:: yarn along ::

Joining Ginny at small things once again this week—

On the needles…
Not much has changed since last week. We had a busy few days, and we’re all still recovering from this lingering illness (and George was hit with it again over the weekend), so I’ve gotten very little done in the way of either knitting or reading. I haven’t knitted a stitch on Julia’s pullover; I have about two and a half inches (of the 17 inches it will be when it is finished) done on the skirt of her dress. I expect the dress to be slow going; it always is when I have miles and miles of stockinette to knit. I’ve recently got a copy of Melisa Nielsen’s 108 Days on iTunes & have been listening to that while I knit a round or two here and there, and of course I can also listen to hockey games while I’m knitting, but the Sabres have been, in turns, annoying me and putting me to sleep these days, so that is not very good knitting-listening at the moment.

On the nightstand…
I am taking a break from Everyday Blessings; I’ve been loving it, but I feel like my cold-addled brain isn’t absorbing it all as well as I’d like. And just the other day I found a secondhand copy, so I don’t feel the same urgency to finish it before it is due back at the library. Yesterday I started Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World—also something of a heavy read, but I’m starting to be able to sleep a bit so my mind feels up to the challenge.

You might notice I’ve been focusing heavily on mindfulness lately, in my reading. I’ve been practicing mindfulness meditation for years and have found it very helpful—more or less, depending on how disciplined I am at any given time. I seem to have lost focus somewhere along the way (hello, toddlers!) & am working now to reapply it to my life in a broader way. To that end, I have a stack of books I requested from the library that I’ll probably never get around to reading—which, I suppose, speaks to a lack of focus in itself! I’m thinking of it as a little spiritual/psychical spring cleaning, since (despite what the thermometer says) it really is too early for a physical spring housecleaning…

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What are you knitting and reading this week?