Archives - Weekly Update

Last weekend, as planned, I did a lot of gardening. It was lovely to get dirt under my nails again. Among the plants I bought was the lovely lantern plant that you can see above. I love those flowers. For the last two years, the squirrels have eaten our hibiscus plants, so this year I steered away from those. When I saw this plant on another woman’s cart at the nursery, I immediately added one to mine --- and got the last one. Ten people asked me where I got it as I continued shopping through the store. I was not able to get the plumbago plants that I have gotten in the past. They decided not to grow them when the pandemic hit. It’s interesting to see what has been impacted by this series of events.

And here comes summer…though it’s been very cool here this week with a few mornings in the 40s! It’s not going to be the same holiday weekend this year without our small town parade through the center of town. It’s one of my favorite traditions, and it kicks off summer. I love every part of it. But alas, like so many other things, we will be waiting for next year to enjoy it.

On Wednesday afternoon, while eating popcorn, I cracked a tooth. While this is never fun, it’s even less fun when we are in the midst of a pandemic; my dentist is in the city, and I live in New Jersey. Luckily, Greg has a dentist near the house who would see me in an emergency, and I popped over there yesterday for a visit. We chatted as best one can do when there is an apparatus in one’s mouth. These days, like every other mother of young children in America today, the dentist homeschools in the morning, and in the afternoon she sees emergency patients. You know, the new normal. I have to say that I would have been terrible at homeschooling. We would have had lots of “library time” and recess for more reading time, as I am not very good at the new math, or science. We talked books in between various instruments finding their way into my mouth as she told me what her children are reading. That conversation alone made me look forward to my next dental appointment, and that is something not many will say.

This is a BIG week in publishing, as there are a lot of books out this week that I am excited about. I have had a great time interviewing four of the authors who we are featuring this week, and I am scheduled to speak with another in two weeks. I hope you are enjoying these interviews as much as I am enjoying doing them. Our podcast numbers have been way up, and what’s interesting is that readers are enjoying the older podcasts, as well as the new ones. It’s as if when people discover them, they scroll and listen to earlier interviews, too. Every single older title already has listens in May. I love this!

We have many remotes, and I rarely pay attention to which ones access the various devices to watch television, DVDs and streaming services, and to adjust the sound system. It took a pandemic, but I finally have mastered all of the remotes pictured above, and I can switch around watching with the best of them. Cory gave us a solo remote for Christmas that was never installed. But desperate times for streaming encouraged the learning curve, and I guess I flattened the remote curve.