Labor Day Weekending

Friends, it's September! Today is the first day of meteorological fall (as opposed to astrological fall, which is the 22nd), and it's really felt like fall over the past several days. We had cooler weather all last week, but it was actually in the 40s when I got up to take Ruthie out yesterday morning! Of course, that's not typical for us at this time of year, but all else being equal I'd rather it be unusually chilly than unusually hot.

Today is also Labor Day in the United States, a holiday to honor organized labor and what it has done for all Americans. I am excited about the fact that this year I can say I am a proud union member! Although we don't yet have our first contract, I'm excited to be a member of the United Steelworkers and am happy that the union is advocating for me with my employer. I am less excited about the fact that my employer is using the lack of agreement to withhold my annual raise from me, but frankly it doesn't surprise me.

The weekend was quiet, as expected, though perhaps even more low key than expected because the Mister was a little under the weather (he claims he doesn't feel sick, just run down). I'm someone who tends to have a lot of anxiety around illness and often end up feeling sick myself when someone in my family is sick just because I worry about them so much, so that meant I spent much of the weekend feeling under the weather. I still managed to get in a couple of six-mile walks, though, and then snoozed with Ruthie in the afternoon. Very little knitting got done, but sometimes puppy snuggles are better than knitting. I mean, who could resist this?

We'll be taking it easy today as well. All we have planned is a little baking -- Molly and I are going to make some pumpkin muffins for her breakfasts this week, and she's going to make us chocolate chip cookies for our dessert for our anniversary dinner tomorrow. I'm hoping everyone will use the day off to get a little extra rest so that we all feel better tomorrow.

A Fall-ish Friday

I know that it's not yet astrological or meteorological fall, but this week hasn't felt like summer anymore. Yesterday, when I took Ruthie out first thing, it was about 50ºF and I could see my breath! And I wore jeans yesterday, too! It is supposed to get warmer again next week, but this week has been such a treat with the cool mornings and low humidity. Good thing, too, because it's been a long, exhausting week. As I mentioned, the Mister was out of town for a tech conference that is always the last week of August and that has caused him to miss the first day of school for as long as he's been attending. It's less of an issue now that Molly is older, but I still feel bad. We only have two more first days of school with her, too! I shared a photo on Instagram, but I know not everyone is there, so here's one for the blog:

I think the transition from summer back to school hasn't been quite as hard this year because she was working this summer (and she's going to continue working a weekend shift through the year as she's able), but she's definitely not used to being "on" all day, so evenings have been rough. And of course I am doing double parent duty this week (triple, if you count being a pet parent), so I've been worn out, too. It's a good thing we have a three-day weekend ahead!

This is not an official FO post, but I'm pleased to report that I have finished my Kudzu tank before the end of the month. I worked on it during puppy nap time yesterday and managed to start the i-cord bind-off before I had to do school pickup. This weekend I'll weave in ends, block, and take modeled photos for an official share next week.

This weekend is Labor Day weekend here in the United States, celebrating things such as weekends off that we've gotten thanks to the efforts of organized labor. I was invited to march with my union in the city's parade on Monday, but I decided I'd rather have a quiet day at home. Tonight we are going out to dinner with my parents to celebrate their 49th anniversary (today) and our 18th anniversary (next Tuesday), and we're invited over to my brother- and sister-in-law's on Sunday for a cookout on their new backyard patio. I'm looking forward to hearing all about my oldest nephew's first two days of kindergarten -- he just started yesterday! Other than that, I have no definite plans, and that's just fine with me. The weather looks like it's going to be spectacular, sunny and high 70s, so I predict long walks on my own and with the pupper. Maybe she will even surprise us and let us sleep in!

Whatever you have planned for this weekend, whether or not it's a long weekend for you, I hope it's full of things that bring you joy.

Unraveled, Week 35/2025

Good morning and happy Wednesday, friends! Time to link up with Kat and the Unravelers!

This week hasn't been hugely productive, at least as far at the knitting is concerned. Being the only parent isn't as hard as it was when Molly was little, but it means I have to pick up a couple more of the daily things that have to get done -- taking Molly to school in the morning, cleaning up after dinner, taking out the trash -- in addition to what I already do on a daily basis and with the dog's schedule, so sometimes the time I have for knitting is limited (like on Monday night, when, after getting Ruthie to sleep, I had to fold and put away two large loads of laundry). Still, some progress is being made. My afternoon knitting (what I work on while Ruthie naps) is another charity hat using some of the yarn I brought home from the SSK giveaway table:

Please forgive the terrible lighting! My plan is to knit until I'm just about out of the pink and then join the blue, working a round of purls when I join so there's a good fold line. If you enlarge the photo, you might see some wonky stitches, and that's because I encountered first a break in several plies of the yarn at one point (that may be critter damage) and then a knot. Rather than taking more time to weave in the ends, especially as everything is going to be unseen inside the hat, I just held the ends together and worked that method where you weave in as you go by catching them every other stitch. I'm hoping the wonkiness will block out.

I'm also getting very close to finishing up my Kudzu tank! I decided to dedicate all my knitting time to it on Sunday, which translated to quite a few inches knit, and now I have maybe three or so inches left to reach the required full length.

Provided I have enough yarn, I'm going to work an i-cord bind-off on the bottom of the body. The pattern calls for simply binding off, and while I don't think this linen would really curl like stockinette worked in another fiber would, I think it'll look more finished that way -- not to mention that there's i-cord edging on the straps and around the armholes, so it'll all match nicely. I have joked that maybe I would bring on fall by finishing it, but it looks like the heat is coming back next week. Even if I don't wear this right away, I can always take it to Florida in December!

I've had another incredibly good reading week, at least in terms of the number of books I've finished (largely helped by two short audiobooks).

When the Booker Prize longlist was announced, there were several titles that sounded interesting to me (I'm not trying to read the entire list this year). One of them was Misinterpretation, which my library did not yet have on Libby, so I put it on Notify Me and managed to get the audiobook before anyone else. What intrigued me about the description was the part about the main character working as interpreter for an immigrant in therapy, but that ended up being a very small part of the book. I spent a lot of time listening to this book wondering what it was supposed to be about and also getting annoyed with the poor decisions the main character was making. I think the book was well written, but it ended up being very different from what I was expecting and not really a book I would have read otherwise. I gave it 2 stars.

A book several readers I respect have been raving about is The Book of Records, a book that's rather hard to describe. Though no definite time or place are given, we presume that it takes place in the future, when global warming and political conflict have wreaked further havoc on the world. Lina and her ailing father, who have fled their home in China and been separated from her mother, brother, and aunt, have arrived at a sort of way station called The Sea. Among their few possessions are three volumes of a large set of books about explorers, or so they're labeled. These three tell the stories of Du Fu, a Chinese poet in the Tang Dynasty; Baruch Spinoza, a Jewish Portuguese-Dutch philosopher in 17th-century Amsterdam; and Hannah Arendt, a Jewish philosopher forced to flee Nazi Germany. Their stories unwind and are interspersed with some of the background story about Lina and her father as well as scenes of Lina all grown up. It's quite unusual and imaginative and beautifully written. I had to give it 4 stars only because I felt that there was so much I wasn't understanding and because of that I wasn't fully appreciating it. It also reminded me so much of another book I've read, but I've been at a loss as to what this book could be. Perhaps it'll come to me.

The next title up for discussion by those of us reading women in translation is My Brilliant Life, translated from Korean. This story is narrated by 16-year-old Areum, born to teenage parents, who suffers from a rare condition that causes him to age prematurely and thus deal with serious health problems. Despite his condition and the financial struggles his family has, Areum never fails to see the beauty in life. Unlike most teenagers, he wants to spend quality time with his parents and to hear about their lives before he was born, especially about how his parents met. He knows his time is limited, so he wants to read everything he can and learn as much as he can. I thought this book was just okay. I thought the first chapter was incredible and was hoping the whole book would be that way, but it petered out pretty quickly. It's a sweet but sad story but wasn't especially memorable for me. I gave it 3 stars.

Even though it's not a new book, A Month in the Country has been making the rounds among my reading friends lately, and I was delighted to find the audio on Hoopla. This is a quiet short novel that follows Tom Birkin, a WWI veteran, as he spends a month in the Yorkshire countryside restoring a mural found on the wall of a church. Bearing the internal scars of the war and having been left by his wife, he finds a renewed sense of life and happiness in the work and in the people he meets. I managed to listen to all of this book over the course of a day -- it is quite short! Even though I slowed the speed down to be able to understand the reader better, I think I might have appreciated this book better had I read it with my eyes, because I was confused about who some people were and what was happening at some points. Still, I found it to be like a PBS Masterpiece production in its calm, quiet manner. I gave it 3 stars.

My favorite of the week was Heartwood. The central focus of this novel is the search for a missing Appalachian Trail hiker, a 42-year-old nurse named Valerie Gillis who was hiking in part to gain some perspective after the grueling demands of working in health care during the pandemic. Parts of the story are told from her point of view, but we also get other perspectives. There's also Lt. Bev, the state game warden in charge of the search and one of the few females in the system. Then there's Lena, a 70-something former scientist in a retirement home who is largely confined to a power wheelchair but who stays connected to the outdoors via the internet. Interspersed throughout are snippets of interviews with other hikers who knew Valerie and transcripts of calls to the search tip line. And while the search for Valerie is the main storyline, each of these main female characters is also reflecting on her past and pondering her future -- and they're all interesting women to boot. This was a page turner, but it's also well written; I was really wondering how it would all come together in the end, and that kept me reading. In many ways, it reminded me of The God of the Woods, with the multiple storylines, strong female characters, and a mystery to be solved. I gave it 5 stars -- and I'm as surprised as anyone that it's the second Read with Jenna book I've so rated!

I'm currently listening to The Briar Club (which I should finish during my run this morning), reading Loved and Missed digitally, and reading My Friends on paper.

What are you making and reading this week?

Less in 2025: August

Can you all believe that it's the last Monday of the month, already? Maybe it's the start of the school year or the noticeable shift in the length of the days, but I've really felt the days slipping by lately. As it is the final Monday of the month, that means it's time for a One Little Word check-in. Thank you to Kat for hosting our monthly link-ups!

Less has been prevalent in many ways for me this month. Less daylight for sure (boo) but also less humidity (yay!). In the last week or so, there has been less barking from Ruthie when she wakes up, so maybe she's learning that I will come down at the same time every morning and she doesn't need to raise the alarm. There has been less procrastination, as I called and scheduled Ruthie's spay surgery (Tuesday, September 9).

To follow up on something from earlier in the year (the "less of me" bit), I can report that I'm holding steady and have discovered that the weight I've lost has likely been due to increased physical activity from walking Ruthie. I've started tracking my walks with her on my Apple Watch and have found that on the days that I run, I am burning close to 1,000 calories, at least if the watch can be believed. So it's no wonder that without making up for that, I've dropped a few pounds. I'm trying to be more mindful about making sure I'm eating enough, and part of that is being less hard on myself if I need a snack.

With the start of the school year today, I'll soon have less time to myself, as I'll have to do the pick-up (and sometimes drop-off) routine every day again. It's been lovely to sit with a snoozing puppy until late afternoon most days, but I'm reminding myself that picking Molly up from school means about 10 minutes every day of one-on-one time -- something that's so hard to get with a teenager.

One thing there hasn't been less of this month? Tomatoes! I picked another dozen over the weekend! I also did a Costco run on Saturday, so I made sure to get some fresh mozzarella so I can have Caprese salads all week! 

Is That ... Fall?

TGIF! After rain earlier in the week followed by humidity, we finally have had some cooler weather and a hint of fall in the air. I don't think we're done with the heat altogether, but look at the forecast for next week!

Still little rain (those scattered showers on Sunday may be out of the forecast by then or miss us entirely), but look at those highs! I think I'll even need an extra layer in the morning, and friends, I am ready for it!

Our tomato plants have not gotten the memo that summer is soon coming to an end, however, and I keep discovering surprise tomatoes (because the big plant has taken over so much that they're hiding behind other plants). Here's the current harvest still to be eaten:

We sliced up a big one to have on turkey burgers on Wednesday night, and I've had some in salads, but there are still plenty to be eaten!

This weekend is the last one before Molly goes back to school, so we actually have some plans. The three of us are going out to dinner tonight at one of our favorite local places to kick off the school year. She just got asked to work another shift on Saturday and then is going to a friend's sleepover party on Saturday night, so the Mister and I are going out for a date night. And then Sunday he leaves for his annual work trip to Las Vegas that means he misses the first day of school (though fortunately at this age, Molly doesn't mind so much). Of course there will be the usual walks (alone and with Ruthie) and naps and such. But perhaps the next couple of days will be less sweaty.

Have a good one, friends, and see you back here on Monday!

Unraveled, Week 34/2025

Greetings, friends, and happy Wednesday! It's been a long start to the week (I woke up yesterday and my first thought was, "Is it really only Tuesday?"), but today is my favorite day of the blogging week, when I get to join in with Kat and the Unravelers.

Today I'm kicking things off with a finished object (finished, but not yet blocked, so please excuse that).

I completed the knitting on this hat on Monday afternoon during what I've taken to calling "snoozy time" and then wove in the end that evening. The yarn is from Supernova Dyeworks and came from my SSK goodie bag; I love the colors but thought they'd be a bit too much in socks. In the larger circumference of a hat, however, I got some nice stripes. This will be added to the charity pile.

I have also made some real progress on my Kudzu tank, completing the second and final chart:

The second chart is worked under the arms, after you've joined the front and back, and it continues the leaf lace motif in a really pretty way:

Now it's just stockinette through the rest of the body, with a few increases to give a little shaping. I've used up my first skein of yarn and will be interested to see how far I get with the second.

I've had another blockbuster week of reading -- five books finished! This is in large part due to audiobooks (I get a lot of listening done between exercising and walking the dog) as well as the fact that I read some shorter books this past week.

My brother loaned me his copy of Dog Is Love: Why and How Your Dog Loves You shortly after we adopted Ruthie, and I'm a little ashamed to say that I've only just gotten around to it. This is a book I would have enjoyed even before having my own dog simply because of my interest in psychology (it's what I got my bachelor's degree in). The author, an academic who studies canine behavior, set out to uncover why it is that humans and dog have long been able to form strong bonds and loving relationships. While he gets into evolution and genetics and even Pavlov, the book is easy to read and understand, and he certainly makes a strong case for dog ownership. It also made me regret not taking the course on animal behavior in college! I enjoyed this one a lot -- 4 stars.

Next was an audiobook that I listened to over the course of two days and very nearly DNF'd. Severance is a pandemic book, but it was published back in 2018 and was eerily familiar. I'd had it on my TBR for a while because I'd heard about it on at least one bookish podcast I listen to, and I had thought I'd heard that the virus in the book caused people to become overly religious rather than sick. Either I was confusing it with another book or the podcaster hadn't read it, because that is not the case at all -- there's some near zombie stuff happening in this book. The crux of it is that there's a virus out of China that causes people to become "fevered," and the main character finds herself in a New York City that is quickly becoming a ghost city, yet she continues to go to her office and work despite the fact that her work has become impossible and pointless. The Goodreads description of this book calls it a "hilarious deadpan satire," but I just found it depressing. Some of the descriptions of the people afflicted by the virus started to make me feel a little ill myself, and that was the point at which I nearly stopped listening, but because I was out on a workout without anything else to listen to at the time, I kept going, and it got a little better. The only parts I actually enjoyed were the flashbacks to the main character's family when they first immigrated to the United States and their determination to make a new life in a new country. I wouldn't recommend this one. 2 stars.

I needed something lighter and fluffier after that, so I scrolled way down in my Kindle shelves and found Shrines of Gaiety, which I'd bought a couple of years ago but never gotten around to reading. I know a number of you read this when it first came out and thought it was okay, and that was my experience as well (it was a 3-star read for me). This book is not on the same level as Life After Life, but it's fun and didn't require a lot of thought or attention on my part. I was a bit frustrated that several storylines were left just hanging at the end -- some, it seemed, deliberately. I am okay with ambiguity in certain situations, but this felt a bit like laziness to me. If you're writing fiction, can't just just make up an explanation? In any case, it was a good palate cleanser.

I so enjoyed Adam Higginbotham's Challenger that for my next audiobook, I decided to read another of his works Midnight in Chernobyl. As with his book on the Challenger disaster, Higginbotham is thorough and impartial in relaying the facts, looking at what happened from all angles and, at times, from minute to minute. I was familiar with some of the names and how the disaster played out from having watched the HBO miniseries several years back, so I can't say I really learned anything new. If you've seen that miniseries, you probably don't need to read the book, but if not, I would recommend it if you'd like to learn more about what happened. It's very well done (though I have some grumbles about the audiobook narrator). I gave it 4 stars.

Finally, a memoir, The Tell. It's an Oprah pick, but that is not why I read it (though it likely explained the long wait list at the library). The author was struck by her daughter's comment that she felt she really didn't know her to examine why that would be. She cautiously entered a session of therapy using MDMA, only to discover a long-suppressed memory of being sexually assaulted by a teacher when she was in middle school. Having released this memory, and realized why she reacted the way she did to certain stimuli, she then embarked on a long process of both healing from the abuse and seeking some form of justice for what was done to her. This is a book that will be very hard for some people to read, for obvious reasons. I found it fascinating that our own brains will hide a memory from us yet the effects of what is hidden can be seen and felt in the body. I gave it 4 stars.

What are you making and reading this week?

Another Sweaty Weekend

It was another weekend -- another hot weekend -- here, though this weekend we actually had a bit of rain!  I'd been hoping for a good thunderstorm yesterday afternoon, which did not materialize, but we did get a couple of good soaking rains. Still a drop in the bucket as far as our deficit is concerned, but I'll take it!

We ended up going out to dinner with my parents on Friday night to a new-to-us place that we all agreed was a place we'd go back to. Saturday Molly worked, the Mister rode his bike, and I managed to go for a 6+-mile walk (in addition to my regular walks with Ruthie). I made a chocolate zucchini cake (from this cookbook) using the two zucchinis I managed to harvest from my plants before the heat killed them. Ruthie took naps -- and apparently had some interesting dreams:

I finished an ebook and an audiobook and pondered which of these variegated skeins to use with the light green semisolid for a new shawl (Ravelry link):

I was up both mornings a little earlier than I'd like, but I slept well and managed a brief nap both days, so I can't complain. The only cooking I had to do all weekend was make a salad to go with pizza on Saturday night and prep some potatoes and asparagus for the oven last night. As weekends go, it was a pretty good one! And now it's back to the usual. It's Molly's last week of summer break, and in addition to working two shifts this week, she's got to finish her summer reading assignment, which happens to be what might be my favorite book, Pride and Prejudice. It looks like it's going to be a little cooler this week, so maybe it'll be less sweaty than it has been. There are already leaves drying up and falling in the neighborhood, so fall is on the way!

Three Random Things

It's Friday, thank goodness, and because I don't have much of an update to share in the way of knitting (everything looks pretty much the same as it did on Wednesday), I thought I'd share three random things -- good things! -- to end the week.

1. We got rain!
After getting no measurable precipitation for nearly the first half of August for the first time since the 1800s, we finally got a couple of good soakings on Wednesday. I woke to a thunderstorm in the morning, and there was another as I was going to bed. We're still at quite a deficit, but it was nice to see the flowers perking up a little.

2. I met some new neighbors.
Okay, this might be stretching it a bit, but yesterday as I was walking in to the office, I heard a noise up a driveway, looked to my left, and saw this mama and her babies:

The photo isn't the best because I was trying to take it without scaring them, but the two fawns still had lots of spots and were so cute! It's a good thing Ruthie wasn't with me because I don't know what she'd make of deer; she already gets freaked out by rabbits, squirrels, and birds, to say nothing of dogs she doesn't know.

3. Girl dinner
You may have heard of this trend. "Girl dinner" is apparently the name for having what amounts to snacks for dinner, but in our house, it's what Molly and I eat when the Mister is out of town or at a work dinner and we don't feel like making an organized meal. It's what we did last night, when I made homemade pita bread (using this recipe) and we had some dips to go with it. I make this pita a lot, and while it takes a bit of time, it's always excellent. Here, have a piece!

I will note that if you'd like to try to make it, I find it works just fine with regular all-purpose flour. The dough is also very sticky, so you'll want to have extra flour on hand. And if you can't eat it all at once, it'll keep in the fridge and reheat in the microwave very nicely the next day.

We have what I hope will be another quiet weekend ahead. Molly is working tomorrow and then having a friend sleep over ahead of her last week of summer vacation. I'm looking forward to sneaking in a nap or two with Ruthie, who reminds you to make sure you're getting enough rest, too!

Have a great weekend, friends, and see you back here on Monday!

Unraveled, Week 33/2025

It's another hot Wednesday here, and the humidity has been turned back up -- but we are supposed to get rain today! Good thing, too, because we've apparently had the driest start to August since sometime in the 1800s. I am longing for fall weather, but it looks like that's not coming for a while yet, so I'll be hiding in the air conditioning as much as I can until then.

Time to join in with Kat and the Unravelers! The arrival of a big work project last week meant a slowdown in my daytime knitting, but the current hat on the needles is now about half a Ruthie long:

Apologies for showing you so much leg!

I haven't weighed the skein of yarn, but it has gotten noticeably smaller, so I'd estimate I'm about halfway done. There's no deadline for this, but I expect it won't be on the needles for too much longer because it's so easy to work on while doing other things.

I've also made some progress on my Kudzu, despite putting it down for a day or so to check with the designer on some numbers. I've just joined the front and the back to work in the round, so things are likely to go faster now.

I'd really like to get this done by the end of the month, if possible. I have a lace/texture chart to work through under both arms, but after that it's all stockinette, and I know that will go quickly. Partly I want to get it done to be able to wear it while it's still summer (even though at the moment it feels like summer is going to last forever), but partly the desire to finish it is so I can get started on something for colder weather.

In spite of being busy at work, I somehow managed to finish four books in the past week -- largely thanks to being caught up on a backlog of podcasts and thus being on the hunt for audiobooks!

First up was The Friend, the next Read With Us selection. There was a wait for the digital book at my library but not for the audio, so I went that route. This is a short novel (only about 6 hours on audio) about a woman whose longtime friend and mentor has just died by suicide and whose Great Dane she ends up inheriting, despite living in a New York City apartment where dogs are forbidden. The dog's presence inspires her to reminisce on their friendship and reflect on her grief as well as how the dog might (or might not) be processing the absence of its owner. I think that perhaps audio might not have been the best format for me to read this book because I kept getting lost and a little confused, and that definitely contributed to my feelings about the book in general. I'll be watching the movie made from it (the first time we've done this for RWU!), and perhaps that will help to make things a bit clearer for me. I gave it 3 stars.

Next up was Sandwich, a book I know quite a lot of you read when it came out last year and that I'd been meaning to read, and I was reminded of this fact when Bonny mentioned the author's forthcoming follow-up. This was another short book (less than 6 hours) that I ended up listening to in its entirety over the course of one day between my run, walks with Ruthie, and doing some house cleaning. The title is a reference to that stage of life when adults have to worry both about their children and their parents, though I think it's also clever as it could be the setting for the town on Cape Cod where the main character's family vacations for a week every year. Rocky is about 10 years older than I am, but I felt that I understood a lot of her struggles -- the worry about her kids, the worry about her parents, the havoc caused by menopause hormones (perimenopause, in my case), and the nostalgia for the seemingly simpler times when the kids were young and life seemed less complicated. I think this book also appealed to me because we used to vacation at the Cape when I was tween/teen, and when I was younger than that, we'd go to the New Jersey shore, so the descriptions of packing up lunches, schlepping all the stuff to the beach, and having sand get positively everywhere felt so very familiar. I gave it 4 stars.

Up next was a selection from my library holds, Ali Smith's Gliff. This is apparently meant to be a retelling or reimagining of Brave New World, which I have never read (so I cannot comment on that aspect). All I can really say is that, like other Smith novels I've read, I didn't fully understand what was going on but nevertheless enjoyed it. I've learned that I really just need to go along for the ride and not worry about the details, because they're rarely forthcoming. The best sense of the plot I got is that this is set in the near future, when technology has taken over nearly every aspect of life and has led to a surveillance state in which certain people are considered undesirable and are forced from their homes, the notice of which is a red line literally being painted around them. That is what has happened to the two siblings at the center of this story when their mother has gone to help out their ill aunt, leaving them with her partner. But when they are evicted, the partner goes to retrieve the mother and leaves the two children on their own. There's a horse involved and attempted evasion from the authorities, and later on one sibling (having lost track of the other) is looking back on this time in their life. I still feel a bit like I need someone to explain it to me, but I gave it 4 stars in spite of feeling rather clueless.

After finishing Sandwich, I thought I should listen to Catherine Newman's first book, We All Want Impossible Things. Though the characters and circumstances are completely different, many things felt similar, so it's clear to me that Newman is drawing a lot from her own life and experiences. This is a largely sad novel, about two friends since childhood, one of whom is dying of ovarian cancer. Ash and Edi have known each other for nearly all their lives, and now Edi is spending her last days in a hospice in Ash's hometown. As she grapples with the impending loss of her best friend, Ash is also struggling with her marriage and recent separation and concerns about her daughters. It seems like this novel should be a tearjerker, and it is at parts, but it also made me laugh out loud several times. I was left with the message that it shouldn't take the death of a loved one to make us appreciate the people in our lives we most care about. I gave it 4 stars.

What are you making and reading this week?

August Weekending

Happy Monday, friends! I hope you had a good weekend. Ours was hot but good. As they have done for the past couple of years, some of our Chicago cousins stopped by to stay with us overnight on their way home from vacation in North Carolina. It had been more than a year since we last saw them (when we went to Chicago for another cousin's bat mitzvah), so they hadn't before met my niece or Ruthie. It was all a bit chaotic Friday night and Saturday morning, but it was a good time. And my cousin's two daughters are growing up very quickly. The two of them had a sleepover in Molly's room -- the oldest is only 12 but already pretty much as tall as Molly!

We had everyone -- the cousins, my parents, and my brother and his family -- over to our house for breakfast on Saturday morning before the cousins left for the final leg of the trip home. Leo even came over to play with Ruthie!

It's still amazing to me how similar they look -- that same white stripe down the middle and a pink spot by their nose.

I mentioned that it's been hot; after a week where the humidity dropped significantly and temperatures were more bearable, our highs are climbing again this week, but the big thing is that we haven't had measurable rain since July. There were a few sprinkles on Friday morning, but that's done nothing for how dry everything is. I've been trying to water the plants, but the grass is pretty crispy. The tomatoes don't seem to be bothered by the heat, though -- look at what I picked on Friday!

That tiny zucchini was only picked because the plant it was attached to was dying, and I ended up tossing it in the compost anyway because there was a bug burrowing into it. The tomatoes look great, though. I can't get over how the one plant has grown. I've managed to harvest about four cherry tomatoes, but that plant has been dwarfed by the full-size plant. I've got some fresh mozzarella in the fridge for caprese salads for these.

I'm hoping for an uneventful week ahead. I finished up a big work project Friday afternoon, so I'm hoping things will be calm in that arena. Molly has three work shifts this week, and the Mister has a brief work trip, so Ruthie and I will be on our own for much of the week. I hope to have a real knitting update on Wednesday (and for sure I'll have a reading update). In the meantime, please enjoy this short video of Ruthie enjoying her first taste of watermelon!

Feel Good Friday

I don't know about you, but these past several weeks, I've really looked forward to Friday because of Kym's Sanctuary posts. She always has such a fun mix of something interesting, something beautiful, and something funny. But Kym is taking a well-deserved break to have a visit with her sister this week, and because I've been busy with actual work this week and don't have a lot of usual content to share, I thought I would take a page from her book and share some things that I hope will lift your spirits a bit. I'm a bit crunched for time, so this post won't be anywhere close to Kym's level of perfection, but if I can make you smile or chuckle, I'll be happy.

First, if you're a fan of dogs and you aren't following WeRateDogs on whatever social media channel you use, you're missing out. Truly, their posts are some of the best parts of my day. This post from the other day made me laugh out loud:

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Next, are you familiar with red pandas? Molly was a little obsessed with them for a while, especially when we started watching videos of them trying to look tough when facing a very threatening ... rock.

Finally, if you want to see some beautiful photography, I'll direct you to the site of my favorite local photographer. He does a lot of shots of Pittsburgh, which might or might not interest you, but he also takes gorgeous photos of nature and landscapes. Here are a few examples:

If you like these, I'd encourage you to check out his galleries (and I won't be offended in the least if you don't feel a need to browse the Pittsburgh photos!).

Have a good weekend, remember there is beauty out there to be seen, and do your best to have a good laugh.

Unraveled, Week 32/2025

Happy Wednesday, friends! Before I join in with Kat and the Unravelers, I have an apology. Each week for my Unraveled post, I look back at the number from the week before, and it took typing out 40 this week for me to realize that something was not right because I know there are more than 12 week left in this year. It seems that somewhere back in spring, instead of typing the number 12, I typed 20, and that set off a chain reaction of mis-numbering the weeks. I've gone back and corrected them all, but that means that if you use some sort of blog reader or subscribe to something that notifies you that I've posted, you will have seen what looks like a ton of new posts from me. I wish I had that much exciting content to share, but alas I'm just fixing my own errors. I've always maintained that my strength is in words, not numbers, and I think this just confirms it.

But enough about my typos -- let's get back to the making and the reading! Since finishing up my latest pair of socks, my afternoon puppy nap time/reading time knitting has been the hat I'm knitting using the SSK goodie bag yarn, and at present it's about the size of Ruthie's tushie:

There's obviously still a good ways to go on this, but I do like the way the colors are pooling in sort-of stripes.

I've also cast on a new project, using the free-to-me Shibui Linen yarn that I picked up from the giveaway table at SSK. I'm making Kudzu (Ravelry link), the pattern I originally bought the Miss Babs silk/linen for.

This lace is a lot less complicated than Midsommarkrans, so with any luck it will go quickly and I'll be able to speed through to the stockinette body. I did swatch for this and got stitch gauge with a US 5/3.75 mm, though this start looks awfully small. I am making a size that should give me about an inch of positive ease, assuming I get gauge in the actual piece.

Reading has been good this past week, with three solid finishes.

It's been a number of years since the last Jimmy Perez novel and I truly thought the series was done, so I was delighted to see there's a forthcoming ninth book! In this latest installment, The Killing Stones, the action has moved from the Shetland Islands to the Orkney Islands, closer to mainland Scotland but remote enough that Jimmy and his team are largely on their own when it comes to investigations. This time, the first victim is Jimmy's longtime friend Archie Stout, and the discovery of his body at an archaeological site suggests a motive related to the island's history. The murder investigation keeps you guessing and keeps the list of suspects long, but the real focus of the novel is the changing nature of life in an island community where everyone knows each other and where outsiders are suspect. It's an entertaining and propulsive tour of Jimmy Perez's new home and also serves as a satisfying update on his personal life with his new family. I gave it 4 stars. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press/Minotaur Books for providing me with a digital ARC in return for an honest review. This book will be published September 30, 2025.

After clearing a long podcast backlog, I went looking for something fun on audio and decided on a romance that had long been on my radar. In Red, White & Royal Blue, the son of the president of the United States and a British prince are involved in an incident at a royal wedding, leading them to be forced to be together in the name of damage control and end up falling in love -- and dealing with all the complications that such a relationship entails. I thought this would be a fun little fairy tale-type romance, but it deals with some surprisingly serious issues. Clearly the author was dealing with the outcome of the 2016 election (the president in this world is the first woman elected, and there's a plot point involving a private email server), so I guess you could call it a left-wing political fantasy if you wanted. There are a few real political names dropped (and some made-up figures who are clear stand-ins for real people), but for the most part all the people are fictional, and it seems the author has also taken a few liberties with the rules of royal succession. It was fun and more serious than I expected. I do have to lodge one complaint about the narrator, who pronounced Bowie (as in David) as if it rhymes with "owie." Yikes! Still, it was enjoyable. I gave it 4 stars as well.

My most recent finish this past week was also my favorite of the bunch, but it's one that feels almost impossible to describe. The Antidote is set in the fictional town of Uz, Nebraska, in the early 1930s. It's the time of the Dust Bowl and opens as a massive dust storm moves through and wreaks havoc on this small town founded mostly by Polish immigrants a quarter-century earlier and displacing the Indigenous people who lived there. But in this version of the Dust Bowl, there exist Prairie Witches, women called Vaults who can store your memories for you and relieve you of the burden of carrying them -- at least until you decide you want to withdraw them. When the titular character wakes following the storm, she realizes that the memories she's been storing in her body have left her, leaving her effectively bankrupt. She and her backstory -- along with a farmer, his orphaned niece, and a Black female photographer working for the federal government -- form the center of the story that follows. I'm actually glad I didn't know much about this book before I started reading; in fact, I bought it when it was a Kindle deal mainly because I kept seeing it pop up all the places buzzy books do, and now I'm glad I own it because I have a feeling I will need to reread it. There is so much going on in this book and it has a lot to say about some big, important issues -- things like colonialism, the mistreatment of Indigenous tribes by the federal government, racism, memory, and climate change. This is not a book that can be rushed through, and from the material at the back, it's clear the author did extensive research to do justice to the issues she raises. It's not a book for everyone, but I know it's a book I'm very glad I read and will be thinking about for a long time. I gave it 5 stars.

What are you making and reading this week?

Refreshed but Not Quite Rested

We had a truly spectacular weekend of weather here -- very low humidity, blue skies, and highs in the upper 70s/low 80s. It was so nice not to be melting every time I was out with Ruthie. Less nice was that she had me up before sunrise both days, at 5:45 on Saturday and 5:15 on Sunday. She's supposedly an adolescent now at 7 months old, but unlike my human teenager, who didn't wake up until well after noon yesterday, she doesn't seem to like sleeping in. I'm sure it's just a phase, but it sure is tiring!

Thankfully, we didn't have a whole lot on the docket this weekend, so I was able to squeeze in some cat naps and a fair amount of knitting and reading time. And I finished my socks!

Although I did start at the same exact spot in the stripe sequence, they're not a perfect match, probably because I started the heel on the second sock where it looked like I did it on the first rather than measuring. This was partly due to laziness but also because the old measuring tape in my sock bag, one from my now-closed former LYS, decided it was done. The pull completely separated from the tape, rendering it completely useless, and as I was ready to start the heel when I had a puppy sleeping on me, I couldn't really go get a replacement. Really the only way you can tell they're not a perfect match is if you look at the very tip of the toes and notice that there are two short rounds of of gray on one toe and not the other. And really, how many people are going to be looking at that part of my feet?

Now that these are done, I need another project to work on while Ruthie naps and I read, so I cast on another charity hat using the yarn from the SSK goodie bag:

The colors are a bit more vibrant in better lighting, maybe a little too vibrant for the people I knit for, but I think they'll make a great hat. I finished the crown during nap time yesterday, so I should be good for the week -- and I'm feeling pretty virtuous for using some SSK yarn right away!

We've got a pretty typical week ahead, and we're looking forward to a visit from some cousins next weekend. I'm hoping Ruthie will sleep a little later and let me catch up!

New Month, Less Heat

It's August, which means it's almost fall! (Yes, yes, I know there's a ways to go yet, but Molly goes back to school at the end of the month, and I always think of the start of the school year as the start of fall.) After several days of excessive heat and humidity, a cold front came through yesterday, bringing a little rain but also much cooler weather. The high today is only supposed to be in the upper 70s -- that's something to celebrate!

Between the heat and some early mornings (Ruthie has decided to announce she's up between 5 and 6 a.m. lately), it's been a long week, so let's wrap things up with some good things, shall we?

First, I successfully donated blood yesterday, my fourth donation of the year to date. With five months left in the year, there's plenty of time for me to reach the maximum six donations possible in a calendar year.

Second, I got a little treat in the mail yesterday (not a surprise, because it was a treat I bought for myself). 

The photo is terribly due to cloudy weather and the plastic bags, but what you see here are four bags of fiber from Southern Cross Fibre. Yes, I am actively trying to use up stash, but with David retired from dyeing, there will not be any more of his fiber except if someone is destashing, which is what happened here. I got a fabulous deal (I basically paid for the price of two bags, shipping included), and what's more, among these are some of my favorite of David's bases to spin.

Finally, something that I hope will give you a laugh. Do you remember how the name Ruthie was given by the rescue was Kitty? We thought it was a silly name at the time, but it seems that it might have been more appropriate than we thought:

Either she's part cat or she's been looking over my shoulder at one too many pictures of Giroux.

Have as good a weekend as you can, friends! I hope if you've been in the heat, you're also getting a respite.

Unraveled, Week 31/2025

It is another steamy morning here in SW PA, and as it's Wednesday, that means it's time to join Kat and the Unravelers! I've been strangely monogamous with my knitting this week; though I've knit up a swatch with the Shibui Linen I brought home from Nashville (still to be measured, blocked, and measured again), mainly what I've been working on is the socks I started on the way there. The first sock was finished up Monday and the second immediately cast on.

If you click to embiggen the photo and look closely, you might notice a fun bit of serendipity. When I finished the first sock, I had just started a new color, so I wound off the yarn until I got to the start of the next stripe and cast on for the second sock at that point. It was not until yesterday afternoon, when I pulled out the first sock to compare the cuff length, that I realized I had managed to start both socks at exactly the same point in the stripe sequence without planning it! In all honesty, I'd planned on not trying to get the socks to match because the stripe sequence is so long, so this was a pretty fun thing to happen.

I've finished another two books this past week:

Some of you who are also on NetGalley likely recently got an email about What We Can Know. This new novel from Ian McEwan tells its story in two parts. First, we follow Tom Metcalfe, a humanities professor in the 22nd century whose scholarship focuses on 21st-century British poet and the famous lost poem he wrote as a tribute to his wife, Vivien. Tom's research is made all the more difficult by the fact that climate change has led to rising seas and dangerous travel. Relying on the poet's archives, which include Vivien's journals, he is convinced that he will be the one to find the missing poem and that it will make his career, but he is so focused on his work and his obsession with the poem and Vivien that he neglects his wife and fails to notice that his students don't appreciate his fixation on the past. In the second part, we get to read the memoir Vivien left behind and learn that the story of her life, as told to us by Tom, was not entirely accurate and that the famous poem written for her might best be left in the past. This book is billed as speculative fiction, but the only thing speculative I found in it was the creation of the world transformed by climate change -- and even that doesn't seem so uncertain these days. The prevailing message of the novel, to me, is that often what we know of history is biased based upon who is telling the story of the past and that even when we tell our own stories, we're not under any obligation to be entirely truthful. I gave it 3 stars. Thank you to Knopf and NetGalley for providing me with digital ARC of this book in return for an honest review. This book will be published September 23, 2025.

Broken Country is one of those buzzy new books that seems to be popping up a lot of places. I'd heard of it and thought it sounded interesting but wasn't going out of my way to read it -- but then my mother passed along her copy and I thought I'd see what all the fuss was about. This novel is set primarily in 1968 in the English countryside, with flashbacks to a decade earlier. At its heart is a love triangle. Beth, the main character, fell in love with Gabriel as a teenager, but miscommunication and a difference in social class drove them apart. In the present day, she is married to Frank, a farmer who quietly loved her from a distance for years. They are living on his family's farm, still mourning the tragic death of their young son, when Gabriel, now with his own young son, returns to his family home and it's apparent that the feelings of the past aren't entirely in the past. Amid all of this, we know someone has been killed and someone is on trial for murder, but we don't know who (and don't find out their fate or what actually happened) until much later in the book. I can see why this book is making the rounds: It's an easy, propulsive read. Perhaps it's a bit predictable, too, though there were a couple of twists toward the end I didn't see coming. I enjoyed it (4 stars), but I don't think it'll make my list of favorites for the year.

I'm currently reading a book my brother lent me after we adopted Ruthie called Dog Is Love, which is fascinating both as a dog owner and as someone who majored in psychology in college, and another ARC -- the forthcoming ninth book in Ann Cleeves's Shetland series!

What are you making and reading this week?