Here’s what the Gandhi statue looked like earlier this evening, just before the snow started sticking to the pavement.
Six hours later, we were about three inches deep.
I mentioned in yesterday’s post that I went shopping for slippers.
Nearly nine years ago, Rudi visited Austria and Germany with his mom to see family friends and visit the town in which she spent her adolescence. One of those friends owns a lederhosen shop that also sells other clothing, including woolen slippers. Rudi and his mom each came home with a pair of felt clogs. Rudi wore them a bit, but they were warm and eventually I appropriated them. And wore them into the ground. Quite literally.
The holes in the toes appeared first, but you can ignore those. Then the holes in the heels, but, again, as long as you don’t step in liquid, mostly not a huge deal. Last winter the top of the slippers started to separate from the soles, and I started hunting for a replacement, but let’s be honest: what you find at the end of the winter at TJ Maxx is going to pale in comparison with handmade woolen slippers from the Alps.
This week, though, the thread that holds the edging around the top of the foot hole started to unravel, and I knew our time together was up. Pale or not, new slippers must be acquired.
Luckily, immediately after Christmas is an excellent time to shop for slippers at TJ Maxx, because slippers are a pretty common gift, so they bump up their supply and then immediately after the holidays discount much of what remains to get rid of it, probably to make way for bathing suits.
Anyway, I came home with two pairs that will work, each of which was marked down to $8.
Right now this blue pair is definitely my favorite of the two. They won’t last me ten years, but that’s probably okay. I had forgotten how warm it is to wear slippers without holes in them.
These red scuffs are a little smaller, but I won’t need to wear them out and about and they will get less poofy as I wear them, so I expect they’ll work just fine. However, I’ve kept them in the bag with the receipt so if I decide I don’t need two pairs I can take them back.
Three beautiful things from my past week:
1. I went to the store to find new slippers and came home with a cheerful orange dress that should be appropriate to wear to a new job — and that was marked down to $11 in clearance.
2. Although there was a gusty wind and a chill in the air, the sky was blue and the sun was out today.
3. Orthodox Christians celebrate Christmas on Jan. 7, so thanks to Rudi’s mom being born in Russia, he grew up with a “Little Christmas” in addition to the more traditional Western celebration on Dec. 25. He gave me two very pretty skeins of fingering weight yarn and a purple faux fur pompom that you see above.
How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?
Yesterday it was so warm I spent the early part of the evening sitting outside at my local coffeehouse with my book. I had a tshirt and sweatshirt on and added a scarf while I was sitting there after sunset, but didn’t need to break out my hat or mitts from my bag and I certainly didn’t need a coat. Today it blustered a lot and snowed a little (not enough to stick, but still).
Anyway, this was what I was reading yesterday, but it was so charming that I was quickly done with it. If you enjoy historical fiction (it’s set in WWII London) that mostly (see previous parentheses) ends on an up-note, do check it out.
I’ve tried starting both An American Marriage and Washington Black, but I don’t want to read bleak but Important stories right now. Which I recognize makes me the worst type of liberal White reader, so I’ve just put them to the side for now rather than taking them back to the library just yet in the hopes that I can get out of my own way in the near future. I pulled out (carefully, because it was under my holiday light display) the illustrated version of the third Harry Potter film and picked up where I left off back in the fall, figuring it may help me over my reading hiccup. Or it may not, but at least I’ll have enjoyed it.
My knitting is also experiencing a hump. I could show you the various skeins of yarn I’ve pulled out of storage (quite pretty!), the older projects I’ve moved closer to the couch but haven’t otherwise touched (I could have FO’s with so little work!), or the six rows I actually knit on the beginning of that blue shawlette I thought would be done by (this, rather than next) New Year’s, but none of it is really knitting, but knitting-approximate, and we all know the difference.
Anyway … maybe by next week.
Head over to Kat’s where you can see what people who actually pick up their needles are making.
Today’s Top Ten Tuesday asks us to share our most anticipated releases for the first half of 2019:
Rainbow Rowell’s graphic novel, Pumpkinheads, isn’t due out until the end of August, but the release date for her latest regular novel, Wayward Son, hasn’t been announced yet, other than sometime this year. If it’s sooner, I will definitely be reading it, too.
I’m doing the Bout of Books again this week and it’s not too late if you want to sign up!
The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda Shofner and Kelly Rubidoux Apple. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01 a.m. Monday, January 7th, and runs through Sunday, January 13th, 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 24 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog.
– From the Bout of Books team
My goal for the challenge is to read every day, to finish An American Marriage and Dear Mrs. Bird, and to share my top ten reads from 2018.
So far, I’m about two-thirds of the way done with Dear Mrs. Bird, which I’m enjoying quite a bit and stuck in the first chapter of An American Marriage because bad things are going to happen and I’m not feeling up to it.
Monday’s challenge was to introduce yourself in six words:
How about this?
Would love to read for work.
Today’s challenge is to host a literary dinner party for five of your favorite characters.
Who do you invite and what food do you serve?
And I’ll serve breakfast for supper — waffles, I think, or crepes, in case someone (I’m leaning toward Hermione) really wants vegetables with her dinner. And ice cream sundaes, of course!