Feel-Good Friday, Late July Edition

This has been a challenging week for a number of reasons, most having to do with not getting enough sleep. I'll spare you the boring details; suffice it to say that I'm happy it's Friday. And instead of wallowing in the less-than-happy things, let's instead focus on the good in this week that was.

I mentioned at the beginning of the week that the Mister was going to be out of town for work for a few days this week. I took advantage of his absence to completely empty the stash closet and put everything on his side of the bedroom. Molly took a stab at organizing things on Tuesday while I was working, and then Wednesday night, after I put Ruthie to bed, the two of us went through all the bins and bags to put things together logically. Molly claimed some leftovers, some mini skeins, and some full skeins for herself (she's been doing a lot of crocheted motifs to make blankets). I consolidated handspun and unspun fiber into fewer containers. And we organized the yarn into bins containing full skeins/sweater quantities and collected all the fingering weight bits that could be used in charity projects. Some things were just plain thrown out because they were of no use to me or anyone else. And now the closet looks like this:

Spinning fiber is all on the left, handspun is in the center, and yarn is to the right. The Cascade bag on top of the fiber is all the bits of fingering, so I can just pull that out and pull out scraps as needed, and the soft plastic cases on top of the yarn bins is projects that have been packed away. I also want to point out that right at the top of the handspun pile is a smaller plastic bag that I deliberately left out -- it's the handspun I couldn't find that triggered this reorganization process in the first place!

Other good things: I finally blocked and photographed my most recent pair of socks (I'm writing up the pattern and will need photos, so that was good motivation):

And I've been continuing to spin almost every evening and finished the first 2 oz. (of 6 oz. total) of this lovely merino/silk/angora fiber that my friend Margene sent me:

I'm hoping we can finish up this week with some really good news: Molly is scheduled to take her driving test later this morning. She's been getting good feedback from the driving instructor (all the credit goes to the Mister for getting her out on busy and difficult roads), so I am feeling good about her chances. I know she's very much like me and won't be reckless, but nerves are always something to contend with. If you have some good thoughts to send her way at 11:30 this morning, I'm sure she'd appreciate it! Update: She passed!

I hope this past week has brought you clearer air if, like me, you were recently dealing with smoke from the forest fires. Our air has been so much better and our weather has been absolutely stunning the past couple of days -- it was in the 50s when I took Ruthie out first thing yesterday! I also hope you've been able to find some things to feel good about, and please feel free to share them in the comments, as I think we can all use a good lift! Have a lovely weekend.

Unraveled, Week 29/2026

It's Wednesday, so it must be time to link up with Kat and the Unravelers! This week's update finds me in an unusual spot: I have only one active knitting WIP. I have been spinning in the evenings when I'm upstairs, so the only knitting I've been doing regularly has been during the afternoons while Ruthie naps (and while I read or do work). That knitting, by necessity, has to be fairly simple, so it's generally socks or a hat. And a hat is what I've been working on this week.

It's been a while since I measured anything in Ruthies, and I think this particular system is well suited to this hat. The yarn I'm using is a light fingering weight, at 490 yards per 100 g. As if that's not enough, my skein was a bit heavy at 103 g, so I have a bit more than 500 yards. This is going to be for charity, so I figure I might as well use up as much of it as I can; worst case is that whoever ends up with it can fold the brim a couple of times. My parents were kind enough to drive me to and from the dinner Monday night (they were also attending), and the round trip took probably an hour and 45 minutes thanks to traffic, so I've gotten a fair amount done this week. I'm hoping I'll be able to finish in the next few days.

I've also done a fair amount of reading this week, but I'm busy enough that I don't have time to do full reviews and I apologize for that. I've finished five books since last Wednesday:

• Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke (digital from library): A tradwife online influencer wakes up in 1855 and has to figure out how she got there and how to get back to the life she knows. A wild ride with a highly unlikeable main character that is nevertheless a page turner. 3 stars
• Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann (audio from the library): A riveting true story of a rash of murders of members of the Osage nation and the investigation by the burgeoning FBI that revealed a pattern of efforts by white men to get the oil money of the Osage. 4 stars
• The Fine Art of Lying by Alexandra Andrews (digital from library): A thriller set in the world of fine art. Clare was ABD on an art history PhD when she married into a wealthy family and has become unfulfilled with her new life. She has an affair with an art dealer, and when he is murdered, it soon becomes clear that someone is trying to frame her for his death. Outrageous but fun, especially if you know art. 4 stars
• Marble Hall Murders by Anthony Horowitz (audio from library): The third in the Susan Ryeland series finds her back in London working with a tumultuous author hired to write a continuation of the Atticus Pund series. She discovers that his book is actually a thinly veiled account of his own family, and once again she finds herself at the center of a murder investigation. Well performed (by actors) but too long. 3 stars
• Dear Monica Lewinsky by Julie Langbein (digital from library): Jean, in her mid-40s, can't seem to move on from an affair she had with a professor while a college student studying abroad in France. So she turns to Monica Lewinsky, as one would pray to a saint for intercession, for help as she revisits that summer. Funny, irreverent, and empowering and totally original. 4 stars

I'm still slowly making my way through London Falling before bed and, now that a flurry of three library holds in a row coming in has subsided, will be getting back to On Morrison.

What are you making and reading this week?

Mid-July Weekending

Did I say I was going to have a relaxing weekend? If so, I must've jinxed it. That's not to say that I didn't get time to myself, but when your Saturday starts with an alarm going off at 5:45 (a certain spouse of mine turned on his weekday alarm without thinking) followed by a thunderstorm, it's probably an indication that things are going to be more exciting than you bargained for.

When I took Ruthie out for her morning walk, I noticed that it smelled like a campfire outside -- different from the smoke from the wildfires, which smelled more plastic-y. When we got to the business district of our neighborhood, I discovered the source:

It's hard to make out what's in the photos, but the black and red storefront you see just to the right of center is a ramen restaurant that caught fire Saturday morning. By the time we walked by, the fire was out, but there were still five fire trucks, at least two police cars (to block traffic), and a truck from the Salvation Army there as well as two news cameras, which you might be able to make out in the photo (one in front of the person wearing the blue shirt and one to the left of that, by the rear wheel of that black SUV). No one was hurt, thank goodness, but the building is now condemned. And it was much more excitement than we're used to on a Saturday morning -- I think Ruthie was a bit overwhelmed by the noise and the lights.

We had thunderstorms and heavy rain on and off all that day, including when I took Ruthie out at midday, and we both got completely drenched even though I'd checked the radar before we left and it was clear! The rain was very welcome, though, and it helped to cool down the temperatures and clear out some of the smoke. And yesterday was beautiful and so much more comfortable.

Some highlights from the weekend include going out to dinner on Friday night, where we were seated right next to my parents (no, we didn't plan it!); picking some more zucchinis that seemed to grow overnight as well as some more ripe tomatoes; making zucchini bread with some of those zucchinis; and sleeping in on Sunday (I made sure to tell the Mister to double-check that his alarm wasn't on when we went to bed). 

This is what happens when a zucchini grows up against the side of your fencing.

I also got to measure and photograph that skein of handspun:

I ended up with about 296 yards of two-ply that's roughly sport weight, though it varies a bit like any good handspun does. Because of the high silk content, it has incredible drape and sheen. I'm very happy with it. I might even knit something with it, and soon!

The weekend ended with dinner with my side of the family for my brother's birthday, for which I made an ice cream grasshopper pie:

It wasn't going to win any beauty contests, but it sure tasted good -- especially because I made the crust with Thin Mints!

The Mister is at a charity golf event today, and I'll be meeting him for the dinner portion. Then he's away on a work trip for a few days, so it'll be just us girls at home -- and I'm going to use his absence to do some stash organization because I can spread things out on his side of the bedroom. I'll be sure to share an update on that later in the week.

Have a good start to your week, and see you back here on Wednesday!

That's a Wrap -- Almost

A full week back at work after vacation is not for the faint of heart, so I am very relieved to have made it to Friday. It's not that work was all that difficult, but when you add in another heatwave, wildfire smoke, Internet service that keeps going down, and broken ovens, it makes for a lot.

Yes, I said broken ovens. Some of you might remember that just a little over a year ago, not long after Ruthie came home, our ovens died right before we were supposed to host Passover and we had to get replacements. We ended up with a slightly newer model from the same company because they gave us a deal. Well, that'll be the last time we buy that company's appliances because over the weekend, when the ovens were off and hadn't been used in a while, the control panel started beeping incessantly about an error. It was telling us something about a button being stuck, which made no sense because it was a touchscreen, and the only way to get the beeping to stop was to turn off the breaker. After getting nowhere with the company when he called, the Mister decided we were just going to replace them with something the local appliance place had in stock. I had to pivot a bit on some of the dinner plans for the week, but that was fine, and yesterday some very nice guys came to install our new double oven. And here's hoping it's functional for a good long time!

I'm also happy to report that Comcast did end up fixing whatever the issue was on Tuesday, and we've had no major Internet issues since then.

Though I can't share the finished skein just yet (because it's still drying), I did indeed wrap up the plying on my spinning project on Wednesday evening and skeined and washed it last night. For now, I'll just share this bobbin shot, and I'll share details once the skein is fully dry and I can measure it:

I also finished a pair of socks yesterday! I really had just a bit more than the toe to do on the second sock, and once the ovens were in and Ruthie was able to settle down, I wrapped that up in short order.

The weekend ahead is looking pretty relaxing from my perspective. Molly's got another driving lesson tomorrow afternoon, which might be interesting because there's a high chance of showers and potential thunderstorms (I keep saying it's because the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix is happening this weekend, and it seems like there's always a massive thunderstorm in the middle of it). I am certainly hoping for some rain and a break to the oppressive weather we've been having. And I am looking forward to a family dinner to celebrate my brother's birthday on Sunday. I've said I'd make an ice cream grasshopper pie, for which I'm planning to use Thin Mints for the crust.

I'll leave you with one last photo -- the first harvest from my garden! I went to water and check on the zucchini and this one totally surprised me because I hadn't spotted it growing. There are lots more tomatoes to come (they'll probably ripen all at once) but these four were the only ones ready.

I hope you have an enjoyable weekend. Remember to hydrate and wear your sunblock!

Unraveled, Week 28/2026

Happy Wednesday morning from the heat dome! We're supposed to have a heat index upward of 100ºF today, so I will be spending as much time as possible inside, where I can knit in comfort. Today I'm joining in with Kat and the Unravelers with a big update on my crafting and my reading.

Over the weekend and the past couple of days, we've been dealing with a Comcast outage (fingers crossed that it's fixed now), but the lack of internet on Monday night meant I was able to focus on my spinning and finished up the second bobbin of singles.

As I got this post ready on Tuesday evening, I will have already started plying when you read this, and I'm hopeful I can get that done and the resulting yarn skeined up in time to share it with you on Friday.

I've been continuing to work on my socks while I read and work, and I'm onto the foot of the second sock:

And my current charity hat has grown a bit since you last saw it, and I'm delighted that the yarn has decided to stripe, even though it's sock yarn and I'm working at a bigger circumference:

Because I'm a little pressed for time, I'm going to keep my book reviews brief this week.

Little One by Olivia Muenter

Digital library loan

3 stars

Told in dual timelines, a woman who grew up in what might be considered a cult and has tried to escape from her past is forced to confront it when a reporter finds her and starts asking questions. It was a page-turner that moved at a good speed, but I was distracted by a number of grammatical errors and thought the ending was totally unrealistic.

Slow Horses (Slough House #1) by Mick Herron

Audiobook library loan

4 stars

Slough House is where the screwups from Britain's MI5 get sent. This first book in the series is pretty much exactly the plot of the first season of the Apple TV show of the same name, which I'd already seen, so there weren't really any surprises, but it was still an entertaining listen.

The Palace on the Higher Hill by Karim Kattan, translated by Jeffrey Zuckerman

Paperback

2 stars

A Palestinian man living elsewhere returns to his family's home in the West Bank, where he is welcomed by ghosts and the memories of his childhood. I had a really hard time understanding what was going on in this book and probably wouldn't have finished it were it not part of my postal paperback club.

The Place of Tides by James Rebanks

Audiobook library loan

4 stars

A British sheep farmer travels to a remote island off the coast of Norway to learn about the life of Anna, a woman who has devoted much of her life to bringing back the Eider ducks whose feathers used to provide a living to earlier generations. Beautiful and respectful.

I'm currently reading a buzzy book, a recent narrative nonfiction release, and a work of literary criticism.

What are you making and reading?

Return to Routine

All vacations must come to an end eventually, and so today it's back to work. It helps that I had a pretty relaxing weekend. Though the Mister was working from home, I took Friday off as well, which gave me time to pick Ruthie up and get the house back in order. And she was ecstatic to see me -- I even have a bruise on my arm because she was jumping on me so much that she left a mark. She even made it almost all the way home before getting a little carsick (seriously, we were about half a mile away!). The dog sitter reported that she was good and had no stomach issues while we were gone, so clearly whatever she had was fast moving. It had been a while since she'd been away from us, though, so I'm not surprised that it's taken her a little bit of time to settle back into her routine and trust that she's not being left behind (in other words, she's been barking in her crate in the morning). For the first day or so, she was practically attached to me, but now she seems to be back to only her normal level of attachment. This was how she looked Friday afternoon:

While we did have some plans over the weekend -- we had some friends over for dinner on Friday night, the three of us went out Saturday, and we went out for Chinese with my in-laws last night -- much of the weekend was spent relaxing. I did check my work inbox yesterday morning so I wouldn't get any bad surprises first thing on Monday, and it looks like I didn't miss much and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that no one has been waiting until 8:30 this morning to dump something on me.

This week should be pretty typical, though it's supposed to get hot again, which means I will likely be showering twice a day again and probably taking Ruthie for shorter walks. As I did over the weekend, I'm planning to spend my evening crafting time at my spinning wheel and perhaps have a skein of yarn plied by the end of the week. And after a weekend of disruptions, I am keeping all my fingers crossed that our internet stays on -- working from home is a little difficult without it!

I will be back on Wednesday with an update on my projects and my reading. In the meantime, let's all hope this Monday passes easily and swiftly!

Home Again

And just like that, our trip is over and we are back home. We had fun, but I wouldn't call it a particularly relaxing time away except for the fact that I wasn't working while we were there. Two toddlers in a house means it gets noisy early, so there's not much of a chance to sleep in, and sleeping was difficult because the upstairs rooms were pretty hot. So I can say with confidence that we are all happy to be back, and later this morning, when I go to pick Ruthie up at the dog sitter's house, we'll all be home where we should be. And I'm feeling good about taking today off so I can have a long weekend to settle back in, particularly as I expect some-puppy to be extra needy today.

I may not have slept as much as I'd hoped while we were away, but I certainly took advantage of the time off. I read portions of several books. I exercised. I gave myself a pedicure while sitting on the screened-in porch and listening to the birds. And I did a fair amount of crafting.

I worked on socks on the drive up and finished the first one in short order, casting on the second on the drive home.

I worked on the charity hat while we watched part of the ill-fated U.S. men's World Cup game and Project Hail Mary.

And I finished the turtle in progress on my spindle (but then packed it away and forgot to take a photo). But when we got home yesterday, after I'd unpacked and gone for a walk and showered, I sat down at my spinning wheel for the first time in months. It badly needed some oil, but the motions came right back to me.

Today will be a quiet day, I hope, with the usual dog walks and some extra snuggles, and then we're hosting some friends for dinner (something I only learned about as we were driving home yesterday). But the weekend is free of plans, other than the usual meal planning/grocery shopping and tidying around the house. I'm hoping that it'll be a good reset for all of us to get back to the normal routine.

I wish you a good end to the week and a relaxing weekend!