Unraveled, Week 40/2021

It's Wednesday -- we've made it to the middle of the week! I am once again in the house alone, as the Mister has gone back to the office after working from home the past two days (he's feeling much better -- thank you to all of you who sent your good wishes). It's been a bit of a crazy morning, as Rainbow had a dentist appointment before school and I've only gotten one cup of coffee so far today, so I'm hoping the day settles down. Right now the sun is shining and it's very pleasant out, so once I've posted, I'll be headed out to get my walk in before the rain moves in.

Kat is on vacation this week and so is not hosting our usual weekly link-up, but I'm not about to let that ruin my streak of posting every Wednesday this year, so here is my weekly check-in on my crafting and my reading.

I am on the home stretch on my sister-in-law's socks, having just turned the heel of the second sock this morning:

The more astute among you will notice that the stripes appear to be matching, even though I said I wasn't going to do that. The truth is that it wasn't intentional, but when I was winding off yarn to start the second sock (because I cast on by placing the slip knit at the point where the colors change), I realized I'd done it in the wrong spot for the stripes to line up if not actually match -- i.e., I was about to start a wide stripe rather than a narrow one. And I'd already broken off the extra yarn when I realized this, so that meant I had to wind off more yarn to get to the start of the next narrow stripe. As luck would have it, the next narrow stripe was a green one, so matching socks it is! Given that snafu, I am thankful that these are for the person in the family with the smallest feet (other than Rainbow) so that I don't have to worry about using those bits that I wound off and dealing with extra ends.

While it hasn't seen as much attention lately, I am still working on my handspun Shifty:

I've gotten through the last increase round and done the section that comes after it, and I've just gotten to where I'm supposed to switch to my second contrast color, but I've decided to keep going with the first one because (a) there's still quite a lot of it and (b) the second contrast skein is closer in color to my first "main" color skein in parts, so there wouldn't be as much contrast. I plan to switch over to the second contrast color when I run out of the first background color.

Reading has been good this past week -- I've finished three books since last Wednesday! The first was Jane Eyre, which I was so determined to finish that I was reading every minute I could last Wednesday. I found that I didn't like it quite as much on this reread as I have in the past, but I think that's due to my getting older and having different perspectives.

My next read was Parable of the Sower, which has been on my radar for the past year or so. It was originally published in the early '90s and set in a future that today is not so far away, the mid- to late 2020s. I suppose you could call this a dystopian novel; in California in this world, people have to contend with drought, water and food shortages, terrible crime, few jobs, and terrible drug addiction. It's also clear that there's been a big breakdown in society in that self-interest has become a guiding principle. It's clear that Butler wants us to take from the novel that the only way we will survive is by trusting and caring for one another, but there's a religious element that got a little too preachy for me, and I also found the second half of the book to be a bit of a slog. I gave it 3 stars.

My next read was certainly lighter. Mary had mentioned The Souvenir Museum, a collection of short stories, in one of our recent Zooms, and I was pleasantly surprised the there wasn't too long of a wait for it from the library. I can't say I loved all the stories in this collection, but I really enjoyed most of them (I'd say my favorite was "Robinson Crusoe at the Waterpark"), and I especially enjoyed that two characters, Jack and Sadie, popped up in several stories throughout -- my biggest beef with short stories is that I often feel robbed of the rest of the story when I come across one that I like. This was a quick read and an enjoyable one. I gave it 4 stars.

 
I am currently reading two books. The first is The Sum of Us, which I've had sitting on my shelf for a while on loan for my brother. It's nonfiction and I've been reading it before bed, so it's going slowly, but it's well worth the read from what I've gotten through so far. I also started (and likely will finish later today) The Guncle, which is just delightful. Do yourself a favor and put it on hold at the library now!

I hope your Wednesday has started off well and that you've been doing some good knitting and reading this week!