Wednesday Round Up – 1.1.20

Happy New Year! It’s 2020! I hope you didn’t stay up too late celebrating. And I hope you were cozy on your couch with a good book or a pile of knitting. I’m looking forward to the fresh new start this year – bring it on, 2020!

Wednesdays are such a fun day for me! I’ve been joining Kat at As Kat Knits for her Unraveling linkup, which is where a great group of bloggers share their reading and knitting for the week. I also join Sam at Taking on a World of Words for WWW Wednesdays. The Ws stand for: What are you currently reading?; What did you recently finish reading?; and What do you think you’ll read next?

Reading

Finished This Week:

This week I managed to finish Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone! You might remember from last week that I started this on audio, but I quickly abandoned that method and dove headfirst into the physical copy from my shelves. I was too impatient with the audio version and needed to get back to Hogwarts as soon as possible. This was my third reading of this book, but the first in over 10 years. What an adventure!

Abandoned This Week:

As I predicted last week, I abandoned Peace Like a River – I want to read it, but not right now. I’m going to take it back to the library on Thursday and try again later this year. There are other books that I really want to get to and this felt like it was getting in the way.

Currently Reading:

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I abandoned Peace Like a River because I couldn’t wait to start Little Women! And imagine my surprise when I looked more closely at the edition that I brought home from the library and found it was illustrated by my beloved Tasha Tudor. The last time I read this book must have been elementary school. Reading it as an adult, I’m finding it very preachy and heavy handed and I have to remind myself that it’s a children’s book. I’m just trying to enjoy it for what it is. Don’t be surprised if I list this as an abandoned book next week. It’s been slow reading for me, and not the “oh, I’m savoring every word and scene” kind of slow reading. More like, “maybe I’d rather watch television than read my book” kind of slow reading and that’s usually a red flag for me.

I started This Day: Collected and New Sabbath Poems on Sunday. The goal is one poem per week. I am not a person who understands poetry, but I am hoping that Wendell Berry is a good place to start. And I wanted something a little extra special to read early on Sunday mornings.

Next Up:

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I’m still planning to start 2020 off with Anne of Green Gables! That will be three young adult books in a row for me, which is unusual. But this is a good time of year to do some nostalgic reading so I’m reveling in it.

I’m still hoping to read Olive Kitteridge. I’m starting to get cold feet with this one because I’ve kept it out of the library for so long. The longer a book sits on my shelf, the more nervous about it I become.

I keep hearing about William Kent Krueger on podcasts and on Goodreads and can’t wait to dive into This Tender Land. I don’t know too much about it but it looks like he explores people’s relationships with their environment, which I love. It makes me think of Wendell Berry and then I want to drop everything and run to my little stack of Berry books!

Knitting

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The So Faded Pint Sized is done! As predicted, it’s a tiny bit big on my Baby Birdie, but I was hoping that it would last this winter and some of next fall. We’ll see! It already has an oatmeal stain on it, so who knows what’s in store for it? And I’m excited that I finished this before the end of the year and I can start something new in 2020.

2019 wasn’t the best knitting year that I’ve ever had, but it wasn’t bad. I have a post lined up that will showcase my finished projects for the year. It will be published on Thursday!

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I’m hoping that all of my blogger friends have a great start to this new decade. Thank you all for cheering me on and encouraging me to do the things that make me the happiest. 2019 was wonderful – here’s to 2020!