{Yarn Along} Wider Stripes Than I'd like

One of these days, I'm going to learn to check Ravelry for project pictures before buying self-striping sock yarn. Does this look like a snake to anyone else? And not a neat snake, either.



Handmade, Holiday, Homicideis the latest Kiki Lowenstein mystery by Joanna Campbell Slan. When a mean old woman drops dead during one of Kiki's Zentangle classes, it seems like everyone had a motive to do away with her. Kiki had less reason than most, but she's still a suspect. With so many suspects, some of them familiar characters from the series, this was a fun one. I absolutely recommend this series, but don't jump in with the latest book. Start at the beginning.

This is the first time I've pre-ordered a book for my Kindle. It was nice to have it there and waiting for me as soon as it was available. That's definitely something I'll do in the future.

A couple of years ago, we were on a road trip and listened to a radio adaptation of The Man Without a Country. I can't remember which show it was, but it would've dated to the 30s or 40s. The introduction said that it was based on a true story (if I heard it right....no one else in the family remembers listening to it at all) but that didn't seem possible. When we got home, I downloaded the Kindle version to see if it explained more. This week, I finally got around to reading it and learning that the story of a man sentenced to spend the rest of his life on sailing ships, never to receive any news of the United States was fiction.

How to Meal Plan: A Step by Step Guide for Busy Moms by Crystal VanTassel is a short book that just brims with enthusiasm. It's not a complete, step-by-step guide to meal planning, but it showed me a couple of things that I'd been completely missing. I've downloaded a ton of meal planning stuff onto my kindle -- this is one of the few that's been helpful.

For more pretty knitting projects to drool over, check out On the Needles at Patchwork Times.