Random Bits of Goodness

This has been a busy week, but busy in a good way. I've had several outings with friends which were long overdue and which broke me out of my work rut. I spent a day being poked and stuck and measured by my doctor, and the results were excellent. Actually, the official word is that I am healthier than I've been at any time since before the thyroid radiation treatments eleven years ago, and ::drumroll:: I've been given the greenlight to change my diet and try to take off some of this extra weight. Which is very good news indeed because it means that I have finally finally finally stabilized.

So all of you SnB ladies who threatened to join me in a little weight loss quest, all I can say is -- you're on!

Yay!

I'll be doing a low-fat, mostly vegan, metabolic diet. I say mostly vegan because there will be occasional butter on my toast. I'm not made of stone, after all! And I suspect there will be some egg white omelettes here and there, but never any meat, fish or fowl, and probably no dairy other than those butter splurges. Some of these changes will be made right away, but I don't plan to get really into the diet until I return from the writer's conference later this month.

So those are good things.

Fulmar. Love it. That's another good thing. I'll take a picture later to post, but for now, let me report that I'm about halfway through the ribbing and loving every stitch. This is a wonderful pattern. They should all be this fun and this beautiful!

Yesterday, heaven help me, I swatched for Catherine Parr. I won't be casting it on until next month at the earliest, but this already looks to be another deceptively simple and outrageously beautiful Starmore pattern. Mine will be in a deep forest green with pale green highlights. Trish of Nana's Knit called it fiddlehead green. It's almost silvery.

With all this going on, I still managed to clear close to 1000 manuscript pages out of my inbox this week. That's always good. And a huge problem at work looks to be solved (fingers crossed), and another one is moving closer to being solved. So things are good there too.

And it looks like I might even move a thing or two into the FO column before the weekend is finished. The second Gypsy Girl Ominous Skies sock is almost to the toes, and my secret knitting is nearing the finish line despite my almost lethargic approach to knitting it.

This is the kind of run of good luck that almost makes you look over your shoulder and wait for lightning to strike. But you know what? I've decided I'm not going to worry about when it will turn the other way. I'm just going to enjoy it for now.

A Book Report

I keep forgetting to report that I read Knitting: A Novel by Anne Bartlett last week. This is a story of two women, one who knits and one who appreciates knitted objects. The appreciative one wants to mount an exhibition, and she wants the knitter to knit the pieces.

That sounds very simple, and as far as plots go, this is a very simple book. But the characters elevate it to something approaching brilliance. Bartlett manages that most difficult of all writer's magic tricks, making our sympathies shift from character to character while keeping us engaged in the story. We may stop liking one or the other of these women at different moments in the book, but we never stop liking the book.

I don't want to give away too much, but in the end, Martha (the knitter) seemed to me to be the real heroine of the piece. Also, read this book just to find out what's in her suitcases. Though there are many reasons to appreciate and enjoy this book, Martha's suitcases were, for me, the cherry on top.

This is the second book in a row for which I can give a strong recommendation. And that's another good thing.