Random things that are making me happy this week*

*I seriously thought it was Monday a full two hours this morning. My busy weekend played tricks on my mind, then last night I worked the hours I usually work on Sunday… So I’m way off schedule. And I’m embracing it, planning the week– well, the rest of the week–that I intend to have.

This. Slightly less than two months before I move, my early-summer stuff is done (didn’t want to have my house torn up with visitors coming in) and now I’ve got to get serious. Big job, but kind of looking forward to it.

This book, which is mind-blowingly good. (yes, we invent adjectives in our spare time. We are very fancy.) anyway, book: so good.

The time is the 1950s; the place, Barcelona. Daniel Sempere, the son of a widowed bookstore owner, is 10 when he discovers a novel, The Shadow of the Wind, by Julián Carax. The novel is rare, the author obscure, and rumors tell of a horribly disfigured man who has been burning every copy he can find of Carax’s novels. The man calls himself Laín Coubert-the name of the devil in one of Carax’s novels.

Loving this book.

I bought a bag of black beans and I’m going to learn to cook them. I don’t cook beans very often (read:never) but they’re so darn cheap that I’m giving it another try. I’m going to try this recipe from allrecipes.com, and maybe this one from Homesick Texan’s blog. I’ll let you know how it goes.

This is ridiculous, but sometime in March I checked out a movie from the library (The Age of Innocence–it was my Wharton month) and then lost it. And that sort of thing tends to make you persona non grata at the local library branch. But last week I found it, returned it, and now I’m looking forward to finishing the audio books I checked out for my weekend trip (perhaps while beginning the packing job?) and spending long hours wandering the stacks.

And last but not least, this week I’m getting this guy back:

And not a moment too soon.

And that’s all I have planned, though I’m sure I’ll find some other things to get into. How bout you? What does [the rest of] your week hold?