Good Things No.92: Knitted Sweaters, Buying Seeds, Sunrise Alarm, Book Reviews and More

Good things to do, buy, read, and watch: knitted cable sweater pattern, January garden plans and seeds, a clock that fools us into thinking it’s sunny, and six short book reviews plus a few good things to watch.

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Happy 2026!! I hope you had a wonderful holiday season and that the new year will bring joy and blessing. We had wonderful time with family before, during, and after Christmas, but we also had soul restoring down-time where I could knit or crochet and we’d watch football (go, Ducks!).

Now I’m enjoying the quiet first weeks of the new year and taking the time to plan a bit for the things we’d like to do (stay tuned for my year review with new goals and dreams). I use pages from The Flexible Planner to help guide me and like to use the pretty, free monthly calendar to plan out some of our travel and dates I know about.

And of course I’m dreaming of this year’s garden – one of my favorite things to do in January (more on that below including a super fun thing that is happening this month!).

Good Things List

Knitted Cable Sweater #2 Finished

I’ve now finished two sweaters using the Cole Cable Pattern (free on Ravelry), one for Brian and one for my son. The funny thing is after knitting Brian’s sweater (on the right) I swore I wouldn’t use that pattern again – it wasn’t fun to knit for me. But then Brian would get random compliments from strangers when he wore it (every knitter’s delight!), so I thought, why not go with a known, successful pattern?

You’ve probably guessed that while I like the outcome, I really will NOT be knitting this again, lol. But it was great to start the year with this finished project and now I can look forward to planning what my next project will be. (I’m thinking it will be this pattern I’ve read is all the rage now with gen z, but looks terribly old-fashioned to me, ha.)

For those interested, the yarn for both of these sweaters is the affordable Wool of the Andes line from Knitpicks – the Superwash Worsted in green and Worsted Tweed in cream.

2026 Garden Plans & Seeds Ordered

I think I’ve mentioned it pays to keep getting emails to seed companies you use so that you can take advantage of any sales, which is what I did when Pinetree Garden Seeds ran a free shipping sale this past week. I used my garden notebook to record the seeds I have and what I need and then put in an order early to take advantage of the sale (while it’s over now, hopefully there will be other sales!).

You can see some of what I ordered above – a lot of regular favorites I was out of plus some new zinnias it will be fun to try and marigolds to place all around the veggie garden.

I haven’t mapped out my raised beds yet, but I have a couple plans already on the horizon for the garden. One is my new greenhouse (*happy dance*) that should be arriving this week. Hopefully Brian and I can get it assembled and electrified in time for seed starting by the end of the month (onions). The second is a couple of new raised beds with an arch where we’ve been eating our meals – that table will move to the new side porch and I’ll have that area I can now fill with plants (well, deer resistant ones only…sigh). Stay tuned!

How we feel about the Sunrise Alarm Clock

I think sunrise alarm clocks have been around for awhile? I only heard about them a couple months ago and enough good things were said that I felt it would be worth it to cough up the money (kind of a lot for an alarm clock…) to give it a try to help our circadian rhythm, especially in the winter.

We don’t need an actual alarm clock, as we wake at about the same time every morning and we both work from home. But the pitch darkness at 6 am makes it so hard sometimes to get up. So I set the alarm to be light only and to start gradually lightening the room about a half hour before we get up. I also put it in the far corner of the room so it wouldn’t be in either of our faces.

We both are really liking it! While it would never make you think of actual sun, there is something about waking up to the gentle, orangey light that is so much nicer than darkness or a bright lightbulb. And it does make it easier to get up, similar to what I feel when the days are longer. Even Brian has said he thinks it’s a good investment. Hopefully it’s doing good things for our rhythm and we’re going to sail through the winter!

Have you used one of these type of lights? What did you think?

December Books Read

The Maid, Nita Prose. I kept getting this book mixed up with the Housemaid (a thriller) and so ignored it until it was explained to me that it was a light mystery with a neurodivergent main character who is a maid at a fancy hotel. I’m so glad I finally got this from the library becasuse our heroine, Molly, is delightful. It is told from her perspective and was hard to see how people treated her in first half – in fact I almost gave up. But I’m glad I didn’t because in the second half people finally rallied around her. I also listened to The Mystery Guest: A Maid Novel, the second book in the series which I enjoyed even more because Molly is mostly respected from the get-go. Her take on life and people is refreshing.

The Spy and The Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War, Ben Macintyre. If you’ve read my best books of 2025, then you know how I feel about this book! This was a wild ride of a book that read like a fiction spy novel but it’s all TRUE. It tells the story of Oleg Gordievsky, a high level Russian KGB officer who is both the spy (for the British) and the traitor (to the Russians) of the title. How he decides to become a spy (not for money, but for principle), the materials he provided over years, and his thrilling/daring escape from Russia when he was exposed reads better than the best spy novel. Amazing.

The Village Shop for Lonely Hearts, Alison Sherlock. This was a comfort read in the best of ways. You knew right from the beginning pretty much all the things that would happen, but it was fun to see it all come to pass. A woman who’s had a setback returns to her home village in England from New York and is at a loss as to her future. She (literally) runs into an old friend and things go from there as you can imagine. The thing I liked most was that it’s a reminder that many peopla are lonley and taking the time to get out of our heads to smile and talk to people goes a long way and even helps create community.

The Rush, A novel, Beth Lewis. This book about women in the Yukon during the gold rush in 1898 is inspired by real women which an author’s note at the end describes. The town and what it took to reach it – rapids, mud, avalanches – are based on recorded experiences. I always enjoy this part of historical fiction. But the story was a little too one-note for me: women are held back through the trap of marriage and men are mean. It seems to be a main theme of many books today, and I’m just finding it a bit tiresome. I didn’t really connect to any of the characters and one in particular, the “good” madam, was so blind in her response to a situation that I lost all interest in caring about her or the other women (and the two men who were decent).

Grace and Henry’s Holiday Movie Marathon, Matthew Norman. This was such an interesting book! First, it’s kind of marketed as a rom-com, but it’s written by a man (not that one can’t be, it’s just unusal), and the two main characters have both lost their spouses recently and are in mourning. So right here I was like, “how is this going to work?” Surprisingly well. I felt the progression of their friendship was very realistic, with steps forward and steps back. You could see how they each needed something – not necessarily romance at that point – and they were drawn into each others lives because of that. The movies they watch are an easy way to spend time and get to know each other (and the kids of the heroine). This ended up being really sweet, even though there was a lot of grief discussion and how it affects us and those around us.

Ladies in Waiting: Jane Austen’s Unsung Heroes, variety of authors. I read about this short story compilation’s publication last summer and put a hold on a copy for it’s publication date in November (in honor of Jane’s 250th birthday). The authors choose a different “unsung” character from a Jane Austen novel and create a new story for them. I enjoyed the stories that were still set in the time of the novel the best as they seemed to just continue something we already knew. There were a couple set in different eras with slightly different names, and those I liked the least – in fact one I skipped completely. The characters chosen include P&P’s Caroline Bingley, Eliza Williams (who was never actually seen) from Sense and Sensibility, and my favorite, “silly” Miss Bates from Emma (though only the last one, written by Sarah MacLean). There were a couple stories I really didn’t like, though, especially the one about Georgianna which wasn’t in the Jane Austen spirit at all in my opinion. All in all I did enjoy this and another glimpse into Jane’s world.

Watching

The American Revolution, PBS. We felt this was such a good production and quite the history lesson. We did not really become a nation in 1776, but eight years later when the war had been won with a lot of loss on many sides (Americans, British, Native Americans, even Hessians and French). I’m a firm believer that knowing our history helps us to not make as many of the same mistakes.

The Running Man, theater, AppleTV. Brian and I had listened to this Stephen King book (written as Richard Bachman) so we saw it in the theater. We were really entertained by this even though they changed up a number of things (not as many as the old Arnold Schwarzenegger version though, thankfully).

Marty Supreme, theater. I was not expecting this movie of an up-and-coming table tennis player in the 1950s to be so stressful and adrenalin spiking, but it was! Wonderful performances, especially the lead Timothée Chalamet, who’s already started winning awards.

That’s it for another addition of the Good Things List!

If you’d like to see more of what I’m enjoying, you can check out all the Good Things Lists here. I’d love to know what you think – if you’ve tried any of these or what you’d recommend. Leave a comment below with your thoughts!

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