A new book and new knitting this week.

Here we have the start of a sock. It’s just a basic ribbed top, stockinette sock, but I find I have the most likelihood of finishing boring socks than fancy ones. The yarn is Regia Snowflake that Mum and Dad gave me for Christmas a couple years back.

The book is the Brittany Cavallaro’s second Charlotte Holmes/Jamie Watson novel, The Last of August, which, despite the name, takes place in late December. It’s fine thus far, but a little slow to get started, so I’m hoping it picks up its pace soon. I think I recall this being an issue with the first one, as well, which is probably why it took me this long to revisit the series. I’m listening to The Woman Who Smashed Codes and enjoying quite a bit this biography of the nation’s forgotten foremother of codebreaking.

Head over to As Kat Knits for more reading/crafting combo posts!

Rudi and I are on different sleep/wake cycles with him doing both on the earlier side (note, not early by normal standards, just earlier) and me on the later.

Our cats have long sorted themselves out at night accordingly, often by following the person they liked best. (In the morning, Corey will sometimes get up with Rudi, but everyone returns to sleep after he leaves for work.) Della went to bed with Rudi. Posey floated between us, but took over that role once she was gone. When it was just the three of them, Jeremiah stayed out with me. When we once again became a family of three cats after Della died, he would go in with Rudi to make sure he got settled, but would come back out to me. Once Posey was gone, Jer took her place, so Rudi wouldn’t have to sleep alone. Corey will go in with Rudi and Jer if I’m not home, but normally remains out with me until I’m ready to go to bed.

But that doesn’t mean he wants to just hang out in the same room. No, at night, he wants to be doing the same thing I am doing. So if I am typing a blog post, Corey wants to be draped across my left wrist and part of the keyboard. And as you can see here, he also wants to help me read my book. He tried both sides in case I had a preference, but since my preference was for him to remain on the far side of my book, eventually he gave up and took a nap on Rudi’s chair until I picked up the laptop and it was time for us to write to you. (He says hi.)

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday topic from That Artsy Reader Girl invites us to look back at the books we meant to read last year but didn’t get to (and that, presumably, we intend to read in 2019). I am really bad at lists like this, not because I can’t make them, but because there are so many books I want to read (3,035 according to my Goodreads list as of this moment).

My track record is mixed. The list I made in 2018 includes only three titles I finished, but the one I set for myself in 2017 had seven completions. And I’ve read only four off 2016‘s list. So that’s 29 titles and less than half of them completed.

But what’s life without goals, right?

Here are ten titles I meant to read last year that I really think I’ve got a shot at:

1. Sarah McCoy’s Anne prequel, Marilla of Green Gables
2. Mackenzi Lee’s sequel, The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy
3. Markus Zuzak’s Bridge of Clay (Rudi gave this to me for Christmas, so it’s high on this year’s TBR pile)
4. Bruja Born by Zoraida Córdova
5. The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang
6. Tiffany Jackson’s Monday’s Not Coming (I own a copy of it, so it, too, is a get-to sooner book)
7. Aisha Saeed’s Amal Unbound
8. Circe by Madeline Miller (Karen gave me a copy for Christmas and it is conveniently sitting right next to me)
9. Rebound by Kwame Alexander
10. What Truth Sounds Like: Robert F. Kennedy, James Baldwin, and Our Unfinished Conversation About Race in America by Michael Eric Dyson

How about you? Were there books you meant to read in 2018 you didn’t get to?

With the temperature rapidly nosediving, I decided to head to the garden and harvest any greens still alive. It would have been better if I’d done this on Friday, before things got so cold, because my poor plants were crunchy with the chill. There were small amounts of lettuce and arugula from a late season planting and my sorrel was still flourishing, so I ended up filling the bag I’d brought.

At home, I have a cheerful bouquet of yellow tulips in a blue glass pitcher we salvaged from someone’s discard box a few years ago. I thought it looked particularly nice with the red of our Dutch oven and the winter scene from our Conn College calendar.

As I was walking around northwest D.C. late this afternoon, I came across a flowering tree. We have a number of cherry trees that tend to flower in January (including some of the ones on the Mall, which always makes people worry there will be no flowers come springtime, but they’re two different types of trees). This one was in someone’s front yard, so I snapped a picture. It’s currently pouring out and temperatures are predicted to drop precipitously by Monday (it’ll be a 30 degree difference between now and Monday’s high), so I expect this will be it for these particular blooms. I’m glad I stopped to take their photo.

Things I’d like to do this weekend:

• Attend the Women’s March.
• Go to a birthday party.
• Dedecorate my Christmas tree.
• Deal with the anticipated flooding.
• Shop at the farmers market.
• Read.
• Do laundry. Woolens, in particular, top the list.
• Start a new pair of socks.
• Put flannel sheets on the bed.
• Play my ukulele.
• Watch a movie. Maybe My Man Godfrey, if I can figure out where my copy is hiding…
• Snuggle with Jeremiah, who is ailing, and Corey.

How about you? If you won’t be spending your entire weekend shifting snow, what do you hope to accomplish?