reading: Diana, Closely Guarded Secret. It’s written by Princess Diana’s bodyguard of several years which means the information is high on accuracy and low on gossip. I don’t like to bring gossipy books into the house because of the looks I’ll get from the other two. After reading it, I decided that Diana and Charles, who both morally fell short in many ways, are equally misrepresented by the media. Charlie isn’t as bad and Diana isn’t as great and saintly as she’s remembered to be. Please come to my speech next week when I discuss my many detailed thoughts on the infamous car crash.

watching: endless episodes of The Great British Bakeoff. AB loves it and it’s family-friendly so we’ve blazed through several seasons. She can tell you who won which challenge in the fourth episode of the seventh season. Does she remember which bathroom her toothbrush is in? Probably not. We discovered that there’s a GBBO musical that has become the soundtrack to our life when we’re not watching the show.

emotionally preparing for: AB’s 10th birthday. She told me when it was only 10 days away. I didn’t need that countdown calendar. I don’t like countdowns. When I was pregnant with her and knew my due date was April 2nd, I refused to look at the calendar and see what day of the week that fell on. I knew if I had that information, I’d say, “I only have ___ number of Wednesdays left until my due date, ” which would stress me out more. I already knew how many weeks I had left given that pregnancy is counted in weeks, but knowing that particular day of the week was a bridge too for my very emotionally fragile self. What a delight I was for those 39 weeks, 5 days.

photographing: all the flowers. We’re in the 22 days of glorious spring. Before we know it, it will hit 104* where it will stay until October. Until then, we’re loving the sunshine.

returning: to Zumba. I’ve been hit or miss (mostly miss) with zumba since I had surgery over two years. Between stomach pain from exercising and not belonging to the Y anymore, it wasn’t something that ever worked out. I found out that the zumba instructor from the Y opened up her own studio so I went a few weeks ago. It was so fun to go back and I didn’t have any pain. I still zumba very much like a white lady and in the heat of the music confused left and straight, but I dance for over 2 miles so I say it’s a win.

saying yes: too many school things. Between subbing, setting up for events, and the teacher lunches I’m in charge of, I’m constantly at the school. I told Christopher that after I completed my three commitments there this month, I wouldn’t say yes to any more school things. I didn’t sign up to help with the book fair or to help monitor the orchastra petting zoo, both of which I normally would have done. AB’s drama director recently took the job as the theater teacher at her school. She texted me yesterday about the decor I used when we set up a special snack week in the teacher’s lunch room. I took pages out of a book from the little free library and made them into a table runner. She was wondering if she could use the decor for Little Women. I said of course. I should have stopped there. Instead, I said, “If the table runner got dirty, I’d be happy to make you another one!” WHY. Why do I make more work for myself.

Mourning: Sesame Pie’s upcoming birthday. I know I already mentioned it, but it’s in seven days and I wrap my head around that.