Year of Projects: Week 21

I'm going to jump right in here with a quick update.  I finished the knitting on the White Whiskers Hat.

I need to do the whiskers yet and it desperately needs to be blocked.  This pattern is tricky.  It has long color sections.  I caught my floats every 3 to 4 stitches but it still is a littly puckery in places.  Blocking will help, but if I do another one I'll probably try knitting inside out.  The extra yarn I ordered for the Sackets Harbor Mittens has arrived.  I just need to get that wound so I can finish the knitting.  Its gotten cold here.  Many evenings its been right around freezing when I get out of work.

I did quite a bit of reading this last week instead of knitting and watching TV.  I've read three books in the last week and just started a fourth.  I read Wall St Jerk by Megan Wade.  It was a fun little romance novel that included an FMC who knits.  Thats what hooked me initially but it was witty and pleasent.  It got to the spice fairly quickly and the story moved along at a fast pace as well.  I'll be reading more of her books in the future.  I then read Bonded by Thorns by Elizabeth Helen.  Its a romantasy fae (loose) retelling of Beauty and the Beast.  I had put it on my kindle list awhile ago and forgot the reasoning.  But it was really fun to delve in basically completely blind.  There is one female main character and four male main characters.  There was alot of character, plot and world building, and only a little spice.  But the story telling is very good and I very much enjoyed the pop culture references and humor.  I was nearing the end and there was still alot to resolve and it ended on a cliffhanger.  Then I remembered it was a series. So, I read the next book Woven by Gold in two days.  Also extremely good, slightly more spice and still alot of things up in the air.   When I finished this second book I actually read the info at the end that Kindle has about the book series and author.  This series The Beasts of Briar series is going to be a 7 book series.  The next book Forged by Malice comes out on December 5th.  I'm very much looking forward to it.  But, I can't wait that long with nothing to read so I started The Ever King by LJ Andrews.  I'm only a chaper in at this point but its another fae romantasy with a whole front page of content warnings, so it should be fun.

Thanksgiving is Thursday for us Americans.  I have the day off so I'll be going home.  We're keeping it low key and not doing a whole dinner, but I will be cooking.

I don't have too much news on the job frontier.  I've mentioned before that I travel for my job.  At this point I've decided the best course of action will be for me to go back to a  permanent employment situation.  I've put in applications at two of my local hospitals.  The one I worked for for 8 years before I took the travel job, the other I had worked for in a per diem basis for a short period of time many years ago.  I've heard from the later.  I have yet to hear much from my previous lab.  Of course thats the one I would really prefer to work for again.  I really liked all my co-workers, I'm familiar with all the instrumentation and the computer system.  But the other hospital is right down the road from me, so I'd have a short drive and the pay will probably be a little better.  I have very little time to secure a job before my current travel contract runs out.  Its a very frustrating situation I've ended up in.  (Mostly by my own doing.)  I knew the travel market would be bad in December and took a risk by accepting this contract back in September.  So thats it for me this week, I guess.  Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate.

Until later.  Happy crafting!

-Q