Good News to End the Week

When Friday morning comes, I always think of it as the start of the weekend (even with a day of work ahead of me), and who doesn't like starting off the weekend with good news for a change? I've got three items of that sort to share today.

Good Thing #1: I finished up my sister-in-law's socks Wednesday evening and blocked them yesterday, so they'll be ready to go to her tomorrow.

I'm a little miffed that the stripes matched all the way until the end, when they didn't, but I suppose that's down to how the yarn is dyed (they're knit from Knit Picks Felici, which is dyed by machine, as opposed to the hand-dyed self-striping yarn I use a lot). They're the same stitch count and the same length, maybe off a round or two, but that alone wouldn't have caused such a discrepancy. Oh well! She's a gracious recipient and if it bothers her, I doubt she'll tell me about it.

Good Thing #2: We are getting new ovens. I've already mentioned this in replies to some comments to my last post, but I'll share the whole story here for everyone. We have double wall ovens, and we're on our second set from the same company (JennAir) since we redid our kitchen in 2009. The first set lasted longer than the second, which had only just gone out of warranty at the end of February. The Mister called the appliance store where we bought them, and the store then directed him to JennAir, which told him the particular ovens we have are discontinued, so there's no way to fix them. But he then got directed to some alternate resolution group that JennAir has, and initially they offered to replace the ovens with different models at cost -- but when he mentioned to them that this is the second time we've had to replace both ovens in about five years, they said they'd replace them at about 1/4 of what we paid for the most recent set! I'd say that's just about the best outcome we could have gotten. The new ovens are on their way, to be installed by the local appliance store, and it's possible we could have them in time for the first Passover seder next Saturday, which we are supposed to be hosting (and for which we'd very much need functional ovens!). In the interim, we're planning meals that require cooking on the stove, in the microwave, or using a toaster oven -- did you know that you can bake a decent potato in a toaster oven? And if the ovens don't arrive in time, we'll just be extra cozy having seder at my parents' place.

Good Thing #3: Last weekend, the Mister bought a new car. That is not the good thing, but it's the impetus for what comes next. His previous car was still in good shape but was likely going to require some transmission work soon, and he decided he'd rather spend his money on something new. He's notorious for taking a long time to make up his mind about something, but the tariffs that just went into effect finally convinced him. He bought a plug-in hybrid, which I was quite happy about, but also a much fancier car than I would choose. When he was at the dealership, he texted to ask me if I wanted to talk it over with him before he made the deal, and I told him it was his decision because it would be his car -- and that if he got it, I felt it was time that I got a dog.

You see where this is going, right?

This sweet girl, an almost 4-month-old Jack Russell Terrier mix, will be coming to live with us next weekend. She's coming from a organization in Kentucky that rescues dogs from high-kill shelters; they have her mother and her four siblings. Their post for her describes her as "sweet, snuggly, and always looking for love and affection," which is pretty much exactly what we wanted in a dog. Her mother weighs less than 20 pounds, so we expect her to stay on the small side, too. The rescue organization named her Kitty (what a silly name for puppy!), but we will be calling her Ruthie -- full name, Ruth Barker Digsburg. 

Molly and I are ecstatic; the Mister seems to be accepting it. We girls will be going shopping this weekend to get everything we need to welcome her, and I've already read a book on puppy training. Although I grew up with a dog, she was about a year old and already housebroken when we got her (not to mention very meek and well behaved because she'd been adopted once before and then returned to the shelter when that family couldn't afford to keep her), so this is a whole new ball of wax. I'm hoping my boss will be amenable to cutting back my time in the office, at least for the first few weeks while we get her settled. Expect lots of puppy pictures and probably less knitting and reading than usual in the months ahead! And I welcome any advice those of you who have experience with puppies have to offer!

That's it from me for now. I hope you have some good things in your life this weekend!

Poetry in April: Poems about Hope

You may be surprised to see a post from me today because it's not one of my usual blogging days, but April is National Poetry Month, and as in years past, a group of us is marking the occasion by sharing poetry every Thursday this month. Kym is our fearless leader, and you'll also find posts from Bonny, Kat, and Vera this month. 

Each Thursday, we have a theme. Today's is (as you might guess) "Poems about Hope." Hope is always something important to have, but I think it's never more important than during times of uncertainty. At this time five years ago, when we were stuck at home and had no idea when that would end, I took great comfort from seeing the signs of spring emerging outside during my daily walks. There really is nothing more hopeful than seeing how nature persists in spite of everything, so I think you'll understand why this poem by Ted Kooser spoke so well and so loudly to me.

Dandelion

The first of a year's abundance of dandelions
is this single kernel of bright yellow
dropped on our path by the sun, sensing
that we might need some marker to help us
find our way through life, to find a path
over the snow-flattened grass that was
blade by blade unbending into green,
on a morning early in April, this happening
just at the moment I thought we were lost
and I'd stopped to look around, hoping
to see something I recognized. And there
it was, a commonplace dandelion, right
at my feet, the first to bloom, especially
yellow, as if pleased to have been the one,
chosen from all the others, to show us the way.

From How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope, edited by James Crews (c) 2021, Storey Publishing

Unraveled, Week 22/2025

It's been a wild few days here. On Sunday, our ovens died (and this is after we'd just replaced them several years ago), and that foiled some baking plans and made dinner prep a bit complicated. Then, after a warmer weekend that encouraged pretty much every living thing outside to bloom, we go a return of winter yesterday, though at least the sun came out for the afternoon. It's supposed to be wet off and on for the foreseeable future, but I guess that I should expect that now that it's April! And it's Wednesday, which means it's time to join in with Kat and the Unravelers.

On my long to-do list over the weekend was to swatch for handspun sweater, which I started but didn't manage to complete until Monday. The one benefit of the weather turning colder is that it meant the radiators came back on, so after washing it Monday afternoon, it was dry by Tuesday. Even better? My stitch gauge looks pretty much spot on and row gauge isn't off so much that I can't make it work.

I was undecided about how to use the two skeins of yarn (two different colorways from Southern Cross Fibre with slightly different fiber content), but I think I am just going to use them both the whole way through the sweater and alternate every two rounds for micro-stripes. I'd thought about fading from one to the other, but then I couldn't decide which one I wanted to be on top. I'm getting 9.5 rounds per inch, so each stripe is going to be less than a quarter inch in width, and I think I'll get a nice blending effect. And if I've knit a bit and it looks terrible, I'll just rip and start over!

My top priority at the moment, though, is finishing up my sister-in-law's socks, which are on the home stretch:

I prefer knitting with long circulars, but it makes for awkward photography.

I expect that I should be able to get the second sock finished later this week, and I'll be seeing her on Saturday and can give them to her then as a belated birthday gift.

After my eyes uncrossed after reading all those names last week, I got some good reading time in last week.

Remember how I recently reread Jane Austen's Mansfield Park? The reason is because I wanted to refresh my memory of the story ahead of reading This Motherless Land, which is a retelling rather than a modern update. It follows the lives of two cousins over several decades. First, we meet Funke in Nigeria. The daughter of a Nigerian father and a (white) British mother, she hears stories about the magical house in England where her mother grew up and is content with her life. When a great tragedy happens, she is sent to that house to live, only to discover that it's old and dilapidated and full of unfriendly relatives, especially her aunt, who is intensely bitter about how her life has turned out after her sister left. The one bright spot is Funke's cousin, Liv, who is nearly the same age and is desperate to be her friend and protector. The two become inseparable as they grow up, only to be split apart by an accident that sends Funke away from the place she had begun to think of as home. We see how the two cousins reconcile the split and the choices they make with the lives they've been given in the aftermath, all the while trying to come to grips with who they are and what makes a place home. While I found the connections to Mansfield Park to be slight, it's an enjoyable story that comments on race, class, and culture. I gave it 4 stars.

I expected How to Read a Book to be a bit "women's fiction"-y, but I was surprised by its emotion and depth. This novel follows three main characters: Violet, a woman in her early 20s who is in prison for manslaughter; Harriet, a retired English teacher now running a book club in Violet's prison; and Frank, the widower of the woman Violet killed. When Violet is released from prison and find her family cannot forgive her, she tries to make a new life in Portland, Maine. In a bookstore, the three meet by accident, and that meeting changes the trajectory of all their lives. I wouldn't call this heavy reading, but it does address issues like grief, forgiveness, and life after incarceration -- and, as the title suggests, it emphasizes the power of books. Interestingly, both this book and This Motherless Land feature grey African parrots, which was an amazing coincidence! I listened to this one and found it easy to follow. I gave it 4 stars as well.

Finally, the real star of this past week's reading: The History of Sound is a collection of short stories set in New England over the course of several centuries. They are connected in an interesting way, with each story having another that pairs with it. This isn't to say that the stories in each pair have the same characters or even take place in the same time period; there's just some way they're connected. And the stories are beautifully written and inventive. I think one of my favorites (or at least, in my view, the most original) is an imagined transcript of an episode of the podcast Radiolab, so well done that I showed the first page to my husband and then played him the intro to the podcast so he could appreciate it as well. I savored these stories over about a week, but the whole collection is a pretty quick read. I also found each and every story to be satisfying, which is saying a lot; my biggest complaint about short stories is that I often feel I want more when I finish them, and few collections I've read have been this satisfying. I'm so glad that I bought myself a copy of this book rather than waiting for it from the library, and I'm passing it along to my parents next. I gave it 5 stars.

What are you making and reading this week?