It’s a three-day weekend for me, so I’m hoping to get a bunch of things accomplished:

• Enjoy the Christmas tree for a final weekend. We’ll take it down during the week.
• Volunteer. D.C. is having a big event this weekend, and I signed up for a shift tomorrow morning.
• Take myself out to breakfast or lunch.
• Go to the library. I have holds at two branches, and the West End library is having a big party on Monday.
• Clean out the freezer. I bought a shelf to put in it last month and I want to clear out some things, since everything kind of tastes freezer-burned right now.
• Write my best books of 2017 post.
• Bake. I’m thinking cookies. Also, maybe a lasagna or a quiche.
• Stop by a sporting good store to see if they have volleyball sneakers in my size to try on.
• See a movie with Rudi (he’s away coaching until Sunday night). I’d like to see The Showman or The Post. And I’m going to watch Everything, Everything on dvd tomorrow night. (Rudi didn’t know what it was, so I don’t have to feel bad about watching it while he’s away.)
• Finish a couple books, including Pirate King’s Daughter and Turtles All the Way Down.
• Pull out my ukulele.
• Register the car.
• Have an ’80s dance party with the cats. (I know they’re looking forward to that.)
• Catch up on some sleep. I already started by taking an after-dinner nap.

How about you? What are you hoping to do to this weekend? Whatever it is, I hope you have a nice one!

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. I had the chance to see Paddington 2 earlier this week, and highly recommend you do so, too. Like the first movie, this film has a luminous cast who give strong performances, a solid script aimed at both youngsters and those young at heart, and gags and jokes that remain funny without tipping over into stupid, crass, or childish. (The first film is streaming on Netflix and I assume it’s available in other places, including on dvd at your local library.)

2. For his Russian Christmas present, I invited Rudi, who grew up in Salt Lake following his local basketball team, to watch the Jazz play the Wizards this week. While there were several moments of grace and gravity defiance on the court, the game really was marked by a lack of attention to detail, a seeming dislike for running plays or covering offensive boards, and, on the Jazz’s part, an inability to pay attention to the shot clock — all of which was mind-boggling to someone who follows the high caliber of the UConn women’s basketball team. And, yet, the game was surprisingly close and, in the end, the Jazz prevailed, so we counted the evening — and the gift — a success.

3. My coworker, who hosts a short weekday radio program in which he interviews scientists doing current research, celebrated its 30th year on the air this week. A colleague organized a surprise party for him, including several top muckety-mucks from our organization, but he’d decided to go cover an event without telling anyone, which meant that he had to be lured back to the office through subterfuge with increasingly urgent emails and texts telling him there were potential funders waiting to meet him. He flew into the office in a bit of a panic and stopped, dumbfounded, when we all shouted, “Surprise!”

How about you? what’s been beautiful in your world lately?

After ripping back the heel over the weekend, I haven’t touched my socks in a couple days. Instead, I’ve gone back to the Boomerang Cowl. I finished up one ball of yarn and need to wind up the second skein to finish the project up. It doesn’t look like much on the needles, so I’m hopeful blocking makes it pretty.

Since I didn’t finish the overdue Turtles All the Way Down last weekend, I really need to wrap it up this week. I’m still listening to Pirate King’s Daughter, but that expires in less than a week and I have three other books out on audio to follow it, so obviously I need to get a move on. I like the reader for it, though; she gives the main character, Alosa, a lot of spunk.

That’s it for me. Head over to Kat for links to more posts on books and knitting.

I am once again taking part in Bout of Books. It’s the 21st round, and I’d guess I’ve participated in about a third of them.

What is Bout of Books?

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda Shofner and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a weeklong read-a-thon that begins 12:01 a.m. Monday, January 8th, and runs through Sunday, January 14th, in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 21 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. – From the Bout of Books team

Day 1 asked us for a six word intro:

Here goes:

Reading my way toward happiness daily.

Day 2 invites us to share 2018 reading goals:

Next week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic also asks about bookish resolutions, so I’ll just keep these simple:

1. Continue to read books by diverse authors representing different backgrounds.
2. Read more books that I already own.
3. Choose more nonfiction, more poetry, and more classics.

Reading Progress: I finished The Unbreakable Code by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman shortly after midnight on Sunday and listened to several chapters of The Pirate King’s Daughter by Tricia Levenseller. I’m carrying Turtles All the Way Down by John Green in my bag, but haven’t picked it up yet this week. I did start Jill Orr’s The Good Byline earlier this evening, but have already found two grammatical errors in the first two chapters, so am not feeling enthusiastic about its chances of surviving a third.

The Broke and the Bookish is shuttering its doors and while Top Ten Tuesday will continue on, this is its final iteration in its original home. While last week, we looked forward, this week, we’re looking back:

This week we’re talking about the books we’d planned on reading in 2017 but never got to for one reason or another. But it’s a new year and we’ve still got all the days to read them!

Several of these I started, but haven’t finished yet:

1. Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders: I kept dozing off while listening to the audiobook. I came back around on the holds list and have it out again, so hopefully it’ll soon be in the read column.
2. Jason Reynolds’ Miles Morales: I bought it. I started it. I read two other Reynolds books. It’s on my to-do list.
3. Leigh Bardugo’s Warbringer: I bought it at the same time as Miles Morales and haven’t even cracked the spine yet.
4. Susan Dennard’s Truthwitch: I don’t know why I have such a hard time getting to this one.
5. Isla and the Happily Ever After by Stephanie Perkins: I started this way back last winter and put it down for some reason. I loved the other books in this series, so I have no idea what kept me from continuing. Probably bad head space where I hated happiness that day…
6. Saints and Misfits by S. K. Ali: Another one I started and haven’t wound my way back to. The library would like their copy back at the end of the month, though, so it had better climb back up the TBR pile.
7. A Tyranny of Petticoats by Jessica Spotswood: I often run out of steam with short story collections, regardless of how much I’m enjoying them. Since it’s been a while, I should be able to finish this up the next time I come across it.
8. Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere: I’m on the wait list at the library.
9. Ghosts of Greenglass House by Kate Milford: The library’s copies have been listed as ordered for months, but haven’t yet come in.
10. Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz: I’ve been waiting for the audiobook for a while. I’m hoping it’s as good as everyone says, because I gave it to Mum for Christmas based on all of your raves!

How about you? Which books did you mean to read last year, but didn’t get around to?

I finally got off my butt this weekend and did some walking. It’s been a while since I hit my target number of steps/active minutes, according to my phone. But volleyball kicks back in next week, so it’s good to get moving this week in preparation.

Since I was out and about and in need of cornichon (as one is, occasionally), I headed to Georgetown, where I was greeted by a snow couple:

I also got to see some of Glow, the holiday light display:

Since today was Russian Christmas (Rudi’s mom was born in Russia), we celebrated with presents and a fancy supper. We opted to forgo borsht, our usual Russian supper, in favor of raclette, an Alpen dish of stuff dunked in cheese, because I found our grill when I was at my folks’ place and cold weather just demands hot cheese. We had two types of cheese, boiled potatoes (including the ones we harvested from our garden this fall), sopressata (okay, that was only Rudi), and the aforementioned pickles. It was delicious and we felt very elegant.

I finished the evening by ripping back the heel on my sock because it made the stripe do weird things at the heel. (I want to see if knitting an extra section and starting later will make the heel transition less obvious.)

I knocked off a book I’d been reading off and on for a couple months. Not either of the ones that are overdue, mind you, although I did put a dent in one of them yesterday.

I also finished another book earlier in the weekend, washed all my hand-knit socks, slept in, mailed some Christmas cards, hit the farmers market, and watched The Christmas Prince on Netflix, which was actually pretty cute.

All in all, a nice first weekend of the year. May there be many more to come.