Yesterday I finished my first hand-knitted scarf in many, many years. Needless to say, as soon as Patrick got home from work, he was forced to take pictures.

The official purpose of the photos, of course, was to show off my scarf...


...but since Maya was in the vicinity, she soon started trying to entice us into changing our focus...


This was my "practice" scarf, just to teach myself how to knit again after many years off. Now I'm filled with (possibly over-) confidence; my next project (once I've used up my practice yarn), is to try a real pattern, with tricky yarn-overs and such...

It turned out to be a great weekend for books. My Amazon package arrived at last! I chortled over the Gordon Korman, and Cynthia Leitich Smith's Tantalize was a lot of fun. Italian food descriptions to salivate over, a really cool depiction of how werewolf dynamics would mix with teen angst and hormones, and a theory of why vampires would move to Austin, Texas, that made me laugh out loud.

And oh, I loved Nalo Hopkinson's The New Moon's Arms. I really enjoyed all her earlier books, but this one I fell in love with completely. It's such a perfect mix of quirky magic and universal mother-daughter dynamics, all narrated by a character who's deeply flawed and yet somehow irresistible. She says and does such awful stuff, with so little self-consciousness - yet she suffers deeply from her own mistakes, she's really trying to do her best, and she's re-named herself "Calamity" in recognition of how often she screws up. She's so perfectly herself, and one of the most engaging narrators I've read in a long time.

Now I'm back to reading The French Revolution. Mmm, lots & lots of lovely story fodder...