• New releases: Smart Bitches (romance, queer romance), Book Riot (YA, best out this week, horror, nonfiction, comics/graphic novels, mystery/thriller/true crime, romance, SFF, queer), Reactor (genre benders, YA SFF, SF), Gizmodo (SFF/horror)
• Linkity from Smart Bitches. And more!
• Linkity from BookWyrm Knits.
• Unsurprising research about book bans.
• Book bench.
• Ficlet.
• Another ficlet.
• “How to identify credible sources“.
• Absolutely true about me and my handknitted socks.
• Converted Carnegie library.
• Pretty nice MCM in the desert.
• Excellent MCM church conversion.
• I mostly like this one.
• Cute houseboat.
• The fanciest studio condo I’ve ever seen.
• Unusual floating house.
• Rustic castle.
• Possibly cool MCM but it’s so cluttered it’s hard to tell.
• Round MCM that needs a lot of carpet replaced.
• Must love pink… and faux fur walls.
• Definitely an odd property.
• Oh my. So tacky.
• This is ridiculously over-the-top in a very different way.
• Another over-the-top one.
• Has a shark tank.
• Strange.
• A terrible… bed? Can’t be unseen.
• Awkwardly placed refrigerator.
• Well then.
• Yikes.
• D’oh.
• You could lose a child in that gap.
• :sigh:
• Feels like the color might be hinting at something…
• Nope.
• WTF.
• Ridiculous.

Some recently gifted socks – they’re short because two skeins of Kroy Sock apparently isn’t enough to make tall socks with a stitch count of 68 (but was fine for 64).
More recently gifted socks. I THINK this is some variety of Meilenweit, but I’m not sure what I did with the label.

Focused Polly, with snoozing Harry in the background.

Harry grooming the shaved spot on May’s tail where her blood pressure was taken.

• New releases: Smart Bitches (romance), Book Riot (YA comics and nonfiction, YA, best out this week, romance)
• Bookish knitting and crochet patterns.
• “10 life lessons from Twin Peaks season 1“.
• Very nice MCM, although the front of it is giving me Route 66 motel vibes.
• Cool late MCM if you’re ok with rocks.
• A late MCM that desperately needs some bright decor.
• Lovely historic UK farm.
• Delightful little converted lighthouse.
• Nice loft style condo.
• Bright and airy condo.
• Must love black and purple.
• It’s cute but some of their decor creeps me out.
• I am not the target market for this house.
• Funky converted industrial building.
• Quirky house that’s disappointingly bland inside.
• Surprisingly nice quonset hut.
• Skinniest condo in San Francisco?
• Some odd choices were made here.
• Weird property.
• Has the potential to be very cool after a lot of work, although I’m not sure how I feel about the well.
• Mini moat.
• How did it come to this??
• Wha…?
• Umm…
• Yikes.
• FFS.
• It’s a dresser! It’s a staircase! It’s both!
• Ouch.
• Huh.

The Lady Miss Princess Mayhem!

Pretty Polly.

Handsome Harry.

• New releases: Smart Bitches (romance, queer romance), Book Riot (best out this week, YA, historical romance, horror)
• Linkity from Smart Bitches.
• “How to stand up for your local library by getting involved“.
• A zine you can download with ideas for countering fascism.
• “Microsoft study finds relying on AI kills your critical thinking skills“.
• “The best AI-free, encrypted alternatives to Google Docs“.
• Some ideas for substituting for eggs, plus recipes for meals without chicken.
• 50+ recipes that start with a can of chickpeas.
• 40 soup recipes.
• GF chocolate bundt cake.
• xkcd about incoming asteroids. (Hover cursor/long-press for caption.)
• Live and work in a bookshop.
• MCM with repositionable walls in the main living area.
• Cozy Italian mountain home.
• Nice converted carriage house that just needs a touch of color.
• Cool oast house.
• Well, you don’t see houses like this every day.
• Must love tiled cabinets.
• Must love pastels.
• Very tacky.
• So. Much. Stuff.
• Hard to tell what’s going on with this one, but whatever it is, it’s not good.
• Hot mess.
• Anything castle-esque is gone from the interior.
• WTF.
• Good grief.
• Sharp, thin, no railing.
• Quite the tall steps.
• The height of the bottom step is the least of my concerns.
• Yikes.
• And they’re in a single line, so you have to climb them in a very unnatural way.

Polly using the scratcher.

Harry, looking dapper in his bow tie.

Polly and Harry making it very hard to get up and exercise.

Mayhem, deeply asleep.

• New releases: Smart Bitches (romance), Book Riot (best out this week, queer, nonfiction, YA, comics/graphic novels, mysteries/thrillers, romance), Reactor (scifi, fantasy), Gizmodo (SFF/horror)
• Linkity from Smart Bitches.
• Linkity from BookWyrm Knits.
• “Dystopian books have taken over the bestseller lists… That can’t be a good sign“.
• The six stages of having too many books.
• 25 recipes for desserts that don’t use eggs.
• Very cute!
• If you’re in the market for a castle…
• It’s a little too fancy for me, but it is an exceptionally well done church conversion.
• Nice not-a-treehouse.
• Very brown late MCM.
• Wallpaper choices were made. Poor ones.
• Ceiling medallions for everyone!
• Way too much marble inside.
• Extremely disappointed in this allegedly castle-themed house.
• Just the repainting alone is going to be very expensive.
• But where does that living room stove pipe come out???
• WTF – they “opened it up” by partially removing walls – leaving behind the framing/studs.
• Something’s gone awry.
• Kitchen fail.
• No. That fireplace has a body count.
• D’oh.
• Watch that first step.
• Huh.
• :sigh:

Mayhem did not agree to be photographed.

Is Harry sleepy or crabby? Hmm.

Intense Polly is intense!

• New releases: Smart Bitches (romance), Book Riot (best out this week, YA)
• Linkity from Smart Bitches.
• Ficlet.
• Bookshop.org is now offering ebooks.
• “Books written without AI can now receive ‘human authored’ certification“.
• The largest tuberculosis outbreak (ever) in the US is happening right now.
• Flashback review of the movie “Run Lola Run”.
• I kind of love this one.
• Townhouse in a converted church – this unit includes the tower!
• I really like the stained glass.
• Orb-like dome home.
• Just here to gawk at Funky bath #1.
• Must love rocks.
• So complicated on the outside, yet so bland on the inside.
• Has a real heaven and hell vibe.
• Very beach.
• I find the floors stressful.
• Wow. Spectacular lack of effort taken to clean before the listing photos were taken.
• :blink blink:
• Deadly home office.

The Lady Miss Princess Mayhem has advanced kidney disease, but is doing well so far!

Polly sees a bird!

Harry – yawning or yelling?!

• New releases: Smart Bitches (romance), Book Riot (best out this week, YA)
• Linkity from Smart Bitches.
• Ficlet.
• Write a letter to your future self.
• SO TRUE.
• “A culture of gratitude is how we survive“.
• Another condo in that converted church.
• Gorgeous conversion.
• Cool warehouse conversion.
• I had no idea this was what a Craftsman style house was supposed to look like – I’ve only seen them after a lot of painting.
• This is a lot more fun inside than the first exterior photo would lead you to believe.
• Pretty nice late MCM, although I have questions about how closing off the pool works from a security perspective.
• Pretty cool double shotgun house.
• I especially like the purple tennis court.
• Futuristic mall vibe?
• Comes with a tunnel to the neighbor’s house.
• This degenerates into wtfery pretty quickly. I have questions about the curtained windows in the living room and the “view”.
• Railings would be nice.
• :squinting:
• Agreed.
• Why.

The Lady Miss Princess Mayhem deliberately not making eye contact.

Intense Polly!

Harry blep.

• New releases: Smart Bitches (romance), Reactor (YA SFF, fantasy, scifi), Book Riot (YA comics/nonfiction, YA out this week, best out this week,
• Linkity from Smart Bitches.

• How to build a good air purifier.
• Cute cabin with some dangerous stairs.
• Very nice MCM.
• Condo in a converted church.
• Bland condo in a cool St Paul building.
• Well done church conversion.
• An actually well done renovation.
• Interesting converted gas station.
• An odd one.
• An excess of gold.
• I don’t understand why this doesn’t have any bedrooms.
• There’s insane and then there’s this place.
• Ouch!
• At least there’s a railing!
• D’oh.
• Nope.

Mayhem and Harry on my lap.

Harry, whose newest hobby is stealing the screw covers off the trim in the bathroom. My newest hobby is gluing down screw covers.

Polly, feeling a bit sassy and annoyed. It’s tough being her!

• New releases: Smart Bitches (romance, queer romance), Reactor (YA SFF/horror), Book Riot (best out this week, YA, historical fiction, queer, mysteries/thrillers/true crime, horror, nonfiction, comics/graphic novels, romance, SFF), Gizmodo (SFF/horror)
• Linkity from Smart Bitches. Last week’s linkity from Smart Bitches.
• Linkity from BookWyrm Knits.
• Ficlet.
• Two recommendations for free short fiction from Naomi Kritzer.
• New Year’s resolutions from Incidental Comics.
• Another New Year’s comic.
• Another comic – from the comments: “It is a beautiful, ruthless, hopeful metaphor about keeping up the good fight, year after year, even when we are worn down, and how we can still face the new year with hope and light, no matter how painful the last one was, and how it is okay to rest if we can’t fight.“
• Dark academia with a secret library room!
• Nice MCM.
• Attractive MCM, although I hate the sunken tub, the suspended ceilings, and the craft room carpet.
• Cute little cottage.
• Another cute cottage except for the grey flooring, which clashes terribly with the warm woodwork.
• And a cute semi-detached in London.
• Dome mansion.
• Waterfront home made from recycled redwood.
• Nicely converted commercial building.
• Minnesota Tudor that needs some work on the floors and woodwork.
• Sort of fairy tale esque, with a somewhat castle-esque interior and a unique wine cellar.
• Castle-esque house with an odd interior.
• Worth it for the Muppets reference.
• So much stuff that I need a nap after scrolling through the post.
• This house is a lot.
• The sitting room makes me want to hide in the corner… of a nice bland room.
• Just fascinated by the non-carpeted floors. They look like they’re made from the same material as fancy bowling balls.
• It has a mirrored garage door and the floors look like the scene of a violent crime.
• Unusual house.
• WTH.
• Completely unique conversion – originally, it was a roller rink in a cave, now converted to a home. Kinda meh.
• “[D]esirable flood plain”?!? Also, bathrooms should not have refrigerators.
• Everything looks normal and then suddenly high heeled shoe bathtub.
• A mystery.
• Nope, door handles shouldn’t be that creepy.
• Eeep.
• Once again for the people in the back, shelves should not be stairs.
• Ugh.
• Finland, what?!
• Umm…
• Nooooo!
• They tried.
• These look slippery.
• Just enough variation to be dangerous.

Mayhem, feeling a bit crowded by Harry.

Sleepy Harry on the cat tree.

Polly, very focused.

• New releases: Book Riot (best out this week)
• Great quote for the season from Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather.
• Yes.
• Useful resource for shaping your own knitted lace shawls.
• Knit the Rainbow accepts knitted and crocheted donations for homeless LGBTQIA+ youth.
• Gluten-free pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.
• Cute cottage.
• Lovely home built around a train car.
• A dome home with an amazing ceiling in what’s supposed to be the rec room.
• Unique.
• VERY bright hacienda style house.
• Dramatic late MCM with an excess of bathrooms.
• Must love orange.
• MCM decorated in clashing shades of green.
• Interesting underground house.
• Check out the nose-shaped exhaust hood.
• There’s just so much wrong with this late MCM.
• The previous owner had a vision. Fueled by what, I wonder…
• Extremely ugly late MCM double octagonal dome house.
• Castle-esque Tudor exterior won’t prepare you for the interior.
• Entirely for the terrifying toilet.
• Anyone else develop an eye twitch looking at this?
• WTF.
• Oh, there I go, right off the edge.
• Invisible final step.
• Nope.
• Well, since you asked nicely…
• Stairs that should have a weight restriction.

Harry and Mayhem on my lap.

Polly upside-side down cake!

Nice side-eye from Harry.

• New releases: Smart Bitches (romance), Book Riot (best out this week)
• The copyrighted works from 1929 that will enter the public domain on January 1, 2025.
• And belated happy Public Domain Day!
• Excerpts from amusing Goodreads reviews.
• Human are weird.
• Post-Narnia ficlet.
• Make your own origami gävlebocken.
• Experience one of the weirdest stores in the Twin Cities, Ax-Man Surplus.
• I love the sky ceilings.
• Nicely converted church.
• Pretty nice MCM, although I hate the kitchen.
• Maximalism is not my thing.
• Very colorful Victorian without all the maximalist decor.
• Nice house, but the tubs look like they’d leave you bleeding.
• Ugly and slightly odd.
• Must be ok with clashing shades of blue.
• May or may not come with its own flea market.
• Oof, really bad remodel. I wonder if it got chopped into apartments and then sort of (poorly) reintegrated?
• Ridiculous price for what you’re getting.
• :blink blink:
• Catopia is certainly a unique property…
• It looks like a fussily decorated prison.
• I guess the railings make this NSFW.
• That’s a new one.
• At least turn it into enclosed storage so you don’t have to dust.
• Optical illusion stairs.
• At least there’s a railing?
• It doesn’t look like there’s enough clearance.
• Nope.
• Hmm.

Harry, looking sinister.

Polly, looking serious.

Socks I knit for myself ages ago, but just wove in the ends this week. The yarn is from Tall Pine Yarn and the color is better in the link! My phone camera hates fluorescent colors.