Winding Down, Gearing Up

Oh, what a week it has been! I feel like I say that all the time, but this week has really been dramatic in quite a few ways. First, I think I mentioned that it's the last week of the first trimester for Molly, so she was super stressed out -- she had three tests and a research paper due. Thankfully all are now done and in the past, and I expect she'll be sleeping very late today to make up for the fact that she was running on not enough sleep for several days in a row. Then there was the weather and what felt like a return to summer. I think we hit 80ºF on Wednesday, ironically on the same day we had our furnace check! And of course there were the shocking (in a very good way) results of the midterm elections. On top of all that, there's been the usual work stuff, but I'm happy to report that the last piece of one of the current big projects finally got wrapped up this week, so I'm feeling a lot less stressed myself. There's still commencement to deal with, but the bulk of the work on that is done. And the Mister will be home from his trip today, with no work travel on the calendar for the rest of the year (though that could change at any time).

While I watch election returns on Tuesday evening, I finished up another scrappy charity hat:

I used up the rest of the neon green and most of the darker green plus a small leftover ball of yarn from this sweater. I used my Spinning in Infinity pattern (Ravelry link) and US 4/3.5 mm and US 2/2.75 mm needles. In addition to using leftovers, you know why I love knitting hats like this? This one hat eliminated 325 yards of yarn from my stash. Even though the number of stitches is the same, it feels so much more productive to knit a DK-weight hat using two strands of yarn held together than a single strand. Plus the marled look is a lot of fun.

And I haven't gotten it out of my system, either. I cast on another one, holding three strands of fingering together, and without planning it, this one coordinates perfectly with my new project bag:

I am hoping for another relaxed weekend. Ruthie is going to doggie day care/camp again on Saturday (she's going to be boarding there while we're in Florida, so I want her to get used to being there), and Molly and I plan to take the free day to do a little shopping. We can share clothes now, but my style is not her style, so when she needs nicer clothes for a more formal event, she doesn't have many options.

What I do need to focus on this weekend is gearing up for what's happening next week: my first colonoscopy. I put it off for about half a year after turning 45 and getting the order from my daughter, but I decided I really needed to pretend to be an adult (ha) and just do it. I'm not worried about the procedure at all, but going through the prep beforehand is what I've been dreading. I've got all my laxatives and Gatorade ready to go on Wednesday, and starting this weekend I'm going to be adjusting my diet leading up to it so that I have an easier time. My usual diet is pretty high in fiber and all the stuff you're not supposed to eat beforehand (raw fruits and vegetables, nuts, seeds, whole grains, etc.), so I have no doubt it's going to be a bit of a struggle, but it's well worth it to me to ensure I do the prep right and don't have to do it again for another decade! I'm trying to look at it as a bit of a vacation, too. I'm taking a couple of days off from work, Ruthie is going to the dog sitter's, and I'm not going to worry about anything than taking it easy for those two days.

I hope to be able to share a finished sweater with you next week. In the meantime, have a wonderful weekend!

Unraveled, Week 44/2026

We've made it to the middle of the week, so it's time to link up with Kat and the Unravelers!

I am getting really close to a finished sweater; I think that, barring any emergencies, I should have it done by this weekend. When I snapped this photo, I was more than halfway done with the decreases on the second sleeve. Once the decreases are done, I think I knit 2-3 more inches straight before I work the patterning at the cuff. Of course, each decrease round means fewer stitches overall, so the rounds are getting smaller and faster. I'm getting close enough to the end that I'm already planning what I'll be casting on next.

It's been so busy at work recently that most of my reading has been done on audio while out exercising or walking Ruthie. Somehow I still managed to finish four books this week.

All Systems Red (Murderbot Diaries #1) by Martha Wells (audio)

My rating: 3 stars

I've been hearing about the Murderbot series for years and long been meaning to give it a try, and I finally did last week, listening to the first book (really a novella) in the series in one day. Set at some point in the future, when exploration of other planets is possible and is controlled by a large corporate entity, a security android sent to protect a human crew starts to gain some self-awareness and some human-like feelings. I didn't feel like I had a complete sense of the setting and the background, but I thought it was an interesting enough listen. It remains to be seen if I'll continue with the series.

The Bookbinder's Secret by A.D. Bell (digital)

My rating: 3 stars

I'd started an ARC last week when I realized it was a sequel to this book, which I hadn't read, so I stopped and borrowed the first book from the library. It follows Lilian Delaney, a bookbinder's apprentice who grew up in a bookshop. While on a work errand, she discovers a strange book that someone tried to burn and that contains part of an intriguing story hidden behind the endpapers. Soon she's drawn into a dangerous mystery involving books, hidden messages, love, money, and murder, leading to very real consequences for her and her loved ones. I found it to be fairly entertaining but also fairly hard to believe; there's a lot that Lily does that does not seem realistic for a young unmarried woman in early 1900s England. Still, it gave me the background I needed to read and evaluate the sequel (and stay tuned until next week for my thoughts on that; I'm in the middle of it currently).

Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson (audio)

My rating: 3 stars

Ernest Cunningham is a how-to writer, and in this book, he's writing about how to write a murder mystery by following an established set of rules. To illustrate, he tells the story of his own family and a mystery to be solved at his family reunion. And his family is rather notorious, with a father who killed a police officer and a brother who went to jail for killing another. I can't say it was the best mystery I've ever read, but I did enjoy the unique spin on it. It's set in Australia and the audio is read by an Australian, which I liked except for the somewhat excessive use of the word "assume" (pronounced "uh-SHOOM" in Australian English) that irked me a bit, probably because it stuck out.

The Mad Wife by Meagan Church (audio)

My rating: 4 stars

I've been frustrated lately by Hoopla's daily borrowing limits' being hit when I try to borrow a book, even first thing in the morning, so I turned to what was available on audio and ended up with this book. This book starts with a warning that deals with heavy subjects and tells the reader that it's okay to put it aside if it gets to be too much, and I think that's a worthwhile warning. Lulu is a housewife and mother in the early 1950s, trying to be the ideal -- always made up and put together, a dutiful wife and mother, happy and fulfilled by her regular schedule of cooking and cleaning. But following the birth of her second child, it becomes harder and harder to do it all and appear happy about it. What's more, the wife and mother of the family who just moved in across the street seems strange in a way that Lulu can't quite put her finger on, and it feels like no one else seems to notice. There are some big, hard issues dealt with in this book: the pressure on women to do it all and perform for the men in their life, the dismissal of women's health complaints and refusal to allow them to have a say in their health care, and issues surrounding motherhood. It's a bit derivative of The Bell Jar (the author readily admits it was an inspiration), but I thought it was well done.

I'm currently reading that sequel, The Bookbinder's Code, and very slowly working my way through Annie Dillard's The Maytrees.

What are you making and reading this week?

Fall Back

And just like that, it's the penultimate month of the year.

It was a fairly relaxing weekend, mostly because we didn't do much. I was successful in my blood donation on Friday, so I couldn't have an adult beverage, but the Mister and I had a delicious dinner out, ending with a shared sticky toffee pudding topped with vanilla ice cream.

I somehow managed to sleep in a little on Saturday (the first time in a long time Ruthie hasn't barked upon waking) and passed the day by going for walks (on my own and with Ruthie), cleaning the bathrooms, reading, knitting, and even taking a short nap. Molly ended up staying home Saturday night -- this coming week is the last week of the term, so she had a lot of studying to do -- so we got some takeout and awaited the trick-or-treaters. In the end, we had exactly one: the toddler who lives down the street. It's a good thing I didn't overbuy on the candy!

Yesterday I woke up at what's become my normal time, but because of the time change, that meant I was up at 4:30 a.m. Ruthie technically slept in; I heard her barking at about 5:30, but if we hadn't moved the clocks back, that would have been 6:30 (so I'm hoping that means that I will be up before she barks this coming week). After a cloudy day on Saturday, it was nice to see the sun again and to enjoy its warmth on our jaunts around the neighborhood. We spent the afternoon curled up in the family room, watching some football, doing a little reading, and knitting.

And what have I been knitting? Well, my sweater, of course; I'm maybe a third of the way through the decreases on sleeve #2. But mainly I've been working on yet another scrappy marled charity hat:

This one will never be measured in Ruthies, but she was so cute all curled up that I didn't want to get up to try to take a photo elsewhere. The yarn used for what you see here is what was leftover from the two Hollyhocks Hats I've made in the last month or so, Malabrigo Sock and Steel City Fiber Collective Yinzer Sock. The lighter green is almost gone, and I'm hoping I'll use up all the darker green as well (I have additional scraps to add in as needed).

One of my errands over the weekend was sending off some of the hats I've made over the last year, so before I packaged them up, I pulled out everything I had set aside to donate and took a photo:

Probably 2/3 of what you see here was sent off to a Ravelry friend who collects every year for "Hatsgiving" through her workplace. The rest, plus the hat I'm currently knitting and any others I finish in the next week or so, will be sent off to another collection by mid-month. I've been keeping track of how much yarn from my stash I've used up this year, and looking at that number feels good, but it feels even better to know that I've used a significant portion of it to make warm things for people who could use them.

It's going to be a girls' week here this week, as the Mister's off on another work trip, and after Molly's tough week with two tests and a research paper due, she is off on Friday. I am hoping to be able to wrap up the last of the recent projects this week. And I assume we'll all be adjusting to the change of the clocks!

Is It Friday, for Real?

Yesterday morning I woke up (earlier than I'd like) convinced it was Friday. Alas, it was only Thursday. It's been a long week -- lots of work and early mornings. It's not like I really get to sleep in on the weekend, but at least in the afternoons I can take a snooze if I need to. On the plus side, it's been a beautiful week, so I've been able to escape from my screens to get out and enjoy the sunshine.

Though most of my accomplishments have work related, I did finish another charity hat:

If you can believe it, there are 378 yards of yarn used in this hat! I held fingering double and used US 4/3.5 mm and US 2/2.75 mm needles. This type of scrappy hat is such a great stash buster.

My first sweater sleeve has been bound off and the second has been started, and I hope by this time next week I'll be close to done.

Today I've got an appointment to donate blood, so please keep your fingers crossed my hemoglobin level is sufficient! Molly's going to a friend's for a Halloween party tonight, so the Mister and I will be going out to dinner for a date night. I've got one bag of candy ready for Saturday night, though we rarely get more than a handful of trick-or-treaters. And that's the sum total of my plans for the weekend! I hope to have some knitting and reading time in between dog walks and chores, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Ruthie isn't up at 4:30 on Sunday due to the time change. I hope your weekend is a good break!

Unraveled, Week 43/2026

The last Wednesday in October is here, and time to link up with Kat and the Unravelers. I promised you a big sweater update, so I won't keep you waiting. I'm almost done with the first sleeve! (In fact, I likely will be done by the time you're reading this because I'm getting this post ready on Tuesday ahead of my evening knitting time.)

As with the body hem, I'm working the cuffs as a combination of the textured eyelet pattern and twisted ribbing. You may notice that I have only one skein of yarn attached; although I was alternating every round on the sleeve, I didn't want to have to weave in two ends from the cuff bind-off, so I cut off the second skein before I started the ribbing. Really, the alternating was done mostly because of inconsistencies in handspun and not for color management reasons, so I don't think you'll even be able to tell (I did it on the body, too).

While the sweater has gotten my main attention in the evening, during the day I'm churning out quite a bit of marled stockinette in the form of yet another charity hat:

Part of the Pigskin Party is that there are always special challenges. Participation is optional, but it can get you extra points. And I love more internet points! Plus, it makes this hat serve three purposes: extra points, adding to my charity donations, and using up yarn. This one is all scraps. I've been holding a strand of black yarn (leftover Knit Picks Palette and Knit Picks Stroll) alongside some purple and blue Wonderland Yarns/Frabjous Fibers leftover from a sweater I knit for Molly nearly a decade ago. I really love holding multiple strands together because it uses up quite a lot of yarn but doesn't take that long to knit.

As to reading, I have four finishes this week:

Solace in Winter by Mary Lawson (digital)

My rating: 4 stars

In today's hectic world, it is a comfort to visit simpler times through the books I read, so it was a treat to travel to the winter of 1969 in a small town in Canada. Though the setting is the same as Mary Lawson's earlier novel, A Town Called Solace, this isn't an continuation but rather a totally different story. In Solace in Winter, we meet Jack, a widower missing his late wife and who has a difficult relationship with his adult daughter. Though he's a bit of a loner, he doesn't hesitate to help when he encounters first a badly injured dog and then a badly injured young man at the same dangerous curve in the road. He ends up housing them both while they recover, forming a bond with the dog (whom he names Lola) and the young man, Chris, who had fled to Canada to escape the draft and Vietnam. They all have pain in their pasts and aren't quick to reveal their secrets, but somehow these three come to trust each other, helped along by the local vet and the wife of the town's only police officer, who was a nurse before she became a mother. Just as they seem to be finding their way to recovering, Jack's daughter shows up, full of suspicions, and threatens to destroy these new friendships.

This is a quiet, thoughtful novel about the power of human kindness and care to ease pain, both physical and emotional, and it shows how sharing ourselves with others can help us to feel more whole.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House/Knopf Canada for providing me with a digital ARC of this book in return for an honest review. This book will be published November 10, 2026.

Switzy by Emma Cline (digital)

My rating: 4 stars

I'd had this buzzy book on hold for a while (and then suspended my hold for a bit) mostly because it was on the Booker longlist, and for a while I wasn't sure if I wanted to read it. But, as always, the reviews of readers I trust convinced me to, and I'm glad I did. This book tells the story of David Hastings, a 70-something man in the throes of Alzheimer's disease who is on his way to Switzerland to for a physician-assisted suicide. Along the way he has stops in London, to see his daughter, and to a small town in France, to meet an old schoolmate to whom he owes an apology for his long-ago treatment. Though the narrative is told in close third person, it gives the reader a very good sense of what it must be like to be dealing with dementia, with everything mostly clear one minute to immersion in an old memory the next to confusion and anger the very next. David isn't an entirely likable person, but that doesn't prevent you from feeling for him. I think Cline is incredibly successful in both putting together a narrative that feels just as jumbled and frustrating as the thoughts of a person with dementia would be and in creating a character who is unlikable but also inspires empathy.

Shift and Dust by Hugh Howey (audio)
My rating: 3 stars / 3.5 stars

After reading the first book in the Silo series, I figured I might as well read the other two in the trilogy, particularly as I'm interested in the Apple TV series and would prefer to know all of the story before I start watching. The second book, Shift, goes back in time from the first book to explore how the world came to be the way it was and why the silos were built in the first place. There's also some background on a character from the first book. I thought it dragged a bit and was longer than it needed to be, which I think often happens in the second book of a three-book series, and I think it also raised more questions than it answered. 

The third book pulled most of the loose threads together, coming back in time to the end of the first book and rejoining that book's main character in her efforts to uncover the truth. Things get pretty dark in this last book, but I think it does have a happy-ish ending.

I can't say I loved this series, but it was intriguing, and it's certainly a good warning about what can happen when a few people get too much power and think they know what's best for the world. And I am interested to see how it's portrayed on screen.

Reading this week is a little limited because most of what I'm reading is for work -- the December commencement lists have started to come in. So I'd love to hear what you've been reading!

A Slower Pace

I may not have slept as much as I wanted this weekend, but it was a calmer, more restful couple of days than the last one. Ruthie had a great time at camp. They told me she was definitely a little timid and was following the other dogs rather than leading, but they said that's pretty typical for a first-timer. They also took an adorable photo of her when we first got there:

While she was there, I went for a long walk, washed all her bedding and her blanket, washed and repaired the couch cushion covers (she's a terrier, so she likes to dig), vacuumed the family room and under the couch covers, and even found a little time to sit down and finish up this hat:

I added two additional repeats this time around and used up 375 yards of yarn (though this particular skein had something like 462 yards total, so there's still a bit left). I have to say that holding fingering weight yarn double is a great way to go through it and is making a real dent in my fingering bin! I've cast on another charity hat in fingering doubled, though I'm using up scraps this time around. It's not much to look at yet, but as this one is just stockinette, it should grow quickly.

When I picked Ruthie up, it was clear she was very tired -- I took her for a short walk, and she was walking slowly. When we came home, she ate everything in her food bowl, then plopped on the couch next to me. Shortly after, I glanced over to find her like this:

I thought she'd sleep in yesterday morning after a day with so much activity -- but no, her first bark came at 4:55 a.m.! I made her wait a little bit until I came down to let her out of her crate, and she was overjoyed to see me. It almost made up for the extra-early wakeup. I was glad that after our midday walk, we could both take a little snooze.

Though the weekend wasn't much for sleeping (at least not for me), I will say that it was a gorgeous fall weekend. The mornings lately have been chilly, but each day the sun has come out and warmed us up into the 60s. I believe today we might even hit 70! We also haven't had rain since we got the remnants of Hurricane Isaias a couple of weeks ago, and the low humidity has been great for running. With the exception of the Friday before all that rain came in, when it got humid again and made breathing more difficult, I think I've managed to run at least 10K (6.2 miles) without stopping to walk every day I've gone out to run. But now we're in a streak of perfect fall weather. The leaves are changing and falling, I've had to duck from falling acorns, and the days are getting noticeably shorter. I'm enjoying all this while it lasts and before all the color fades away.

We've got a pretty typical week ahead. The Mister has another trip, though he'll only be gone one night, and I've got more work coming in. Molly took good advantage of her day off on Friday to get a lot of schoolwork done and even get a little ahead. I expect we'll all be busy for much of the week, so my hope is that it's a manageable amount that allows us to pause every now and then to enjoy this last week of the month. And that's my hope for you, too, friends! I will be back on Wednesday with a big sweater update, a peek at my new hat, and some book reviews.

Ready to Rest

What a week this has been! The Mister has been traveling, Molly was out late Wednesday evening for a raku firing, and I've busy with two annual reports and an online Title IX training. On top of all of that, my brain has been waking me up early recently, though that's just as well because Ruthie has been getting up early and announcing it, but it still means I've been getting less sleep. All of that is to say that I'm ready for a quieter weekend. And I'm hoping that's what I get. Molly is home today (parent/teacher conferences are happening), and I think we're planning to have dinner with my parents this evening, but then we have no set plans. We were supposed to go to my brother's Halloween party tomorrow, but in light of last weekend, it's been cancelled.

I have started the first sleeve on my sweater but not made noticeable progress. I have, however, knit almost an entire hat this week. I cast it on and worked on it in the car on the way to and from the visitation on Sunday (we had about an hour's drive each way), and I've put in rounds here and there while working (see online training above) this week. If it looks familiar to you, it's because I knit this pattern a few weeks ago.

I've completed the specified number of repeats, but I think I'm going to do a couple more because I have plenty of yarn and might as well use it up. The yarn has been in my stash for at least a decade; it was my gift for backing the Kickstarter for the now-defunct Steel City Fiber Collective. It's a pretty neon green, not quite as acid green as it's looking in the late-afternoon sunset here. But either way it was too bright for me, even as socks, so I'm holding it doubled for this hat. A Ravelry friend is collecting hats prior to Thanksgiving, so I'm trying to knit as many as I can to send to her.

I said we don't have any plans this weekend, but that's not quite true: Ruthie has an "interview" at doggie day care tomorrow. This is the preliminary step to be able to board her there if needed. Our regular dog sitter is going on vacation when we are in December, so I've been looking for another option. She generally seems to enjoy playing with other dogs, so I'm hoping this works out. She'll be there for several hours (the minimum is 3) on Saturday, and I have a feeling she will be running around a lot and be very tired Saturday night. Maybe she'll even sleep in Sunday morning? I'm sure my brain will wake me up early no matter what, but it would be nice to be able to stay in bed a little!

Can you believe this is the last full weekend of October? The days are flying by as they get shorter! I hope you can enjoy it and that you get blessed with the perfect fall weather we're supposed to get as well.