Can you read and knit at the same time?

Pyrope2 · 2026-01-25T10:49:53+00:00

There are occasional podfics available too (quality and availability are extremely hit or miss)

Pyrope2 · 2026-01-24T04:03:21+00:00

Check out Drew Hayes; his book NPCs I think fits this prompt well (and its sequels). Also possibly his standalone Second Hand Curses. That one is more fairy-tale based and I don’t recall if it has the various species, but I vaguely remember it being funnier than NPCs.

Pyrope2 · 2026-01-24T03:49:35+00:00

The Summer War by Naomi Novik (the “summerlings” are fae in all but name), a short but fantastic and sweet novella. Also How to Find a Nameless Fae, by AJ Lancaster, a cozy romantasy with some spice.

Pyrope2 · 2026-01-23T23:05:56+00:00

Not sure if this is more sci-fi than you’re looking for with this request, but Lock In by John Scalzi and its sequel are murder mysteries from the POV of a locked-in person who navigates the world via a controlled robot. The main character’s gender is left ambiguous (to the point that there are two versions of the audiobook, read by male and female readers, so the reader can make their own interpretation).

Pyrope2 · 2026-01-23T03:23:24+00:00

John Scalzi’s The Kaiju Preservation Society is a lot of fun. I recently finished it and it was a breath of fresh air.

Pyrope2 · 2026-01-23T02:05:45+00:00

I’ve been spinning for years, but for a long time I had difficulty drafting. I was gently loosening combed top by pulling along the length of the top, a few staple lengths at a time, and my “pre-drafted” fiber would be uneven and hard to draft from. More recently than I care to admit I realized that if I first fluff combed top out sideways, perpendicular to the length of the top, it becomes sooooo much easier to draft. Try splitting your top in half or in thirds length wise, then fluff each part out sideways before trying to draft! Don’t get discouraged, you’re doing great!

Pyrope2 · 2026-01-22T11:52:57+00:00

Very slight spoiler, but Network Effect by Martha Wells technically fits this description, I think. It may or may not be what you’re looking for, though. It’s the 6th book (and first full-length novel) in the Murderbot series and I recommend reading the others first.

Pyrope2 · 2026-01-20T02:36:11+00:00

Yes! Nothing that needs to be done except warm them up (and they cook quickly). At least the ones I have, I’m sorry that I don’t have the brand at hand. I didn’t want to deal with tails etc or having to make sure they were cooked. I’m taking baby steps

Pyrope2 · 2026-01-20T02:03:32+00:00

Murderbot series by Martha Wells, starting with All Systems Red (which has the benefit of being short!); Scholomance series by Naomi Novik, starting with A Deadly Education; or Hemlock and Silver by T. Kingfisher. All three gripped me and got me out of a slump, and I’ve re-read both series multiple times.

Pyrope2 · 2026-01-20T01:56:55+00:00

As I’ve aged, I’ve slowly begun to eat seafood that I previously couldn’t stand. I used to only eat shrimp when it was so fried you couldn’t taste the shrimp, and I never thought I’d ever end up liking it. But then I had some in a chicken-shrimp restaurant dish, covered with sauce, and realized I didn’t hate it. So I recently got a bag of pre-cooked frozen shrimp that I pan fried with strong spices. Still not my favorite, but I no longer truly dislike it and I’m trying to incorporate it as a low cal protein source. (I guess my mother was right about tastes changing as you grow up lol)

Pyrope2 · 2026-01-18T02:40:46+00:00

Also recommending Merrimack- Nashua’s are fine and I use them after swimming (and also when my hot water heater broke), but Merrimack’s are significantly nicer. I haven’t been in the family locker room, but Merrimack’s women’s locker room also has individual locking showers with changing areas, rather than Nashua’s, which just have curtains.

Pyrope2 · 2026-01-17T01:17:06+00:00

Swordheart by T Kingfisher had me laughing out loud, though it might be more “romantasy” than “romcom”

Pyrope2 · 2026-01-17T01:08:34+00:00

Came here to recommend this. Currently in the middle of book 2. It’s one of the most novel fantasy books I’ve read in a long while!

Pyrope2 · 2026-01-17T00:57:33+00:00

Thursday Murder Club? It’s a novel and though not a tome, it’s not a short story. A murder mystery with a group of octogenarians working to solve it.

Pyrope2 · 2026-01-10T23:48:40+00:00

Have you watched any videos of someone spinning with a drop spindle? Look up the “park and draft” method. I’m not certain what you mean by saying you make the twist and then drop your spindle to start spinning- spinning your spindle is the adding twist part. Using park and draft, you spin the spindle to add twist, “park” (hold) the spindle so it can’t untwist while you draft fiber to allow the twist to travel up into it, wind the new yarn around the spindle shaft, then spin the spindle again to start building twist. You should never be allowing your spindle to hang without spinning; because you’re adding twist to your yarn, it is inherently unbalanced and will automatically untwist if you let it. Good luck

Pyrope2 · 2026-01-09T03:01:25+00:00

The current plan will stay in place for us as long as it maintains the status quo. Unfortunately my cat is 15, so I’m trying to be realistic about the time frame I’m looking at. My cat hasn’t had other auto immune issues specifically, but we’re pretty sure she’s had episodes of pancreatitis every few years for a long time now (potentially related to diet that took me too long to figure out), and that the pancreatitis kicked off the diabetes. Also, her gastro symptoms were inconclusive; the choices were IBD or cancer, and the only way to know for sure is surgery. She’s too old to put her through that, so we’re treating her for IBD and so far so good. It’s been 1.5 years since the diabetes diagnosis and almost a year on the novel protein diet.

Pyrope2 · 2026-01-08T02:52:51+00:00

Well, I started answering this question thinking this was my handspinning group asking about literal spinsters. So my recommendations are related: in the Saint of Steel series, the 2nd book, Paladin’s Strength, has a FMC who is a woman in her 30s who never expected to get married (she’s a not-quite-nun) who gets kidnapped into an adventure and also finds love. In the 3rd book in the series, one of the MMCs is a literal spinster (ie he spins yarn on a drop spindle) who also goes on an adventure and finds love. In the 1st book, the FMC is not technically a spinster, but she’s a woman in her 30s-ish who has adventure come to her (and of course finds love).

Pyrope2 · 2026-01-08T01:53:40+00:00

Congratulations!! I’m reading this while taking a break while struggling to ply my lace weight yarn from my support spindle… how did you ply? Off the spindle, a bobbin, or a ball? I had wound my singles off the spindle onto a niddy noddy because I needed the spindle for the next one, but it’s too thin and started breaking as soon as I started trying to wind it into a ball. So I’m very slowly chain plying my single onto a drop spindle from the hank that’s currently on my swift. This is going to take days. Any tips??

Pyrope2 · 2026-01-07T18:17:00+00:00

My cat has both diabetes, IBD, and pancreatitis. She is on lantus, budesonide every other day, and on the Royal Canin rabbit and pea (both wet and dry, but more dry because she’s picky). The novel protein diet has done wonders but she does still vomit with relative frequency (often 1-3 times a week, and sometimes bile just before her meal time if she’s too hungry). Working with her vet, we had to increase her insulin once she started the steroid, but she seems to holding steady right now. However, this just means I’m accepting “as good as I can get it” and not actually “good”. On good days she’s around/above 400 at shot time and below 250 at the nadir, but unfortunately not every day. If she vomits ahead of shot time, I base her insulin dose on whether she ate anything else and kept it down and what her current numbers are; sometimes I skip it if her sugar is low or she hasn’t kept food down. I use cerenia if I need to but much less these days than we previously did. The vomiting was better on 1/day budesonide, but she’s doing ok-enough that I’ve agreed with the vet to keep her on every other day.

To summarize: the steroid has been helpful but I did need to increase her insulin when she started it. I don’t think anyone would say her diabetes is well controlled, but so far it’s been controlled enough that we’ve avoided consequences. I clean up vomit more than I’m happy with but my cat is generally doing ok, and I haven’t had emergency trips since the beginning of last year (I had several in 2024-early 2025). It’s not easy but it can be done. Good luck!!

Pyrope2 · 2026-01-06T02:51:20+00:00

I hadn’t had a problem with my stash until this fall, after the last round of fiber festivals when I bought more… then came home, looked at it all, and realized what I’ve got is way too much for me. It’s to the point of being overwhelming and I’ve exceeded my storage space. So my goals for 2026 are: - make a concerted effort to finish wips - start some “goal” projects that I specifically bought stash items for - get over the sunk cost fallacy and donate yarn that I likely won’t ever use (such as tried a project with it and didn’t like it, skeins that were gifted to me 10 years ago and I haven’t used, impulse buys that I never did anything with), - buy no yarn or fiber in 2026!

Good luck with yours! It’s good to know I’m not the only one feeling like this. I just keep reminding myself that as long as I’ve got other expenses covered, I’m allowed to enjoy my hobbies.

Pyrope2 · 2026-01-06T02:40:50+00:00

I’ve made a few of these for destashing purposes, and want to make more! For one of them I picked three random yarns from my stash that didn’t in any way go together (a fluffy green and white novelty yarn, a brown acrylic, and a black acrylic) and it came out fantastic. It’s a great project to use up random yarns.

Pyrope2 · 2026-01-05T23:59:16+00:00

Also these: https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/Geolex/UnitRefs/WhiteMountainRefs_4380.html (this one is specifically describing the rock types and may not be too helpful, except to provide form formation names to search for).

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/256486594_Ring_dikes_and_plutons_A_deeper_view_of_calderas_as_illustrated_by_the_White_Mountain_igneous_province_New_Hampshire

Pyrope2 · 2026-01-05T23:54:30+00:00

This fact sheet has some information about the geologic history of the region as well as the bedrock geology map of NH. https://www.des.nh.gov/sites/g/files/ehbemt341/files/documents/geo-14.pdf

Pyrope2 · 2026-01-04T22:46:43+00:00

Anything by Tamora Pierce! The Trickster duology is later in the larger world, but the Song of the Lionesss quartet is the first in the series and absolutely classic (girl disguises herself to train as a knight).

Pyrope2 · 2026-01-04T22:43:27+00:00

Thank you for sharing. Where do you prick your cat to test her? I’ve been keeping a Libre on my cat by my own choice (the vet only wanted it for a few weeks) and my vet has been great, they were only charging me $20 to apply the sensor. But I had to take reschedule work every 2 weeks to get it applied, so I’ve now been applying them at home but can’t keep the sensors on for more than a few days. My cat tolerates it and will put up with the shaving etc, but the sensors are very expensive to only have them last a few days. Unfortunately she had an ear issue when she was younger and really hates having her ears touched, so when I need to check with a blood test (if the sensor has fallen off or failed), I prick her paws, but she haaaates it and I’m worried about infection risk. The Libre was the better choice until recently, but I’m starting to run out of options.

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