I've Been Waiting All Year

Ah, vacation. I take time off so infrequently that I think I appreciate it all the more. We've now been in Florida for almost a week (we arrived last Friday evening), and as usual it has flown by. But I've been completely enjoying it. I've been staying up late -- for me, anyway -- mostly reading and sleeping in. I've gone for long walks outside and a couple of runs, one outside and one on the treadmill because it was pouring. I've enjoyed leisurely cups of coffee and good dinners. And I've been knitting!

I started a new sock design sample just before we left but also brought another skein of sock yarn for movie knitting, because we always go to the movies on Christmas Day. Appropriately, the yarn I chose was Fibernymph Dye Works Bounce in the colorway 12 Days of Christmas, though I don't think the colors are particularly Christmas-y. This is a 12-stripe repeat, with each stripe's color representing the item(s) mentioned for that day in the song. I cast on Christmas Eve and knit up the ribbed cuff so I'd be all ready to go the next day and then knit nearly 4 inches of leg in the movie.

I'm really enjoying the colors! The movie we saw, by the way, was the new adaptation of Little Women. I really loved it, but Rainbow had some trouble following it because she wasn't familiar with the plot beforehand. I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to tell you that this version departs from the story a bit in that it jumps back and forth in time, so unless you know the general order in which major events happen, you are likely to be a bit confused. The acting is, on the whole, quite wonderful, though I find Timothee Chalamet a little young to be playing Laurie, at least in the later part of the story. Still, if you're a fan of Little Women in general, I highly recommend it -- and I probably don't need to tell you to bring the tissues.

The other knitting I've been doing is secret knitting for Rainbow for her final Chanukah present, and that means I've only been able to work on it after she goes to bed -- which, when we're on vacation, is much later than normal. That means that it's taken me longer than it normally would, but as long as it's finished before Sunday, I'll be okay. I'm knitting the Neon hat using a one-of-a-kind skein of FDW Cozy (worsted weight), and I'm ready to start the crown decreases tonight. In fact, provided I can stay awake long enough, I might even finish it this evening.

My reading has been quite good this past week. First I finished reading The Starless Sea, which I'd been anxiously awaiting from the library. I absolutely loved Erin Morgenstern's first novel, The Night Circus, and was a bit worried that her follow-up wouldn't live up to my expectations -- but it did! I will add the caveat that you need to read it knowing that there won't be an answer to everything and a lot of it won't make sense (or won't make sense right away), but it was so beautifully written that I can't even fault its very minor shortcomings. It was definitely a 5-star review from me, and if you want to hear more, you can read my review here.

As soon as I finished that, I moved on to Alice Hoffman's The World That We Knew, which I know many of you have already read and recommended. I'm a little more than a third of the way through it, am enjoying it immensely, and hope to finish it up in the next couple of days.

I hope if you celebrated Christmas yesterday that you had a wonderful holiday, and whatever's on tap for the rest of the week, I hope it's bringing you joy! I'm signing off to try to finish a hat.