Pre-Weekending

Phew, it's been a long week! Single-parenting is a lot easier now that Molly is self-sufficient (for the most part), but doing all the school runs and cooking and cleaning up all the meals and walking the dog and working full time and donating blood on top of all that, all while dealing with an extreme heat advisory has been a lot, to say the least. It's a good think we have a long weekend coming up without any big plans!

The Mister was due to get back from his trip very early this morning (I'm writing this post on Thursday) and will be working from home today, once he gets up. My office is closing at 2. Molly has school as usual but obviously is done mid-afternoon. I think we're all going to be looking forward to a nice dinner out tonight for our belated anniversary celebration.

I'm still in a weird in-between place in my knitting; I don't want to cast on anything too big because my next imaginary internet points thing starts next Wednesday, but I also don't want to be without knitting, so I'm working on strange things. If the mittens weren't finished by last night, they will be soon, and in the meantime I'm knitting a strange little hat with some fingering-weight singles that I thought were non-superwash but aren't (I was planning to knit up a piece of fabric to felt) and so I pivoted:

This will never be a full Ruthie.

What has become the brim is double-knit using just a single strand. The idea was that I'd knit up a tube, felt it, and then cut it open to make a little holder for scissors, darning needle, etc. But now that I know this won't felt (or at least not easily), it's become a baby/child's hat. I moved to bigger needles and joined the other end of the skein so I'm working double stranded, and I'll try to use up as much of the yarn as I can.

While I can't cast on for my next sweater until next week for it to count, I did wind the other skein and plan to swatch this weekend.

I spun this yarn back in 2016, originally intending to knit a different sweater with it, but it's been hiding in the stash ever since. I've got just a little less than 1,500 yards of it. The size of the sweater I'm planning to make specifies 1,345 yards, so I think I should be fine (especially because I'm pretty sure that's a padded estimate). The yarn is fingering weight, so I think it should make for a good fall/spring sweater.

The heat is finally supposed to break this weekend, and I'm looking forward to being outside without melting. Other than our dinner reservations tonight, our only plans at this point are a haircut for Molly tomorrow afternoon. Perhaps we'll do some grilling for Labor Day or attend the local parade! Or perhaps we'll just hang out, which would be just fine with me. Do you have any plans? Whatever they are, I hope you enjoy them!

Unraveled, Week 35/2026

Wednesday again, but the first of September! This particular Wednesday, the Mister and I are also celebrating our 19th anniversary. We will have to wait to celebrate until Friday, though, as he's still away at a work conference. But I donated blood yesterday in the room where we had our reception, and that felt appropriate! 

I won't postpone linking up with Kat and the Unravelers, however, so here's an update on my making and reading.

I have not done much knitting this week, mainly because I haven't had much free time being the only adult in the house, but I've finished a positively enormous mitten (that I'm hoping will become a normal-sized mitten once it's felted):

I'm making the largest size in this pattern (why not, given I was trying to use up yarn?) and was happy to see that I have more than half left from what I started with, so I won't be playing any yarn chicken this time around. I was able to get the cuff done on Monday evening and moved on to the hand last night, and I think I'll be able to wrap up the pair by the end of the week.

Although I didn't get a chance to take a photo, I did wind up a skein of handspun so I can swatch for my next sweater, which I hope to be able to cast on a week from today.

I finished four books this past week. Two were okay, one was really good, and one I loved.

I listened to 10 Marchfield Square on a whim because it was available on Hoopla and sounded like it would keep my interest. It's a murder mystery set in an apartment building owned by an older widow. When one of the tenants is murdered, followed shortly by the possible murder of his wife, and the owner is unsatisfied with how the police are investigating, she enlists two other tenants -- a writer struggling to find inspiration for his next book and a cleaner -- to try to solve the case on their own. I thought it got a little convoluted at times and I did figure out the killer before the end, but I thought the narrator did a pretty good job (aside from her unfortunate habit of pronouncing dogs as "dogses"). It was a two-day listen and kept me mostly engaged, so it was fine. I gave it 3 stars.

Both my father and mother read Heft and passed their copy along to me after I had recommended God of the Woods by the same author to them. This book focuses on two individuals: Arthur Opp, a 550-pound man who hasn't left his house in years because of his size, and Kel Keller, a teenager struggling to take care of his alcoholic single mother who longs to play professional baseball. They are connected through Kel's mother, Charlene, who was once Arthur's student when he taught college and with whom he continued corresponding for many years after. Both are struggling to connect with others and to be fully vulnerable with others. I thought the characters were interesting but the story was sad. I didn't love it but didn't hate it. I gave it 3 stars.

I have loved the two other Laurie Frankel books I've read this year, so I thought I'd try another. One Two Three is about three sisters -- triplets -- who live in a small town that was once poisoned by the local chemical company. Their father died before they were born, and their mother has been fighting for their entire lives to try to get justice. Mab is the firstborn who can't wait to get out of town but also can't imagine losing her sisters. Monday is on the autism spectrum, prefers to wear and eat only yellow things, and has appointed herself town librarian since the library closed. Mirabel, brilliant and observant, is confined to a wheelchair and can only speak by using an assistive device. Their family's life is challenging, but they're getting by. And then the family behind the chemical company returns to town with a plan to reopen the plant, prompting the three sisters to join forces to try to find evidence to support their mother's lawsuit or at least convince the townspeople not to take the risk. These three young women are such wonderful characters, and their interactions with one another -- their support of each other, how well they understand each other -- are funny and sad and heartfelt. I really enjoyed my time with them. I gave this book 4 stars.

A story of mothers and daughters, of the challenges of being a parent and also a person, Mothersick focuses primarily on Mara and Nell, sisters who made a pact never to get married or have children after their father had an affair and their mother, Andy, seemed to abandon them. But then Mara broke the pact when she met her partner and has just given birth to her son, Gabriel. She finds motherhood and her child unlike anything she could have imagined, almost every moment a gift, but also realizes that in becoming a mother, she's had to give up part of herself, the part that was creative and imaginative and that previously provided her for family. Nell, meanwhile, has entered a whirlwind romance with Lenny, a wealthy American who wants a traditional family to make up for the broken family in which he grew up in, and though she can accept that she's willing to break the marriage part of the pact, she's not sure she'll ever come around to the idea of children. While their mother is traveling all over the world and making art, the sisters are supported by their aunt, Jean, who provides them with the love, advice, and acceptance they always wanted but never got from their mother, and Jean finds in her nieces some of the joy in being a parent that she always wanted but wasn't able to have. Over the course of a year, these three women deal with all the usual challenges of being a woman in the world as they grapple with trying to understand why Andy seemed to be so afraid to be a mother and trying to forgive her for leaving. The prose in this book is lush, the kind of writing that you have to read slowly to fully understand and appreciate. The characters are flawed but lovable because they are so real. They have old traumas they have kept secret and new challenges to their sense of self, both of which threaten their relationships with one another. What resonated most for me was the very relatable sense that women, especially women who are mothers, are expected both to be everything -- partners, caretakers, parents, homemakers, career women, etc. -- and to give up the things that matter to them as people (careers, time, hobbies, friends) in the service of caring for others. The unspoken message in this book is that we are at our lowest, we almost always want our mother to care for us -- but what if that mother has not been cared for herself and doesn't know how to provide the love her children need? I gave this one 5 stars. Thank you to NetGalley and Henry Holt and Co. for providing me with a digital ARC of this book in return for an honest review. This book will be published April 27, 2027.

I'm currently reading The Artist and the Feast (digital) and Shy Creatures (on paper). I'm getting caught up on podcasts at the moment but will likely be ready for a new audiobook later this week.

Finally, I just wanted to let you all know that my new sock pattern, Kesbie, has been published. You'll find it on Ravelry and Payhip.

Ending and Beginning

Well, that was quite a weekend. As predicted, it was a lot of eating and not very much else. I managed to get a walk in on Saturday morning, but my only exercise yesterday was done while walking Ruthie. Your parents only celebrate their 50th anniversary once, though, so it was all worth it! And it was lovely to spend time with my aunts and uncles as well. The only photo of all the food I took was of my dessert -- a chocolate hazelnut tart -- on Saturday night that I fear does not do it justice because of the poor lighting. I can tell you that as gorgeous as this was, it tasted even better.

I didn't say on Friday that I hoped I'd be able to sleep in, and wouldn't you know it? I slept in both days! Well, technically I was up at the usual time on Saturday because the Mister got up to go to the bathroom at 5-something and then was looking at his phone, but I rolled over and went back to bed until Ruthie told me she was up at around 6:30. She was silent yesterday, which was good because we didn't get home from dinner until after 10 and I got to bed very late for me (for the record, I have reached that age where I like to be in bed, reading, before 10).

Because so much of the weekend was spent with family, there wasn't a lot of knitting time, but I managed to finish up this charity hat on Saturday. It still needs to be blocked, but it's another 450+ yards out of my stash.

Today is (obviously) the last day of August, and apparently summer is going to make a comeback this week with highs around 90. Yuck! I was hoping that by the time we got to this point, we'd be able to say goodbye to that kind of weather; perhaps this is just summer's last hurrah. As we close out August, however, it's also the start of Molly's junior year of high school. She has her first day (well, half-day) today, and she finally got her schedule over the weekend and is relieved that her courses seem to be well spaced out so she won't have a repeat of last year's stress. That's not to say I'm expecting it to be easy -- she's taking English, French 4, precalculus, U.S. history, biology, and AP chemistry as well as glee club (chorus) and clay -- but at least she won't be getting homework from all her classes every other day like last year. I'll be dropping her off and picking her up today, but the plan is for her to register with the high school secretary so she can drive and park in the school lot and free me from having to rush out of the house every day at 3. I also realized that in addition to not having to do that, I can also send her to pick up something at the market for dinner if we forgot it or to run other quick errands for me. There are plenty of times that I'm sad that she's growing up so quickly, but there are definitely some plus sides to having another driver in the house!

Let the Eating Begin

Things have been a little weird this week and I've had a hard time keeping track of what days it is, but I am completely sure that today is Friday, and thank goodness for that. We had dinner at some friends' on Tuesday and were home late, and then last night Molly went to a friend's house for dinner so the Mister and I went out. All of that is outside our normal schedule, so I'm not surprised I've been thrown off.

The construction in our neighborhood is still ongoing and blocked our street again yesterday (fortunately I didn't need to get the car out), and when I called the gas company, all they could tell me was that the work was happening now. The customer service rep also told me that they always notify residents when work is going to be happening, but somehow not a single neighbor I've talked to has heard a thing, so it's not just a case of us missing a piece of mail! I've gotten mostly used to the inconvenience, but it makes my running route and Ruthie's usual walk route a bit like an obstacle course. I guess it's good to keep things interesting!

We have a bit of a big weekend coming up, though the primary activity will be eating. Tomorrow is my parents' 50th wedding anniversary. They didn't really want to do anything to commemorate it, but my brother and I convinced them that it was a big milestone and we needed to mark it in some way. So their siblings from out of town are all coming in for the weekend (one uncle is local and just has to drive across town). We're doing a casual dinner Friday night, a fancier dinner on Saturday night, and brunch on Sunday before the out-of-towners go home. In between I'm sure we'll just be hanging out at my parents', where I'm sure my mother will be pushing snacks on us.

This isn't much of an update outside of life stuff, and that's mainly because the knitting is much the same. Will you settle for a cute photo of Ruthie?

This is what she looked like the other morning when I got up to refill my coffee and maybe had just realized that I was coming back and not leaving her. Her expression seems to be saying that she doesn't understand why I would think it odd that she was hiding under the couch.

Have a good weekend and see you back here on Monday with 100% more knitting content!

Unraveled, Week 34/2026

Good morning and happy Wednesday! Today, as usual, I'm joining up with Kat and the Unravelers for an update on my making and my reading.

I'm happy to report that the first pair of to-be-felted mittens has been completed and the second pair has been cast on, this time starting with the cuff:

I am knitting the largest size this time around, so even though I still had some of the burnt orange yarn remaining, I thought I'd use a partial skein with a bit more yardage in it just to be sure I wouldn't run short. That purple crocheted square next to the knitting is a swatch. Ruthie has a habit of pulling apart the padded bedding in her crate and removing the stuffing, so I thought I'd use up some yarn by crocheting and then felting a piece of fabric. I've got a bunch of 50% alpaca/50% wool yarn that used to be sweater (surprise, surprise -- it stretched out, so I frogged it) and that I know felts very well, so I'm going to felt up this swatch to determine how big I need to make the real thing to get it the size I want.

My current hat in progress also has surpassed a half Ruthie:

It's been a slower reading week for me, but I've finished two audiobooks (both fairly deep backlist) and one ARC.

I had an infant when Unbroken was published, so it's not surprising that it didn't cross my radar at the time. I think it took the movie coming out (which I haven't seen) for me to become aware of it. This is a hard story to read, as it tells in excruciating detail of the atrocities that prisoners of war in Japan were subjected to in the second World War, but knowing about the cruelty and privations makes it all the more remarkable that anyone survived it. The story of Louis Zamperini is especially notable given that he lived the rest of his life without the modern-day psychological treatments we now have to deal with trauma and PTSD. The book was well written and clearly very thoroughly researched, and while I hesitate to call it a delight to listen to because of the heavy subject matter, having the late Edward Hermann read it to me made it much easier to digest. I gave it 4 stars.

I was likewise late to the Jackson Brodie series but have enjoyed the other Kate Atkinson books I've read, and I finally got around to reading Case Histories. I think what Atkinson really excels at is character -- you get to know so much about her characters and they come so alive even though she doesn't tell you all that much. I know how much skill that takes. I thoroughly enjoyed this first book and plan to work my way through the series. There were some loose ends and I had some trouble keeping some characters straight, but I never lost interest. One pet peeve: The narrator kept mispronouncing the name of Jackson's sister. Otherwise, the narration was quite good. I gave this one 4 stars.

Finally, the ARC: I was invited to review Elif Shafak's forthcoming novel In One Brief Moment All Eternity. This is an unusual novel, as in some respects it reads like a creative biography of Gustave Flaubert, the 19th-century writer best known for Madame Bovary. But Shafak makes it clear in her author's note that although many of the details were based in fact, this is, rather, a fictionalized account of Flaubert's life and his dedication to literature above all else. The most creative aspect of this book, though, isn't that bending of genre but that different moments in his life are narrated by women, from his mother and sister to lovers, friends, passing acquaintances, and even a city, a camel, and his most famous character. The novel reads like a work from Flaubert's time, with a richness of language and a slower pace that are so often lacking in more modern works (and happen to be two things I love). While Flaubert faced adversity and dark times throughout his life -- failure to live up to his father's expectations, the deaths of his father and sister, war, illness, etc. -- he remained dedicated to the power of literature to uplift and give life meaning. And that is very much what was behind Shafak's thinking in writing this book, at a time when we are facing war and conflict, climate change, and uncertainty, as she notes: "Literature cannot stop wars or heal hurts, but without it, without stories, we each would be so much lonelier." I gave it 4 stars. Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf for providing me with a digital ARC of this book in return for an honest review. This book will be published January 12, 2027.

Finally, I want to say that I was saddened to hear of Dolly Parton's passing yesterday. I'm not a country music fan, but I've long admired Dolly for philanthropic work, especially what she did to get books into the hands of kids. Molly and I both thought that a great way to remember her would be to make a donation to her Imagination Library. Maybe you think so, too?

Oh Bother

I really should learn to stop saying that I'm planning to have a relaxing weekend and that I hope I might be able to sleep in; it really almost never happens. Well, that's not to say that the weekend wasn't relaxing in some ways, but it wasn't the carefree, restful weekend I always hope for. I overdid it a bit on Friday and had both an iced coffee in the afternoon and an alcoholic beverage at dinner, and the combination of the two summoned my old foe acid reflux for a visit, keeping me up for about three hours past my usual bedtime Friday night and then making me feel rotten most of the day Saturday. As if that wasn't convenient enough, I had to contend with this Saturday morning:

This work has been going on in the neighborhood for several weeks and we think they've been replacing gas lines, but we still don't know for sure because the gas company hasn't told us a thing -- not even that we'd be unable to leave our dead-end street for about half the day on Saturday. (I will say that the workers have been lovely and have been stopping traffic for me and Ruthie regularly when we need to cross the street, and they did move that dump truck so I could get to my house when I came back from a Costco run Saturday morning. Calling the gas company is on today's to-do list so I can find out what the heck is going on and when it'll be done as well as whether or not we need to plan for another street closure.) Ruthie and I both napped in the afternoon, and we had a quiet evening in following yet another thunderstorm.

Although I was up at my usual time yesterday, I woke up feeling back to normal and well rested, which was a relief. And it felt a little like fall! The high was only in the mid-70s yesterday, with a nice breeze and intermittent clouds. The Mister and I did the grocery shopping together, Ruthie and I enjoyed our walks, and it was a calm day overall.

I'm still working on that crazy-pooling hat (I'll share an update later in the week), but real progress has been made on the mittens. Here is what they looked like yesterday morning, though by the time you're reading this, I expect they'll be done and ready to be felted:

I'm planning to knit another pair of these when I'm done, and I think this time around I will modify the pattern to knit the cuffs first so I can do a tubular cast-on.

Among the usual stuff to be done this week, I'm hoping to start pulling some yarn and planning out some fall projects, including my next sweater. I've already selected and printed out the pattern, so up next is winding the yarn and swatching. I won't be casting on until at least September 9, but I like getting all my ducks in a row well ahead of time so I can dive right in.

Have a good start to your week and see you back here for an update on Wednesday!

Still Drying Out

It has been another wet week here in Western Pennsylvania -- yesterday was especially wet, with heavy rain all morning (exactly when I need to be out to walk Ruthie and then walk to and from work). Needless to say, I got pretty soaked. We were predicted to get as much as 2 inches yesterday alone, and I'm pretty sure we got close to that. I wish we could share all this rain with folks who are experiencing drought! The sun did come out for a little while yesterday afternoon, and the temperatures were only in the low 70s, so it was pretty comfortable and a nice change from the higher temps and high humidity. Looks like there's more rain in the forecast, though, so things aren't drying out completely anytime soon.

We've officially begun the countdown to the first day of school year. Molly goes back (for a half day, sheesh) on the 31st, so next week is her last week of summer break. All this month she's been working on her summer reading assignment and a whole bunch of chemistry assignments (to prepare for AP Chem this year). I'm also preparing for my next big knitalong, which starts September 9, so although I'd like to start a sweater, I'm waiting until it counts for imaginary internet points and biding my time until then with some smaller charity projects. You've already seen the current hat, which is growing a couple of inches or so each day and is now maybe a third of a Ruthie:

I also started some Snowball Throwin' Mittens (Ravelry link), though this time around I'm picking up and knitting the cuffs in superwash yarn before felting.

The part that will be felted is knit in Cascade Eco Wool (bulky), and I'm using some leftover Fibernymph Dye Works Bona Fide (DK) for the cuff. I knit a different pattern a couple of years ago using superwash for the cuff and non-superwash for the hand and it worked well, so I'm hoping that's the case here

It should be a less-dramatic weekend here, particularly as the Mister is recovering well but not yet up for running or biking yet. Molly is slated to work Saturday and Sunday, and there's an arts festival in our neighborhood's business district both days, so she should be busy and not interested in doing much when she gets home. We're planning to take my in-laws out for dinner tonight, and that's all that's on the social calendar. All of that is just fine with me!

Have the best weekend available to you, friends, and see you back here on Monday.