Week's End Wrap-up

Oh, I am very glad to see this Friday come! It's been a long week, largely because the Mister has been away at a conference and because I had to go into the office yesterday for a couple of meetings. Plus there's been the usual puppy stuff -- keeping a constant eye on her and taking her out for frequent potty breaks can be pretty exhausting! But there have been good moments, too, and I always like to end the week with good news, so here you go:

• I've managed to run twice this week and am hoping to make it my usual three times later this morning. I haven't been doing quite the same mileage as I used to, but I'm still covering about six miles per session (running most but not all of that distance), and generally I'm able to start out doing a 5K (3.1 miles) before I have to take a walk break. And my foot has been feeling great!
  
  

  

  If I slept this way, I wouldn't be able to stand up straight in the morning!

  
  
• Ruthie had a big night on Wednesday -- she slept through the whole night all by herself. And that means I got to sleep in my bed for the first time since she came home! While she's been sleeping mostly through the night (without a potty break) for about a week, I've still been sleeping on the couch just a few feet away from her. With the Mister out of town this week, I thought it was a good opportunity to try sleeping upstairs in case I needed to let her cry it out. Granted, it's probably me who needs to deal with listening to the crying, and I'll admit that I didn't do a good job the first night I tried. But on Wednesday she didn't really do any evening snoozing and was asleep by 9, so it seemed like it might work. I didn't hear a peep from her until about 5:45, and that was after I woke up on my own at 5:30 after passing out myself. Last night wasn't quite as easy (she was whining at bit around 10 and then was up on and off starting a little before 5) but I didn't come downstairs until just before 6 and she managed just fine -- or maybe I should say I did just fine!
  
  
• This weekend we're supposed to have great weather, especially on Sunday, which is perfect for the annual Mother's Day brunch that my brother- and sister-in-law host and for the fact that I'll be getting the flowers from our synagogue's plant sale, which I asked for as my gift. I hope to spend the afternoon planting them and getting the garden started for the season.

I'll leave you with a laugh. This little flyer was tucked under the mat at our front door the other day, and I'm honestly not sure if it's for real. If it is, this guy is quite versatile! I've blacked out the personal information for his privacy, but I think what's left is sufficient to impress.

Wishing you a lovely weekend and a very happy Mother's Day to those of you celebrating!

Unraveled, Week 27/2025

Good morning and happy hump day! How are you all today? If I had to pick one word to describe things here over the past week, I'd pick DAMP. I honestly don't remember the last time we had a day without at least some rain. The grass seems to be liking it, at least!

It's Wednesday, and that means it's time to link up with Kat and the Unravelers!

First up, the knitting -- there has been some. For starters, after I shared that bad mid-stripe join on the socks the other day, I ripped it back to before the start of the stripe (the original color), wound off yarn from my ball until I got to that color again, and rejoined the yarn at that point. I've since knit well past where I was.

Apologies for the lighting again -- the rain makes for a lot of gloom

If you look closely, you may be able to see where the join is, as that section is a little thicker (I used a clasped weft join, so there's a section of stitches knit with a double thickness of yarn). I think it'll settle a bit after the socks are washed, and it's on the leg and thus unlikely to cause any discomfort in any case.

I also had a bit of an a-ha moment the other evening when I realized that Ruthie likes to spend the hour or so before we go to bed snoozing and is pretty much oblivious to what I'm doing during that time. So I got out my Sugar Maple tee and worked several rounds on it!

I'd really like to get this done this month so that it counts for the SSK make-along (and earns me some door prize tickets), but there's still quite a lot of knitting left to do, so we'll see. At least once I'm done with the body, I'm done with the whole thing, and there aren't any fiddly bits left. I think it's just a matter of prioritizing it when I am able to knit.

Sadly I have not finished any books this past week -- that hasn't happened in a long time! I am making progress on my current reads, but it's hard to sustain attention for long periods of time like I used to. I hope by next week I'll have something to report!

Early May Weekending

All too soon, it's Monday morning again. It was a wet weekend here, with rain on and off most of Saturday and part of Sunday. It was a good weekend for napping, and I did some of that on Saturday because Ruthie was up at 5:50 a.m. -- and so that meant that I was up that early! Aside from the early wakeup, though, it was a pretty good weekend. And I think the reason she was up so early is because she's started sleeping through the night, so despite getting up early, it means we've both slept for about 7 hours.

We started with an early lunch birthday party for my youngest nephew, who turned 2 on May 1. He entertained us with the amusing things he had to say, like asking my sister-in-law "Do you need a helping hand?" And we finished with chocolate cupcakes.

An added bonus for me was when we arrived, my niece was wearing the tee I knit for her last summer:

The Mister took Molly and her friend to see the show, and Ruthie and I took naps. Then we went out to dinner with my parents at a Turkish place in our neighborhood. 

Ruthie did a great job both times we were out, even though we were gone for about two hours both times. She's continuing to do really well with the house training -- which really means I'm doing really well at getting her out when she needs to go! Yesterday was the Pittsburgh Marathon, and the route comes close to our house, so I took her up to watch the runners for a bit. There were a lot of people, quite a few dogs, and a lot of noise. She was very nervous at first, but she soon adjusted, so it's clear that exposing her to new situations with people is good for her.

I managed to do a little bit of knitting this weekend, too. I started the second sock for my mother-in-law and was in a groove on the leg when I came across a knot in the yarn. I snipped it out and carried on as before, only to realize several rounds later that the two ends that were tied together were different colors.

I'm not sure if my mother-in-law would notice, but now that I've seen it, I can't not see it. So I'll likely be ripping back to the start of the stripe in the first blue and winding off yarn until I get to that point in the stripe sequence. So much for easy knitting!

A Finish on Friday

Happy Friday and happy May, friends! It's been a heck of a week here, though the puppy stuff has been the least of it. We had some strong storms move through on Tuesday that caused some major damage in the area from high winds, though amazingly we didn't lose power. So many people did, though, that the city and county are under disaster declarations and quite a few schools have been closed for multiple days this week. I saw our lights flicker once or twice but that was it. To Ruthie's delight, there were tons of sticks in the street on Wednesday, so a large part of our trips outside have involved taking them away from her (in addition to trying to keep her from eating various other things she finds on the ground).

On the positive side of things, I went for a run on Wednesday! I've been trying to get Ruthie to be more comfortable in her crate and not bark and cry the whole time, so I thought I'd give it a try to see how it went. I also had a couple of things to drop at the post office, so I ran there (it's about half a mile from our house) and back and then did some loops around the neighborhood. The last time I ran was on April 11! I didn't do my full distance because it was the first time I was leaving her alone, but it felt good to be out there again (until my knee started to hurt and it didn't feel so good). I was definitely sore yesterday, but it was nothing like after my first run following my broken foot, so that's a good sign.

My finish for the day isn't terribly exciting, but it's something. Since finishing up that second slipper sock, I've pulled out the socks I've been knitting for my mother-in-law again. I'd really like to get back to my Sugar Maple tee, but it's been safer to have something small (and with only one ball of yarn attached) that I can quickly put down and away. I've worked on it this week while Ruthie has been napping and managed to finish the first sock yesterday -- though she woke up as I was about 2/3 of the way through grafting the toe, so I had to put it down and finish it up later!

Again, terrible lighting that doesn't do it any justice, but it's what I could manage to do without putting her back in the crate.

This weekend we've got some actual plans on the calendar. My youngest nephew turned 2 yesterday, and his birthday party is on Saturday morning. It was supposed to be outside, but the weather is not looking good right now, so it will probably be moved indoors and we'll leave Ruthie at home. That afternoon we have tickets to see Come from Away; originally the three of us were supposed to go, but I don't think Ruthie can hold it that long, so given that I've seen the show before, I told Molly to see if she could find a friend from school who would want to use my ticket. Then my parents are taking us out to dinner Saturday night, just to a neighborhood restaurant so we'll be close. I don't know if it's some sort of special occasion or if they just feel like they haven't been giving us enough attention lately (my brother has been having terrible back problems the past several weeks, so my parents have been helping out a lot with my niblings).

And because no post is complete without a puppy pic, here is an example of how dainty our little pup can be:

She's continuing to make good progress with house training (very few accidents, likely because she often goes to the door and sits when she needs to go out) and generally has been getting up only once in the middle of the night. What we really need to work on now is not barking and growling at other people, especially the Mister. And her DNA is on its way to a lab to be analyze, so soon we'll have a better idea what breeds are in her (and maybe how big we can expect her to be)!

I hope you have a wonderful first weekend in May -- and if you're headed to Maryland Sheep and Wool this weekend, kindly fondle some yarn and have some ribbon chips on my behalf!

Unraveled, Week 26/2025

Happy hump day, friends! Kat is on vacation this week, so there's no official link-up, but you know I can't skip an Unraveled Wednesday!

Because Monday was One Little Word update day, I didn't get a chance to tell you about our weekend. It was rainy and gloomy on Saturday, so we didn't do a whole lot (in fact, the Mister seemed to be napping the whole afternoon). But on Sunday the sun came out and warmed us up again, and Ruthie got to take her first trip in the car since coming home with us. We went over to my brother's house to have dinner with my side of the family and so Ruthie could meet her "cousin" Leo. I could tell she was nervous because she was shaking in the car and for a while when we got there, but she did a great job overall. Leo (who looks positively enormous to me now that I've gotten used to having a little dog) was gentle with her, and she seemed to like him even if she was a little apprehensive. She's now met quite a few dogs in the neighborhood and is getting better at calming down around them. We're still working on her reaction to people!

The other excitement over the weekend is that I finished my first project since she came home! It's nothing terribly exciting because it was already halfway done, but given how limited my knitting time is these days, I'll take it.

These look wonky because they still have to be blocked, but you can at least get a sense for the overall look. These are a new design that I did for Amy of Ross Farm using her Funky dyed-in-the-wool Cheviot. The skein looked to be about half red dominant and half blue dominant, so after I finished the first one (red), I rewound the skein so I could work from the other end. Now that the sample is done, I need to block them and do some mathing for the pattern. We'll see if my brain is up to the challenge.

It was a so-so week of reading for me -- but I have been reading, thanks to getting a better sense of when Ruthie is likely to nap. I finished two books.

I borrowed Whale Fall (after a perplexingly long wait, given how short it is) from the library based upon Katie's recommendation. This book is set on a remote (and fictional) Welsh island in the late 1930s when the population is dwindling and two events have a huge impact: First, a whale washes up on the shore and becomes a source of interest for some and a bad omen for others. Next, two scholars from England arrive to study the island's inhabitants. Manod, the novel's 18-year-old narrator, begins to work for them as a translator and interpreter and hopes they'll take her with them when they leave, but she soon realizes that the island life these ethnographers want to depict isn't quite how things are and that their reasons for being there are more exploitative than academic. This book reminded me of several others I've read in recent years -- The Colony, This Other Eden, and Clear among them -- that have strong messages about colonization and othering. Ultimately I felt like I didn't get enough of the bigger picture in this one, and I was left with a lot of questions when it ended. I gave it 3 stars.

Next was a title for the small group of us focusing on women in translation. Time of the Flies follows Ines after she is released from prison after serving 15 years for killing her then-husband's lover. Though she is now estranged from her daughter and on her own, she is trying to build a new life, taking a new name and starting a joint extermination/private investigation company with a fellow former inmate. Things seem to be going well until one of her clients offers her a large amount of money to obtain a poison. If she does, she risks being sent back to prison, but the money could be used to help her business partner and friend get treatment for breast cancer. And then she discovers that her daughter knows the client and things get even more complicated. Amid all of this, there's a Greek tragedy-style chorus commenting on the events and moral dilemmas. I thought it was an interesting story, but it didn't really grab me, and I also predicted the twist at the end (and spotted quite a few typos, which irked me). I gave it 3 stars as well.

I'm currently reading an ARC of a book about Jane Austen digitally, though I haven't gotten very far because I've mainly gotten it out to read during Ruthie's afternoon naps, when I also sometimes snooze a little.

I'll leave you with a puppy picture. Did you know that you can get a rating for your own dog on WeRateDogs.com if you submit a photo? You saw this one last week, but now Ruthie's officially got a rating!

Less in 2025: April

It's the last Monday of the month, so it's time to check in on my One Little Word. Thank you to Kat for hosting our monthly link-ups!

I didn't have to think too hard about how Less has made itself known in my life this past month because frankly there's been less of just about everything: Less sleep. Less exercise. Less knitting. Less reading. Less time to myself in general. Those of you who have had a puppy (or a new baby!) know how it goes. But it's just a season of life and will pass. And as Ruthie has gotten settled in and used to a schedule, there's been less/fewer of some of the not-so-pleasant aspects of this period in time, like accidents in the house and wake-ups in the middle of the night. I'm looking forward to the trends continuing in that direction.

There's also been less baking and roasting thanks to the ovens dying -- but that's almost over, as our new ovens are scheduled to be installed today!

A Friday Pupdate

Happy Friday, friends! I am happy to see another weekend upon us, as it's been a busy week. Mornings have been a bit busier with the Mister away (he usually takes Molly to school in the morning), and of course having the electricians here for three full days created a bit of a disruption. But that work is done, and now we just need the landscapers to come back and put the dirt back in the big hole they dug.

I thought I'd use this post to give you a bit of a puppy update (I shamelessly stole the word "pupdate" from WeRateDogs).

I've seen a lot of positive changes in Ruthie in her second week with us. The most notable is that she is "going" outside most of the time. I've been rewarding her with treats and praising her every time she goes, and it's clearly paying off. She's had only a few accidents indoors this week, and I suspect those are largely due to the disruption of people in and out of the house. We've got a regular schedule of when we go out now, and I have a better sense of when she needs to go, so my hope is that things keep moving in a positive direction.

She's also been doing much better at night. I'm still sleeping on the couch (not the goal long term but acceptable for now), though the periods of sleep have been getting a little longer. She seems to need to go outside sometime in the midnight to 1 a.m. time frame and wakes up maybe once or twice other than that, though when she doesn't need to go out she just needs a little soothing to get back to sleep. She's mostly waking shortly before my alarm goes off or when it does -- it'll be interesting to see what happens when there's no alarm on the weekend!

We've had more success on walks (where she doesn't get as distracted by noises from traffic and birds) and regularly make it down our street and to a neighboring one. She's also made some dog friends! Our next-door neighbors brought our their Great Dane, Lydia, the other evening when we were outside, and though Ruthie barked at her, she was clearly interested, so we let the dogs go up to each other. There was lots of sniffing (easy for Ruthie to do, as she practically fits underneath Lydia) and tail wagging. She also did some brief sniffing of Sunny, the Golden Retriever who lives across the street, yesterday morning when we met her and her owner coming back from a walk. I'm hoping that she'll soon meet Vader, the black Lab who lives on the other side of us, and Leo, my brother's dog.

It's clear that she's becoming more comfortable because the puppy behaviors are coming out more. She is chewing everything (including her bed!) and also trying to get into places that we'd probably prefer she not go. Her latest is doing an army crawl under the couch and refusing to come out. I'd be tempted to let her stay there, as I'm sure it's a comforting place to be and there's not enough space that she can really crouch to go potty under there, but I'm also worried she's going to start chewing on the fabric on the underside of it. So she's spending more time in her crate when I need to do something, like eat a meal, and I also got a folding fence so that I can at least keep her confined to the kitchen and family room area. If anyone has good tips on how to get her to stop barking and whining when she's in the crate, I'm all ears. I can put it up with it when I'm home alone and need to run upstairs or downstairs for a bit, but it's not good in the long term. She eats her meals in there and gets treats, plus she has toys with her. I know a lot of it is that she wants to be with me, but obviously there are times when I can't be with her or need to put her in the crate so she's safe.

That's all I've got, friends. Have a wonderful weekend! I will be back on Monday with my One Little Word update.

Poetry in April: Adrienne Rich

We've come to the last Thursday in April and the last day for sharing poems. This week, all of us are featuring poems by Adrienne Rich, a National Book Award and MacArthur "Genius" Award winner, among many other prizes and honors. You can learn more about her here. The poem I've picked to share was published in 1995, but it feels very apt for the moment we're living in.

What Kind of Times Are These

There's a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill

and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows

near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted

who disappeared into those shadows.

I've walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don't be fooled

this isn't a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here,

our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,

its own ways of making people disappear.

I won't tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods

meeting the unmarked strip of light—

ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise:

I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear.

And I won't tell you where it is, so why do I tell you

anything? Because you still listen, because in times like these

to have you listen at all, it's necessary

to talk about trees.

From Dark Fields of the Republic: Poems 1991-1995, (c) 1995

Be sure to visit Bonny, Kat, Kym, and Vera to read their selections. 

Thanks for joining us "poetry nerds" for another National Poetry Month, and a special thank-you to Kym for leading the charge!

Unraveled, Week 25/2025

Is it only Wednesday? I feel like it's been a long week already, perhaps because the Mister left for a work trip Sunday morning and we've had all sorts of electrical work going on in our backyard and basement the past couple of days (the Mister got a new plug-in hybrid car, so we're having a line run from the house to the garage so he can plug in to something with a bit more power than a regular-old socket).

I am thrilled that I actually have some content to share with Kat and the Unravelers today! Though you'll have to forgive the poor picture quality. I'm basically living in our family room/kitchen these days, and the lighting is not great.

The blue thing on the needles is what I started on Sunday while Ruthie was napping; I got in a bit more time on Monday night while she snoozed and Molly and I were watching a movie. These look a bit funny, I know, but they aren't blocked yet and look better on a foot. These are some DK weight slipper socks that I'm designing using yarn from the Ross Farm. I ended up rewinding the cake after I finished the first one so that I could cast on the second with the other end, as I thought it would be better to have two feet that are very obviously different in color than a foot and a half in mostly red and half a foot in mostly blue.

To make up for the one poor photo, I'll share a puppy pic (which I was told was sufficient content in any case!).

This is how she curls up in her crate at night when I tell her it's time to "go night-night" (yes, I have started using baby talk again, and I continue to do it despite feeling ridiculous about it). It seems like I can usually count on her to take a mid-morning and mid-afternoon nap, and that's time when I can read and sometimes knit (though I could only read the past couple of days because she was napping in my lap on account of the electricians coming in and out).

I haven't had that much reading time, but I have had some, and this week I've spent it reading just one book:

I decided to change things up with a little nonfiction this week. Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism takes a social science approach to exploring why people are drawn to cults as well as what defines a cult. And while what is classified as a cult includes some of the more troubling examples you probably already know (like Jim Jones/Jonestown and Scientology), linguist Amanda Montell also shows how the same powerful language is used to power multi-level marketing companies like Amway and Mary Kay and fitness companies like CrossFit and Peloton. I did my undergrad degree in psychology and obviously work full time in a job that involves language, so I found this to be a really fascinating read. It feels timely, too, given that what many of these groups have in common is a leader who is able to appeal to their followers by making them feel validated and seen and by offering them promises of prosperity, a better life, etc. (sound familiar?). It doesn't read like an academic text and was easy to follow while keeping an eye on a puppy. I gave it 4 stars.

And that's all I've got for today! I will be back tomorrow (I got smart and pre-wrote and scheduled my post) for the final Thursday of National Poetry Month, and I hope to be able to post on Friday as well. If not, have a great rest of the week and a relaxing weekend!

Mid-April Weekending

It was a very quiet weekend here, by necessity. Molly and I had theater tickets for the Saturday matinee of Some Like It Hot, but neither of us was all that excited about the show and I didn't feel I could leave Ruthie with the Mister (nor would he have likely agreed to stay with her), so we skipped it. The most exciting moments of the weekend, for Ruthie anyway, were visits from family. My in-laws came over for dinner on Friday night, and while she spent much of the evening in her crate, she handled it pretty well -- especially because my mother-in-law was very up in her face. My brother, sister-in-law, nephew, and niece stopped by for a bit on Saturday afternoon; Ruthie was understandably nervous around my nephew but seemed quite interested in my niece. And last night my parents brought dinner over. It's clear that Ruthie is still wary around people she doesn't know, but she's handling it much better than she was just a few days ago.

The exciting moment for me this weekend came on Sunday afternoon. Ruthie was snoozing, so I decided to take a chance with my knitting:

It's not much, but it's something -- and it's the first I've knit in a week!

I can't promise I'm going to keep up with my normal blogging schedule for the next while, not least because I'm not going to have much in the way of content if I can't get much knitting done, but I will try.

A Week of Excitement

It's Friday, and lucky me gets to have Molly home with me today because her school is closed. I'll be glad of the extra set of eyes and hands today because a certain someone has been up since 4:50 this morning. It's a good thing she's cute!

Did you know that on an iPhone, there's now a feature that recognizes a photo of a dog
and if you click it, it will tell you the breed? When I did it for this photo, it said she was a Basenji.

Ruthie has been home for not quite a week, and while it's been exhausting in many ways, it's also had some bright spots. I'm still sleeping in the family room with her, but I've been able to move to the couch, and when she wakes throughout the night, usually she just needs a few pets for reassurance and goes back to sleep. When I have to crate her during the day (when I have to go upstairs or when I go to pick Molly up at school), she still barks and whines, but it seems to have pauses now. She's doing better at going outside, though there are still some inside accidents (though I'll note that in the last day or so, she's more or less gone on a puppy pad, which at least makes cleanup a bit easier). She has started accepting treats (she didn't know what to do with them the first couple of days) and has learned how to play with and chew on toys. She still often barks at Molly and the Mister when they come in the room, but usually she gets used to them after a minute or two.

Walks continue to be a bit of a challenge because everything is so new and loud and scary to her. She regularly pulls me back to our back door (which we use most often to leave and enter the house) and we have to start over. I've taken her to other streets to smell and see new things, and she's encountered new people and dogs. Often she gets so scared that she starts shaking, so I'll have to pick her up and cuddle her to reassure her. I'm sure these encounters will get easier as they become more regular.

Tonight we're having my in-laws over for dinner, which should be interesting. I know my mother-in-law is going to want to play with her, but Ruthie may not be so receptive to that. Treats will be deployed.

I want to thank all of you who have been where I am and have sent supportive comments and emails. There are moments when I feel like I'm a failure and I'll never get my life back, and it's good to know that this time is normal and also won't last forever. Though the first several weeks after Molly was born are a bit of a haze, I do remember having a lot of the same thoughts and feelings back then, and obviously things did improve. I have to think that raising a puppy is a bit easier than raising a human being and that I just have to take it one day at a time. I'm trying my best to do that.

Happy Easter to those of you celebrating this weekend! We'll be marking the end of Passover with all the carbs and spending quiet time at home.

Poetry in April: Poems about Aging

It's another Thursday in April, which means it's again time to share a poem. The theme this week is "Poems about Aging," and I had bookmarked this poem even before I knew I'd be using it. This one comes from Ted Kooser -- it's one of his Valentine's Day poems -- and I love the image it gives me of a couple growing older together.

Splitting an Order

I like to watch on old man cutting a sandwich in half,
maybe an ordinary cold roast beef on whole wheat bread,
no pickles or onion, keeping his shaky hands steady
by placing his forearms firm on the edge of the table
and using both hands, the left to hold the sandwich in place,
and the right to cut it surely, corner to corner,
observing his progress through glasses that moments before
he wiped with his napkin, and then to see him lift half
onto the extra plate that he had asked the server to bring,
and then to wait, offering the plate to his wife
while she slowly unrolls her napkin and places her spoon,
her knife and her fork in their proper places,
then smoothes the starched white napkin over her knees
and meets his eyes and holds out both hands to him.

From Valentines by Ted Kooser, University of Nebraska Press, 2008

Be sure to visit Bonny, Kat, Kym, and Vera today for more poetry!

Unraveled, Week 24/2025

Good morning, friends, and greetings from the puppy house, where we are all tired. I mentioned to a couple of you in my replies to comments that it felt a lot like having a newborn again, and that really is the case. Monday night was better. I moved her crate over so that I could sleep on the couch, which meant that I actually slept. She was up every two or three hours, mainly just needing some comforting, though at around 3 a.m. we went outside and she successfully peed like a real dog! She's still rather skittish around Molly and the Mister, which isn't all that surprising given that she hasn't spent all that much time with them compared to me. Molly is off from school on Friday, though, and I'll try to get her to hang out with Ruthie without me so that they can have some quality time.

I thought about skipping the blog today, but honestly Wednesdays are my favorite day to do it because I get to join Kat and the Unravelers.

With all of the puppy stuff happening, I'm sure it will not surprise you that I haven't knit a stitch since Sunday morning. I did, however, remember to get a photo of my Sugar Maple Tee -- now with sleeves!

I don't know how sturdy it will be in the long run, but I do like how the sleeves are handled in this pattern in such a way that they completely match the body. Essentially you work the ribbing before you bind off the sleeves, so the colors match perfectly, and close the gap under the arm on the round after you bind off by working a fancy decrease. With handspun, it's often impossible to get sleeves to match if you pick up the stitches for them afterward, so this method eliminates that problem. I really like how my thin stripes are working up and I've basically got the section I'm in memorized, but who knows when I will get to work on this again. Perhaps I'll try to sneak in some time in the evenings when the whole family is downstairs; when I'm alone with Ruthie, I try to keep my eyes on her all the time.

Similarly, there hasn't been much reading time, but I've finished two books since this time last week -- both by the same author! I've got Charlotte McConaghy's latest book on hold at the library, so while I wait, I went back to read her last two.

In Once There Were Wolves, conservation biologist Inti Flynn and her team arrive in rural Scotland to release wolves into the forest as part of an effort to restore the ancient forests there; with no apex predators, deer and other animals have become overpopulated and eaten all the seedlings before they had a chance to grow into new trees. Inti also arrives with heavy emotional baggage in the form of her twin sister, Aggie. As the story progresses, we also learn about the sisters' tragic past and the complication of Inti's unusual condition in which she physically feels what she sees happening to other people. When a local resident -- one who was strongly opposed to the wolves -- turns up dead, the story becomes a bit of a murder mystery as well. This is a pretty dark book, in a number of respects, but I really enjoyed the atmospheric quality of it as well as the conservation message it has. It's probably not a book for you if you like everything to be crystal clear and tied up neatly because there's a fair amount of ambiguity. I gave it 4 stars.

Migrations was the earlier book, and I suppose you could call it speculative fiction because it takes place in a world where many animal species have gone extinct thanks to humans. Franny Stone, the woman at the center of the narrative, has found herself a spot on a commercial shipping vessel and convinced its captain to follow some of the world's last remaining Arctic terns on their final migration. But in flashbacks, we learn that she is not what she seems, that she is hiding some dark secrets, and that perhaps she is not so much running toward the terns as running away from her past. Like Wolves, this book has a strong conservation message and a damaged woman as its main character. I found it to be a little less appealing, though certainly still intriguing. I gave it 3 stars.

I should note that I really only managed to finish the second book because it was on audio. That may be how I read most of my books for a while!

Welcome Home, Ruthie!

She's here! And she's even more adorable in person!

When we picked her up at the transport van, she was clearly very nervous. She was wagging her tail when we approached her in the kennel, but she wouldn't come out on her own. I held her on my lap in the car and did finally calm her down. I won't lie: We had a rough night. She is comfortable in her crate, but she started barking when I went upstairs to get ready for bed, so I ended up staying with her in the family room overnight, sleeping on the floor so she could see me. And this morning she was a little more willing to explore the house (but also had a couple of accidents), but it's clear she's still very cautious. She does seem to trust me, though, because this is her preferred position:

We'll see how today goes! I'm sure I'll be dragging from lack of sleep, but she's sure worth it.

TGIFF

(Thank Goodness It's Finally Friday!)

For most of this week I've been thinking it's a day ahead -- on Wednesday I thought it was Thursday, so yesterday should have been Friday already but, alas, it was not. I may complain about all the work meetings I have to attend, but they do help me keep track of what day it is when I get reminders for them! Happily my meeting today is of the "put your updates in the chat" variety, so I get a little break. And I need it, because it's been a busy week but we have a big weekend coming up!

First, an update on the handspun you saw on the bobbin on Wednesday morning: I had time that afternoon to wind it off and wash it, and thanks to the cooler weather we've been having our radiators are on again, so it was dry by yesterday morning.

This skein ended up being the thickest of the last few I've spun, all fractal spins from fiber from FatCatKnits. This one is approximately 295 yards of mostly DK (there are thicker and thinner spots, as usual). I do like seeing the trio of them together, too!

At least two of these will be going into the Etsy shop, if I can ever get it open again. I succeeded in signing into my account to change the name of the shop (I'm rebranding) and change my email address, and when I tried to sign in again, I'd gotten locked out. So now I'm waiting for a response from Etsy support. If it takes much longer, I may just give up and open a new shop because it's not like I had a huge number of sales before, so my sales history isn't much to write home about. In the meantime, I'll share with you the rebrand and the awesome logo that Molly designed for me -- amazingly, she put together some options that were exactly what I had in mind without my having to explain what I was thinking to her.

I'd hoped to share a progress photo of my Sugar Maple today, but yesterday it was so rainy and dreary that I could not get decent light. I promise to share and update soon!

As to the weekend, there is a lot going on. Our ovens are not going to be delivered and installed in time to host Passover, so we'll be back at my parents' on Saturday evening. We'll be a little crowded, but we'll make it work. My brother is hosting a smaller second seder at his place on Sunday, but only the Mister will attend from our little family because Molly and I will be driving out to Washington, PA, to meet the van bringing Ruthie to us! It's supposed to be there at 4:30, so even assuming it's completely on time and we get right on the road, it'll still take us at least an hour to get home, and I don't think it's fair to the puppy to take her to someone else's house with a bunch of strange people. So we'll just come home and try to get her as comfortable as possible in her new home.

I will do my best to provide an update on her arrival on Monday, but I may not get to post until later in the day. In the meantime, I'll leave you with another photo of her -- this is the one the rescue posted that truly captured my heart:

Have a great weekend, friends!