The end of the year always goes so much faster than the beginning. Seriously, it still feels like we’re sometime in 2020 (especially with the delta variant and all the idiots out there), but nope we’re 3/4 of the way through 2021. Like, where did the time actually go?
The weather definitely turned to fall with a vengeance as soon as the calendar switched to October, but September was a bit back and forth between cold and warm.
Part of this month (four days) was spent driving 1,000 miles back and forth across NC from the mountains to the beach to finally spread my mom’s ashes. It was a nice trip and saw a whole lot of family I haven’t seen in quite a while and everyone seemed to like what we decided to do with her ashes. I’ll spare you the family drama and why it took so long, but yeah, we finally did it and it coincided with her 60th birthday so, serendipity.
Books and Bookish Things
I read more than I thought I would this month with my class kicking into high gear. I read three galleys (*), one TBR (Why Be Happy), and three library books (Barakiva, Bechdel and Rowley).
- Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
- His Haven (His #3) – Con Riley
- The Hollow Heart (Forgotten Gods #2) – Marie Rutkoski*
- Hold My Hand (One Man Guy #2) – Michael Barakiva
- The Secret to Superhuman Strength – Alison Bechdel
- Under the Whispering Door – T.J. Klune*
- Finley Embraces Heart and Home (Love, Austen #4) – Anyta Sunday*
- Sailor Proof (Shore Leave #1) – Annabeth Albert*
- The Guncle – Steven Rowley
Under the Whispering Door was by far my favorite this month. There was a sadness and a beauty to it that I think is really hard to capture in a review. Just go read it. I really felt like my heart was getting so full of love and emotion and it just kept filling up more than I thought it could.
Culture Corner and Knitting Nook
In addition to reading and flying down to NC for a long weekend, we finally got to see Fortune Femster in person. We had tickets to see her last March, but the pandemic happened and she was rescheduled twice. It was hilarious and I’m glad we were at the show we were because it wasn’t sold out and we had quite a bit of space around us for the most part.
I stumbled across this cool but creepy wool art:
AND I made progress on the new blanket I’m knitting Tim and some hats for various Christmas presents:
The blanket is a really subtle shift from an almost black navy to what will be a sky blue. And the hat is a rainbow yarn behind a black yarn in the same stitches as the blanket. It’s super simple and I’m really enjoying how quickly things are knitting up.
What’s Next?
October will see more family travel for us. Tim’s going to meet his new niece and nephew the second weekend and then coming back and we’re turning around and flying to NC again to spend some time with family at the beach.
I should finish Before We Disappear by Shaun David Hutchinson in the next week. I’m thoroughly enjoying now I’ve gotten into it! I’m also to get some reading done while at the beach, but I have a feeling family time and knitting will probably cut drastically into that. Knowing I don’t have as much time with class and wanting to really enojy what I read through the end of the calendar year, I actually decided not to review a few galleys I received over the summer which took quite a bit of self-imposed pressure off. It also doesn’t really help that they’re starting to release the MM Holiday Romances and I’m WAYYYYYY TOOOOO EXCITED about those and need to start making space in my schedule now 😀
Hope you had a great month!!! Are you ready for fall?