Sunday Salon...the third

Today marks my return to the real world. But oh my, was last week wonderful and relaxing...oh, alright, it was downright luxuriously lazy! I spent maybe ten hours working on homeschool stuff, instead of the 60+ hours I spend during a normal week. Cleaning the bathrooms and vacuuming twice was the extent of my housecleaning. I kept up with the laundry for about half the week, then started blowing it off. The kids were with my parents for 3 days. And I totally ignored the computer! Amazing how much free time can be found when one blows off all one's responsibilities. :)

So, what did I do with my week of indulgent laziness? I managed to spend a couple hours scrapbooking. Went antiquing. And watched more TV than I do in a typical month.

And, of course, I read, read, read...two plays, a handful of essays/articles, a handful of short stories, three graphic novels, and five other books. Yes, I do realize that for some that constitutes a pretty average week. But for me, well, we may be talking record-setting here!

But as I said, the real world looms large, so I'm not expecting to add much to the page totals today. (Not that I actually keep track of page totals anyway. Every time I read someone's monthly or yearly wrap-ups that contain page totals, I think I really ought to do that, too...but I just can't get my act together on that one.) No, today's goals include getting everyone ready to head back to school tomorrow (including doing several things for homeschool that I blew off during the previous week), trying to get caught back up on the laundry, and reading as many blog posts as I can before pulling the old "mark all as read" trick.

If I get my act together (yeah, big IF there), this coming week should include lots of book babbling, not to mention oodles of points to award. Oh my. The acquisitions of the previous week are downright shameful. Books from the library, books arriving from PaperbackSwap, books I'd ordered from Amazon, books I bought at various stores, and books I received as gifts. I'm hoping if I spread out the awarding of points throughout the week, no one will notice quite how bad I've been. Or at least maybe you can pretend not to notice, okay?

As for what I'm reading now: I'm still working my way through Mathias B. Freese's short story book (Down to a Sunless Sea). I just started Shakespeare Wrote for Money (which I was absolutely powerless to resist after finishing The Complete Polysyllabic Spree). I'm reading House of Stone (the second book about Zimbabwe this month...and I've got two more waiting for me, as I've decided it's time to go back to allowing myself to following my current whims and stop worrying so much about what I should be reading for challenges). However, having said that, I did just start reading The Strand Prophecy last night, because I realized that while I read a pile of short stories for Carl's Sci-Fi Experience, I'd yet to read a single book (but don't worry, I really did want to dig into this book anyway). Started reading Globalization: Opposing Viewpoints for homeschool last week, though I have no intention of reading the whole book...just picking out particular topics and reading "both sides" of the argument. Also still plugging slowly away in both The Scientists and Africa: A Biography of the Continent for homeschool. I think that's all I have going at the moment, but I'm vastly tempted to pick up The Plain Janes...and I shouldn't be faulted there, after all, I do have to return it to the library soon.

Well, anyway, despite the fact that I now feel completely out of the loop, and despite the fact that my wish list is bound to grow by leaps and bounds today as I bop around trying to catch up with you all, I have to say my break was highly restorative. And I'm actually giving thought to making these blogging breaks a bi-monthly thing.