Guess whose back!? Well, kind of . . .

So, it’s been a little over SEVEN MONTHS since I last posted. That break wasn’t planned, but it was necessary. Between finishing my first year of my two-year program, a lot of travel, work travel and taking on additional responsibilities, and a puppy turning one year old at about the same time as I last posted, it’s been a busy year. In all that busyness non-school reading actually took a back seat. Also, in that busyness this blog celebrated its 13th blog-iversery—so maybe it’s fitting I took most of this year off 😀

I got quite a bit of reading done on our April/May vacation, but then didn’t read anything for leisure again until almost October when there was another brief spurt that has started to trail off again, which is good because I need to catch up on posts. I’m not guaranteeing I’ll be back on a regular basis, but I’m going to try and get back in the habit of posting reviews. I thought about going Goodreads only and then back-posting here, but it didn’t feel right to me. Since I disappeared way back in May, I’ve read 14 books and will probably read a few more before my next recap post.

Over the next few weeks, you’ll see reviews post for these books and then hopefully I’ll get into a more predictable schedule again.

1008. Out of Bounds (Browerton University #7) – A.J. Truman
1009. Long Time Coming – Ava Olsen
1010. The Inside Edge – Ashlyn Kane
1011. Catch Me If I Fall – Noah Steele
1012. Bring Me Home (Safe Harbor #1) – Annabeth Albert
1013. Make Me Stay (Safe Harbor #2) – Annabeth Albert
1014. Find Me Worthy (Safe Harbor #3) – Annabeth Albert
1015. Tough Luck (A-List Security #1) – Annabeth Albert
1016. Hard Job (A-List Security #2) – Annabeth Albert
1017. Bad Deal (A-List Security #3) – Annabeth Albert
1018. Rocky Start (A-List Security #4) – Annabeth Albert
1019. The West – Naoíse Mac Sweeney
1020. Not So Silent Night – H.L. Day
1021. Only One Bed (Love on the Ice #1) – Keira Andrews

During this time, I also (for some reason unbeknownst to me) accepted a few ARCs that I really do need to prioritize while I’m on “down time” between semesters. I finally crossed off The West, a fascinating relook at the idea of “Western Civilization” through 14 biographies. Others I accepted (or have been trailing for some time) and will prioritize over the next few weeks include:

• Supercommunicators – Charles Duhigg
• Broke the Bread, Spilled the Tea – Mitchell Kessler
• The West – Naoíse Mac Sweeney
• Excavations – Hannah Michell
• Speak of the Devil – Rose Wilding

More photos of Barnaby from the past few months, but honestly go follow him on Instagram @BarnabytheBernedoodle if you really want to keep up. We try to post regularly.

On the top left is Barnaby having fun at boarding, they seriously take the best photos of him and he just has so much joy of life that we love seeing his photos in the Facebook group even though we miss him while we travel. The top right is him the day after he came home from boarding when he refused to leave the sofa for most of the day. The bowtie photo is from when we took him out to one of the winter markets two weeks ago and he had the most fun meeting everyone. The other two are from when we put up the Christmas tree and he didn’t really remember it so was like WTF is this, and then he was like you put something in my nap spot I will lay in it.

Crafting Corner
Similar to reading, my knitting/crocheting took a back seat. I didn’t knit anything for months, but then I decided I wanted to make a couple of baby blankets for a new addition to Tim’s family, his newest cousin (he’s the oldest):

And then a couple of hats for us, so that’s slowly ramping up too. I’m hoping to finish Tim’s sweater in the next few weeks during break, but we’ll see how far I get with that.

The blue hat is a hat I actually frogged (took apart) and remade with larger needles. It’s the Elliot 2×2 Rib Beanie (ravelry.com link) by one of my favorite knitwear designers Rastus Hsu. The black and the green hats are both Oslo Hats (ravelry.com link), one of the biggest patterns over the last 5-6 years that I feel like I’m one of the last people ever to do it. And you can see the sweater I was working on for Tim way back in my January 2023 Craft Corner post, an idea that did not come to fruition, but neither did any of the knitting so not the end of the world 😀 Maybe once I finish this degree I’ll lean into the craft corner and take some of the stress off the reading reviews. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

What’s Next?
Honestly, I’m just hoping to get back into some sort of cadence. I’ve timed my classes so I should only have a heavy workload for the first half of next semester, but there’s a cruise in there, and work-work, and life so who knows if that will actually work out. Either way I’m not stressing about getting the 14 reviews done in the next 10 days so those are spaced out through most of January and they will probably be shorter than they’ve been in the past. Just to get them done and posted. Hopefully, I can use January and early-February to catch up on the ARCs. I’m taking an intensive writing workshop for two weeks in January so I know reading will be out in general, but that’ll be followed by a weeklong cruise. Hope you’ve all been well!