rifling through the basket

In my vacation basket:

• I finished a book I have long savored, but had a hard time finding time to read... The Rules of Civility by Amor Towles. Really enjoyable. Beautifully, poetically written. Interesting plot and setting. This may end up being a movie. 

• Two friends have been baking artisan bread at home in recent months. After getting a recipe that looks fairly do-able, I have my first batch of dough rising. This can stay in the fridge for up to two weeks, and each grapefruit sized dough ball that is taken from the batch makes a perfect loaf of bread. I can't wait. 

• This morning I enjoyed a perfectly lazy and guilty-pleasure morning... after not sleeping well and after getting up early anyway, I stayed in bed, watched an episode of Last Tango in Halifax on Netflix and drank black coffee. So.much.fun. (It is not lost on me that being the mom of a teenager brings more worries and less responsibilities, and since the teen had slept over at a friend's house, there was no reason not be revert back to some lazy, earlier, carefree ways of  my own.)

• Boring stuff... laundry and cleaning - putting that off for a day or two more.

• Good stuff... going to a movie and then dinner at my favorite theater and go-to restaurant in Ithaca later today. I think we are going to see "Brooklyn." I'll let you know.


• Fun cooking on the horizon. Need to take down the Christmas tree. Plans with friends on 12/31 and 1/1... and I suppose a few other errands and chores. A new set of short stories to read. Life is good.