March Wrap-Up and Plans for April

Reading

TBR Pile Challenge: Assata: An Autobiography by Assata Shakur
Nonfiction: In addition to my TBR book, I read Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat and We Are Never Meeting In Real Life (which isn't what I had in mind with my nonfiction goal but it still counts!)

Listening

The Rose Garden by Susanna Kearsley, which I'm about halfway through.

Watching

I really like this cat who hangs out
with me at my bus stop.

I've finished the reboot of One Day At a Time. Funny story: I came to the end and was a little sad that I was out of episodes but then realized I HAD BEEN WATCHING SEASON TWO. For some reason Netflix had defaulted to the second season and I didn't realize it.

Now I'm watching season 2 of Jessica Jones, and looking forward to the return of Call the Midwife and Handmaid's Tale.

Knitting

Er, I'm still working on my sleeve. I'm on the cap shaping though, so the end is in sight. Then I just have to make another one. I should be done by....October?

Cooking

I bought two cookbooks: Dinner by Melissa Clark (which I mentioned last month) and Bread Illustrated from America's Test Kitchen. I've been experimenting a bit with bread from that cookbook and from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, because I've had good luck with those recipes in the past. Mostly my bread is coming out fine, but a little underdone. I think my oven temperature might be to blame - I'm going to try turning it down more next time because it runs hot, and maybe the inside will be more done by the time the outside is dark.

Blood Orange Chicken

I've cooked a lot of things, but the new recipes I tried that came out the best were the Blood Orange Chicken with Scotch Whiskey and Olives from Dinner, Black Bean Skillet Dinner with Quick-pickled Onions and Lime Crema from Dinner, Mediterranean Chopped Salad from America's Test Kitchen Cooking School Cookbook, Turnip Greens Frittata from Food52 (which I made with chard because the store didn't have turnip greens), and Baked Ziti from America's Test Kitchen Cooking School Cookbook. I think I'll be making all of these again!

Doing

I got together with my friend I've been working with and we made the above-mentioned frittata. It was much easier than the other recipes we've made, but when we get together we spend the first part of our time drinking wine and talking so by the time we eat it's all kind of a blur. But I'm pretty sure the frittata was good; in fact, I had some leftover the next day and quite liked it. The important thing is that we have fun hanging out without spending a lot of money. And the dog wasn't quite as awful this time, so that was a bonus.

Another friend and I went to see Roxane Gay at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. We bought tickets way back in September and I rearranged my work schedule for it.  It was on a Wednesday night when I usually work until 7pm so I took the day off, but there was this storm threat and I worried that the event would be cancelled, but it turned out that the storm pretty much passed us by despite all of the dire warning. (We had some super crazy winter storms this month and really didn't need another!) Roxane Gay is amazing. She's brilliant and funny and thoughtful and the audience asked really great questions. I'm so glad I went!

Petri the day we went running.

Work has gotten a lot better this month. It's not that all our problems have gone away, but now that I've hired someone for the position that has been vacant since the end of December, I can actually do things besides put out fires. I've had a meeting with a committee that I'm on that deals with intellectual freedom, and another meeting about being on a local cable show, and I've actually been able to do some planning for upcoming programs and just have thoughtful conversations with coworkers that don't feel rushed.

I went running a few times, which is great improvement over the last couple of months. I took the dog with me twice and it didn't go too badly, so I'm hoping to take her more regularly in hopes of tiring her out.

Plans for April

My niece is coming down from Maine the first weekend of April and we'll be going to visit our aunt in CT and will go into NY for the day. Then we're coming back to Boston and seeing P!nk in concert. Later in the month I'll be seeing George Ezra for the third time.

How was your March?