Unraveling, Week 35/2025

Happy Wednesday, friends. The world is still a bit of a dumpster fire, but at least it's no longer hotter than Hades here. We've had quite a bit of rain, including an unexpected downpour yesterday when I was taking Ruthie to the vet to get her second round of vaccinations, so I'm still very much in the mode of not bothering to try to blow-dry my hair or look presentable. But I did manage to run on Monday -- not as much as usual, because it was super humid, but it was something!

But let's back up a bit. I have to share a photo from Ruthie's playdate last Friday, at which much fun was had by all:

Bagel and Ruthie ran around the whole time (while Star, Bagel's older sister, mostly ignored their shenanigans) and got on very well together. At one point they even disappeared upstairs somewhere, where I hope they didn't get into too much trouble! She also had a fun time at puppy class on Saturday morning (we were one for two on car sickness), and we had very enjoyable afternoons sitting together on the couch. We've basically given up on keeping her off of it and got a slipcover, on top of which I have "her" blanket on the chaise portion, and it's very comfortable to sit there with her napping next to me. As a result of those naps, I've gotten a fair amount of knitting done on my hat:

She was asleep, otherwise I'd never have risked this!

I haven't measured the length of the hat or weighed my yarn, but I can't tell you it's about 2/3 of a Ruthie!

And significant progress has been made on my Midsommarkrans -- just look at this!

I've completed the lace chart for the v-necks on both the front and the back. There's a small gusset chart under each arm, too, that brings the edging together nicely. I have a feeling that there's going to be a lot more of this tank to share the next time you see it!

I've done a fair amount of reading in the past week while Ruthie has been napping and finished two books.

While the news of Indigenous children dying at residential schools in North America in the 19th and 20th centuries has only relatively recently been widely reported, it is something that their communities have known the whole time. The Knowing: How the Oppression of Indigenous Peoples Continues to Echo Today takes on the subject of the residential schools in Canada and shows how it was part of a larger effort by colonizers to oppress and erase First Nations, Métis, and Inuit people. The author is a journalist with a long history of writing about Canada's Indigenous peoples and is herself Indigenous. Woven throughout her exploration of the residential school system is a memoir of sorts; part of her impetus for writing the book was trying to figure out what had happened to her great-grandmother, who was essentially imprisoned and died in a psychiatric hospital. This is a difficult book to read. It doesn't hold back in detailing the cruelty in ripping children from their families and communities to place them in residential schools where they faced substandard living conditions, frequent spread of illness and disease, and often starvation. And that is to say nothing of the physical, sexual, and emotional abuse often inflicted upon them. While the book focuses on Canada, it's clear that the residential school system in the United States was no different and, in some cases, even influenced its neighbor to the north. Nothing can undo the harm that was done, but I believe in learning about it, we can show our respect for those who have been lost. I gave it 4 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing/Hanover Square Press for providing me with a digital ARC of this book in return for an honest review. This book will be published July 15, 2025.

My other finish this week was a backlist title ahead of one of my library holds. A Separation came out in 2017; I have Katie Kitamura's most recent book on hold, and Mary suggested I explore some of her backlist in the meantime. This one had no wait from the library, so I thought I try it. This is a quiet novel, mostly the thoughts of the unnamed narrator. There is a small amount of dialogue, but notably it's not in quotation marks, so sometimes it's hard to tell what's been spoken and what's only been thought. The plot, such as it is, is minimal: At the outset, the narrator has gotten a call from her mother-in-law, who believes all is not right with her son, who has traveled on his own to Greece, ostensibly to conduct research for a book he is writing. What the narrator knows and her mother-in-law does not, however, is that she and her husband have separated, but he asked her to keep it a secret for the time being. And now she is being sent after him to see what has happened to him and is finding herself split between the almost ex-wife she knows she is and the wife everyone else believes her to be and trying to navigate that split identity as she searches for her husband, who has gone missing. I could certainly see the author's writing ability, but some of my enjoyment of the book was diminished because I couldn't turn my editor brain off (the comma splices, oy vey!). It's at least relatively short, so not a long read, but still it's one I'd recommend to very few people (Vera, this one is not for you!). I gave it 3 stars.

What are you making and reading this week? Be sure to visit Kat and the other Unravelers to see what they're up to!

Less in 2025: June

Is anyone else in absolute shock that today is the last day of June? Despite the longer days, this month always seem to pass much faster than I'd like, but this year it seemed especially quick, I suppose because I lost some days due to illness (mine and Ruthie's).

So how has Less made itself apparent in my life this month? Several ways.

To start with, there's certainly Less in my wallet after trips to the vet, urgent care, the pharmacy, and the vet twice more (to pick up meds). I'm sure in the long run, my health care is a lot more expensive, but the bills were certainly bigger for Ruthie this month!

There is also these days Less of me. Those of you who have been reading for a long time might remember that several years ago, when my cholesterol was starting to get a little high, I made some major changes to lose weight and get it down, and I've been maintaining my weight ever since. But this month, in spite of more than a few days of not exercising at all (first because I was ill, then because of the extreme heat), I've lost more weight. I know part of it is due to anxiety about the aforementioned illnesses; when I'm really worried about something, I lose my appetite. But I think another part of it has been because it's rare these days to find me sitting down, especially at a mealtime. Keeping an eye on a puppy who is always getting into mischief can be a full-time job, and it can be even more challenging at breakfast and lunch when I'm the only one here with her. It is ironic that I'm losing weight without trying or wanting to for probably the first time ever in my life! I am keeping an eye on it, just in case it's not my increased level of physical activity and something that merits seeking medical attention, but for now I'm just trying to make sure I'm eating enough.

On a more positive side, this month there's also been Less to-do about puppy bedtime. Hearkening back to when Molly was little and demanded I stay with her until she fell asleep, I had been sitting with Ruthie in the evening after her final walk, letting her curl up and fall asleep in her bed, and then trying to transfer her to her crate and leave before she woke up. Kym told me that I was pretty much nuts to do that (well, she said it using much nicer words) because I was letter Ruthie have all the control. Instead, she advised, say goodnight, put her in her crate, and leave her. And naturally she was right. We have a bedtime routine now -- I sing a little to her (I changed the words of "Goodnight, Ladies" from The Music Man to "Goodnight, Ruthie), put her in her crate and pet her for a minute, then close the door and leave. For the first week and a half or so, she cried and barked for up to an hour. Lately, though, she has been great. I hold her when I start to sing and then put her down in front of her crate, and she goes right in and curls up. If we hear anything from her, it's either a noise she's making in her sleep or there's something outside she's barking out, and it's usually very brief. I'm hoping one day we'll get to the point where she puts herself to bed, but I have a feeling we've got a while until that happens. In the meantime, I'm enjoying our little snuggles and then having my evening back.

Thank you to Kat for hosting our monthly One Little Word link-ups! Be sure to visit her post for today to read her reflection and get links to others'.

TGIF

What a week it has been, friends! The heat has been something else. I know other places have had it worse and I am lucky to have AC to hide out in, but just taking Ruthie out for (brief) walks has been enough to leave me dripping. I made the executive decision to not worry about exercising this week -- too dangerous to do outside, frankly -- and have accepted that I'll be a little stinky all day until I shower before bed. I haven't blown my hair dry in a week, not that I've needed to, and much of my time has been spent in a dark room. We finally got a brief thunderstorm late yesterday afternoon. It didn't do anything for the humidity, but it at least dropped the heat index by about 20 degrees. Today we're only (ha) supposed to reach a high of 88ºF. Still a bit too warm for me, but it's better than mid- to upper 90s.

While I haven't made a ton of progress on my Midsommarkrans, I am happy to report that I have conquered the left/right confusion and have 3/4 panels done and the fourth under way:

After knitting and reknitting so many times, I am finding that I am getting faster at the lace because I'm not checking the stitch key as often. I've just started the neck shaping on this panel and it's moving right along. I hope that by next week, I'll have joined all four panels in the round and gotten started on the body.

By way of a pup-date, I'll let you know that Ruthie is doing much better (although she did wake me up at 4:30 a.m. yesterday -- good thing I had the day off and could nap with her in the afternoon!). She has a playdate with Bagel this morning and puppy class tomorrow morning, and she's had a couple of quick play sessions with the pups on the next street over this week when we've happened to run into them on a walk. She has been enjoying taking naps on these hot days, which isn't much of a departure from her usual routine except that I've been next to her. We've pretty much given up on keeping her off the couch in the family room, so we got a slipcover to protect the upholstery and it's working well. She still occasionally "digs" or chews on it, but, you know, puppy.

I am not going to express any hopes or expectations for the weekend ahead because that hasn't gone at all well the past two weeks. Instead, I'll say I hope it's a good one for you, and I'll leave you with the spectacular rainbow we spotted when we went out for our last walk yesterday evening, right after the showers moved through.

Unraveling, Week 34/2025

Who else out there is melting? It's so darn hot out there this week, and I know how lucky I am to be able to spend most of the day in the air conditioning, but puppies do not understand this and so I've been out in it regularly the past several days. I'm happy to report that Ruthie is doing much better and in fact is loving her new diet of chicken and rice with the occasional addition of pumpkin puree. She's also gotten a probiotic from the vet that's like a giant piece of candy to her, and to encourage her to drink more water in the heat, she's gotten some weak chicken broth (from making the boiled chicken). I may have in fact been a little overzealous in trying to get liquids into her because she's had several accidents in the house and that hadn't happened in a long time. Fortunately she's been nice enough to have them on a towel or blanket or on one of the rubber/synthetic mats by the door, so at least cleanup was easy. When we haven't been taking quick walks outside (though not as quick as I'd like), we're staying insight with the lights dimmed or off to help keep things cool, and she's been napping a lot.

Feels like 100+ outside and she still has to be touching me!

But enough puppy stuff -- this isn't a dog blog, it's a knitting blog! Time to join in with Kat and the Unravelers for another week!

I'm sorry to say this week there has been more unraveling of my Midsommarkrans tank. Yes, once again I mixed up left and right. I was looking at the left-hand side back panel as I was working on it, but of course it was actually the right back panel as worn. Good grief! I think by the time I finish this tank I will have knit it about four times. Also, it might be winter. But all that is to say that I don't have a progress photo because it looks pretty much the same as the last time I shared a photo because all I have done is knit, rip, and reknit the same section.

Fortunately the hat is going much better, as you would expect. I knit on it while Ruthie was napping as I was able, and it's grown. I really like how the neon sections are pooling so that I get thin neon stripes. I think this will make someone very happy.

I have finished only one book this week, but it was a great one.

When we first meet Cora in the late 1980s, she is on her way to the local registrar's office to register her newborn son's name. Her abusive and controlling husband expect her to register the name Gordon, the name all first-born sons in the family carry. But Cora rather likes the name Julian, and her daughter Maia, who is accompanying her on the errand, suggests Bear. From there, the story splits in three, imagining where life goes for this family if the baby had received each of these names. Every seven years, the reader gets another installment of Bear, Julian, and Gordon and gets to ponder that old question: What's in a name? Within each possible life trajectory, there are triumphs and tragedies, achievements and losses. This creative structure allows the author to examine the dual impacts of nature and nurture and how something that seems as simple as choosing a name for a child can have implications far beyond identity. The prose is beautiful and often emotional, especially when dealing with abuse that's hard to read, and you never stop rooting for Cora and her kids. This may very well end up being one of my favorites for the year! I gave it 5 stars.

Sitting inside with a good book and a cool beverage seems like the best way to get through this heat wave! I hope the rest of you who are in it are managing. Remember your sunblock and to stay hydrated!

It's Always Something, Part III

Remember when weekends used to be calm? We've started an extreme heat wave here, and of course that's when Ruthie would have, um, let's say "the runs." I suspect that it's likely due to her parasite treatment based on my internet research, but I will be calling the vet when they open this morning (assuming the night goes okay -- I'm writing this Sunday night to save time). My biggest concern has been dehydration, because it's already a concern with the heat, and lately she's been more interested in playing with her water dish than drinking from it. But I got some good recommendations from an Instagram post, including boiling chicken in water and giving her the broth, and that was a huge help! I'll let you all know how she's doing and what the vet says, but send healing thoughts her way if you're so inclined.

Update from Monday morning: She slept all night and had a solid poop to start the day! Things are at least heading in the right direction!

Before all the drama yesterday, I was able to finish my Kouyou. I still have to find time to weave in ends and block, but it is done! And I have started another project, using a skein of yarn that I hand-wound while Ruthie was napping on Saturday afternoon:

This is a skein that's been in my stash for many years. It came from the Steel City Fiber Collective, an effort that closed up many years ago. This is a sparkly sock yarn with a neon rainbow in it, and I thought it would be perfect for a charity hat cast on during Pride Month. I'm making my own pattern again and will knit until I'm out of yarn. It'll make for good mindless knitting while reading (which I need, because I got a library hold on Saturday).

The weekend wasn't all doom and gloom (and heat) -- Ruthie had a great time at puppy class on Saturday morning! Here's a video of her running around with some of the other pups:

She's getting less timid and clearly enjoys having the space to run!

Here's hoping your weekend was better than mine. Stay cool and hydrated, friends!

A Free Friday

TGIF, friends! I always love having a Friday off from work, and it's even better when you've also been off the day before! I still had to get up early (well, the normal time) yesterday to get to my follow-up appointment (everything is normal and good!), and my day didn't look all that different because of Ruthie, but it was so nice to not be tied to my laptop all day. Also, Ruthie had a playdate with two other puppies in the neighborhood that I couldn't have taken her to had it been a regular workday, and we both very much enjoyed that. Today will be more of the same, I expect.

I promised you an update on my Midsommarkrans top, and today feels like a very appropriate day to do it given that "Midsommar" is the Swedish festival for the summer solstice, which just happens to be today! Here is what it looks like at the moment:

In the midst of my illness, it took me a while to work the joining row for the front, but once I was feeling better, I made excellent progress. On Wednesday evening, I was getting ready to finish up the left back panel when I picked up the piece and took a good look at it -- only to realize I had done it completely wrong. Lest you think it was the illness causing it, I want to share with you the instructions for the back panels. See if you can figure out where I went wrong:

Can you see the problem? If not, does this help?

That old adage about getting what you paid for is completely true when it comes to this free pattern, not to mention that the designer's first language does not appear to be English because I've come across some other weird instructions and a few typos. What this should say, for the left side of the back, is to work it as for the right front. I had worked the left, as written here, and that resulted in the lace panel ending up closer to the armhole than the neck. Riiiiip! I've restarted and knit back most of what I ripped, but at least I know what I'm doing now. I think I have now ripped and reknit this one sweater more than any other project I've ever worked on, but I am now even more determined to get it right!

I expect that by next week I'll have finished my Kouyou, as I only have a handful of rows remaining (they're long rows, of course, and the bind-off has picots so will take some extra time). And I've pulled out some yarn to wind for my next mindless project, which I'll share next week. This weekend we have plans to get together with some friends who are moving out of town next month, and Ruthie and I will go to puppy class tomorrow morning. I hope this time she's a little more adventurous when it comes to playing with other dogs. She and I both wish you a good weekend -- enjoy the longest day of the year today if you're in the Northern Hemisphere!

Please admire my long legs!

Unraveling, Week 33/2025

Thank you all, first of all, for your concern and your good wishes. I'm feeling so much better and am so grateful for modern medicine! I have a follow-up appointment with a provider in my OBGYN practice tomorrow morning (one who happens to be a nurse-midwife, so who is presumably very familiar with this sort of thing). I will certainly be asking if she has any insight into how I could have gotten mastitis without actively breastfeeding; the last time I had it -- the only other time -- was when Molly was 2 months old and clogged milk ducts were a typical thing for me.

Today is my Friday, but it's technically Wednesday, which means it's time to join up with Kat and the Unravelers. And I have an FO to share that I completely forgot about on Monday!

I'm sure the pattern doesn't need any introduction, but just in case you're new to my corner of the blogosphere, this is the ever-popular Hitchhiker (Ravelry link). I used all but about 3 g of yarn from a skein of Old Rusted Chair Sock that originally weighed 108 g, so I used 420 yards in total. I also went up to a US 5/3.75 mm needle, so I only got 37 teeth on this particular shawl. It may not have the recommended 42 teeth, but I like how well the variegated colorway played with the garter stitch. The colorway is called Panic in Detroit, which is apparently a David Bowie song, but I bought it because, in addition to just liking it, my father's originally from Detroit and, moreover, I was shopping with a friend from suburban Detroit. This was part of my SSK 2023 stash, which I have actively been trying to use up before Molly and I go to SSK this year. I took a photo of what I came home with two summers ago, and as I've been using items, I've been crossing them out on the photo. Here's where things stand now:

That pale pink on the right is what I'm using for my Midsommarkrans tank, which may not be done before we get to SSK but at least is on the needles. All that's left is the two skeins of Stranded Dyeworks that I bought to make something for Molly, but she hasn't been able to figure out anything she wants me to make with it, so it may stay in the stash.

In other news, Ruthie took a good nap yesterday afternoon and I got a good number of rows knit on my Kouyou, though it still doesn't look like much because it's lace and not yet blocked. That didn't stop her from trying to taste it, though.

The colors aren't quite right because I snapped this in the family room with the overhead lights on in a hurry so that it didn't end up in her mouth, so this photo doesn't do it justice. The handspun has a lot of sparkle and bits of color in it. I will be sure to take better photos in good lighting when it's done.

I don't have an update on my tank because I had to rip and redo the joining row so many times that I haven't gotten much done on it, but I will definitely share more on Friday.

Reading has continued and I finished two books this week.

I'd had Banyan Moon on my Kindle shelf for a while and finally got around to reading it. It's a family drama following three women: Minh, who immigrated to the United States from Vietnam following the death of her husband; Huong, her daughter; and Ann, her granddaughter. The three are connected as members of the same family but also by the Banyan House, an aging home full of the belongings of the former owner. When Minh dies and Ann comes home to say good-bye, Ann and Huong are forced to confront their semi-estrangement and Ann has to make decisions about what to do about her relationship with her boyfriend, given his recent revelation of a betrayal and her recent discovery of her pregnancy. The book deals with the relationships between mothers and daughters but also about personal identity, what makes a home, and what we inherit. It was an enjoyable read. I gave it 4 stars.

My other finish wasn't one I'd been wanting to read, but it's what I picked when I was caught up on podcasts and was looking at audiobooks that were available from the library and could be listened to in two to three days. The Silent Patient is billed as a psychological thriller and a mystery to uncover why an artist shot her husband dead and then refused to speak. It's told mostly from the point of view of her psychotherapist, with entries from her journal interspersed, and of course there's a twist at the end. I found it entertaining enough to listen to, but overall it felt like another example of a woman's concerns being written off as mental illness. I didn't necessarily see the twist coming, but I expected it all the same. I gave it 2 stars. 

I'll be back on (real) Friday with another update on my knitting and a report on what I find out at my appointment tomorrow!

It's Always Something, Part II

Can I get a do-over on the weekend? I was hoping it would be quiet and relaxing, but it seems like when I need that, I don't get it. I never heard back about whether Ruthie could attend puppy class, but it ended up being a moot point after I nearly fainted while walking her Saturday morning and then felt awful the rest of the day. I was exhausted (likely because Ruthie was up barking for several hours Friday night), my body hurt, I had chills, and I had a terrible sinus headache. I wasn't sure what was wrong with me. The Mister told me to go back to bed for a bit and sat with Ruthie, and in the afternoon all three of us girls snoozed. I slept well Saturday night and felt a little better when I got up on Sunday, but when I was looking in the mirror before stepping into the shower, I realized what the problem was. A visit to urgent care later in the day confirmed a case of mastitis (yes, even though I haven't nursed a baby in well more than a decade!). I'm now on antibiotics and hoping that they kick in soon, though Tylenol is helping with the aches and pains. On top of my list today is calling my OB/GYN to get in in a few days to get it checked out to be sure everything is as it should be.

If you want to know just how terrible I felt on Saturday, I will tell you that it was bad enough that I couldn't knit. It's been a long time since that happened. I think part of it was certainly the worry over not knowing what was wrong with me, so even though things weren't that much better on Sunday, I at least was pretty sure what the problem was and was just waiting for confirmation, so while Ruthie napped, I watched the U.S. Open and pulled out my Kouyou to figure out where I was going wrong.

It turns out that it was partly user error and partly bad charting. It seems that the four total border stitches (which are meant to be worked in garter stitch) are included in the chart, but I didn't realize that because they're charted as being in stockinette, so I was assuming what was on the chart was only the body stitches. Once I reread the instructions and realized the issue, everything worked out perfectly.

My Midsommarkrans top is making progress, too, though slowly. I've reached the point on the left and right front where the two pieces will be joined to complete the lace feature.

The good news is that it's a three-day week for me. The university is closed on Thursday for Juneteenth, and then I'm taking Friday off (using one of my two personal days that go poof at the end of the month if I don't use them). I don't expect my days off to be all that different, given that Ruthie doesn't understand that she can sleep in, but at least I won't be tied to a laptop all day. Here's hoping the next three days go quickly and easily! And just because, here's a photo of my girls. Clearly we're failing at keeping Ruthie off the couch!

It's Always Something!

I am so glad that it's Friday today. It's been a long week -- and a hot week, too. With Ruthie's vet visit on Tuesday and a dentist appointment for me Wednesday morning, our usual schedule has gotten disrupted, and combine that with the heat and you get a grumpy, worn-out me. To add to it, I got a call from the vet on Wednesday saying that Ruthie's, um, sample had tested positive for a parasite, so I had to go back to pick up two medications for her. Poor thing. Fortunately she doesn't seem to be having symptoms, and she really doesn't mind getting the peanut butter and cheese that are the vehicles for getting the meds into her, but it's one more thing to worry about. 

I haven't gotten much knitting or reading done the past several days, for obvious reasons, though I've added a tooth or two to my Hitchhiker each afternoon and the remaining yarn is quickly getting smaller. I think I should be able to finish it up soon, and I think I'm going to give it to my mother as a birthday present because I don't have time to knit her a pair of socks. I'm hoping to find some quiet time this weekend to try to figure out the lace on my Kouyou again; I've put it aside since the two failed attempts and am hoping the break will help me to clarify things.

We have no big plans for the weekend other than a Father's Day brunch with my family. I'm not even sure if Ruthie and I can attend puppy class on Saturday morning (I'm waiting to hear back about whether it's okay because she'll have been on the medication for several days by that point). With no exciting knitting photos to share, I'll leave you with a shot of my hydrangeas, which have just exploded with blooms in all shades the past couple of weeks:

and a shot of Ruthie -- just because (and hey, today also marks two months since she joined our family!):

Have a good weekend, friends!

Unraveled, Week 32/2025

Happy Wednesday! It's shaping up to be a beautiful day here, and it's my favorite blogging day of the week. Time to join in with Kat and the Unravelers!

First, I'll let you all know that Ruthie was a real trooper at her vet appointment. Though I'm sure they say this to all the dogs who come in, the staff really fawned over her and kept telling her how cute she was. She also got lots of treats and an entire individual container of peanut butter -- all of which came out of her on the way home, poor thing! But she did really well with getting her vaccines and will go back for the second round in three weeks. We also got good recommendations for further training and some things to try to help her be less anxious. And this practice also offers what they call "happy visits," where you can schedule a time to go in for a short period of time where nothing scary happens so that the pet doesn't associate going to the vet with only the traumatic stuff.

As for the knitting, the Hitchhiker has grown a bit since you last saw it (it's my go-to afternoon nap knitting) and I managed to finally cast on my summer top using the linen/silk yarn. I don't have a lot to show for a couple of evenings with it (it's a pretty involved pattern, so I'm pausing to check it frequently), but it sure is pretty.

I finished a pair of books this week.

After last week's Lily King finish, I decided to delve into her back catalog for an audiobook and found Euphoria available on Hoopla. To be perfectly honest, I didn't really look into what it was about before borrowing it because I knew I like the author's work and wanted to read more of it. This novel is set in New Guinea in the 1930s and focuses on a trio of anthropologists: American Nell Stone; her husband, Fen, from Australia or New Zealand; and the British Andrew Bankson. All three are studying the native tribes. Soon it becomes clear that Fen resents his wife's success and that Bankson is in love with her, and in the context of upheaval within the tribe with whom they're living, it all comes to a head. I didn't realize until later, when looking for more information about the book because so much had flown by me on audio, that these characters are based on real people -- Margaret Mead, Reo Fortune, and Gregory Bateson. I thought the writing was good and the narration of the audiobook was well done, but I didn't love the story and felt like I was missing a lot by not reading with my eyes. I gave it 3 stars.

Black Cake was popping up a lot of places a few years ago, and I'd heard it mentioned again recently following the publication of the author's most recent book, so I thought I'd give it a try. This is a novel about adult siblings who are estranged but who come together following the death of their mother and soon learn that nearly everything they knew about her was a lie. The mother tells her story, via a recording she made for her children when she realized her time was limited, taking them back to an unnamed Caribbean island (presumably Jamaica), then to the UK, and finally to California. Through it all, the constant is the traditional black cake, a recipe handed down from one generation to the next and signifying the connection to home, even across oceans and continents. I thought it was a fairly entertaining read, though I figured out a number of the mysteries before they were revealed and thought that there were maybe too many cliffhangers from one chapter to the next. It's a good summer read, for when you want the pages to turn quickly and don't want to have to think too hard. I gave it 3 stars.

It seems I'm in the mood for family stories, because that's how you could classify both of my current reads: Banyan Moon and The Map of Love. 

I'll leave you with this, one of many positions that don't look comfortable in the least to me but in which Ruthie seems to like to sleep:

Still Drying Out

I'm sure you'll all be shocked by this, but we had more rain over the weekend. It poured late in the day on Friday and rained overnight. It did clear up a bit during the day on Saturday, but it came back overnight and rained off and on for most of yesterday. And it's been warm, so it's very humid out there. It's the time of year when blowing my hair dry is a bit of an exercise in futility!

Puppy class went well on Saturday. I didn't give Ruthie anything to eat other than a few small treats for going to the bathroom outside before we left, but she was still sick in the car on the way there (fortunately, I had a towel under her and it wasn't much). She did much better on the way home, I think because she finally figured out that if she was lying down, it wasn't so bad. Mostly she just drooled. The class instructor recommended putting her in a crate in the car, at least until she grows out of it, so I ordered a travel crate to use for transporting her. If this video will work, you can see a bit of class. Most of the hour is free play for the puppies, so they can get used to socializing with each other and with other people. During this time, you're not allowed to to call or interact with your own dog, though you are free to do so with other dogs. Ruthie was definitely a bit reserved, but she didn't hide under my chair the whole time and did interact with some of the other dogs.

In terms of knitting, all I've really made progress on is my Hitchhiker. It's been the easiest thing to pick up and put down quickly. I attempted to start the lace on my Kouyou but had to tink back twice because I got to the end of the row and didn't have the correct number of stitches to finish the pattern. I think I will need to mark off the number of stitches required for each repeat with stitch markers before I try again. I think once I have the lace established, it'll be easier to find my place, but clearly my brain hasn't been fully engaged thus far. Thank goodness for the simplicity of the Hitchhiker!

The last time I counted, I had 31 teeth, but I don't know if the yarn that remains is enough to get me to the official 42. We'll see!

This week the (golf) U.S. Open is in town, and the Mister will be attending a couple of days because his company has some sort of sponsorship thing there. Molly's scheduled for two shifts at her job, and I've got my usual schedule. This week's challenge is to try to keep Ruthie off the couch. She's not supposed to be on it, so of course it's the only place she wants to be. The puppy class instructor recommended giving her a better alternative (cuddles, treats, etc.), but of course now she seems to be going on the couch on purpose to get whatever the reward is for getting off. She likes to push my buttons!

Finally, because I know some of you asked to know, I wanted to let you know that more than 90% of the households who voted yesterday were in favor of unification, and the numbers for the other congregation were similar. So we will soon have a new entity forming!

Hello, Summer

It's a muggy, foggy Friday morning here. We've had several days of heat (mid- to upper 80s F), and we had some rain overnight, with more on the way later today. I should be able to fit in a run this morning, but I will be happy to camp out inside this afternoon if we do get a storm or two. The short stretch of days we had without rain and with the addition of heat was enough to dry out the soil in the front, so I'm always thankful when Mother Nature takes care of watering the flowers for me.

It has been an interesting first week of summer break (for Molly). She started her job this week with two four-hour shifts. On Tuesday, it was just her and the owner there, so she manned the register while he did the actual smoothie making. Yesterday there was a third person there, so she got to do some fruit prep. So far, she's enjoying it, and I'm enjoying the fact that she's getting up and out of the house. I think it will be a good experience for her.

I've had a relatively quiet week at work (no complaints there), though Ruthie has been challenging. Her latest is jumping up on the couch, where we haven't allowed her, so it's been really hard for me to sit down and eat a meal because I'm constantly getting up to shoo her off the furniture. She's also peed in the house twice in the last 12 hours for no apparent reason -- except maybe she's showing her annoyance? She has her first session of puppy kindergarten tomorrow morning. Please keep your fingers crossed that she makes it there without getting carsick! (I'll be giving her only a very small amount of breakfast before we go.)

While I haven't cast on my silk/linen top yet, I did start a new project, and this photo shows you why I can really only knit around Ruthie while she's napping -- just a second after I snapped it, she chomped down on the yarn cake and tried to carry it away.

This is another project for SSK. The featured designer for this month and next is Angela Tong, and I just happened to have her Kouyou (Ravelry link) shawl pattern already in my library from a knitalong my former LYS did way back in 2016. I'm using handspun from HipStrings for bonus tickets, starting with the blue/green skein:

I expect that I will use all of that skein and then will use the dark gray from the other skein. I'm just about done with the stockinette portion (I think I have two more rows left to knit), so it will be moved to evening knitting and I'll be getting my Hitchhiker out again for puppy nap knitting time.

Other than puppy class tomorrow morning, we don't have much planned this weekend, although on Sunday there is a big vote related to the future of our synagogue. For more than a year now, we've been involved in discussions with another congregation about the possibility of unifying into one new congregation. There's been a long process of looking at the many aspects of both organizations to look at areas of overlap and difference, the involvement of a consultant who specializes in this kind of process, and many meetings and town halls. Just last week, the boards of both congregations voted in favor of unification; this weekend is the vote by the membership. Our family is in favor of the unification because we're of the opinion that the two separate congregations will not survive much longer on their own. I think declining membership and declining interest in religious affiliation are issues that aren't unique to Reform Judaism, but they are major challenges for us, and I'm excited by the possibility of created something new. I will certainly let you know the results as soon as we know them!

I hope you have something good to look forward to this weekend! Enjoy it, and see you back here on Monday.

Unraveled, Week 31/2025

You'd think after having a long weekend I'd be ready to take on the new week, but it's been dragging. I feel like it should already be Thursday -- maybe the fact that we've turned on summer and it's been hot has something to do with it? Or some of the smoke from the Canadian wildfires? In any case, it is only Wednesday, but also, yay, it's Wednesday! Time to join in with Kat and the Unravelers.

I managed to find a few minutes on Monday to block my linen/silk swatch, and it took almost no time at all to dry. And wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles, my gauge is spot on!

I wish I could convey the drape of this fabric through the screen -- it's simply divine! Now I need to find some time when I'm fully caffeinated and not keeping an eye on the puppy to read through the pattern, highlight the numbers for my size, and cast on.

It's been another excellent week of reading, with three finishes.

I had started Mercury, a hardcover my mother passed along to me, back at the end of April. It didn't grab me right away (maybe the timing was off?), and in the meantime I was reading other things, but it was sitting on the coffee table in the family room where I spend my days with Ruthie, and eventually I got tired of seeing it there and picked it back up again. This is a story of a complicated family in a small (fictional) town outside of Pittsburgh. In the early '90s, high schooler Marley moves to town with her mother and gets swept up into the Joseph family, parents and their three sons who run a roofing company and whose personalities are so big they frequently clash with each other. Initially attracted to the oldest son, Marley soon finds herself pregnant and married to his just-younger brother and thrust into the middle of the family drama. When a roofing job leads to a shocking discovery years later, one in which all members are the family are implicated, everyone is forced to take a hard look at their relationships with one another. I found the story line and characters to be interesting, but I had a hard time figuring out how I felt about the book. On the one hand, I thought the author was telling me too much, but I simultaneously felt that there were times that there was something important I was supposed to intuit but just wasn't getting it. I'd say it was a decent read. I gave it 3 stars.

The other two finishes this week were read thanks to Bonny's recent recommendations.

Speaking of complicated families, The Homemade God follows the Kemp family -- self-taught painter Vic and his four adult children -- in the wake of Vic's announcement that he's marrying a much younger woman he's only recently met and his subsequent drowning near the family's vacation home in Italy. As the children deal with the sudden loss of their father, their only parent for much of their lives after their mother died when they were all young, they also confront the meaning their lives have taken on in the shadow of their father's huge personality, their relationships with one another, and the validity of their self-identities. Then there's their father's widow, an enigmatic artist who they've never met until now, and the mystery of what happened to their father's final painting, a piece he claimed would be his best work ever. The characters are beautifully and sometimes painfully written, and you might say that how this family fractures and frays is a piece of art in and of itself. If great writing and interesting characters aren't enough to convince you, there's also a fabulous Italian setting in a dilapidated estate and delicious food. I gave it 4 stars. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House/The Dial Press for providing me with an ARC of this book in return for an honest review. This book will be published July 8, 2025.

"'You know how you can remember exactly when and where you read certain books? A great novel, a truly great one, not only captures a particular fictional experience, it alters and intensifies the way you experience your own life while reading it. And it preserves it, like a time capsule.'"

Lily King's Heart the Lover was one of those rare books for me in that, while I was reading it, it seemed that the rest of the world fell away and I was so much in the moment that I'm sure I will be able to recall the specific day when I read it (and yes, I did read it in a day -- I started it just before bed on Sunday evening and finished it before bed on Monday). There are three main players in this book: the narrator and two men she meets in a creative writing class in college, Sam and Yash. They call her Jordan, after the character in The Great Gatsby. She begins dating Sam, but that relationship doesn't last the year, and when she decides to delay her graduation to pursue a thesis, she can't deny her growing attraction to Yash or his attraction to her. But there are romantic relationships and there are friendships, and when the two collide, things become even more complicated. Years later, all three have moved on and the narrator has achieved success as a published writer when Yash comes back into her life. And when tragic news brings all three back together, they are all forced to confront how they handled things decades ago. This is one of those books where not that much happens but the beauty is in the characters and how they interact with one another. The author does such a stunning job of looking at love, friendship, forgiveness, and personal growth. I'll admit I cried at the end. I gave it 5 stars. Thank you to NetGalley and Grove Press for providing me with an ARC of this book in return for an honest review. This book will be published October 7, 2025.

I'll end this with an obligatory puppy photo -- because I've heard several of you like them! Ruthie has been going to bed on her own the past couple of nights, which means I'm getting a little more time in the evening to myself. Yay!

It's June?

Good morning and happy Monday. Yesterday was the start of meteorological summer, but it doesn't feel like it. Both yesterday morning and this morning, I took Ruthie out for her first potty break of the day and needed a coat because it was in the mid-40s. Brrr! We're supposed to get some more summery weather the next several days, but it was downright chilly this weekend.

So, a catch-up: Friday ended up being a busy day off as well as a wet one. I took Ruthie in the car to pick Molly and her friend up from school and learned that she gets car sick. Oops! Fortunately I'd had the foresight to put a towel under her, so the car stayed clean. I'm hopeful that this is something she'll outgrow, but in the meantime, she will not be getting her usual breakfast before we go to puppy class in the weeks ahead. Once we were home, I went for a run (and recorded my fastest 5K yet since getting my Apple Watch, 27:28) and then spent the afternoon ferrying the girls around while they did some shopping. The three of us then went out to dinner with my parents to celebrate the successful conclusion of Molly's freshman year of high school -- and if you'll allow me to brag a bit, she finished with straight A's, including a pretty high A in physics! We're very proud.

Saturday was a bit of a lazy day. It was cool, overcast, and windy, so not a good day for being outside. I attended the first session of puppy class on my own, which was a lot of informational content about feeding, training, etc. Ruthie and I went for our usual walks, but she also took a long nap in the afternoon (as did the Mister!). That gave me some time to knit and read a good portion of a book. Yesterday was a bit busier. Molly and I finally got around to making the babka we'd been intending to make when the ovens died. We have yet to taste it yet, but it looks and smells pretty amazing. I expect we'll dig into it today, and I'll let you know the final verdict.

Recipe link!

The evening was a bit of chaos. My brother- and sister-in-law and nephews have been wanting to meet Ruthie, so we invited them over for dinner, and my in-laws just got back from more than a week in London, so they came as well. My nephews are 5 and 2, and my mother-in-law loves to get up close and personal with Ruthie, so it was a lot. She's been doing better about not peeing in the house now that I've realized I have to take her out right after she has dinner, but I think because of all the chaos, she was nervous and had an accident as I was literally putting on my shoes to take her out. It happens!

Not a ton of crafting got done over the weekend, but I did manage to finish up the swatch with the linen/silk yarn:

The color is way off and the lighting is terrible because I had to snap this photo this morning before the sun was fully up (the busy afternoon yesterday meant that I couldn't get this post ready to go ahead of time as I've been doing), but I think you can see how nice the fabric is. Today I'll measure and block and keep my fingers crossed I've got gauge.

It's a typical work day for me, but I won't have to do school pickup this afternoon and will have Molly around the house, which will be really nice. She starts her new job tomorrow! She's on the schedule for two four-hour shifts this week to start learning the job, and I think that will be a good way to ease into it. I'm looking forward to having her around but also not sitting in the house all day.

And with that, I'll wish you a good start to your week!

A Final Friday FO

Dear friends, can you believe it's the penultimate day of May? It really has not felt like May for the much of the month, between all the rain (more like what I'd expect from April) and some unseasonably cool temperatures (more like March). It looks like we'll be heading right into summer weather next week, though, so I suppose I shouldn't complain too much!

Today I have a long-awaited FO to share with you. This top was started before Ruthie joined the family and thus took a lot longer than anticipated to finish, but in the end it did get done and in plenty of time. What's more, I'm delighted with how it turned out!

Pattern: Sugar Maple (Ravelry link) by Carina Spencer, size 36 in. bust
Yarn: handspun from Southern Cross Fibre, Mending Fences (70% superfine New Zealand merino/30% mulberry silk), 74 g/350 yds./320 m used, and Primordial (80% organic merino/20% rose fiber), 78 g/384 yds./351 m used
Needles: US 3/3.25 mm
Started/Completed: April 3/May 27

Though the impetus for knitting this top now was for the SSK make-along, it's been on my radar for a while, and it turned out to be an excellent choice for these silky, drapey handspun yarns. The pattern was designed to use a long gradient, but I didn't have enough of either yarn to use just the one and in the end decided that two-round stripes were the best way to go. Once I figured out how to manage my yarn so that I didn't get gaping holes at the beginning of round, it was all good. I love that there are areas where there's high contrast between the two colorways and areas where it's hard to distinguish between them. Both have some similar shades, but they weren't necessarily complementary or coordinating colorways, so it tickles me how nicely they played together. I suppose that is a benefit of using yarn spun from two batches of fiber from the same dyer!

I followed the pattern as written, other than working in the stripes, and I thought it was pretty clever in how the sleeves are done so that there's no interruption in the yarn. Usually sleeve and body stitches are separated and sleeve edging is added later, but that would disrupt a gradient, so the ribbing on these sleeves is actually done while still working the yoke. On the round when the sleeve stitches are bound off, there's a fancy little decrease done to snug up the fabric under the arms. I was less impressed with how some parts of the pattern was written, but that may be down to my job and the fact that my brain is primed to edit any copy I read (let's just say some additional punctuation would not go to waste).

I likely could have knit a size smaller than I did, my bust not being as abundant as it once was, but I'm always wary of a top that I'm wearing directly on my skin being too tight. I wear shirts under all my cold weather knits and as a result rarely have to wash them. I don't want deodorant and body lotion and sweat gunking up my summer tops, so I generally make them a bit looser.

All in all, I'm really happy with this tee and even happier to have gotten it done even with a new puppy in the house! With knitting time being so limited these days, getting anything done is a bit of a minor miracle, so it's a relief to meet my deadline and end up with a pretty new top to boot. And while I'm still working on my swatch for the next summer top, I could not let all my needles sit around empty. I thought, "What would Bonny do?" and cast on a Hitchhiker.

This won't count toward the SSK make-along, but it is yarn that I bought the last time I attended when some friends and I took a side trip to Haus of Yarn. It's Old Rusted Chair Sock in a colorway called Panic in Detroit. I have no idea of the meaning of that name, but one of the friends I was with was from the suburban Detroit area and of course my father is originally from the Motor City, so it seemed perfect. And it's the perfect kind of colorway for a Hitchhiker, not to mention that the pattern is perfect for the almost-mindless knitting I do while Ruthie is napping in the afternoon.

I'm actually on vacation today (taking a day off so I can accrue more), and I'll get to have a little fun because it's Molly's last day of school for the year, though using "day" is a bit generous because she'll only be at school for two hours for an assembly and then I go pick her up. A friend is coming home with her, and I'll be driving them to do a little shopping this afternoon. Then we're going out to dinner with my parents this evening to celebrate the rising high school sophomore (gulp). The only thing on my calendar this weekend is the first class of puppy kindergarten tomorrow morning, though the first session is for owners only. I'm looking forward to getting some help with training and to Ruthie getting a little less scared around other people and other dogs!

I hope the month is wrapping up well for you and you have a relaxing and enjoyable weekend. See you back here in June!

Unraveled, Week 30/2025

It feels weird that it's already Wednesday; I've once again been thrown off by a long weekend and another one coming up (I'm taking Friday off because I'd reached my maximum on accrued time off, so I needed to take a day or I couldn't earn more). But it is Wednesday, which means it's time to join Kat and the Unravelers, this time with FOs!

I'd have liked to have modeled this first one for you, but I did not have light and another photographer in the house at the same time, and we all know I'm not great at selfies.

Pattern: Zuzu's Petals (Ravelry link) by Carina Spencer, using instructions for Gauge 1/Fingering
Needles: US 7/4.5 mm
Yarn: handspun Rambouillet/mohair/CVM/tussah silk/silk noil, approximately 77 g/188 yds. used
Started/Completed: May 13/May 21

This was a surprisingly fast knit, given that I was really only working on it during Ruthie's afternoon naps (which, on a good day, might be two hours long). Although my yarn was more in the sport to DK range, I followed the instructions for the fingering weight version and used bigger needles to use up as much yarn as possible. I did get a bit into the green in the skein at the edging -- maybe not as much as I wanted, but enough to make me happy. There's about 100 yards of yarn left and no plan for it, though I would expect I could combine it with some other handspun bits and bobs to make something.

Though I don't have a photo yet (because blocking is happening), I also finished my Sugar Maple tee yesterday afternoon! It was a long bind-off in twisted ribbing that took most of nap time, and it's satisfying that I finished well ahead of the end of the month so I'm not in a rush this weekend.

Because I knew I would finish the sweater at some point in the day yesterday, I also took some time to wind yarn for my next cast-on. I'm going to be knitting another summer top. It's not for the SSK knitalong, but it is using yarn that I bought at the last one I attended (back in 2023).

This is Miss Babs Damask, a really interesting blend of silk and bleached linen. I bought the two skeins with another sleeveless summer top in mind, but I'm going to be using for this one (Ravelry link) instead, provided I can get gauge. Swatching is in progress. If it doesn't work, I'll go back to the original plan (Ravelry link).

Reading time has been more plentiful this past week, though the books I've finished have been a mixed bag.

First, after a long wait, I got Onyx Storm from the library. This is the third book in the series, and I really only decided to read it to see what would happen with the cliffhanger at the end of book two and because Katie had read it. This is one I easily could have DNF'ed, but I decided to finish it just in case something happened at the end. Well, there was another cliffhanger, and aside from one other development, that's about all that happened. I couldn't tell if it was the writing/writer or the fact that it had been more than a year since I read the last book, but I had a really hard time remembering who everyone was and what had happened previously, which meant I was confused for a lot of the book. On top of that, it seemed like a lot was going on without anything actually happening, if that makes sense. I gave it 2.5 stars, rounded down. I doubt I'll be continuing with the series unless a reader I trust tells me I need to read the last two books (though in that case I'd probably have to start over and read the whole series so I remember what happened).

I made quick work of an audiobook from the library, All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum and Me. This memoir tells of the author's time as a security job at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, a job he took when his older brother was battling cancer. The book doesn't really follow a timeline but rather is a series of vignettes about the author's experiences with visitors, his friendships with other guards, and his reflections on the art he sees every day. I think that perhaps there's something lost in reading this on audio, as I think the print version might contain images of the works he references. I did look up a few, but mostly I was listening while walking, so it wasn't always convenient to get out my phone and search. It did, however, make me want to visit the Met and see all the amazing works of art they have there, and the several hours I spent listening to someone talk about art were quite pleasant. I gave it 3 stars.

Finally, a book that was very good but also very hard to read. Han Kang won the Nobel Prize for Literature last year, and I've been wanting to read some of her work. I have her most recent novel on hold at the library [EDIT: We Do Not Part is a Kindle daily deal today, if you're interestested], but in the interim I read Human Acts, a short novel full of utterly devastating things. This book is based on the events and aftereffects of the Gwangju uprising in South Korea in May 1980 in which citizens protesting against a military coup were brutally massacred. The book is told in multiple points of view over different time periods, ranging from a young boy who was killed to those who were there with him that day but survived to his mother, years later, trying to find meaning in his death. This isn't a book for the faint of heart, but if you're willing to read it, it raises some very important questions about the value of human life and what causes people to harm versus help others. It's really masterfully written and impactful for being only a little more than 200 pages. I'm looking forward to reading more by Kang in the future. I gave this one 4 stars.

I'm currently reading two books. First, I've returned to Mercury, which I started almost a month ago but wasn't in the right mindset for at the time, so I've largely ignored it until now. I'm more than halfway through and am hoping to finish it up by the end of week. I'm also reading a digital ARC from NetGalley, The Homemade God, based upon Bonny's recommendation. I'd been preapproved for it and was mulling it over but finally decided to read it based upon her say so, and I'm glad I did, because the few chapters I've gotten through so far have been good.

I'll leave you with a Ruthie photo, because I can't seem to post without one anymore! This is a still from a video the Mister took in an effort to capture her response to him, and I think it gives you a really idea what this pup is like when she's awake and ready to play.

Happy hump day, friends!