I’m feeling a little bored these days, as one rolls into another with little interruption. If my life were a body of water, it would be a cow pond. (This is fine. I will take a cow pond over the ocean during a tsunami any day.)

But I decided the way to spice things up was to finish a couple lingering projects. I started Chasing Vermeer over the winter at some point, back when we were still allowed to linger in cafes with other patrons. I hadn’t quite made it to the 50-page mark when I put it aside, probably for work travel, and it got buffeted to the edge of my attention span for a while. I decided to restart it tonight, in part because I could make up the read pages pretty quickly, and also because while I remembered the broad strokes of the set-up, I didn’t recall the details with the accuracy needed to solve a heist mystery. I’m enjoying this second take at the novel and expect to speed through it quickly.

The knitting is my lightning shawl, which I pull out every year, swearing this will be the time I finish it. But this time I mean it. When I last worked on it, I remember I’d reached a point where the transition between yarn scraps stood out too much. I’ll need to look at it more carefully in the morning to see whether I ripped it back and went with a different transition (which is what I think will have happened) or if I still need to pull out a few rows and carry on. But either way, there is probably a good amount of indoor time during this three-day weekend, and I have several audio books I’m working through, and I don’t think it’s out of the realm of the possible if I commit to knitting instead of napping that I could bind this project off before June rolls around.

Head over to As Kat Knits to see what others are reading and crafting as we head into the traditional start to summer.

The leg of my second Smock Madness is nearly done. It suffered a bit earlier in the week from my tiredness when I blithely knit along in what I thought was the right smocking pattern until I looked at it and thought, that doesn’t look right. Luckily it was only a half dozen rows, plus some tinking a little while later when I forgot to wrap some stitches. But I have a listening work call at the end of the day tomorrow, at which point I expect to be ready for moving on to the heel. Exciting, right?

I finished the print book I was reading last week, so am now cycling back to another book I started at the beginning of the pandemic, when I didn’t have the fortitude to read, A Murderous Relation by Deanna Raybourn. I’m also listening to a mystery, The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny, but it’s a contemporary, so it feels okay to dive into a second, since it’s set at the turn of the last century. Plus, the Veronica Speedwell novels are part mystery, part romance, and part adventure tale, so it’s really not the same as a straight-up police procedural, no matter how literary it is.

Head over to As Kat Knits for more knitting and reading progress from around the world!

I’m up finally halfway through the leg of my Smock Madness sock. I definitely feel like I could be through the heel this weekend, unless I’m actually so productive that I come away with a clean apartment instead of half a sock. Seems unlikely…

I’m about halfway through The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman and am finally mostly enjoying it. I’m about a quarter of the way through listening to Becky Albertalli and Aisha Saeed’s Yes, No, Maybe So, which seems especially enjoyable right now since portions of our living space has been turned into a satellite campaign office for the candidate Rudi is working for. And tonight Rudi and I started listening to the Stephen Fry rendition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone on Audible. It’s free to listen to for the next while, and Fry’s Hermione is far less annoying than Jim Dale’s. Rudi listened to several hours, but I napped through it intermittently, so I’ve been relistening since he went to bed. I think I can get caught up tomorrow night.

Want to see what other people are reading and crafting? Head to As Kat Knits for the roundup.

I have just one more evening of reading The Flatshare. I reached a moment of peace, where everyone was still relatively okay, and decided to put the book down for the night. I looked at the chunk of pages left, then ticked off five separate story elements left to be resolved, and decided that was too many for 50 pages and that it must be 75. Turns out it was 80, including the acknowledgements. I look forward to the fast resolution.

I’m also nearing the end on my audiobook, Size 12 Is Not Fat, by Meg Cabot. Former pop star turned assistant residence hall director Heather has figured out who the murderer must be, but she has to convince Cooper still, not to mention, the N.Y.C. police.

I’m not quite as close to finished with my second Smock Madness sock, but I have memorized the pattern, so that has to be something, right?

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

I’m pleased to report that I finally started a book that has no pictures and can still hold my attention. The Flatshare by Beth O’Leary is the last of my #TBTBSanta gifts, and I’d been holding onto it for … today, I guess.

It’s about two Londoners who come to share a one-bedroom apartment — one sleeps in it during the day and the other at night. They communicate via post-it notes, and it’s sweet and exactly right for a point in time when we’re also living sub-optimally. I only began it this evening and am already past the crucial 50-page mark. I assume I know how it’s going to end, and I’m glad. I crave concrete happy endings right now. I don’t want wishy-washy. I don’t want to be continued in the next volume. I want mostly forward movement and “they lived happily ever after. The end.”

Otherwise, I’m intermittently listening to Size 12 Is Not Fat, by Meg Cabot, and, with Rudi, Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. I still have The Cruelest Month out in audiobook, but I haven’t had it in me to listen to it this past week. I probably should finish it off, though, since April ends next week. It just makes me so tired to think about.

In the same way that I’ve been having a hard time concentrating on books, I’m also having a hard time focusing on knitting. Probably I need to find something to knit on big needles that is just back and forth or round and round. When life gets too much, sometimes it’s helpful if your yarn size grows, too. Or at least that’s what I’ve occasionally found in the past.

But I haven’t moved forward with finding a worsted or bulky project, so I content myself with having knit three rounds on the second Smock Madness sock since last week. Hey we knitters know that eventually all those small efforts will add up.

Check out As Kat Knits for people who manage to knit whole rows at a time and who’ve finished bunches of books.

Sometimes you just need Paddington to read to you, and he’ll do it as long as you bribe him with marmalade sandwiches. Honestly, I think he’d do it even without the treat.

Tonight’s book is A Velocity of Being: Letters to a Young Reader, edited by Maria Popova and Claudia Bedrick, and my Christmas present from Karen. It’s a series of letters from famous writers, artists, scientists, and leaders to children about a shared love of books. Each letter is accompanied by an illustration, and each pairing is thoughtful and thought-provoking. It’s not the sort of thing you can plow through if you expect to enjoy it, but is lovely to dip into for a few letters each night.

The sock is last year’s Smock Madness, which I discovered when I was moving bags around. Sock #1 is already done, which makes it a better project than this year’s Sock Madness socks, which are only up to the heel flap of the first sock. Wool socks are a part of my daily quarantine wardrobe for at least another month, so finishing a pair would be a nice gift to myself.