Reading:  Forging Silver into Stars by Brigid Kemmerer

Listening:  The Android’s Dream by John Scalzi

Watching:  Jim and I started watching Squid Game this week. It is not a show I want to binge-watch, and I have to force myself to watch an episode. Despite that, we enjoy it even if all I can think while watching it is that the show feels like a sociologist’s case study.

Cooking:  My brother-in-law is here for more home improvement projects, and his payment from me is always food. I made a jalapeno popper chicken salad and a cowboy pasta salad for lunches. Dinner tonight was grilled brats, a Polish cucumber salad, and grilled loaded potatoes. I also made an angel food cake and a no-bake lemon cheesecake for this weekend. This past week, I made bread pudding, shwarma chicken with current rice, spicy tomato pinwheels, and Jim grilled burgers twice. Now that we have a grill again, it’s been a treat to let Jim handle some of the meals.

Enjoying:  I believe our weather finally turned, which means no more below-freezing temperatures until autumn. While I’m not too fond of the three or four days in which the temperatures decided to jump right to summer levels, I will admit that the sunny days that have been in the sixties and seventies have been more than a little pleasurable.

Planning:  What am I not planning at this point? We have three weeks until Holly’s graduation and graduation party. Three weeks after that is her final dance competition ever. And, because karma does not want my life to get remotely dull, we have to plan for Holly to attend college this fall at the University of Dundee, which is in Scotland. Surprise!

Feeling:  Honestly, I don’t know what I feel right now. I thought I was handling these very stressful few months pretty well until my therapist pointed out that I might be fooling myself a bit. I haven’t been able to sit down and write anything, let alone that massive amount of reviews, nor have I been able to sit and work on my cross-stitch project, which is for Holly and one I intended to finish before she graduates.

And yet, I am so proud of Holly that I could write it in the sky, and it still wouldn’t be enough of a gesture to express that pride. She is ending her high school career with her best year ever. She has truly come into her own in what she wants, what she expects, and what she does about it. Watching her struggle to decide on college has been extremely tough but still impressive as she wrestled with costs, dreams, programs, logic, and heart.

Ultimately, she changed her mind about going to Washington not just because she didn’t want to take a gap year but also because she wanted us to stay in Wisconsin so that she could come home and visit all of her friends during breaks. What prompted her to look more closely at Dundee was the leaked SCOTUS opinion regarding Roe. The day after the leak, she texted me to say that it felt like the unraveling of society. Her subsequent text was to say she never declined Dundee’s offer. Three days later, she talked to an advisor at the school, and three days after that felt that the opportunity to get a degree abroad was too good to ignore. She did all this without any prompting from us, as we thought we were getting the house ready to put up for sale. Her maturity levels astonish me.

Upcoming:  Holly is in Washington, D. C. this week as part of her AP U.S. Government class, so Jim and I have the house to ourselves. Jim and his brother will finish up the pergola, adding lights and building stairs from the patio before leaving on Tuesday. Then, Jim needs to get started on some lawn games Holly wants for her party or my Little Free Library that he promised to build. I hope to get started on the decorations and finish planning the menu for that day. It doesn’t feel real that it is three weeks away, but I cannot ignore the calendar.