This week’s check-in of books and knitting is without a photo because my phone is charging and I am too lazy to go unplug it and to pull out my knitting, which is currently sitting beneath an avalanche-ready pile of laundry on the couch.

So instead, I’ll just tell you. Last weekend I got a row knit on my shawl. That would seem unimpressive (and it is), but since I haven’t done anything besides use its presence as an implement of guilt since September, I’m deeming that success. There is a possibility that I could knit the final row and then bind it off this coming weekend, but let’s not get carried away with things.

On the reading front, I’m listening to Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts by Kate Racculia. I didn’t finish it on Overdrive, so I took it out on cd, which means I’m way less good about actually listening to it. But I’m enjoying this quest-read about a hospital development researcher (and her friends) who gets caught up in a scavenger hunt/quest game in the wake of a Boston billionaire’s death. I’m more than halfway through and would love to spend some time this weekend listening to it.

On paper, I’ve got two books in progress. Jennifer Chiaverini’s Christmas Bells tells the parallel stories of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow during the Civil War and a contemporary Boston-area music teacher/choirmaster and the organist who is in love with her. It’s fine, but a bit slow-going since chapters alternate between eras and points of view. My other book, We Met in December, is a cute contemporary rom-com, but it, too, is going to shift perspectives. Three books on the go with this literary device is really too many, so maybe I’ll put one on hold and pick up something that can commit to telling a story from a single character’s perspective. I’ve picked up a bunch of the Cybils finalists from the library, so there’s probably at least one of those that doesn’t shift perspective by chapter.

What are you reading and/or crafting these days? (If you want to see what others are working through, head to As Kat Knits for her weekly roundup.)