The Sunday Post is hosted by the wonderful Kimberly, the Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news, recap the past week, take a look ahead, and showcase our new treasures—I mean books!
My Week
It was hot and humid much of the week, but yesterday was gorgeous. I had a routine doctor’s appointment on Tuesday, but other than that, I’ve been staying home and enjoying the AC while I spin, read, and try to catch up on, well, everything I didn’t do during last week’s spinning conference. (Email and laundry in particular.) I have also been enjoying my time off. My next indexing project arrives around the 16th.
Speaking of spinning, Tour de Fleece (TdF) began on Saturday, June 26. TdF is an impromptu spinning challenge that takes place during the Tour de France each year, on both Ravelry and Facebook. Some spinners watch the Tour de France while they spin yarn, but many of us just challenge ourselve to spin everyday, or take on a specific challenge; I am attempting to spin every day. I counted my classes toward the first few days. Since then, I’ve spun up a little more than half of a 4-oz braid of fiber. I’m not a fast spinner! But the fiber I am spinning—Blue-Faced Leicester—is a pleasure to work with, and beautifully dyed by Frabjous Fibers.
Today is Independence Day here in the U.S. Even though we are vaccinated, we’re commemorating it quietly at home… and on my part, at least, with a certain amount of ambivalence. On the one hand, the holiday celebrates the birth of the country I love. On the other hand, America’s history is not the shining, exceptional thing I was taught in school, particularly when it comes to the treatment of indigenous peoples, Black people, and other people of color. As we have seen again and again, America’s history is messy and shadowed by persistent injustices, just as the histories of many other countries are. I cherish and uphold the American ideal of freedom, justice, and equality, but we haven’t fully accomplished it yet. So today, I’m celebrating that ideal, but also reflecting on the ways in which we as a country have fallen short.
Recent Posts
- Belated Tuesday Post – June
2729, 2021 - My Most Anticipated New Releases: JulyDecember 2021 – Top Ten Tuesday post
- June Wrap-Up
- News & Notes – 7/03/2021
- Independence Day! Sunday Post – 7/04/2021 – this post
Looking Ahead
- Audiobook Challenge 2021: Mid-Year Check-In
- Signing up for COYER 2021 – Summer Season
- Ten Things I Love About Reading – Top Ten Tuesday
- Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir – review
- Murder in the East End, by Jennifer Ashley – review
- News & Notes – 7/10/2021 – tentative
- Sunday Post – 7/11/2021 – tentative
What I’m Reading/Watching
Reading: I finished rereading Beauty (Robin McKinley). I am almost finished with Project Hail Mary (Andy Weir.) Next up is Legacy (Nora Roberts); like Project Hail Mary, it’s a library book, so I’m on a deadline to read it. I am also still reading The Menopause Manifesto.
Listening to: I bought the second Lady Darby mystery, Mortal Arts (Anna Lee Hubert; narrated by Heather Wilds) and I’m already about 30% into it. In podcasts, I listened to Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me; a Smart Bitches, Trashy Podcast on romance books and “guilty pleasures”; and The SheepSpot Podcast (I’m going through from the first season).
Watching: We watched Apollo 13 last weekend, Clue on Friday evening, and Star Wars this weekend. (Technically, it’s A New Hope, but we are both old enough to remember when it first came out. “Episode IV” will always be Star Wars to us.) I suspect we’ll watch the other two movies in the original trilogy this coming week.
Added to the Hoard
Library Haul
Library books: Legacy
Purchased (Kindle, print, or audio)
Kindle: Love in the Afternoon; Wild Rain; Spoiler Alert; Book of Love; White Lies; House of Many Ways. (Click title for Goodreads page.)
Audiobooks: Mortal Arts.
Katherine
I pretty much watch Apollo 13 every time it comes on and it sucks me in every single time! Glad you were able to relax this week! I’m celebrating the Declaration of Independence which was a pretty amazing document with some pretty amazing ideals behind it. The men who wrote it were flawed but the ideals are amazing so that’s what I choose to focus on. I really want to read Legacy and start the Lady Darby series at the beginning. I hope you have a wonderful week!
Lark_Bookwyrm
Yes, it is an amazing document, and those are the ideals I’m focusing on today. Like I said, we haven’t entirely reached them yet, but the fact that the ideals exist, and that we try to put them into practice, is cause for celebration. I do believe in the promise and ideals of this country, which makes me all the more eager to see them fully realized.
The Lady Darby series is good; I’m really enjoying the audiobooks. They are atmospheric and entertaining, the characters are interesting and believable, and the first one was well-plotted. I think you would like them. (ETA: From a previous comment, I realize you may already have read them?)
Have a lovely week!
Linda @ (un)Conventional Bookworms
WOW, those threads you’re spinning are absolutely gorgeous! How did I not realize this was another thing you love to do?
I think your way of celebrating today is a very good one. I think the world would be a much better place if white people were able to think more about the harm their ancestors have done to people who didn’t look like them.
Have a wonderful week ahead, and happy reading and spinning.
Linda @ (un)Conventional Bookworms recently posted…Weekend Wrap-up #343 – Summer Here I Come!
Lark_Bookwyrm
Thank you, Linda! I haven’t been posting my spinning or knitting much recently, but it is something I truly love to do.
I hope you have a lovely week, and read some wonderful books!
RO
I’m all in for relaxing, and glad you got the chance to do some of it before the Indexing picks back up again. I had no idea about knitting challenges tied to Tour de France, and think that is very cool. Did you happen to see the crisis that happened when a lady decided to step into the race with her cardboard sign? Ugh…I’m still shocked at the damage to bikes and people that she caused, and I hear they want to sue her. I’m lucky that I can simply look out my back window to see all the fireworks, but you’re right – there’s a deeper message tied to the freedom and equality for so many people, and means more than cooking out. All my books have been coming from the library, but there’s a list of authors that I admire that I need to get their books for the bookshelves, as if I have room for that!(lol) Sending lots of hugs, RO
RO recently posted…THIS AND THAT AND OTHER USELESS STUFF
Lark_Bookwyrm
I did see clips of the crash she caused. What on earth was she thinking?!
How nice to be able to see the fireworks from your window! We could drive into town to watch them from our car, I suppose, but it’s a 30-minute drive each way, and we would have to go pretty early to get a parking spot with a decent view. Time was that there would be fireworks on the base where my husband works, but they aren’t putting them on this year. (Nor last year, obviously.)
Bookshelf space is a real problem, isn’t it? I need to prune my books AGAIN. And add another bookshelf, if I can get one. But there’s really only room for one more. I hope you can find more bookshelf space for the books you want!
Michelle@Because Reading
That is a gorgeous color! I love it. Do you have plans on what you are going to make with it?
We are also staying home, I just don’t feel comfortable going out in large crowds just yet.
I hope you have a great week, Lark! Happy Reading! xx
Lark_Bookwyrm
I’m not sure what I will knit with it. It depends partly on how soft it turns out, and how much yardage I get. Possibly a cowl, possibly a hat. I’m aiming for a nice, squishy worsted-weight yarn.
I don’t feel comfortable in crowds, either. But then, I’ve never been terribly comfortable in crowds; now I just have a lot more reason to avoid them.
Have a great week, and I hope you read some terrific books!
Anne - Books of My Heart
Yes yesterday was perfect weather here too. Wind from the north. Now it will get hotter again so my July August plan is to stay inside and do projects. Happy 4th! We all just have to keep trying to do our best.
Anne – Books of My Heart recently posted…Sunday Post – 4 July 2021
Lark_Bookwyrm
True enough, and happy 4th! I spend a lot of the summer indoors, too. Heat + humidity + me is not a good combination.
Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction
Love the fiber you’re spinning. Looks beautiful! And I really appreciated this sentiment – “So today, I’m celebrating that ideal, but also reflecting on the ways in which we as a country have fallen short.” I agree that many of America’s ideals are positive and they’re what we should strive for. It would be easy to focus solely on those ideas OR on our failures, but keeping both in mind makes the most sense to me.
Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction recently posted…Sunday Post: Book Pre-order Campaigns & Giveaways Galore – 7/4/21
Lark_Bookwyrm
Thank you! I love spinning, and somehow just… stopped… for several months this spring. It feels really good to be spinning again.
And thank you for your thoughts on our American ideals and our failures. Keeping both in mind makes the most sense to me, too.
Bookworm
Wow such beautiful yarn! I feel the same way about the 4th of July and we’ve stood home for the past several years to do a cookout just ourselves. When the kids were younger we’d go to the park to watch the fireworks but I don’t feel comfortable in crowds anymore especially now.
Happy reading, your books look good! I love the Star Wars films also.
Bookworm recently posted…The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
Lark_Bookwyrm
Yes, I definitely don’t want to be in any crowds these days.
Nicole @ BookWyrm Knits
You phrased my feelings this year about Independence Day really well. It’s so much harder to feel the day is worth celebrating as I learn more about how far our reality is from the idealized history we were taught in school. I wouldn’t give up the knowledge, but it makes that carefree patriotism we used to have hard.
I forgot about the TdF again this year! I know I could join in late (and I might) but I’m also trying to finish a knitted gift project, so I also might just postpone my spinning for after that’s done. I have some lovely “new” fiber that I bought intending to spin it for last year’s TdF, so I already know what I want to spin when I get back to it.
And to close… YES! It will always be Star Wars. I just can’t bring myself to call it A New Hope or Episode 4.
Nicole @ BookWyrm Knits recently posted…Top Ten Tuesday ~ More Freebie Fiction
Lark_Bookwyrm
Thank you. I sometimes miss that carefree patriotism, but even as a child, I was discouraged by my Quaker upbringing from thinking my country was always above reproach. Like you, I wouldn’t give up the knowledge and empathy gained over the last years of becoming more aware of racial and ethnic injustices, past and present. I gues we will just have to find ways to love and celebrate all that is good about the US, particularly its ideals, while steadfastly pushing our lawmakers and our neighbors to live up to those ideals. It’s a harder patriotism, but I think a truer one.
TdF is fun, but not if it feels like pressure. Enjoy spinning your “new” fiber, whenever you get to it!
Berls
You expressed the feeling I’ve been wrestling with so perfectly! I’ve seen so many posts on Facebook/Instagram over the past few days about loving the USA and being proud to be an American and I’m so disappointed by this country right now I’ve struggled to see the celebration. But I agree with you, the ideals that we have yet to realize would make this such a great place. Thank you for expressing it so well <3
Hope your spinning is going well!! That's something I'd love to learn someday. Have a great week!
Lark_Bookwyrm
Thank you! I hope we can do a better job of living up to our American ideals in the future. And I hope you have a good week, too.