Back in June I decided to splurge and take part in That Artsy Reader Girl‘s #GiftmasinJuly swap. I assembled my box and shipped it two states over, where it arrived just at the end of July. My recipient was kind, specifically calling out some of the fun, random things I’d picked for her, as well as books from her wish list.

This week, it was my turn to be showered with gifts. Look what a great job Jana did with the wrapping! That framing does not happen by accident, and I pointed that fact out to Corey.

Things with my original Santa hadn’t worked out and while I’d been disappointed, I understood that can happen once in a while. The swap’s host, Jana, however, was unwilling to accept that someone hadn’t gotten a box. She reached out to her legions of followers, and she and ten of her elves pitched in to send Corey and me fantastic gifts.

I’d had a long day, and was happy to space out the opening of my gifts, but Corey was having none of that. He hopped right up on the chair and immediately plucked a gift for himself and ran off with it!

I retrieved the package, but decided we could open that one next. A ha! A peek under the wrapping showed me that he hadn’t picked that gift at random!

A whole family of mice toys to play with! Corey thought it was great that he could take them all with him to lie on top of in case I thought I should get to play with them! (I finally cut one loose for him this afternoon for ease of tossing around, but left the other three together for now.)

After that, he was perfectly content to leave the rest of the packages to me. And I drew out the unwrapping in between chores and a nap and supper and going to bed, because a long, crummy day deserves to be followed by an equally long period of delight.

And look how delightful that is, nearly 12 hours later! Four books, including one I’ll save for December and three that I’m going to have a hard time picking amongst for which one I read first. They’re all exactly the sort of books I’ve been enjoying since the world shut down. There were two new nail polishes (I had to talk myself out of painting my nails while on an all-staff call today, but I will probably reward myself for getting through whatever flooding comes my way tomorrow). There were two new pairs of socks — one with Jane Austen and one with doughnuts! There were new pens in cheerful colors and chocolate to make the next long day easier! And then Jana also included local goodies — Stephen’s cocoa mix and Lehi Mills brownie mix. (Jana, Rudi is at his mom’s house in Salt Lake as I type this, and he immediately brought up Footloose when I read him your note.)

I don’t know that I could have asked for a nicer care package for #GiftmasinJuly. Thank you Jana! And thank you to @Mrs_Ally_Kent, @shek1029, @elleyotter, @hermitlibrarian, @xbackstagetweet, @DaisyKatieReads, Anne Phelps (who I know IRL, but who didn’t know it was me she was pitching in to help), @bookishallison, @literaryetc, and @pageoflovealexa! Your kindness went above and beyond, and really helped to turn around a bad day and to set a better tone for many days to come!

While I haven’t made a ton of progress on the shawl since last week, I did drop down about a dozen stitches and fixed some edge knitting I clearly did while drunk (actually it was while I was waiting for pizza). There are seventeen rows left of this ribbing section. I will never be done. I will be stuck doing ribbing until I die. It could be worse: it could be twisted ribbing.

While I am uninspired by my print book choices this week (the graphic novel is nearly done and the historical romance is a third done; the two hardcovers are overdue to the library and I’m trying to get a sense of whether to keep them for a week and finish them or just to return them unread), I am enjoying The Windsor Knot by S.J. Bennett, a delightful cozy in which the Queen of England, with the assistance of her assistant private secretary, solves mysteries. The second book is due out in November, and I, at least, am glad to hear it.

Head over to As Kat Knits to see what others are crafting and reading.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic from That Artsy Reader Girl asks us to share the top ten books we wish we could read again for the very first time:

1. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone 
2. The Night Circus
3. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
4. A Wrinkle in Time
5. The Polar Express
6. The Color Purple
7. The Eyre Affair
8. A Man Called Ove
9. Landline
10. A Study in Scarlet Women

For some titles on the list, it’s to recapture the pure joy I had reading it for the first time. For others, it’s because I adore the characters and would love to have another quarter century back to get to know them again. And for still others, not knowing the ending brings some magic.

But at least I can reunite with them any time I choose.

What books do you wish you could rediscover for the first time?

Bout of Books has wrapped up for 2021. I missed both Twitter chats, but I did finish the 500-page book I was reading, which was my main goal for the readathon.

I also listened to some of the Queen Elizabeth cozy I have out on audiobook and tackled a chapter of a graphic novel (The Runaway Princess by Johan Troïanowski) that’s due back to the library this week.

Last week, I showed you that I’d gone astray with my knitting. Now you can see that I fixed it and am back on track. If I didn’t hate this slipped-stitch ribbing (I’m struggling with tension), I’d be further along, but we’ll take three rows of progress at a time over none.

I’m three quarters of the way through Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff’s Aurora Burning, the middle book of their second snarky YA space trilogy, but fell asleep tonight instead of reading the final 150 pages. But I did listen to some of SJ Bennett’s The Windsor Knot, a mystery starring HRH Queen Elizabeth as a sleuth solving a murder at Windsor Castle, while I was out and about earlier, so all is not lost.

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday topic from That Artsy Reader Girl asks us to share our ten favorite places to read:

1. At the beach.
2. Under the covers when it’s raining.
3. Next to a fire during a snowstorm.
4. In my rocking chair.
5. At the park.
6. By the pool.
7. On the couch.
8. In bed.
9. On the metro/a train.
10. Anywhere and everywhere.

How about you? Where do you like to read?

I plowed through the first third of Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff’s Aurora Burning yesterday, as I do every chunkster the pair of them combine to write. I’ve had the middle book of their second series out of the library for months now, so it’s good to finally tackle it.