This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic from That Artsy Reader Girl invites us to share a Halloween-themed list. I thought I’d share ten bookish characters who might be fun to dress up as, since you’ve still got most of a week to put together your costumes:

1. Phryne Fisher: 1920s society girl/detective from Kerry Fisher’s mystery series
2. Pippi Longstocking: Swedish wild child and red-haired bad-ass from Astrid Lindgren’s children’s books

3. Anne Shirley: Speaking of red-haired children, puffed sleeves are in fashion in this year and I can’t help but think of her every time I go to a clothing store.
4. Dobby the House Elf: Fashion yourself some long ears and pair them with a bathsheet or two and mismatched socks. (The Harry Potter universe is a goldmine of Halloween ideas.)
5. Max from Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are: Add a tail to a union suit-style of pajamas and top the look off with a crown.
6. Harold from Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crocket Johnson: Speaking of onesie-pj’s, pair this with an oversized violet coloring implement, and it won’t take someone long to guess. I’d probably replace the crayon with sidewalk chalk myself.
7. Nancy Drew: Pair a sweater-set and skirt with a magnifying glass, and you’re all set. (Actually, if you can get your hands on a magnifying glass, you can probably get several years’ costumes out of the way: Sherlock Holmes (combine with a trench coat), Harriet the Spy (combine with a notebook), and Miss Jane Marple (combine with a shirt-waist dress and knitting project) immediately spring to mind.
8. Arthur Dent from Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Put on your bathrobe, grab a towel, and add a notebook on which you emblazon, in your most comforting font, “Don’t Panic!” Bonus points for carrying a cup of tea or getting the number “42” somewhere into your costume.
9. The Cat in the Hat: Make a red and white striped stovepipe hat out of construction paper, tie a jaunty red bow around your neck and fashion yourself some cat ears and a tail.
10. Princess Magnolia from Shannon and Dean Hale’s The Princess in Black series: Combine a black top and leggings or a skirt, a black mask and cape, and a crown, and you’re ready to go. Bonus points for transforming your unicorn, Frimplepants, into your trusty steed, Blacky, by giving him a black mask, too.

Got any other bookish Halloween ideas?

The weekend started in Salt Lake, with Mexican food for supper on Friday and a trip up Emigration Canyon to a diner I’ve wanted to try for Saturday brunch (I had part of the leftovers on the plane and the other part for dessert tonight). We stopped at King’s English bookstore, where I picked up an emergency book for the plane ride home (I ended up not needing it, but only because I had it), and then I headed back east to Corey.

This morning there was a trip to the farmers market, and, later, to Virginia to return library materials and shop their Friends’ used book sale, where I picked up a bagful of books. On the way home, I stopped at the garden, the grocery store, and the drug store and chatted with my folks. Our cat sitter stopped by to return our keys and I spent the rest of the night curled up on the couch.

How was your weekend?

Okay, so apparently travel days aren’t great for my posting things when I think I am. Or maybe weekends. But especially weekend travel days.

Anyway, here’s what I was thinking I’d get to today when it was still yesterday (sort of):

• Go to the farmers market
• Return library books to Virginia (and check out the used book sale)
• Visit my garden
• Arrange to pay our cat sitter
• Do a load of laundry
• Procure (and prep if I’m feeling super ambitious) easy lunch foods for this week
• Cuddle the cat
• Sign up for #TBTBSanta before it’s too late
• Buy Jenny’s Christmas present while it’s on sale
• Knit at least three rows

Happy return-to-reality to me!

Tomorrow afternoon, I’ll head east again, and Rudi will stay here to continue our work for another 10 days or so.

We’ve nearly filled three dumpsters full. We’ve found many of the things Rudi was hoping to, but not the thing his mom’s been asking about, which distresses me.

We’d originally hoped this trip would allow us to get the house emptied and on the market, but I’m less optimistic that’s goong to happen than at the outset. But maybe one more trip after this.

And that’s nothing to sneeze at.

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Several beautiful days here in Salt Lake.

2. The crews, a team of professional organizers and a group of haulers, Rudi hired to help us clear out his mom’s house here in Salt Lake have been as good as promised. The ground they’ve helped us cover would have taken us months.

3. Rudi needed a pair of shorts, so I took a look at tops for Rudi’s mom. I found two, both of which she liked.

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

I’d really hoped to have a finished shawl to show you this week. I’d planned to finish the final mosaic section on the plane and then to get through the dreaded two-color ribbing while I was out here. I even brought a ball of sock yarn so I’d be able to cast on a project for the flight home. But none of that ended up materializing and I am still 12 rows from the end of the mosaic. It’s fine. I’ll get to it. It’s just that I’m really ready to be knitting something else after all these months.

Where I did have success with the shawl this week was in not having to rip back when the needle separated from the cable and a third of my active stitches found themselves flopping around freely. Luckily, Rudi found a needle the right size amongst his mom’s stuff, so I didn’t have to buy one (although we still went to the local yarn shop anyway). I admit that getting the final stitch of the rolled edging back on the needle gave me a couple minutes’ pause, but eventually I figured out what I needed to do. (You can see the needle-less end curled up next to the new needle once all the stitches were back on one cable or the other.)

As for reading, I’ve been making steady progress through Ally Carter’s Heist Society, a #GiftmasInJuly present, and enjoying it quite a bit. It’s about a teen girl who’s walked away from a family legacy of crime, only to be dragged back in when her father’s life is threatened by an evil art collector who’s been robbed. (Mum, remind me to pack it to share with you at Thanksgiving.)

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