One-Day Weekend

I realllly needed this weekend, mostly to deal with house stuff that just isn’t getting done during the week (good thing the children and I don’t need to put on real clothes to go anywhere because the laundry situation is out of control). But I stayed up late Friday night to watch a documentary I needed to see for work, then got up at 4:30 on Saturday morning to try to get some editing done. By the time Will was ready to go down for his morning nap around 9:00 I was totally exhausted. I slept for a couple hours, went on a 30-minute walk around the neighborhood (big mistake), and lay on the floor next to Will for an hour until Matt took him and Alice outside. Then I slept until dinnertime. So nothing got done on Saturday!

Today was much better and we had a nice, uneventful day hanging out at home. I cleaned up the kitchen. Matt fixed the lawnmower. I took my tomato seedlings outside so they could get some extra sunlight. We’re running a little low on food so I’m probably going to have to go to the grocery store at some point this week (wearing one of the cute masks my aunt sent us!). So that will be an exciting trip in the car. You know how some old people like to just “go for a drive”? I get it now. I really, really get it.

My old band director lives in our neighborhood and has been going out on her porch nearly every night since the stay-at-home order started to play a “Corona Concert” for whoever is walking by. Sometimes other people bring their instruments and join her. It is my very favorite thing to come out of all of this, and I kind of hope she’ll keep it up occasionally after we’re all back out in the world again.

Reading Update:

Liberty Falling by Nevada Barr: The Anna Pigeon series is my very favorite mystery series (national parks + murder, what could be better?) and I usually devour them, but this one took me a long eleven days to read—mostly because I was reading it over my first days back at work and partly because this is my least favorite AP book to date. It takes place in New York City with the Statue of Liberty as a centerpiece and I just really missed having a more typical national park as the setting. The mystery was compelling, though, and the ending was pretty gripping. Just not my personal fave (for the record, my favorites so far in the series are #2, A Superior Death, and #11, Flashback. Finished on 4/17/20.

The Hypnotist’s Love Story by Liane Moriarty: I really like Liane Moriarty’s books and I just started this one today and am already sucked in. She knows how to tell a story!

Corona Concert Series

Easter 2020

There have been a lot of moments over the past month or so that have felt strange—”returning” to work in my living room, wearing a mask to the grocery store, realizing I could unpack the extra clothes in Will’s diaper bag because we never take him anywhere… but I hadn’t really felt sad about what we were missing until this weekend. Since I was just coming out of maternity leave and living that newborn-mom life, we didn’t have much on our calendar this spring. But I was sad on Easter when the grandparents came over and stood in the parkway to watch while Alice did her Easter egg hunt in the front yard. I had gotten the kids all dressed up because it felt weird not to, and then we just went back inside, put our quarantine clothes back on, and went about our lives in our house. We are so lucky in the grand scheme of things and I know that, but I kept thinking about how Will is never going to be this little again and his grandmas are missing out on getting to hold him. Stuff like that.

But Alice was very cute! She and I dyed eggs on Saturday (something we usually do with my mom) and she got way too much candy in her Easter basket, so she has been very happy and sugared up. Hopefully we’ll be able to celebrate with our extended family next year!

So proud of her eggs!

Photo is a little grainy because Grandma used the zoom on her phone to keep herself social distanced

What I read on maternity leave #2

My total maternity leave book count came in at 29! I read some really great books over the past three-ish months. Here they are!

Out of the total 29 books, I read:

15 adults novels (5 of which I would classify as mystery/suspense)

9 works of prescriptive nonfiction

3 memoirs

2 narrative nonfiction

Almost a complete split between fiction and nonfiction! It’s my policy to only read what I want to on maternity (no reading for work), so I took the opportunity to dive a little more into women’s fiction than I usually do. I enjoyed everything I read and would most highly recommend Tisha, Back of Beyond, Dead Wake, and When We Were Vikings.

Double life

Mom and editor—today I did it all! Will woke up to eat at 4:!5, and after he went back down I headed downstairs to make tea and dive back in to work. I had a manuscript waiting for me and I spent a couple of hours editing before anyone else was awake. Then Matt left for work and I started juggling. Overall it wasn’t too bad. Alice read books for a bit until I needed to get on a long conference call, and then she got to dive into 90 minutes of Blippi. Will alternated between sleeping and wanting to sit with me and wiggle excessively on camera. He is the cutest coworker!

We took a quick walk before lunch and nap. It was beautiful outside and Alice is in love with the scooter we got her as an early Easter present. While she was sleeping I got some more work done and caught up with co-workers. Inspired by 168 Hours, I’ve decided to track my time. When I shut my work stuff down at 6:00, I had worked 9 hours, so I spent 4 hours during the day on childcare and lunch. It might seem inefficient to drag out the workday so long, but I saved an hour on commuting and would have taken the hour for lunch anyway if I had been in the office (or, more likely, worked through it). So today the kids basically extended my work day for 2 hours. Not bad! And not having to pump and being able to go for a walk with them over lunchtime are definite perks.

Tomorrow I’ll have fewer conference calls and hopefully will be able to get more some more “real” work done as a result. We have our biannual seasonal launch meeting coming up later this week and I need to get my head around all the presentations I’m responsible for. Nothing like jumping back in with both feet!

Favorite coworker!

Diving back in

The weirdness of the past several weeks has been compounded for me because I’ve been on maternity leave… but tomorrow I’m diving back in to work from the comfort of my home workstation set up on a dining table in my living room. Matt is still going to work, so I’ll be here watching two young children and doing my job simultaneously. I am nervous. I sat on 2 1/2 hours of conference calls on Friday and while it wasn’t a disaster, it was pretty exhausting. This is how I’m expecting my schedule to basically function:

4:45 a.m.: Wake up, brush hair and teeth, put on professional-ish shirt (no one can see my pants on conference calls!), make highly caffeinated tea

5:00 a.m.: Sit down at computer, edit or do other focused work (no checking email until after some real work gets done!)

7:00 a.m.: Check email, probably feed Will

7:30-8:00 a.m.: Get Alice breakfast and set her up with some kind of activity

8:00-10:00 a.m.: Conference calls, manage email, work on small projects, cater to children’s whims as necessary

10:00-11:00 a.m.: Take kids outside, run Alice around as much as possible, manage urgent emails from phone

11:00-12:00: Manage email, work on small projects

12:00-1:00 p.m.: Unavailable for work, making lunch and putting kids down for nap

1:00-3:00 p.m.: SACRED NAPTIME! Edit or do focused work, participate in extremely important conference calls that require no child drop-ins

3:00-5:00 p.m.: Work on projects (Alice will get screen time after nap)

5:00-6:00 p.m.: Clear out inbox and close things down for the day (Matt will hopefully be home at 5:00 or before most days)

And of course I can always hop back on later at night and on the weekends as needed. I’ve had several conversations with Alice about how I’m “going back to work” and will need her to play by herself a lot more, but she’s three—she has no idea what work is or why it’s important. So we will see how it goes. I’m really hoping to limit her screen time to two hours every afternoon. Wish me luck!

Reading Update:

The Highway by C.J. Box: This is Book 2 in Box’s Highway Quartet thriller series. I read the first book, Back of Beyond, a few weeks ago and enjoyed it a lot. BoB is set in Yellowstone National Park, which is why I picked it off the shelf at the library—any book set in a national park is a book for me. The Highway takes us out of that setting into small towns in Montana and features a really sinister villain who doesn’t get his comeuppance in the end, leaving a clear path to Book 3. Box’s writing is fast-paced and engaging, and while I didn’t enjoy The Highway quite as much as BoB (mostly because of the lack of national parks content and because the story felt a bit more grim), I'm definitely planning to finish out the series as soon as our library system opens back up. Finished on 4/1/20.

168 Hours by Laura Vanderkam: I read one of Vanderkam’s other books, I Know How She Does It, on my maternity leave with Alice, so it felt fitting to dive into her best-known work now. 168 Hours reminds readers that we all have the same amount of time in a week, but some people make much better use of that time than others, and gives us ideas for how to optimize our hours. There wasn’t really anything new for me here since I’m pretty familiar with Vanderkam’s thoughts on the subject via her podcast “Best of Both Worlds”, which I wrote about recently in my favorite podcasts roundup, but I enjoyed going into a bit more detail and reminding myself as I head into what is likely going to be a fairly busy and stressful period of time working from home and caring for children simultaneously that I have a lot more control over my time than societal narratives may tell me I do. Finished on 4/3/20.

When We Were Vikings by Andrew David MacDonald: I first heard about this quirky debut novel from an editor at Book Expo last spring and I immediately added it to my TBR. Fiction, about a young woman named Zelda who was born on the Fetal Alcohol Syndrome spectrum and is obsessed with vikings. I loved the narrative voice and all the references to Norse culture, and I devoured it in less than a day. Also, the packaging of the hardcover edition is beautiful, and it’s definitely earning a forever place on my bookshelf. Highly recommended! Finished on 4/5/20.

Our neighbor has a flag for every occasion!

Time keeps passing

In some ways it has felt like time has almost stopped over the past two weeks, what with staying at home 98% of the time and cycling through the mundane but comforting routines of our lives right now. But just as I was opening up this blog post, Will rolled over onto his belly for the first time, reminding me that time does keep passing and we’re not stuck in some kind of eternal holding pattern, no matter how much it might seem like it sometimes.

Matt and I are in a friendly (read: highly contentious) competition about who can get more “ripped.” Given that I just had a baby and he has put on about 15 pounds over the last few years, our version of ripped is pretty unimpressive. But I have been doing 8 minute abs every day along with working on the 100 pushups challenge, and I loaded the kids up into the Burley this morning for a 2+ mile round trip walk. We delivered some handmade cards to Alice’s best little buddy’s house, and I took advantage of Alice and Will falling asleep to get some extra walking in.

Some neighborhood friends stopped by to visit with us through our glass storm door around lunchtime, which was fun and also sad because Alice couldn’t go out to play with them. We have one of those doors where the glass part can come down to reveal a screen that slides in and out of the door, so I can pull the glass down and leave about 12 inches of screen at the top—perfect for being able to easily hear people standing on the other side while blocking all potential germs! Then we got on a Google Hangouts chat with two other families before dinner, and Alice’s other little friend put a card for her through our mail slot. All in all it was a pretty social day, with zero actual physical contact!

Alice and I also mixed up a batch of bread dough this morning (recipe here) and it’s in the oven right now. We’ll see how it turns out—the dough seemed awfully wet even after its 7+ hour rise. I am the opposite of an expert baker, so it’s possible I managed to mess up even this extremely basic bread. Annnd I just looked out the window and saw that Matt and Alice are riding his (one-person) motorcycle down our driveway, across the street, up our neighbor’s driveway, and then back to our house again, over and over. Yay quarantine!

Reading Update:

Dead Wake by Erik Larson: A great read! Probably my favorite I’ve read of his after Devil in the White City. Also really made me want to re-watch Titanic. Finished on 3/26/20 (audio).

“A” Is for Alibi by Sue Grafton: It’s fun to start a new-to-me series with so many books lined up to read. I’m usually not a big fan of first-person POV in crime fiction, but it worked for me here. Grafton is one of the greats and it’s exciting to dive in knowing how beloved these alphabet mysteries are and looking forward to the character development of Kinsey Millhone. I thought these lines summed her up well, as she muses about how she doesn’t care to admire scenery as she drives: “Driving anywhere looks much the same to me. I stare at the concrete roadway. I watch the yellow line. I keep track of large trucks and passenger vehicles with little children asleep in the backseat and I keep my foot pressed flat to the floor until I reach my destination.” Finished on 3/27/20.

At least she’s wearing her helmet!

Denial

There has been a lot of discussion in the media about the 1918 flu pandemic and what we can learn from it as we manage today’s coronavirus. But as I’ve been listening to Erik Larsen’s Dead Wake, I can’t help but notice some other parallels from that completely unrelated disaster. On the surface, it’s tough to see connections between the two: the sinking of the Lusitania was a tragedy of humanity’s own making, motivated by a wartime agenda, while the coronavirus is a natural disaster that in many ways is completely out of our control. But there’s one underlying theme that runs beneath both events: denial in the face of concrete evidence.

Trump’s recent declaration that he wants the US open and “raring to go” by Easter (just a little more than two weeks away) flies completely in the face of what the medical community and public health experts are telling us about where we are in the trajectory of the pandemic. Each day, confirmed COVID-19 cases and related deaths rise, and some experts are predicting we’re at least three weeks away from the peak of the outbreak. But it’s a well-established fact by now that Trump doesn’t really care about data or facts the way most people understand them. What’s really fascinating is how he’s far from alone in this tendency. As described in Dead Wake, the denial of many, many people on the Lusitania, including a lot of the crew, as the ship foundered, is a striking parallel. If you’ve seen the movie Titanic, you’re familiar with the hubris of people stating confidently, “This ship can’t sink!” literally as the water is rising up to meet them. What is is about the human nature that we cling to hope and optimism, often past the point of rationality?

Today the stock market is on the rise as a result of the stimulus package rapidly making its way through Congress, promising $2 trillion in aid to individuals and companies. But realistically, if we’re facing down another four, six, or eight weeks of much of the country being shut down (which seems almost inevitable if you listen to the people who actually know what they’re talking about), it’s obvious that amount of money isn’t going to prop the economy up through this whole ordeal. And in a couple of weeks, when it becomes impossible to deny that fact any longer, we’ll be right back where we were a week ago, with investors freaking out and the market plummeting. It’s just so interesting how short-sighted we seem to be in the face of disaster and how desperately we want to believe that things can’t be nearly as bad as the evidence clearly shows they will become.

I don’t really have a point to make here—just musing about how very different events in very different times seem to bring out the exact same emotions and thought processes in people.

At our house, we’ve been taking walks, making pancakes, and painting with watercolors. Alice got a scooter as an early Easter present, and I don’t think there have ever been more people out wandering around the neighborhood. Clearly we’re all bored and just looking for something to do!

Casual unicorn out for a stroll

Quarantine - Days 4, 5, 6, and beyond...

It’s definitely starting to feel like Bill Murray’s Groundhog Day around here! We wake up, play, do Camp Kindergarten, play some more, eat lunch, nap, go for a walk, eat dinner, play, go to bed. Over and over and over and over…

I had been looking forward to the weekend, but it ended up being frustrating. Having Matt home just disrupted the routine and encouraged Alice to act out and push boundaries, and I didn’t actually get more time to myself somehow. Blargh. I have started up again with my tried and true 8 minute abs workout, which is kicking my butt, and I’m doing the One Hundred Pushups Project. So hopefully I’ll come out of this at least a little more in shape than I was previously (trying to give myself a break and remember that I’m less than 12 weeks postpartum when I feel frustrated about my fitness level).

I’m starting to get really stressed about “going back” to work in less than two weeks. I just can’t imagine how I’ll balance trying to be available/working during the day and watching two very young kids. I’m confident I can do my job well and put in 40 hours a week, but a lot of those hours are going to have to be early mornings, nights, and weekends when I’m not also being a primary caregiver. I know everyone is dealing with some logistics juggling but I think I have a bit more of a challenge than most of my colleagues in terms of my kids being so young and me not having a work-from-home spouse to switch off with during the day. Whatever happens, I’ll figure it out! I have a few manuscripts incoming right after I return that I’m REALLY looking forward to editing, so that will be my focus for my nights and weekends time while I focus on communications and smaller projects that don’t require as much deep concentration during the day.

I’ve been trying to stay away from book industry news because I suspect it’s mostly terrible. I can’t even imagine what all this is doing to independent bookstores and even to B&N, which relies heavily on people walking into stores and browsing. One thing I am confident in is my company’s ability to weather this and even thrive under tough economic conditions. I wasn’t working there during the 2008 recession, but the company’s proactive response during that dark time is a big part of our culture now and we’re able to draw on that experience as we meet whatever lies ahead in the coming weeks and months. I’m looking forward to reconnecting with my colleagues and my work, and figuring out what’s next for all of us.

Reading Update:

Mrs. Everything by Jennifer Weiner: I ended up liking this novel quite a bit! I’m interested in going back reading some of Weiner’s earlier novels, which I understand are a bit different than this one. I enjoyed getting the perspective of the main characters as they grew and matured, and to consider the different roles women play at different times in their lives and how society dictates those roles. I’m still a little unsure whether the main characters’ names (Jo and Bethie) are supposed to be an allusion to Little Women. At the beginning of the novel it seemed like they must be, as Jo was a tomboy-ish aspiring writer and Beth was a goody two-shoes type, but it never really became clear, so it may have just been a coincidence. Finished on 3/19/20.

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata: I had read about this short, strange little novel on both Modern Mrs. Darcy and The SHU Box (I think) a while ago. It was weird, but a fun quick read! What I found most interesting was the idea of the convenience store (or any workplace, really) as its own little world with accepted rules, culture, and vocabulary. I definitely feel this sometimes at work, and because I really jive with the culture of my workplace it’s actually one of the things I enjoy most about my job. Maybe that makes me uncool or whatever because I’m not trying to rebel against my workplace and genuinely buy into and agree with a lot of the corporate messaging, but… I identified with the main character in some ways because of it! Finished 3/21/20.

Dead Wake by Erik Larson: Another audiobook from OverDrive that I think I’m actually going to get through! I love a good Erik Larson book. Totally gripping narrative nonfiction about the last crossing of the British passenger ship RMS Lusitania during WWI. Very much enjoying it!

“A” Is for Alibi by Sue Grafton: Somehow I’ve made it this far in life without reading any of Grafton’s famed “alphabet” Kinsey Millhone mysteries. I’m remedying that now, and looking forward to working my way through the whole series.

One good thing about being forced to stay at home is the number of art collaborations Alice and I are doing together!

Quarantine - Day 3

It’s only Day 3 of our self-isolation and the days are already starting to blend together. This is exactly why I’m blogging—to be able to remember my life, especially this extremely strange period of it! We went through our morning routine of breakfast and Camp Kindergarten. Alice and I made a trek to the basement to get our guitars and brought them up to the living room so we could play band together. Then Will woke up from his morning nap and I loaded Elton John and Adele into the CD player. One of my goals for maternity leave was to organize our very large CD collection (we’re so old school!) and it hasn’t happened yet but I think it will over the next week or so. Thinking about what music to put on for the day is a little bright spot, and it’s fun to go through all the CDs and remember forgotten favorites.

Nap was kind of a disaster, after the first fifteen minutes when I laid down between Alice and Will and had many grateful thoughts about how lucky we are to be together and healthy and have everything we need. Both kids were simultaneously asleep for only about 20 minutes and neither of them slept nearly as long as they should have, so I didn’t get to learn the bass part to “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” the way I had planned. I’m trying out a FaceTime band practice with some friends tomorrow!

It rained most of the day so we didn’t go outside, but Alice did a great job playing by herself and with me, and the screen time was reasonable, probably two hours or a little less. She cracked me up wanting to play “Miss Megan” from Camp Kindergarten and give me lessons and homework to do. Fish sticks, baked potatoes, and frozen vegetables for dinner, nothing fancy. Matt let her take the longest bath ever but I didn’t fall asleep putting her to bed, so now I get to go read!

It’s supposed to be warm tomorrow and we need to get out of the house (and I need to get some exercise—this is something I need to find a solution for and build into our routine). I don’t know how I’m going to keep Alice away from her friends if we see them in the neighborhood and I don’t think she’ll understand if I try to explain why we can’t go to the playground. UGH. Not being able to see her buddies is going to be the worst part of this whole thing. In some ways I’m glad my kids are so little while we go through this—the social isolation would just be worse if they were older and I would feel a lot more stress about school being closed and feeling the need to do educational stuff at home, but it’s so hard to explain to Alice what is going on in a way that’s not scary. And then of course there’s the constant physical and emotional drain of caring for two kids nonstop in a closed environment!

I didn’t do a very good job of staying off the internet today, which is probably why I’m feeling blah. Time to stop computering and go do something else!

Quarantine - Day 2

Posting this just after midnight! It was super sunny this morning, which helped me feel a little less doom-and-gloom, although both Alice and Will were up and ready to start their days before 7:00. We played for a bit, had breakfast, and joined the Facebook Live for Miss Megan’s Camp Kindergarten again. Alice was much more engaged this time! My favorite part about it is all the new kid-friendly songs I’m learning. After “school” was over, she played by herself while I cleaned up the house a bit and made lunch. Something puzzling—she almost always does a good job eating her lunch, but we often struggle at dinnertime to get her to eat more than a few bites of whatever we’re having. One contributing factor could be that lunch tends to be less of a “real” meal and more of a snack plate. Today was, for example, was carrots and cherry tomatoes with salad dressing, sliced pear, cheese, and veggie straws on a plate. But I’m not sure whether the difference is because of the food we eat or if she’s snacking more than I realize before dinner. ANYWAY.

Will was already snoozing in our bed by Alice’s naptime, so I tucked her in with him and told her I was going to take a shower. By the time I came back, she was asleep! It was amazing—usually I have to lie down with her to get her to go down and half the time I fall asleep myself. But today I was clean and then had more than an hour to read and putter around with both of them unconscious. Win!

We had planned a playdate with her swim buddy before the social distancing recommendations got so strong and I didn’t have the heart to cancel it, so he and his mom came over for what will likely be our very last social interaction for some time. It’s so hard to explain to Alice what is going on, and I’m expecting many, many questions about why she can’t see her friends. Ugh.

Matt came home, realized he forgot to vote and went out again to take care of that, and then he and I tuned in to a webinar by my investing guru Phil Town while Alice watched a show. Chicken stir fry for dinner, a long, drawn-out bedtime that resulted in me falling asleep in Alice’s bed again, and then some anxious social media scrolling rounded out my evening.

The only thing I did to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day was to take a picture of Will in the same onesie Alice wore three years ago. Who wore it better??

Quarantine - Day 1

This weekend included a wild trip to the grocery store with insanely long lines, cleaning the laundry room (and enjoying our new dryer!), band practice, helping my mom test her work-from-home capabilities, and voting. And now we’re heading into at least two weeks of self-quarantine and social distancing.

With all schools closed in Illinois, activities canceled, and social distancing highly encouraged, we’re entering a weird period of “figure out any and all potential fun stuff to do at home.” Yesterday (Monday) wasn’t too bad. Alice slept in until nearly 8:30 and then we had breakfast and tuned into a Facebook Live event at 9:00—Miss Megan’s Camp Kindergarten, which was a fun school-like hour, even if the content is a little advanced for a three-year-old. Will snoozed on the couch through most of it, so I was able to focus on Alice and do the activities and songs with her. Then we played Barbies for a bit before I loaded the kids up in the car for a quick trip to the bank drive-through to deposit a check. Then lunch and nap (I fell asleep with them despite wanting to read instead).

When I woke up from the nap I had a bunch of texts on my phone from a neighborhood group thread with rumors that Illinois will go into lockdown soon in similar fashion to San Francisco (there has not been any confirmation of this yet). I freaked out and texted Matt, who had heard the same thing from a different source. Imagining the absolute madness of the grocery store after this potential news breaks, I got the kids back into the car and went to our small neighborhood grocery store, hoping to avoid the massive lines that have been standard at the larger stores around here. I was able to get a good amount of stuff, including eggs, milk, and bread alternatives (pretzel rolls, focaccia loaf, etc. because they were out of regular sandwich bread). So now we’re pretty well-stocked. Then I had a really frustrating text conversation with my mom, who is still in the denial/this is all ridiculous/there’s no way we could go on lockdown state of mind and insists on taking the commuter train to work even though she could work from home. Gah.

Matt came home and wanted to get quarantine cigarettes as a treat for himself (gross). I was dying to get out of the house by myself, so I went to the tobacco store/hookah bar, which was completely empty of course. The store owner was obviously stressed about the current situation and had a lot of questions for me about where I worked and whether my business was still open. When I told him I work in book publishing he looked at me quizzically and asked, “How do you make money”? I was like, well… we publish books and people buy them? It was odd. But he had roll-your-own American Spirit tobacco, so I bought the cancer leaves and went on my way. Picked up A&W for dinner because I needed to eat some feelings, and it was delicious.

It wasn’t a bad day, but definitely different from what our Mondays looked like a month ago, which included story time at the library in the morning and swim class in the late afternoon. Alice has only been going to school Tuesday through Thursday since I’ve been on leave, so today (Tuesday) will mark the first true disruption in that she will be home when she was supposed to be at school. Matt’s work is still open and will continue to be, I think, even in the case of a lockdown, since plumbers are on the list of essential workers. I’m happy he will still be working because $$$, obviously, but having him out of the house all day every day means all the childcare falls to me. Being confined to our house and yard makes this more challenging than it would be normally (and will become extremely challenging when I go back to work on April 6th). Because he’s going on jobs, I think his risk of contracting COVID-19 (and bringing it home) is fairly high. We’re not able to completely self-isolate the way families with both parents working from home are, and that means we really shouldn’t have contact with anyone else because our household isn’t a closed system. So that sucks—both the risk of contracting the virus and the social isolation our potential exposure necessitates.

I hope we don’t get sick (or if we do that we have only mild symptoms), I hope we’re all doing enough social distancing to slow the virus’s spread. I hope in four or six or eight weeks things will get better and we’ll look back on this time as super strange and temporary. Fingers crossed!

A little Peppa Pig to help get us through the day

COVID-19 on maternity leave

On Wednesday I took Will to his two-month well baby check (he’s tall and skinny with a big head, just like his dad!), then stopped by work afterwards to show him off. I had gone back and forth over whether to take him into an office building of 100+ people in the midst of coronavirus panic, but decided the risk at this point was probably reasonable as long as I didn’t let anyone else hold him and was careful about my hand-washing. It seems likely that a week or two from now things will be much worse, so I took the opportunity to see some friends and also grab some stuff from my desk in the event our physical offices are closed when I return to work in April.

Being on maternity leave during the rise of COVID-19 has been kind of a surreal experience. I have a lot of time to read the news, for better or worse. Initially just the thought of the novel coronavirus would send me into a tailspin of anxiety, but since it has become clear that the virus is not as dangerous for children as for some other groups (although there isn’t a lot of data on infants at this point), I’ve been able to mostly move past that emotional reaction, although my mom and Matt’s parents are in the 60+ age group and I worry that my mom isn’t being as careful as she should (she has a strong Bah humbug this whole thing is ridiculous attitude right now). I cruised around Target and got us stocked up on supplies last weekend before things got really crazy—definitely didn’t go into full-on prepper mode, but made sure we were topped up on TP, laundry detergent, diapers and wipes, etc. The price tag kind of made me choke (I don’t usually spend $150+ at Target!), but I’m glad I did, seeing all the pictures of empty store shelves on social media now!

The governor decided to close all Illinois schools starting Monday, so I’m losing my precious three days a week of Alice being out of the house. Honestly, it’s going to be a challenge being with both kids literally 24/7 for the next three weeks—I’ll need to make better use of nap time for my mental health maintenance rather than just passing out in bed with them for 90 minutes every day. But I am SO LUCKY to still be on maternity leave and not having to deal with worrying about childcare or working from home with them underfoot for at least a few weeks, and I’ll be offering myself up as a back-up babysitter to friends who are still working. We’ll do playdates and hang out with families in our neighborhood, but not having park district and library programs and all the fun things like children’s museums, etc. open will definitely change the way we move through the world. I hope the weather warms up a little so we can spend more time outside.

It seems like the news changes every day, so we’ll see how things go from here on out! For now, we’re happy and healthy and doing just fine. I hope everyone is able to stay safe out there.

Reading Update:

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell: I grabbed this audio book from OverDrive and actually managed to remember to listen to it! I like Gladwell’s stuff (although I wasn’t crazy about him as a narrator) and reading TTP felt particularly apt right now because the book opens with an example of how viruses gain momentum and “tip” into epidemics. Relevant to life right now! Overall I didn’t come away with any life-changing takeaways (maybe because the book is 10 years old?). Some of the topics, like the power of word of mouth, are things that I’ve thought about pretty extensively in relation to my work already. Finished on 3/12/20.

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott: After seeing the excellent movie, I had to dig out my childhood copy and re-read it for the first time in probably 20-ish years. I have really specific memories of reading Little Women as a child because it was the longest book in my elementary school library and I REALLY wanted to get through it so I could take the Accelerated Reader test and get all those sweet sweet points. The story was just as lovely this time around, and as an adult I have more appreciation for how well the content holds up. It’s pretty amazing to think that Alice will most likely read and love a story written shortly after the Civil War, and find a reflection of herself in the characters and their lives. The human condition!! Finished on 3/13/20.

Mrs. Everything by Jennifer Weiner: I started this one around the same time I cracked open Little Women and have kind of neglected it, but so far so good! I haven’t read any of Weiner’s novels before, although I’ve seen her stuff online and followed her feud with Jonathan Franzen, so I’m looking forward to digging into this one more. I haven’t looked up anything online about it, so I don’t know—are the character names Jo and Bethie coincidental, or is there an overarching allusion to Little Women running throughout the book? Very funny if so, considering my timing for reading it!

Who wouldn’t want to self-quarantine at home with these two??

The band on YouTube

When we moved in together back in 2011, one of the first things Matt did was start begging me to learn bass guitar so we could start a band. I did (kind of), and we recruited Matt’s brother and my friend Tony to join us in a group that was known at different times as Andy and the Frames, the Walter Juniors, and the Three White Pipes. That band has long been defunct, but last week Matt discovered that our cover of “She’s Electric” by Oasis, which we put on YouTube years ago, has over 12,000 views. That’s a lot of people watching my mediocre bass playing and terrible background singing, but I thought it was kind of cool!

Andy and the Frames debut performance 11/24/12

We played a few shows in our basement for our friends and family. The video is from the first one, in 2012, and Matt is wearing sunglasses because he was super nervous and needed a shield between him and the audience. Also notice the plaid shirts we coordinated. So stylish!

A couple of nights ago we went down to the basement and treated Will to his first band practice, with Alice on drums. We’re already counting down until the two squirts can join us for real and complete the family band. Hopefully they’ll turn out to be better singers than their mom!

Official band picture, during the Walter Juniors era

13 podcasts I'm loving right now

I discovered the magic of podcasts while I was on maternity leave with Alice, and it’s hard to believe I’ve been a dedicated listener to some of my favorites for more than three years! After books, podcasts are definitely my favorite form of media. Here’s a round-up of what’s in my library right now. My podcast preferences run toward ongoing subject-specific nonfiction shows rather than dramatized podcasts or limited narratives (although I did happily sacrifice an entire weekend to binge S-Town). This list is always changing, but currently I’m listening to basically every episode of:

Best of Both Worlds: Laura Vanderkam, author of I Know How She Does It and a mom of five and Sarah Hart-Unger, a practicing physician, blogger, and mom of three, discuss issues relevant to working parents who want big careers AND fulfilling home lives. BoBW has been an invaluable resource to me as a relatively new working mom and has challenged my thinking in several areas, especially about the feasibility of outsourcing household tasks (I haven’t pulled the trigger on it yet but am seriously considering hiring someone to clean my house twice a month once I go back to work). I love listening to their conversations each week and catching up on their blogs in between episodes, and Laura had her fifth child just a couple of weeks before Will was born, so I feel like we’re doing newborn-motherhood together.

Didn’t I Just Feed You: This is podcast for any parent who struggles to accept the reality that children need to be fed EVERY DAY, several times a day. It’s just… a lot! Stacie Billis and Meghan Splawn are food professionals and busy parents and they get it. I’ve gotten tons of inspiration about how to step up my game in the kitchen without trying to get all fancy from this fun podcast.

Happier with Gretchen Rubin: A total classic and one of the first podcasts I started listening to. I’m a huge fan of Gretchen Rubin (author of The Happiness Project, Better than Before, and many other impactful books), and getting a weekly dose of Gretchen and her sister Elizabeth as they discuss everything related to happiness is pretty key to MY happiness. A bonus is that one of my colleagues is also a super-fan, so we discuss every episode in detail and dream of going to see Gretchen and Elizabeth at one of their live shows (we would have gone last year, but my colleague was at the Frankfurt Book Fair when Gretchen and Elizabeth came to Chicago—sob!).

How to Money: This is a fairly recent add to my playlist and I’m enjoying it! The hosts, Joel and Matt, seem to be regular guys who are pretty knowledgeable about a wide variety of topics relating to personal finance, and they present information in a very relatable way. I hate beer (with one aspirational exception that I think I’m actually going to write a post about soon), and part of their shtick is drinking a craft beer every episode and commenting on it, so that doesn’t do anything for me but is probably a fun add-on for beer fans!

InvestED: Another finance podcast. I discovered this one after reading the book by the same title by Danielle Town and her father, Phil Town, who is a fairly famous investing guy. The book was kind of a breakthrough for me in terms of helping me understand a method for investing that makes sense and isn’t just, “Well, this stock looks like it’s priced lower than it was a month ago—maybe I should buy it and it will go back up!” Matt convinced me to get an E*Trade account several years ago and I have dabbled in investing in the stock market but never felt confident in doing so. Phil Town’s Rule One method appeals to me because it’s entirely data-based (although it is a lot of work to execute) and rests on principles established by Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett. I think this podcast is incredibly valuable as a body of work and should be listened to from beginning to end if you really want to understand the methodology. Phil Town runs investing workshops several times a year and I’m actually considering going to one in 2021!

The Lazy Genius: Also a fairly new add for me. Kendra Adachi gives tips and advice for being “a genius about the things that matter, and lazy about the things that don’t” in all aspects of life. Cooking, cleaning, parenting, self care, budgeting, etc. I like the short format and variety of topics, although I haven’t hit on one yet that felt truly life-changing to me. Kendra also has a book out this year, which I’ll request from my library.

Marriage, Kids & Money: Apparently I like to get my financial advice in podcast format! I’ve been listening to host Andy Hill on this show for quite a while. He covers a broad spectrum of personal finance topics specifically from the perspective of parenthood, which is different from a lot of the FIRE (financial independence, retire early) content that’s popular right now, which caters more toward singles and childless couples. Andy’s hosting style is really high energy and a little wacky, which I like, and he’s one of the few people out there who believes (like Matt and I do) that the peace of mind of paying off your mortgage early is worth sacrificing the potential gains you could make in the stock market by dumping all your free cash into investments. Thanks for validating my dreams of mortgage freedom, Andy!

The Mom Hour: This podcast is totally parenting focused and it’s fun for me because the hosts, Meagan Francis and Sarah Powers, have kids several years older than mine, so it’s a bit like looking into the future. I’ve been enjoying their recent “Things We Love About…” series, especially the siblings episode, since I am new to the raising siblings experience!

Motley Fool Money: This was the first finance-related podcast I listened to and it’s the most business-y. It features several people (mostly men) associated with the Motley Fool, where they talk about current happenings in the business and investing worlds and interview experts in various fields. The “Stocks on Our Radar” segment is always interesting to me as I try to become a more knowledgeable investor.

Poisoned Pen Podcast: Shockingly, this is the only book-specific podcast on my list! I used to listen to What Should I Read Next? but ultimately found it a bit repetitive and long for regular consumption—I can get what I need re: book recs from the Modern Mrs. Darcy website. The Poisoned Pen Podcast comes out of the Poisoned Pen bookstore, an amazing mystery-focused bookstore in Scottsdale, Arizona, which you should definitely visit if you get a chance. The revered bookseller Barbara Peters hosts this podcast, which features fascinating interviews with all the hot and up-and-coming crime writers.

The RV Atlas: Okay, I’m not supposed to have favorites, but if I did have a favorite podcast it would be The RV Atlas. Stephanie and Jeremy Puglisi are #goals for me when it comes to family travel. Despite “RV” being front and center in their brand, their content is not just for RV owners (I don’t have an RV! Tent camping forever!). They take amazing trips around the country with their three boys and talk about all things family travel, with a definite focus on camping and outdoor adventure. I discovered their podcast when their literary agent submitted a book proposal to me, and guess what, happy ending, I acquired and edited their book, See You at the Campground, which came out this week! But even if we hadn’t ended up working together, I would have been all-in on their content because it’s just so great.

WDW Prep to Go: I am planning to take my children to Disney World exactly once (tentative Michels Family Disney Trip 2025, woot woot!), but it is going to be a hell of a trip thanks to this Disney planning podcast. I love listening to the trip reports, learning about Fast Passes and dining reservations, and basically just letting all the info sink into my brain for later use. If you’re planning to visit Disney anytime in the future, I think it’s smart to start learning the ins and outs now because it’s all pretty complex if you want to make the most of your time and avoid long lines.

Young House Love Has a Podcast: Hosted by the home design duo John and Sherry Petersik, this was my very first podcast! I was addicted to the Young House Love blog for a long time and while I’m not quite as obsessed these days, I still enjoy catching up on what they’re up to, especially around the holidays when it’s time for Sherry’s annual prediction of Pantone’s color of the year.

Since I don’t listen to audio books in the car anymore (a certain toddler who shall remain unnamed shoved quarters into my CD player and broke it, and I can’t seem to get into the habit of getting audio books from OverDrive), it’s nice to have a hefty podcast roster so I never run out of listening material. I’m always looking for recommendations for new shows!

My favorite book of 2020 (so far) is one you've probably never heard of

One thing I really like about working in publishing is that it gives me a lot of ammunition for cocktail party conversation. I’m an introvert and don’t have a naturally outgoing personality (those are not the same thing, by the way! I’m deeply dedicated to the true definition of the term “introvert”), and people tend to have a lot of questions about editing, publishing, etc. Since I could talk about my job all day, all night, and into the next decade, it often makes social situations easier for me to just ramble on about work. But inevitably the conversation turns to “favorite” books.

“Oh, you’re an editor? What’s your favorite book?”

Cue an entire lifetime of books read flashing before my eyes and an existential crisis as I try to select one of the many, many outstanding books I’ve read as my VERY FAVORITE EVER. I can’t do it. But, as of this writing, I do have a favorite book of 2020, it was a total shocker, and I bet you’ve never heard of it. I certainly hadn’t.

Tisha: The Wonderful Love Story of a Young Teacher in the Alaskan Wilderness by Robert Specht is a shining beautiful gem of narrative nonfiction. My mom, who has a certain talent for giving me incredible books that I would have never picked out myself, loaned it to me over the holidays. Honestly, nothing about it spoke to me—I found the title to be meaningless, the subtitle weirdly specific (I was super suspicious of a book calling itself “wonderful”), and the cover totally generic. But my mom left it on my coffee table, so I figured I better just read it fast so I could give it back to her and move on with my life. Once I started, I was underwhelmed by the first chapter or two—but just as I was considering putting it down, I got hooked and basically didn’t look up until I had devoured the whole thing.

Tisha (originally published in 1976—I read the 2018 Bantam edition) is the story of a real woman, Anne Hobbs, who left home at nineteen years old and moved to the Alaskan wilderness in 1927 to teach school. I don’t want to spoil a single second of the story, but the challenges and adventures Anne faces there are RIVETING, and the way she battles the negative forces she encounters in the isolated community is totally inspiring. There’s a point near the end of the book that’s literally a hold-onto-your-seat-can’t-catch-your-breath level of suspense and excitement. So intense and wonderful, and so not what I expected from this unassuming little book. Highly, highly recommended!

Frantic Friday

It feels like I woke up this morning, started running, and didn’t stop until after dinner! Yesterday I learned that a regional furniture store, Art Van, was going out of business and liquidation sales would start today, so I steeled myself to take Alice and Will to see if we could score some deals. Matt and I have been incredibly lucky to inherit most of our current furniture from family and friends, but I’m sloooowly trying to upgrade some things and fill in the gaps with new or vintage finds (fighting my penny-pinching nature all the way).

One thing I’m in the market for is a narrow table to put in the little room next to our kitchen, and I needed to find a tape measure to figure out the dimensions I would be working with. Of course, this morning none of the half-dozen tape measures we own could be found. While I was in the basement searching, I popped a load of laundry in the dryer. Five minutes later, I smelled something burning. When I opened the dryer door, the smell got MUCH stronger. I freaked out, unplugged everything I could see, and climbed into the thicket of spider webs behind the dryer to feel for hot spots. Matt hasn’t had a chance to go down there yet and figure out what happened, but thank god for those missing tape measures because if I hadn’t stayed in the basement to look for them, the house probably would have burned down—or at least gotten very, very smokey.

Tape measure-hunting helper

Tape measure finally found and dimensions in hand, I set out for the furniture store with a three-year-old and a newborn. There was a line at the door five minutes before opening, but we got in with the first rush of people and cruised around to scope everything out. Alice bopped around trying out every chair and couch, Will fussed and then eventually slept, and I pestered Matt with too many texts and pictures to make sure he wouldn’t hate whatever I bought. We ended up with two lamps and no one to help us carry them to the car, so we took two trips across the parking lot, with each lamp balanced very carefully above a snoozing Will on the stroller handle.

We hustled straight from the furniture store over to Alice’s tumbling class, sprinting in ten minutes late. I sat on the floor in the hallway and nursed Will, not the comfiest experience ever. Then a meltdown over veggie straws and the shortest nap ever launched us into the afternoon. We had a playdate at Alice’s swim buddy’s house, which involved Connect Four, painting, trying on of many old Halloween costumes, and many other activities, all while bouncing a fussy baby. By dinnertime I was happy to drop Alice off for a sleepover with her beloved Aunt Katie and head home with Will to find Matt grilling burgers. I had grand plans to go grocery shopping after dinner but we took advantage of our toddler-free evening and watched Lady Bird instead (it was okay—mostly it just made me desperate to see Little Women again for more Saoirse Ronan in my life). So there’s no food in the house, the dishwasher hasn’t been run, and the trail of magazines Alice laid out on the floor two days ago to avoid stepping on “hot lava” hasn’t been picked up, but I’m going to finish my ice cream and hop into bed with Mrs. Everything by Jennifer Weiner because it has been A DAY.

Baby #2!

Greetings from maternity leave! Yes, it has been three years, since the last post I wrote was at the end of my maternity leave with my daughter, Alice, who is now a crazy preschooler. I’ve spent many enjoyable hours this winter reading long-running blogs from inspiring women like Laura Vanderkam, SHU, and Lag Liv, and I found myself jealous of their online records of their lives. When I looked back over the past three years, I realized I don’t have a great resource for remembering what happened when, other than the pictures I take. Luckily we are pretty good about taking pictures and storing them in an accessible and methodical way, but I suspect many everyday moments and events of my life are being lost to the sands of time. Regular blogging seems to be a pretty great way to avoid that happening, so I’m attempting to dive back in! Easy to say now while I’m on leave, of course…

The biggest event of 2020 for our family was, of course, the birth of our son, Will. His birth story was happily fast and uncomplicated—scheduled induction, quick labor, happy delivery. We were out of the hospital less than 36 hours after he was born (our departure slightly hastened by a threatened snowstorm, which ended up not actually happening).

We didn’t find out beforehand whether he was a girl or a boy, and it has been such a surprising delight to welcome a son to the Michels family. Alice is so wonderful that it was hard for me to imagine parenting anyone other than a happy little girl, but Will is closing in on two months old and has fully convinced me of the benefits of being a boy mom—he’s such a sweet little dude. Proof:

He’s making it easy to be the mom of a newborn and maternity leave has been really lovely. Alice is in school three days a week and is busy most other days with activities (swimming and tumbling) and playdates with friends. She has a new little buddy she met at swim class and we have been spending lots of time with him and his mom, which is really fun. One of the things I didn’t anticipate about parenthood was how much my social circle would expand. We have a bunch of kids in our neighborhood and get along well with all the families, so our calendar is much busier than it was pre-kids when Matt and I had a tendency to stay home and do our own thing. We still like to do that, of course, but three-year-olds need to get out of the house most days, and we’re lucky to have a bunch of friends in the same boat so we can get grown-up social time in right alongside Alice. And now Will is along for the ride!

Apart from wrangling the kids, I’ve been napping, reading, and trying to get projects done around the house. This is likely my last maternity leave (although I’m not quite ready to totally give up the idea of having a third someday, it would make our life logistics pretty darn complicated), so I’m trying to soak it all in and snuggle my baby boy as much as I can before real life hits next month!

26 Books in 12 Weeks

One thing I really wanted to do over maternity leave (apart from hanging out with my new baby, of course!) was to get A LOT of reading done. I ended up reading 26 books in 12 weeks, which I was really happy with. I'm always super interested in seeing what people are reading and what patterns emerge over time, so I thought I'd break down my 2017 reading so far:

Out of the total 26 books, I read:

12 adult novels (6 of which I would categorize as mystery/suspense)

9 memoirs (5 of which were written by celebrities)

4 prescriptive nonfiction books (2 self-help, 1 parenting, 1 writing reference)

1 YA novel

I wouldn't say that this breakdown is necessarily representative of my typical reading habits. The relative amounts of adult fiction and prescriptive nonfiction are probably about right, but the number of memoirs seems high. Because I was on maternity leave, I definitely was picking up books to read purely for fun, and the celebrity memoirs I read are likely not ones that I would choose in my "regular" life, just because I often feel the need to read within categories I edit, and I (unfortunately!) generally don't work on celebrity-driven memoirs. I also generally read more YA, but I was actively working on a YA writing project during my leave and I do try to limit reading extensively within the genre I'm writing to avoid being influenced by other authors' writing styles.

Now that I'm heading back to work and will be jumping back into the submissions pile, we'll see what kind of pace I can keep up with a full-time editing job, a baby, a writing project, and half-marathon training (!). Oh, and I guess I have to sleep, too... good thing I'm already 11 books ahead of my Goodreads goal for the year! :)

What are you reading lately? I'd love to hear!

26 Kisses cover reveal

YA Books Central hosted a cover reveal and ARC giveaway for 26 Kisses today and I couldn't be more grateful and thrilled and excited that this gorgeous cover is out in the world!

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Under the covers

In celebration of the book cover reveal of 26 Kisses on Friday (YAY!!!), I thought I'd round up some of my very favorite contemporary YA book covers, because, let's face it, YA cover design is THE BOMB.

Part of my day job as an editor is communicating with the cover design team to help steer them in the right direction when they begin work on the covers for the books I edit. It's fascinating to see how Sourcebooks' immensely talented and creative team can take the descriptions I give them and turn text into images that encapsulate the book perfectly, but that I would never have been able to come up with in a bazillion years. And since I don't edit YA, this is my chance to do someserious lovin' on the category. So here are 12 non-Sourcebooks YA novels whose covers absolutely blew me away (I can't include Sourcebooks books because I adore them all and the list would have to be 100+ and ain't nobody got time for that).

I like my YA covers colorful, bright, and loud. I like big type and bold fonts. I like books that scream, "Read me! I'm goofy and weird and exactly what you need at this exact point in your life to remind you that being goofy and weird is okay!"

I think that the 26 Kisses cover embodies all these things, and I hope you agree when it is unveiled to the world on Friday at the wonderful YA Books Central!

What's your favorite YA cover? Was the book everything you'd hoped it would be?

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