’s presidential library, which we’d never been to before. [My great-grandmother attended teacher’s college with LBJ (what is now Texas State University, my alma mater) and family lore, according to my late grandmother, was that GG never liked LBJ because he cheated off her paper or something .] The library was very interesting and I could have stayed longer, but was trying to respect my kid’s interest and attention span. It’s probably asking a lot for a 10 year old to spend more than 90 minutes at a presidential museum. Worth a visit if you’re in the Austin area.
I finished three books on my summer reading list.
Dream Apartment by Lisa Olstein*. 5 stars. Stunning. I borrowed an e-book from the library and would love to have a paper copy to mark up.
Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad*. 4 stars. For whatever reason, this was a bit of a slog for me, even though I did like it. I chose this for the “on Palestine” prompt; the story follows Sonia, a British actor returning to her family’s native Palestine for a vacation and finding herself involved in a production of Hamlet. Hammad is concise and not overly lyrical but still pulls off richly layered scenes. I think I got lost a bit in the Shakespeare references and the particularities of the political situation in Palestine. I could see myself rereading this one, it’s worthy!
In Limbo by Deb Jj Lee*. 5 stars. I read this in one or two sittings, it was fantastic. Lee’s artwork is so realistic in some places I found myself staring, trying to figure out if they had incorporated photographs in some panels. (As far as I found tell, no.) Recommended for anyone who has felt invisible.
I’m currently reading Margo Jefferson’s Constructing a Nervous System* and hoping to finish that this week.
*links are bookshop.org affiliate links.
I think I’m on a no-buy/ low-buy journey and part of that is finishing projects languishing in my office. I was moving things around last week and found a quilt I started in 2022. It was like, 90% quilted and I had already prepped the binding.
I had stopped working on it, I think, because my machine was acting up. (It did get a tune-up around that time.) And also I was frustrated with the pattern instructions, which were not written in a way that was super clear to me (I should’ve known better, as I’d previously clocked the pattern-writer as someone who is great at ideas/ execution but maybe light on the technical aspects).
Anyway, I decided to just finish it, knowing it wouldn’t be the most beautiful perfect quilt ever made, but that it would get out of my office and maybe be used in some way instead of collecting dust.
I botched the binding (again, the instructions), but the quilt doesn’t look too terrible after I snipped all the loose threads and machine washed and dried it. It’s now on the back of the couch in the playroom, where I often like to sit, and I’m looking forward to using it.
a little accountability for the week ahead.
It’s another busy week of chauffeuring my kids around, and I hope I’m aiming low with my weekly actions. I’d love to find myself reading in the hammock at some point.
Leave a comment and let me know what you’re working on this week; I’d love to cheer you on.