Here’s one of the things Annie Lennox has been working on during the pandemic: playing “Moonlight Sonata” perfectly:

She’s been way more productive with her pandemic time than I have.

I’m not much for resolutions, but I have lots of hopes for the coming year. A whole lot of them involve the pandemic ending, but some of them are within my control.

Here are ten of the more bookish hopes I have for this year:

1. All of my local indie bookstores stay in business. (D.C. is home to one of the best indie book scenes in the country.)
2. All of your local indie bookstores stay in business. (I want them to be there for you. And I want to come visit them all once the pandemic ends.)
3. I can browse in the library again. (I do appreciate that they let me pick up reserved books, though.)
4. I can attend author events in person. (I’m grateful for all the video events, but they aren’t the same.)
5. I read through some of my personal stash of books. (I think only 20% of the books I read last year were from my collection, which is less than I acquired.)
6. I read a book a week. (It’s less about the number specifically, and more that it means I’m prioritizing something that brings me joy.)
7. I publish my top ten reads from 2020 (and 2019 ::sigh::).
8. I do a better job blogging about the books I read. (I like having written the reviews; I’m just awful at actually doing the writing.)
9. I read more poetry. (I love buying books of poetry, but am not great at finishing them, which means they never move off my to-be-read and currently-reading lists.)
10. If I get stuck in another reading slump this year that I’m faster at moving to re-reading something I love. (Harry Potter, Thursday Next, Jane Austen, Louisa May Alcott, and L.M. Montgomery could all help lift me out of the bookish doldrums.)

Huh. That ended up being easier than I expected. How about you? Do you have bookish hopes or goals for 2021?

Head over to That Artsy Reader Girl to read others’ entries into this week’s Top Ten Tuesday.

Bout of Books 30 has wrapped up. For the first time in several years, I didn’t manage to make either Twitter chat, which was disappointing, since I usually enjoy them.

I did, however, get some reading done, although I didn’t finish any books.

I listened to some of Becoming Duchess Goldblatt by Anonymous, a memoir from the real-world journalist who creates a fictional Twitter persona for herself. There’s lots to make you laugh, but also lots to make you cringe.

I picked up Evie Dunmore’s Bringing Down the Duke again this week (apparently I was craving tales of high royalty), which is currently my most overdue library book with the hopes of returning it this week. It’s about a Bluestocking commoner who finagles her way onto the titular duke’s estate in an effort to find a way to get him to support voting rights for women. Instead they both find themselves fighting off mutual attraction.

The next Bout of Books is May 10-16. You can bet I’ll be back for it.

Back in September, I finished a knitting project. I showed it to you unblocked and blocking, but that was it. Well, that was the week that Rudi’s mom fell, so suddenly there were way more important things to do than model a finished shawl.

But today Rudi was home in the afternoon and the sun was out and I felt like putting on real clothes, so I have some pictures for you of my Sunflowers One Way or Another shawl.

Since it was my Tour de France Knitalong project, it’s probably appropriate that I wore it on a bike ride down to the Georgetown waterfront.

(more…)

Yes, yes, I know we already had a weekend this year. But I was still on vacation, so it didn’t count.

But this weekend it does, and after the exhausting events of this week — a full week of work and an attempted political coup in my city (seriously, who offered to hold 2021’s beer?) — I really feel like I deserve to suck out all the marrow of life over the next 48 hours:

Here’s what I’m thinking:

• Go for a bike ride.
• Read outside. (It’s supposed to be nearly 50 and mostly sunny.)
• Knit. (I’m hoping to finish a project this weekend.)
• Send some mail.
• Bake.
• Watch the new version of All Creatures Great and Small.
• Take part in the Bout of Books Twitter chat. (Note to self: set your alarm now!)
• Figure out if there’s some useful action I can take to help alleviate feelings of horror about this week’s insurrection. (If you’ve found one, please share it in the comments. I know I’m not the only one looking.)
• Wash handknits. (It’s always my prettiest laundry day.)
• Work on my best-of-2020 reads post.

How about you? How are you going to spend your weekend? Jamming in activities or resting up from them?

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Despite the horrible things that went on across our country yesterday, the Democrats did win both Georgia Senate seats and the electoral college results were certified.

2. Spending down my flex spending account for 2020 involved several steps, including a trip to the eye doctor, which resulted in my getting a new contact prescription for bifocal contacts. It’s really exciting to be able to not wear my glasses out to be fogged up by my mask and to still be able to read on my outing. I expect this to be a game-changer on nicer weekend days.

3. I didn’t do a great job baking during my holiday break, but I did make a batch of Spritz cookies on Sunday evening. If you were to ask me what Christmas cookies are, I’d probably point you to Spritz, so it did feel like a win to get them made (even though doing them mostly alone is way less enjoyable than making them with my folks as usual). For someone who hasn’t made them on her own in two decades, I was surprisingly well prepared to do so, with a never-before-used cookie press tucked under a shelf and a pleasingly deep collection of sprinkles.

What’s been beautiful in your world this stressful week?