Whoops! I didn’t mean for November to just disappear, but with working the polls for elections, a road trip to NC with the puppy, my first set of final papers in grad school while working full time, and my general November/December busyness it just disappeared in a poof.
So, when I finally sat down to write my recap post sometime around the 15th or 16th I just thought “Nah, I’ll combine November and December and give myself a reprieve.” Now, in early January, I’m not sure that was the best idea—thanks past-Geoff, thanks a lot.
On the road trip front, Barnaby was great. He did so well and loved meeting all his NC relatives. The only day he had an issue was our longest day, the first, and the last two hours he was like GET ME OUT OF THIS CAR. Other than that he was such a good boy and sweet and leaned against us the whole time so when we finally got back to MA he slept like the dead for almost 2 days. The middle photo on the bottom was him on the last day and he was OVER it.
He also had his first ride on the subway with us here (his trainers took him when he was younger) and did a great job AND he got to experience his first snow dusting and Christmas. Thankfully, he left the tree alone for the most part outside of a few sniffs as we set up and took it down.
Books and Bookish Things
On the reading front, I read a decent 10 books, 6 in November and 5 in December. The only reason I hit 6 in November is we listened to Boyfriend Material on audiobook during the road trip and I very much enjoyed it. The biggest letdown of the two months was Baking Me Crazy and that was my fault. I was not a fan of the first book in the series Apple-y Ever After, and somehow let the cute cover model and well-designed cover blind me to the fact it was the second in the series. It was poorly written, edited, and proofread and I will not be reading additional works by Cloverdale in the future.
- Heartthrob (Honeywood #1) – Noah Steele*
- The Christmas Leap – Keira Andrews*
- His Last Christmas in London (Christmas Collection #1) – Con Riley*
- Stronger Than Longing (Chesapeake Days #3) – Katherine McIntyre*
- Boyfriend Material (London Calling #1) – Alexis Hall
- A Gift-Wrapped Holiday (Lighthouse Bay #4) – Amy Aislin*
- Baking Me Crazy (Apple Meadows #2) – Catherine Cloverdale*
- Don’t Think of an Elephant – George Lakoff
- Never Ever Getting Back Together – Sophie Gonzales*
- Heartbreak Boys – Simon James Green*
I made a good dent in all the ARCs/galleys on my shelf over the two months. I’m trailing three, one of which was a new acquisition (Unexpecting by Jen Bailey), and the other two I’ve been trailing because I lost track of one (Broke the Bread, Spilled the Tea by Mitchell Kestler) and the other isn’t published until February 2023 (Out of Character by Jenna Miller, a former book blogger friend :-D). I’m trailing one other really old one I might get to this year, but we’ll see.
Craft Corner
I knit a lot this year and actually tracked it! I made:
- 13 hats
- 5 scarves/shawls
- 4 pairs of socks
- 2 headbands
- 1 sweater
- 1 sweatshirt-type thing
Below you can see my Knitting Instagram Top 9 (@losing.my.knit). They are from left to right top to bottom (all links to Ravelry): Brette Scarf; Hide and Peak yoke colorwork; Skylar Shawl; Hide and Peak arm/wrist colorwork; Vanilla Toe-up Sox; Look at My Holes sweatshirt-thing; Hide and Peak yoke colorwork cast-on; Brette Scarf close-up; Chevronopolis cast-on. It’s very telling that 6 of the nine are from two designers: Maxim Cyr and Rastus Hsu. They’re probably two of my favorite designers. It was also great to see my sweater, the sweatshirt thing, and the Skylar Shawl all in the top nine because they were the largest projects I’ve done outside of blankets ever!
In addition, I made some bread, cast on a few new projects (including a sweater for Tim, lower right), and wore a massive Papillon shawl that some friends at Sun Dragon Art and Fiber in NC made! I’ll talk more about the future of knitting on this site in my year-end recap coming later this week.
What’s Next?
I’m about 1/4 of the way through Out of Character and very much enjoying it. I’ll tackle a couple of quick MM Romance novels next and the last few ARC/galleys lingering on my shelf and then class kicks off again toward the end of the month. I’m not sure how much reading I’ll actually get to this year so I dropped my Goodreads goal down to 52 from 60. I crushed 60 last year but that was with school only half the year. Who knows what will come, but I’ll keep reading. The blog might change after I hit 1,000 books as I know I mentioned that in a few yearly recaps, but it feels like it might have to change with school, work, Barnaby, and knitting keeping me so busy!