Earlier in the winter, Emily suggested that a swap might be in order to help cheer her up. A bunch of us agreed that we’d like to be cheered up, too, and a few days later The Swap of Discontent was born.

Emily suggested that we try to give our recipient a cozy night in with makings for tasty drinks or treats, media to enjoy, and a one-skein project. Hand-me-downs were perfectly fair for sharing.

Late in January, a package arrived. The cats were very interested in the box itself, but I found its contents very appealing:

Inside were all sorts of goodies from Colleen in Pennsylvania: There were interesting sounding fruit-flavored teas made with German rock sugar (which I keep thinking of as Pop Rocks, but which hopefully is nothing like that). There was a book, The Light between Oceans, that had appeared on a number of best-of lists at the end of 2013. There was super-soft yarn and a pattern to make a cowl. There were keychains and a row-counter and temporary tattoos and stitch markers…

… and there was an LED barrette that Colleen assured me could be used as a cat toy.

I just don’t think she meant simultaneously.

Thank you, Colleen, for such a great package. And thanks to Emily for suggesting a swap was in order.

Three beautiful things from the first week of my 40s:

1. Texts, tweets, calls, comments, and cards remind me that I’m not alone on my birthday and in the days that surround it. Susan and Phillip invite me to visit on my birthday eve. My brother and his partner send a beautiful flower arrangement — and then Josh follows it up by ordering a special birthday dinner to be delivered to the hospital for us. Rudi’s roommate’s fiancée runs out to the store for a cupcake for us to split. Amani and Karen send packages with things they know I enjoy. And my parents’ box contains presents handmade by my mother for the final, wonderful reveals.

2. Rudi’s doctors feel that his lungs have made good progress in healing and send him home again. The cats and I are glad to have him back.

3. Josh and Matt’s Christmas presents to us were tickets to American Idiot at the National Theatre tonight. It was fun to see a musical and to sing along with some of the songs.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world this week?

Today I’m yarning along with Ginny.

Look! For the first time in ages (or, at least, since Rudi’s injury), I’m reading a book (or two) and working on a knitting project in the same week!

The knitting is my Ravellenic Games project. It’s a turtleneck sweater (Hannah Fettig’s Lightweight Pullover), which you might be hard-pressed to identify, since all I’ve succeeded in knitting is the 9″ of neck. (And, yes, I am thinking about quickly casting on a new project like a hat or a cowl just so I can finish something during the games.)

The books are Marissa Meyer’s Cinder, a futuristic retelling of Cinderella featuring a protagonist who’s a cyborg, and Patricia Lynch’s The Bookshop on the Quay, which I bought on my birthday last year from a used bookstore simply because it contained the word “quay” in the title.

Earlier in the fall, Jo at Celtic Memory posted about these beautiful, sparkly yarns she’d dyed up, and, well, I fell in love with them.

I bought her two skeins of Moonsilver, a lovely tonal purple.

My 40th birthday was four weeks from today, and it seems like a new shawl might be in order. I know I can go through my queue and the Ravelry database to see what’s out there, but I thought I’d toss it out to the crowd:

If you had 800m of this fingering weight yarn, what would you make out of it?

This is the second of my fingerless Christmas mitts. (The Christmas socks didn’t get finished either.) I don’t know exactly why I can’t seem to focus on the work, but it seems like I’m ignoring every warning sign, knitting along merrily even as neon-hued doubts flash across my brain. So each new day usually begins with frogging and reknitting.) But I will persevere. The mitts can be worn off-season and will be ready for the 2014 holidays.

Reading-wise, I’m more focused (although people subscribed to my Goodreads updates might disagree). This is Ruta Sepetys’ Out of the Easy, a novel of historical fiction that takes place in New Orleans in the 1950s and focuses on Jo, a poor bookworm who’d like to get out of town for college, but who is held back, in part by being the daughter of a prostitute. I already had the book out of the library when it earned a finalist spot on the Cybils list, so I quickly bumped it up to being one of my first reads this year. So far, so good, although I fear the book is about to get tense.

(Yarning along with Ginny.)

Remember when I used to share pictures of finished objects I’d knit?

Remember when I used to finish objects I’d knit?

Last year offered up an appalling four finished items: my grandmother’s shawl and three pairs of socks (two for me, one for Rudi). I started some things and worked on some long-languishing projects, but overall it was not a good year for my needles.

This year, I’m trying to come up with a game plan:

1. Finish 12 pairs of socks. I have many partially completed pairs. They totally count.
2. On a related note, quantify my works-in-progress. End the year with at least 1/3 less than the current number.
3. Knit myself a shawl for my 40th birthday. Next month. (Guess I’d better get working on that one soon…)
4. Send off some knitted gifts. (These should include the two I’ve finished but never sent along to their intended recipients.)
5. End the year with at least two new sweaters. (Again, any of the ones currently lying fallow would work perfectly well here.)
6. Join some knitalongs. Sock Madness occurred during an emotionally draining trip last year and I failed at it in a major way. The Tour de France was more productive for me, but still did not result in wearable objects, although the August finish-your-languishing socks competition did take care of 2/3 of the socks I completed in 2013. (This year, the Olympics and the World Cup soccer tournament, both major knitting occasions, are happening, so that’s two more built-in events right there.)
7. Fix my knits. I have several items that, due to moths or wear and tear, need darning. I’ve got a class next week that will give me a better grasp of how to tackle those problems.

I think that’ll do it. Essentially, I’d like to prolong the lives of the knits I’ve finished, complete some projects that have been long on the needles (or in drawers/project bags), and end the year with more things to wear. Sounds perfectly reasonable to me.