Breathing Room

Good morning, friends! It is a crisp, sunny autumn day here, and though I woke up tired (in part because someone woke me up with their snoring at 1 a.m. and I ended up on the couch in the den for the rest of the night), I'm also feeling much lighter today because I finished my big work project and finally have some time to exhale today. I am joining up with Kat and the Unravelers to day to catch you up on my reading and crafting.

First, thanks to the sunshine, I can now share the new yarn I mentioned yesterday!

Obviously these are all from the same source, which frankly should surprise no one at this point! Lisa did a shop update about a week and a half ago partly for the Down Cellar Studio Pigskin Party event, and she debuted an event exclusively colorway as well as some new colorways. She also put up some discounted grab bags, with selections of somewhat related skeins grouped together at a special price. One of these skeins is also intended for new sample of my sock design in progress. From left to right, the skeins are Traveler (sport) in Leaf Pile (for the new sample), Bounce (fingering) in Deep Fall, Bounce in Punt! (the Pigskin Party exclusive colorway), Beguiled (merino/nylon sparkle DK) in Love Notes, and Bona Fide (DK) in Love Letters. The two DK skeins were in a grab bag together, and if the last color looks familiar, it's because I used a different base in the same colorway for my mother-in-law's socks.

My reading has been slower lately, likely because I've been having to spend my days actually reading for work, but I have managed to finish two books in the last week:

Gloria Naylor's National Book Award-winning The Women of Brewster Place is the next selection for Bonny, Carole, and Kym's Read with Us online book club-like thingy (what do we even call it?). I'd planned to borrow it from the library but then found that I had Amazon credit that covered the cost of the Kindle book, so I bought it. And I'm glad I did, because I really enjoyed it and can see going back to reread it someday. Essentially it's a series of short stories focused on different women, all of whom live in the same run-down public housing, but there is overlap. It's amazing and also depressing that although this book was published in the early '80s, the experiences of these women could very much happen today; not much has changed. I have the book 4 stars.

 
I think it was Mary who recommended Austin Channing Brown's I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness, and I'd bookmarked it on Libby, so when I finished The Women of Brewster Place and saw that it was available, I borrowed it and read it right away, in the course of one day. That I read it so quickly doesn't mean it was an easy read; in fact, parts of it were quite hard to take. I felt that this book captured better than any other I've read this year just how hard -- physically, mentally, and emotionally -- it is to be a person of color in this country. Brown does an excellent job of explaining and describing it, especially for someone who is incapable of experiencing it herself. I gave it 4 stars as well.

I am currently reading two books, A Great Reckoning on Kindle and Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead on audio. I'm also experiencing an embarrassment of riches when it comes to library books -- all my holds are coming up much sooner than I expected! I think I've discovered that when I get into what I think is a lull between holds and borrow something that's readily available, it's enough to trigger all the people ahead of me in line for the books I'm waiting for to finish. Yesterday I delayed the delivery of The Good Lord Bird for a few days, and this morning I woke up to a notification that Hamnet is now ready for me. So provided that my work inbox stays quiet today, I will be spending every spare minute reading!