bedlamsbard | Mar. 17th, 2013

Mar. 17th, 2013

I always forget how fast I can tear through a book when I'm reading it for the first time, like how today I sat down with a book at 7:30 and looked up 568 pages and two hours later at 9:40 or so. (This is one reason why I can do so many rereads and pick up new things each time.) Although this was a weird experience, because the first two books in the trilogy I listened to on audiobooks and this one I borrowed from English Flatmate N. as an actual hardcopy. (It is technically not out yet, ahahahaha, because Waterstone's put it on the shelf before the release date and N. got there before they realized their horrible, terrible mistake. It was not on the shelf today.)

568 pages in two hours is pretty fast even for me, though, and I say this as someone who read A Dance with Dragons and each of the Harry Potter books all in one day. (Not the same day, mind. That would be crazy.)

Sadly I cannot do this with nonfiction, most of the time.

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Today's Hobbit art recs theme is: dwarf babies! As a match to yesterday's, since I pulled three or four out of that post trying to decide what to keep.

Baby Bofur and Bombur by

mckaniartblog
Kid Bofur and Bombur by

nerdpipo
Baby Ori following Nori, followed by Dori by

papermachette
Young Dwalin and Thorin by

doublenegativemeansyes
baby dwarf bros by

berendoes

Crossposts: http://bedlamsbard.livejournal.com/815484.html

Today has been one of those extremely bizarre days. Not for any particular reason, just one of those days where everything feels a little dreamy and blurred around the edges. I went to the grocery store for popcorn and bread, and it was one of the strangest shopping trips I've ever had; it was like an out of body experience. I ended up with three kinds of Maltesers, more tea, and shrimp crackers, which I haven't eaten in at least ten years. Among other things. Bread, yes. Popcorn, no, they were out of salted popcorn. Just a really weird trip, which sets the tone for my really weird day.

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I finished my dwarf socks last night and started Nennir today, where I rapidly ascertained that the amount of distraction I can have for the pattern is audio, but not audio-visual. So my extensive collection of Richard Armitage audiobooks may finally come in handy; I've got another pair of Jaywalker socks on the needles for watching TV or movies with.

(I have several different mental levels of difficulty/multi-tasking ability for knitting: things I can do without looking in the dark in a movie theatre (stockinette, garter stitch, or ribbing; I tend to do 3x1 ribbed socks), things I can do without a pattern but not in the dark because I need to be able to glance at it occasionally (Jaywalker socks, which has a two-row repeat), things where I need to have the pattern in front of me but still have most of my attention elsewhere (most lace and cables; the dwarf socks were Vilai and fit into this category), things where I can concentrate on something audio but not visual because I need to be looking at the pattern the entire time, and things where I can have background music but not podcasts or audiobooks because I'll blank out every few minutes from concentration (I don't do this very often). I normally have something on the needles in category 1 or 2 (normally 2, because I don't go to the movies often enough for 1 to be worth it and I get bored otherwise; it's also good for train or plane knitting) and something in one of the other categories.)

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I have a bad habit of buying cookbooks, which wouldn't be a bad habit if I'd actually cooked anything from any of the dozen+ cookbooks I've bought in England. So that's a new goal: to cook at least one recipe from every cookbook I have here.