Bits and bobs

Besides having fun with blocking, I have been getting a fair amount of non-yarn-ish things done lately. I finished not one, but TWO books over the last two weeks. The first was The History of Love for my book club. As I have commented before, our club has been in a bit of a rut lately (read: our choices have stunk!). But this book finally broke that pattern. The characters were so real that I wanted to call the author and ask who they were modeled on (I actually did read a few interviews with her and she stated that one of the younger characters, Alma, was based on herself as a 14-year-old in a lot of ways. I believe it. ) History deals with many of the same issues as Krauss’ husband’s book, Everything is Illuminated, but in a less absurdist fashion. There are comic, unreal moments... but there is a big dollop of humanity and kindness, too. I liked it. The other book I read was The Killer Dolphin, which I bought in the Friends of the Library sale last December. This is the third book I have read by Marsh. She wrote in the same time period as Christie and Carr and her books have many similarities to the two, though they are not as well crafted (I almost always figure out some major plot point in hers). However, they are very atmospheric and capture early 20th century English life very nicely. So I enjoyed this one, too.

I mentioned a few posts ago that I was asked to nominate myself for Shronehood. So I did... and was accepted! Here are The Shrone’s reasons for accepting me:

You have an abiding love for Ireland.(The City of Shrone is your native soil!)
You know what it is like to live with a chronic illness.
Most importantly, you love cats!
You know the enjoyment and pleasure of Talisman, the best board game of all time!
Something about you says when you get old and withered, you just might go out cruising for penis!
You are unknowable.
You have good tastes in books.
You acknowledge the spiritual side of people and believe there is some greater force in the universe.
You're one groovy chick and I think you are super cool!
You haven't killed your inner child and you freely allow it out to play.

And you can all see, I have added my official button to the sidebar! :-)

Yesterday, I hinted that a yarn order could be arriving today, but I checked the tracking today... and it hasn’t even shipped yet. Gack! So I doubt I will get in and be able to start my shrug before next week. Very disappointing. However, in the mean time (uh-oh), I think I will start a knit purse... and because I am insane, I might try a cabled one. I don’t know. Do you think I would be biting off more than I could chew on this?