An Okay Weekend

This past weekend went by quickly, as they always do. We had lovely autumn weather -- crisp mornings, warm sunshine, a gentle breeze. Things were a bit busier than usual, or at least it seemed like it because Iw as in and out a lot. We ended up going out to dinner with my parents Friday night; on Saturday morning I took Molly to get her flu shot; and then we had the anniversary dinner out on Saturday, which ended up being a bit of a fiasco because the restaurant seemed to be overbooked and so we didn't even get our food until around 8 and by the time we'd dropped off my in-laws and I'd taken Ruthie out before bed, it was basically time for me to go to sleep. Fortunately yesterday was calmer, even if I did have to wake up early for the race.

The Mister did end up running, though I think he was in pain for all of it and he was certainly slower. He was just a little ahead of me for most of the race and then ran with me for the last mile or so. I put on a bit of speed at the end so that I finished just ahead of him. As I predicted, I didn't come near last year's PR, but I wasn't that much slower. According to the official results, I finished in 24:50, placing sixth in my division (women 45-49), 98th among all women, and 363rd overall (of 2,345). It felt like a pretty easy race for me, though there's a hill in the middle right after mile 1 that's always a bit of a challenge (it's not steep, but it's long -- probably a good half mile). I got a good adrenaline boost so I was able to run at a slightly faster pace overall. And of course lately when I run I'm doing a longer distance, so 3.1 miles is a light day for me. Next year will be the 50th Great Race, so I expect some fancy swag. This year's shirt, as you can see, was very "America 250" themed, as was the medal. Anyway, another year is in the books.

I didn't get as much time with my sweater this weekend as I hoped (in large part due to that long dinner Saturday night), but I am quickly approaching the end of the yoke patterning:

I have just one more eyelet section, I believe, and then it's just straight stockinette until I reach the target yoke length. I'm still debating whether or not to block the yoke after this point and before carrying on, as suggested in the pattern; it'd be nice to see the texture get a bit crisper, but I also know that I'm good on gauge and likely don't need to make any adjustments to the yoke depth. I'll make a decision once I get to that point.

One accomplishment for the weekend was finishing up my sister-in-law's rainbow-striped socks (well, finishing the knitting, anyway; they'll still need to be blocked):

They did end up very well matched, as advertised, and I've got some leftovers that I think would make some adorable preemie hats.

I'm not sure what the week ahead will bring at work, as we've just finished a big weekend (homecoming, a celebration of 100 years of the Cathedral of Learning, and the launch of a $3B capital campaign). I'm hoping for a bit of a breather before the next big thing starts up. Molly is going to a concert on Tuesday night, so the Mister and I will get a date night, and I'll be on call should my parents -- who are babysitting my niblings all week while my brother and sister-in-law are on a trip -- need extra help. I hope those of you who are on the East Coast have survived the nor'easter without too much damage or trouble, and I hope you all can enjoy these last few days of September.

Unraveled, Week 38/2026

I only took one day off from blogging, but it feels like it's been a long time! It seems that Mother Nature finally got tired of my complaining about the heat and brought in the fall weather. It's been much cooler the past several days -- but also gloomy and rainy. We were all wet and cold walking home from services on Monday, and that wasn't helped by already being cold from fasting. Other than the crummy weathers, the holiday was as good as solemn day of fasting can be. We had my family over to break the fast, including my brother's dog, Leo, and the two pups spent a lot of time racing around the house.

Yesterday it was back to the usual routine during the day, but it was also the Mister's birthday -- his 50th birthday (how am I married to such an old man?!) -- so we went out to dinner to celebrate.

Today it is Wednesday, which means it's time for my weekly link-up with Kat and the Unravelers with an update on my making and my reading.

Knitting has been continuing at regular intervals here, with sock knitting during the day and sweater knitting at night. As you would expect, the socks are moving along much faster; I've finished the first sock and am almost to the heel of the second:

These have come together quickly despite the fact that I actually had to unravel part of the foot of the first sock when I found myself in that weird bit of knitting physics where the fabric keeps measuring the same length over and over again (not long enough) until suddenly it's too long. It was only about a quarter of an inch, but it was annoying. I just put my needles in where they should be to start the toe, pulled them out of where they were, and unraveled the unneeded rounds. It was probably only about 20 minutes of knitting that I didn't need to do, and of course I wanted these socks to fit the recipient, so I dealt with it -- but I was annoyed just a bit all the same.

As for the sweater, it's grown to the point where the circumference is now a bit larger than my needles and I've completed the largest of the stitch patterns:

I've got a couple more eyelet sections and a repeat of the first knit/purl texture section to go and then a bit of stockinette before I split the sleeves from the body. I'm sure it'll move much faster once I get past the texture and don't have to count stitches, but I'm managing a handful of rounds a night. Maybe now that it's getting cool enough to actually wear a light sweater, I'll be more motivated to do more.

It's been a good week for reading, with five books finished, but bear in mind that one was a short audiobook and one was my before-bed book that I'd been reading for a while. In the interest of keeping this post a reasonable length, I'm going to keep my reviews short this week.

With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo (audiobook)

4 stars

High school student Emoni has a gift in the kitchen, but she also has a lot of responsibilities, including her 2-year-old daughter and her grandmother, with whom they live. When she gets into her charter school's culinary arts course, which includes a trip to Spain, she begins to dream of perhaps turning her talent into a career. It's beautifully read by the author and enjoyable to an adult reader, even though it's technically a YA book.

The Searcher by Tana French (digital)

3 stars

In the first of a three-book series, Cal Hooper has moved to the tiny Irish town of Arnakelty, where he hopes to leave his life as a Chicago police officer behind and start a new chapter. But soon he gets drawn into the search for a missing man, and it seems that there's something everyone else in the town knows that he doesn't and that maybe they're trying to keep it that way. It's a fairly entertaining mystery that kept me mostly engaged, though it was a bit slower than I expected.

Shy Creatures by Clare Chambers (paperback)

4 stars

It's the mid-1960s in London, and Helen is working as an art therapist at a mental hospital and having an affair with one of her coworkers, a psychiatrist who happens to be married to a distant cousin of hers. One day they're both called to an unusual situation: A man whose existence was a surprise to the neighbors has been found in a derelict house with his elderly aunt. When the aunt dies and the man refuses to speak, Helen becomes determined to get through to him, especially after discovering that he's a talented artist. Along the way we get flashbacks to his life, going in reverse, to find out how he came to be living in the house, shut off from the outside world. The writing is beautiful and the story is touching, showcasing the power of human kindness.

One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson (audiobook)

4 stars

This is the second book in the Jackson Brodie series, and even though Jackson has now given up being a police officer and a private detective, he finds himself in the middle of murder mystery (or rather several of them) and unable to help himself from trying to figure out the case. I really enjoyed Atkinson's writing of the characters such that I had a good sense of who they were and the way she pulled so many threads of the story together in a way I could never have imagined or figured out on my own.

Exit Party by Emily St. John Mandel (digital)

4 stars

I got extremely lucky and happened to click fast enough when I saw the Libby notification that my library had the book that I got a copy right away last Friday and immediately started reading. Like pretty much all Emily St. John Mandel books I've read (this was my fourth), it's weird and hard to describe. It's partly her usual post-apocalyptic fare, set in the near future when the United States has collapsed and become individual republics and city-states, with waring militias patrolling their territories. As the book opens, the narrator is attending a party with her roommate at which doubles of two others in attendance appear and then the host completely disappears. One of these doubles will later pop up in the narrator's life. Later, we learn that there's an alternate universe from which these doubles came and where, it seems, there are doubles of everyone living in a surveillance state. Amid all of this, there's a painting that keeps getting referenced (and the man who painted it is, apparently, a character in a previous book and mentioned in another). I was very confused for much of this book, but I find that's often the case with this author and I trust her to get me to a resolution in the end. I'm still not sure I understood it all having finished it, and I expect I'll need to read it again to appreciate it fully.

What are you making and reading this week?

Ready for Weekending

It's been a long week here, I guess because it's been the first full week of school since the new year started, and as classes are really ramping up, so is the stress. I'm happy to have a weekend ahead. Last weekend was filled with all the holiday observances and celebrations, so it didn't feel like a real rest, particularly as we didn't have our usual schedule. Here's hoping this weekend can be more typical.

Last night was Curriculum Night at Molly's school, where parents get to follow their child's schedule and visit all their teachers to hear a bit about what they'll be studying in the year ahead. Last year we both had conflicts and couldn't attend, and this year felt a little bittersweet because we'll only do this once more. It's a big year for her for sure, not just because of the course load but because looking ahead to college is getting much more real and serious. And as much as I love the fact that she can now drive herself to and from school, it means I no longer have the time in the car with her every day to listen to her unload on the day's events. I know this is all part of the process and that it's good for her to start pulling away to become a self-sufficient young adult -- but I'm allowed to be a little sad about it, right?

Progress has continued on my WIPs, with some noticeable growth. For one thing, the sock now has a heel and an almost-completed foot:

Yes, that is a cameo by Ruthie's tush.

In order to maintain the stripes on the instep (and because these stripes are narrower than I'm used to), I used the strand from the inside of the yarn cake for the heel turn. It means a couple of extra ends to weave in, but that's not such a big deal. This yarn base is finer than what I'm used to, so I had to do a bit of math to figure out when to start the toe based on my row gauge. Fortunately, my sister-in-law has the smallest feet of all the people I knit socks for, so I'm not too far off from that point now and expect to have the first sock down by the end of the weekend.

Then there's the sweater, which has just gotten enough increases to fit comfortably around my needle so I no longer need to knit magic loop:

I have added the second eyelet section and next will move on to the larger textured area that should be easier to see than the first one. I'm alternating strands every round, and you can see that one strand is still all ramen-y from ripping out my swatch. I'll be happy when I get through all that kinked-up yarn, as I don't think it's helping much with the patterning being hard to see.

We have a pretty quiet weekend planned, but Yom Kippur begins Sunday evening, which means we'll be having a large meal early on before the fast. We'll be hosting break fast at our place for my side of the family on Monday, and I very well may take the day off blogging that day (I'd be getting my post ready on Sunday regardless, but sometimes it's nice to take a break). I hope you enjoy this last summer weekend and will see you back here for sure next Wednesday.

Weekending, 5787*

I have mixed feelings about the Jewish holidays falling on the weekend. On the one hand, it's nice not to have to burn any vacation time. On the other, it does tend to eat up all the free time. But even if the weekend wasn't as restful as it could be, it was still enjoyable. We had a great meal (in spite of the chaotic environment) on Friday night. Ruthie was clearly a little more anxious than usual with so many people in the house, but she handled it very well, all things considered. I was hoping she'd sleep in on Saturday, but she was up and letting me know it at 6 a.m. as usual! We attended services on Saturday, which didn't start until 11 and didn't end until about 1:45; I left an hour earlier to take Ruthie out and then go get my hair cut (which I would have scheduled later in the afternoon if I thought services were going to go so long!). We ate more of the same meal at my parents' on Saturday evening and then went back there for lunch with some family friends on Sunday. I feel like all I did over the weekend was eat! Today I'm ready to get back to the usual routine.

Friday was such a busy day and I was so tired after running, cleaning, serving, and cleaning up that I didn't have any energy to knit once everyone was gone. But Saturday evening we were done much earlier, so I was able to proceed with my sweater. I had completed all of the short rows at the neck by Thursday night, so that meant I was able to join my second skein (I'm alternating to be safe) and begin the textured portion of the yoke. I've only done the first eyelet section so far, but at least it's starting to look like something:

As this isn't a project I can easily work on during the day, I cast on a new pair of socks for my sister-in-law using yarn from a dyer who recently shared some pretty ugly beliefs and so I won't be naming or recommending the yarn. It was already in my stash and it's pretty, so I thought I would use it for one of the most knitworthy people I know because she will love the colors.

Today Molly has an early dentist appointment and then will drop me off on her way to school (yes, she's driving herself now!), but otherwise we're back to the usual schedule this week, for the most part. We've got curriculum night at Molly's school on Thursday evening, and that basically gives me a night off from cooking because we have to be there at 6:30. Today I'm going to fully enjoy the fact that the high is only supposed to be in the low 70s and I probably will need only one shower!

(*In case you were wondering, the new year on the Jewish calendar is 5787. Yes, it's a big number -- we've been at this for a while! And it's a lunar calendar, which is why the holidays seem to be on a different date every year.)

Feel-Good Friday, Late July Edition

This has been a challenging week for a number of reasons, most having to do with not getting enough sleep. I'll spare you the boring details; suffice it to say that I'm happy it's Friday. And instead of wallowing in the less-than-happy things, let's instead focus on the good in this week that was.

I mentioned at the beginning of the week that the Mister was going to be out of town for work for a few days this week. I took advantage of his absence to completely empty the stash closet and put everything on his side of the bedroom. Molly took a stab at organizing things on Tuesday while I was working, and then Wednesday night, after I put Ruthie to bed, the two of us went through all the bins and bags to put things together logically. Molly claimed some leftovers, some mini skeins, and some full skeins for herself (she's been doing a lot of crocheted motifs to make blankets). I consolidated handspun and unspun fiber into fewer containers. And we organized the yarn into bins containing full skeins/sweater quantities and collected all the fingering weight bits that could be used in charity projects. Some things were just plain thrown out because they were of no use to me or anyone else. And now the closet looks like this:

Spinning fiber is all on the left, handspun is in the center, and yarn is to the right. The Cascade bag on top of the fiber is all the bits of fingering, so I can just pull that out and pull out scraps as needed, and the soft plastic cases on top of the yarn bins is projects that have been packed away. I also want to point out that right at the top of the handspun pile is a smaller plastic bag that I deliberately left out -- it's the handspun I couldn't find that triggered this reorganization process in the first place!

Other good things: I finally blocked and photographed my most recent pair of socks (I'm writing up the pattern and will need photos, so that was good motivation):

And I've been continuing to spin almost every evening and finished the first 2 oz. (of 6 oz. total) of this lovely merino/silk/angora fiber that my friend Margene sent me:

I'm hoping we can finish up this week with some really good news: Molly is scheduled to take her driving test later this morning. She's been getting good feedback from the driving instructor (all the credit goes to the Mister for getting her out on busy and difficult roads), so I am feeling good about her chances. I know she's very much like me and won't be reckless, but nerves are always something to contend with. If you have some good thoughts to send her way at 11:30 this morning, I'm sure she'd appreciate it! Update: She passed!

I hope this past week has brought you clearer air if, like me, you were recently dealing with smoke from the forest fires. Our air has been so much better and our weather has been absolutely stunning the past couple of days -- it was in the 50s when I took Ruthie out first thing yesterday! I also hope you've been able to find some things to feel good about, and please feel free to share them in the comments, as I think we can all use a good lift! Have a lovely weekend.

That's a Wrap -- Almost

A full week back at work after vacation is not for the faint of heart, so I am very relieved to have made it to Friday. It's not that work was all that difficult, but when you add in another heatwave, wildfire smoke, Internet service that keeps going down, and broken ovens, it makes for a lot.

Yes, I said broken ovens. Some of you might remember that just a little over a year ago, not long after Ruthie came home, our ovens died right before we were supposed to host Passover and we had to get replacements. We ended up with a slightly newer model from the same company because they gave us a deal. Well, that'll be the last time we buy that company's appliances because over the weekend, when the ovens were off and hadn't been used in a while, the control panel started beeping incessantly about an error. It was telling us something about a button being stuck, which made no sense because it was a touchscreen, and the only way to get the beeping to stop was to turn off the breaker. After getting nowhere with the company when he called, the Mister decided we were just going to replace them with something the local appliance place had in stock. I had to pivot a bit on some of the dinner plans for the week, but that was fine, and yesterday some very nice guys came to install our new double oven. And here's hoping it's functional for a good long time!

I'm also happy to report that Comcast did end up fixing whatever the issue was on Tuesday, and we've had no major Internet issues since then.

Though I can't share the finished skein just yet (because it's still drying), I did indeed wrap up the plying on my spinning project on Wednesday evening and skeined and washed it last night. For now, I'll just share this bobbin shot, and I'll share details once the skein is fully dry and I can measure it:

I also finished a pair of socks yesterday! I really had just a bit more than the toe to do on the second sock, and once the ovens were in and Ruthie was able to settle down, I wrapped that up in short order.

The weekend ahead is looking pretty relaxing from my perspective. Molly's got another driving lesson tomorrow afternoon, which might be interesting because there's a high chance of showers and potential thunderstorms (I keep saying it's because the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix is happening this weekend, and it seems like there's always a massive thunderstorm in the middle of it). I am certainly hoping for some rain and a break to the oppressive weather we've been having. And I am looking forward to a family dinner to celebrate my brother's birthday on Sunday. I've said I'd make an ice cream grasshopper pie, for which I'm planning to use Thin Mints for the crust.

I'll leave you with one last photo -- the first harvest from my garden! I went to water and check on the zucchini and this one totally surprised me because I hadn't spotted it growing. There are lots more tomatoes to come (they'll probably ripen all at once) but these four were the only ones ready.

I hope you have an enjoyable weekend. Remember to hydrate and wear your sunblock!

Unraveled, Week 28/2026

Happy Wednesday morning from the heat dome! We're supposed to have a heat index upward of 100ºF today, so I will be spending as much time as possible inside, where I can knit in comfort. Today I'm joining in with Kat and the Unravelers with a big update on my crafting and my reading.

Over the weekend and the past couple of days, we've been dealing with a Comcast outage (fingers crossed that it's fixed now), but the lack of internet on Monday night meant I was able to focus on my spinning and finished up the second bobbin of singles.

As I got this post ready on Tuesday evening, I will have already started plying when you read this, and I'm hopeful I can get that done and the resulting yarn skeined up in time to share it with you on Friday.

I've been continuing to work on my socks while I read and work, and I'm onto the foot of the second sock:

And my current charity hat has grown a bit since you last saw it, and I'm delighted that the yarn has decided to stripe, even though it's sock yarn and I'm working at a bigger circumference:

Because I'm a little pressed for time, I'm going to keep my book reviews brief this week.

Little One by Olivia Muenter

Digital library loan

3 stars

Told in dual timelines, a woman who grew up in what might be considered a cult and has tried to escape from her past is forced to confront it when a reporter finds her and starts asking questions. It was a page-turner that moved at a good speed, but I was distracted by a number of grammatical errors and thought the ending was totally unrealistic.

Slow Horses (Slough House #1) by Mick Herron

Audiobook library loan

4 stars

Slough House is where the screwups from Britain's MI5 get sent. This first book in the series is pretty much exactly the plot of the first season of the Apple TV show of the same name, which I'd already seen, so there weren't really any surprises, but it was still an entertaining listen.

The Palace on the Higher Hill by Karim Kattan, translated by Jeffrey Zuckerman

Paperback

2 stars

A Palestinian man living elsewhere returns to his family's home in the West Bank, where he is welcomed by ghosts and the memories of his childhood. I had a really hard time understanding what was going on in this book and probably wouldn't have finished it were it not part of my postal paperback club.

The Place of Tides by James Rebanks

Audiobook library loan

4 stars

A British sheep farmer travels to a remote island off the coast of Norway to learn about the life of Anna, a woman who has devoted much of her life to bringing back the Eider ducks whose feathers used to provide a living to earlier generations. Beautiful and respectful.

I'm currently reading a buzzy book, a recent narrative nonfiction release, and a work of literary criticism.

What are you making and reading?

Home Again

And just like that, our trip is over and we are back home. We had fun, but I wouldn't call it a particularly relaxing time away except for the fact that I wasn't working while we were there. Two toddlers in a house means it gets noisy early, so there's not much of a chance to sleep in, and sleeping was difficult because the upstairs rooms were pretty hot. So I can say with confidence that we are all happy to be back, and later this morning, when I go to pick Ruthie up at the dog sitter's house, we'll all be home where we should be. And I'm feeling good about taking today off so I can have a long weekend to settle back in, particularly as I expect some-puppy to be extra needy today.

I may not have slept as much as I'd hoped while we were away, but I certainly took advantage of the time off. I read portions of several books. I exercised. I gave myself a pedicure while sitting on the screened-in porch and listening to the birds. And I did a fair amount of crafting.

I worked on socks on the drive up and finished the first one in short order, casting on the second on the drive home.

I worked on the charity hat while we watched part of the ill-fated U.S. men's World Cup game and Project Hail Mary.

And I finished the turtle in progress on my spindle (but then packed it away and forgot to take a photo). But when we got home yesterday, after I'd unpacked and gone for a walk and showered, I sat down at my spinning wheel for the first time in months. It badly needed some oil, but the motions came right back to me.

Today will be a quiet day, I hope, with the usual dog walks and some extra snuggles, and then we're hosting some friends for dinner (something I only learned about as we were driving home yesterday). But the weekend is free of plans, other than the usual meal planning/grocery shopping and tidying around the house. I'm hoping that it'll be a good reset for all of us to get back to the normal routine.

I wish you a good end to the week and a relaxing weekend!

Unraveled, Week 26/2026

Thank you all for your support and sympathy on Monday's post. I'm still feeling a little anxious about the amount of yarn and fiber that's contained in the closet in that room, but at least it can be contained in the closet, and I'm feeling better now that I have a plan for it. Stay tuned for more on that in the months ahead.

Today, however, it's time for a crafting and reading update, so I'm joining up with Kat and the Unravelers.

Finished (but not yet blocked) are these socks for my sister-in-law:

I came up with the pattern for these, though I'm not sure whether it's different enough from existing designs to merit writing it up. The idea was an offset chevron that's mirrored in the socks, so they're symmetrical rather than identical. I used sportweight for these and thankfully had enough for both socks thanks to keeping the legs to only 5 inches and the fact that this sister-in-law has the shortest feet of anyone in the family I knit socks for (at least of the adults). Because the yarn was on the heavier side for socks, I went up to a US 1/2.25 mm needle and knit at a gauge of 8 stitches per inch. I'm now knitting another pair -- I still haven't decided if they'll be for me or for someone else -- using a rather light fingering weight and a US 0/2.0 mm needle, so they'll look similar but have a smaller gauge and a higher stitch count.

The Baby Surprise Jacket, after not getting much attention for a while, is now much closer to bind-off than cast-on, though it's still very much in the "what the heck is this thing?" stage:

I've now reached the point where you knit only on the 90 stitches at the center for a while (if you've knit one of these, you know what I'm talking about). Once that's done, I pick up on the sides of that panel and resume knitting across the whole thing for about 12 more rows, I think. Rather than buttonholes, I think I'm going to make some I-cord loops, kind of like what I did when I made Molly's BSJ.

In spite of work getting pretty busy in the past week, I've also managed to do a lot of reading (thank you, audiobooks and a day off!).

One really nice perk of being a member of NetGalley is that sometimes instead of requesting a book to read and review, the publishers come to you and ask you to read and review a book for them. That was the case for me with The Light Years, the first book in Elizabeth Jane Howard's Cazalet Chronicles. These books were published back in the '90s but are being reissued starting this December, and I was delighted to be introduced to them now. The Cazalets are a well-to-do British family whose three generations gather every summer at their country estate. In The Light Years, we spend the summers of 1937 and 1938 with them. The matriarch and patriarch of the clan are getting on in years and are being looked after by their unmarried daughter, Rachel. Two of their three sons, Hugh and Edward, are working in the family business after serving in WWI. Their youngest son, Rupert, is struggling to make a living as a painter and has recently remarried after his first wife died, and his new wife is struggling to fit in with the rest of the clan. The various grandchildren have their own quibbles and concerns. And supporting all of them is a slew of servants. While all the usual conflicts and arguments of families are taking place, so is the rise of Hitler in Germany and the specter of another war. If you're the sort of person who enjoyed Downtown Abbey, Upstairs Downstairs, and other similar period pieces, you will love this book. Be forewarned that there are some people who behave badly (adultery, child molestation) and very real concerns beyond the prospect of war (poverty, young children who have lost a parent, children who are fearful of bullying and abuse at boarding school), but overall it's a delightful insider's view of a complicated and complex family. I gave it 4 stars. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House/Modern Library for providing me with a digital ARC of this book in return for an honest review. This book will be published December 1, 2026.

I really enjoyed Laurie Frankel's most recent book, so I thought I'd try out something from her backlist. This Is How It Always Is (2017) tells the story of an extraordinary family. Rosie and Penn already have four sons when their fifth, Claude, comes along, but when Claude is still a small child, he tells his parents that he wants to be a girl when he grows up. How this family accepts their youngest child, even in a world where society has such strong gender stereotypes and expectations, is truly beautiful. I couldn't identify with this specific situation, but I certainly did feel a kinship with parents who want nothing more than for their child to be happy and true to themself. I loved that traditional gender roles were reversed in this family (the mother is a doctor and the father works from home as a writer) and that all of the children had their own quirks and distinctive characteristics. And I loved that while this family was dealing with something that most families don't, they realized that all parenting is this way -- every day is different and can bring some new challenge, but you get through them as best you can and make the best decisions you can with the knowledge you have at the time. I gave it 5 stars.

When two friends whose opinions you respect recommend a book to you, you listen. That's how I came to read Pandora's Jar, the audio version of which was read by the author. This work of nonfiction looks critically at how women are portrayed in Greek myth by looking at famous works of drama, literature, and art. She focuses on specific women whose names you will know -- Pandora, Medea, Medusa, etc. -- but whose stories, even in our times, are often misunderstood and whose reputations are thus tarnished. I've read works of fiction by Haynes before, but this book makes it clear that she's a scholar and that her knowledge of ancient Greece is vast. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and plan to get a hard copy of it because so much of it went by so quickly in audio. If you are a fan of Greek myths, I'd recommend reading this one. I gave it 5 stars.

Daniel Mason's North Woods was my favorite book of 2023, so I couldn't wait to read his new book when I heard it was coming out and was lucky enough to get an ARC. Country People follows a family of four as they travel from California to Vermont for a year. Kate, the mother, is a renowned scholar of Milton who has been invited to hold a visiting professorship at a college there. Her husband, Miles, has been working on his dissertation for more than a decade and can't seem to settle on the right topic, though lately he is interested in the stories of Russian peasants in Tolstoy and thinks that maybe he'll be able to do some research by meeting some real-life "country" people in Vermont. They bring along their son Wesley, who's obsessed with an online game with elaborate world-building, and daughter Olive, along with their pandemic dog Guiseppe, of a breed known for truffle hunting (read: he likes to dig). What they encounter in this small town are characters who seem utterly ridiculous and yet are so fully developed that you can't dismiss them, almost as if the family has wandered into one of the folktales Miles knows so well from his dissertation research. And then things get really whackadoodle when he stumbles into a society devoted to a man who claimed he wandered into a cave one day and discovered an entirely separate world inside the earth. The description of this book calls it "joyous, absurd, and life-affirming," and I'd wholeheartedly agree with it. I found it funny and touching and, yes, absurd, but the absurdity is part of what made it so enjoyable to me. I gave it 4.5 stars. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for providing me with a digital ARC of this book in return for an honest review. This book will be published July 7, 2026.

Finally, I completed my tour of books by J. Ryan Stradal with Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club. Like the earlier two, this is a family story set in the Midwest, this time in a small town in Minnesota at the center of which is (you guessed it!) a supper club. It's not something I was familiar with, but I could understand how a family business could be a boon or a burden to successive generations of a family. I'd say this was my least favorite of Stradal's books, though that's not to say I didn't like it; I just found this one harder to follow with the jumps back and forth in time and between characters, and I also didn't care for how some of the characters treated each other. But it kept me entertained for the two or so days it took me to listen to it, and I gave it 3.5 stars.

Now that I've cleared the queue of ARCs and audiobooks (I had two checked out at once!), I am reading the fourth installment of the Thursday Murder Club series and still slowly making my way through Land.

What are you making and reading this week?

A Free Friday

Happy Friday, friends! I'm off from work again, though the only thing I'll really be free from is my work laptop. In every other way, it's going to be a normal Friday. As long as the weather cooperates, I'll go for a run this morning, then clean bathrooms and wash the towels. I've got a couple of returns to drop off with UPS and will need to go to Trader Joe's to get ingredients for the Father's Day make-up dinner. But after all of that, I'll be able to relax all afternoon while Ruthie naps. Considering that the past several days I've been buried in work, that alone is worth having the day off.

What I am really looking forward to doing this long weekend is focusing a bit more on my knitting. Here's where things stand with my current WIPs:

I've reached the heel flap of the second sock of my current pair and finished the decreases on the BSJ. As these socks for for my small-footed sister-in-law, it's possible they'll be finished this weekend. The BSJ will take a bit longer, but there's no rush. I'm hoping to find some time to dig through my stash this weekend to find something suitable for a sweater or summer top of some sort -- I'm thinking ahead to when we're on vacation (we'll be away for most of the week after July 4) and I'll have more free time to work on a bigger project.

Once again Molly has much more going on this weekend than I, with another driving lesson and a graduation party to attend. I’ll be walking, weather permitting, and I'll be bracing myself for a predicted heat wave that's coming at the beginning of next week -- temps are supposed to get up into the 90s, ick! 

Whatever the last weekend in June holds in store for you, I hope you can enjoy it. See you back here on Monday!

Unraveled, Week 25/2026

It's Wednesday, so I'm joining in with Kat and the Unravelers as per usual, but first I have a cautionary tale to share. This all happened on Sunday after I got Monday's post ready to go, and I was too tired afterward to go back and edit, hence my sharing today.

The Mister had requested chicken piccata for dinner on Father's Day, so I was pan-frying the chicken breasts on the stove. I'd made a bit of a mess on the counter getting the chicken breaded, so I had the baking sheet with parchment paper and paper towels (to absorb the extra oil) sitting next to the pan on the stove. Molly was in the kitchen with me, mixing up a batch of brownies for dessert. I think you can likely guess what happened next: The baking sheet got just a little too close to the burner that was lit, and the next thing I knew, there were flames. Thankfully, we have always had a small fire extinguisher in the kitchen for just this sort of emergency and it did the job well. But it also made quite a mess.

Needless to say, we did not have chicken for dinner. The Mister was very understanding (I told him I'd make the dinner on Friday) and we were able to go out to get dinner at a place in the neighborhood -- and the brownies were already in the oven, so we still had a good dessert! Cleanup took quite a while, but I'm fairly certain the kitchen and especially the stove haven't been so clean in a long time! And yes, we did immediately order a replacement fire extinguisher (and an extra) right away, though I'm hoping I'll never need it -- for the record, the one I used was in the kitchen in the townhouse where before we moved into this house back in 2008, and it was the only one I've ever had to use.

PSA done, let's talk knitting. Not a ton has gotten done in the last couple of days -- I feel like I barely sat down on Monday between my run, going to donate blood, and walking Ruthie -- but I've at least made forward progress, which is better than having to unravel or tink. I've nearly finished the first sock in this pair (just a handful of rounds left on the toe!):

Reading hasn't been as plentiful in the past week either, at least if you go by the number of books I've finished -- only two, and audiobooks at that. But the two books I'm reading with my eyes are on the longer side, and that pesky job thing keeps taking up prime reading hours.

The first book I finished this year was by Jess Walter, so I thought I'd try a title from his backlist. Beautiful Ruins came out back in 2012 and is one of those books where there are multiple storylines taking place at different times that seem entirely unrelated but somehow all come together. There's one in 1962 in Italy that takes place during the filming of Cleopatra. There's one in the '90s at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. And there's one in "recent" past in Hollywood. It takes a while to get to the connection and bring all these strands together, but it's an enjoyable trip. I also enjoyed all the Italian (it's translated, but I understood a fair amount!) and the excellent narration. I gave it 4 stars.

I read a second title by an author I'd enjoyed earlier this year in Underland. After enjoying my journey into rivers with Robert Macfarlane, so I thought I'd take a trip underground with him. This work focuses on spaces inside the earth, both natural and human made, and explores all the reasons why humans have sought out those spaces -- to live in, to inter remains, to bury toxic materials, etc. -- as well as our fascination with what lies beneath our feet and our urge to explore it. It's highly possible the issue this time was me, but I had trouble staying focused and engaged with this one. I have a feeling I would have gotten more out of it had I read with my eyes. I gave it 3 stars.

I've got another long weekend coming up (I'm taking my last personal day on Friday), so I'm hoping I can get some good reading time in all three days. I want to finish at least one of those long books!

A Summer Long Weekend

I'm starting a new week fairly well rested and also convinced that every weekend should last more than two days! It may not have been the most productive long weekend on record, but it was an enjoyable one. We spent a lot of time with family -- dinner with my parents on Friday night to celebrate my mother's birthday, dinner with the Mister's side of the family on Saturday to celebrate my mother-in-law's birthday, and breakfast with my side of the family yesterday morning for Father's Day. Other than a sudden deluge last Saturday afternoon/early evening that never showed up on the radar, we had beautiful weather, too. I even managed to run 8 miles on Friday morning!

And of course there was knitting. I've made progress on my sister-in-law's sock, finishing the gusset decreases and moving on to the foot:

Again, it's not a great photo, but at least the colors are more accurate in this one.

I also took my bin of sock yarn out of the closet and moved it into my bedroom in the hope that looking at it would inspire me, and indeed it did. I heard late last week that Tina Newton, the dyer behind Blue Moon Fiber Arts, had passed away, and that encouraged me to dig out a long-stashed skein of Socks That Rock Mediumweight from back when I was in the Rockin' Sock Club (we're talking before Molly was born, so in the 2007/2008 time frame) and cast on a Baby Surprise Jacket to go with the baby pants:

I've only managed a couple of brief sessions with this since it was cast on, so obviously I haven't gotten too far yet, but I've knit enough of these over the years that I know what to do and won't have to puzzle over the instructions.

I've got another shorter workweek ahead because I'm taking Friday off again, and today I'm scheduled to donate blood (hemoglobin level permitting). We're supposed to get more rain today, which is of course one of the most inconvenient days because I'll be walking to my appointment, but I'm trying to focus on the fact that rain means I don't have to drag out the hose or lug the watering can to water all the plants. Here's hoping the rain lets up when I have to be inside and the short week moves quickly!

Unraveled, Week 21/2026

It's already Wednesday -- another good thing about a short week after a long weekend! Time to join up with Kat and the Unravelers.

As promised, I have a big reveal today. Tada!

Pattern: Speculoos Sweater (Ravelry link) by Elenor Mortensen, size M (approx. 41 in./104 cm bust), giving me approximately 5 in. of positive ease
Yarn: handspun Rambouillet in Thunderstruck (MC), approximately 1,058 yds. used, and handspun mystery wool (CC) in Pebbles, approximately 211 yds. used, both from Southern Cross Fibre
Needles: US 5/3.75 mm (for colorwork), US 4/3.5 mm (for stockinette), and US 2.5/3.0 mm (for ribbing)
Started/Completed: March 12/May 23
Mods: none

I'd had the four skeins of handspun set aside to be knit into a sweater for a couple of years and had intended them for at least two other patterns before I saw and fell in love with this one. And I cast on almost right away once I'd bought it and wound the yarn.

The sweater is knit top down, starting with the contrast color and some short-row shaping to raise the back neck. The neckline itself is very minimal -- knit a round and purl around. Time will tell if it has enough structure for me.

The only thing about this sweater that I don't completely love is that the mystery wool I used for the contrast did not bloom as much as the Rambouillet I used for the main color, so the colorwork didn't even out as much as I would have liked when I blocked it and the yoke still looks a little textured. It doesn't affect the visibility of the pattern, especially not from far away, but it's just not as finished as I would like.

I followed the pattern exactly as written and didn't have any issues with it, though it was clear to me through some of the phrasing/wording that the designer isn't a native speaker of English. It's not that anything was confusing per se, it's just that instructions were worded a bit differently than how I'd do it. It's obvious that all the measurements and grading were done in metric to begin with because the equivalent imperial measurement are a bit ... odd (like "work to 2.3 inches"). It might trip up a newer sweater knitter; for me, it was just a curiosity.

I also finished my brother's socks over the weekend, though they're nothing really exciting -- except for the fact that I finished both and didn't run out of yarn! I'm fortunate that Lisa's skeins are frequently a smidge over 100 g; this pair took 98 g.

These will need to be blocked and then will be put away either for his birthday (in July) or Chanukah.

Meanwhile, in reading, I finished another five books:

I'm not entirely sure why, but at some point I bought How to Lose Your Mother when it was a Kindle deal, so I thought I might as well read it. I've never read Erica Jong's Fear of Flying or any of her books, but I was certainly aware of it and that it was a bit of a cultural phenomenon. And I'd heard of Molly Jong-Fast as a political commentator, but I didn't know much about her personal life. This memoir chronicles her experience as Erica Jong's daughter and specifically a year in her life in which she had to move both her mother (suffering from dementia) and her stepfather (suffering from Parkinson's and dementia) into assisted living while also dealing with her husband's cancer diagnosis and treatment. Through all this, she reflects on what it was like to grow up with a famous mother, on getting sober in her late teens, and on her complicated relationship with her mother. It was an interesting read, perhaps one I never would have gotten to if I hadn't taken a chance on a bargain. It made me thankful to have a much less complicated relationship with my own mother. I gave it 3 stars.

American Han came up in one of my Sunday Zooms and sounded intriguing, so I put it on hold. It's told from the point of view of a 20-something Korean American woman reflecting on her difficult childhood with an older brother and immigrant parents. The blurb calls it "deeply serious and absurdly funny"; I found it to be just plain sad because no one in this family seems to be happy with their lives and they're all horrible to each other. I did finish it, so I can't say I hated it, but I didn't much care for it. I gave it 2 stars.

A much more enjoyable listen was History of the Rain. Ruthie is a college student who has fallen ill with a mysterious disorder that confines her to her bed, so she passes her days by writing the story of her family, especially her father, who gave her his vast library of books. Interspersed are anecdotes about her childhood and the charming characters in her Irish town. It's at points funny, heartbreaking, and poignant. I think I might have enjoyed it even more were it not for some of the odd choices of the narrator, such as pausing at unusual moments and pronouncing words oddly; I also had trouble following the plot at times because I was listening. But, overall, it was delightful. 4 stars.

Time Shelter won the 2023 Booker International Prize, and the premise sounded intriguing: The narrator (who may or may not be the author) came across a man named Gaustine was had come up with a unique idea for a clinic for those suffering from Alzheimer's or dementia: It would be set up in such a way that it would exactly resemble a time period from the past, one in which the patients believed they were living, so that they would cease being confused and instead be happy that the world outside matched the one in their head. This concept becomes hugely successful, but then nations start holding referendums on returning to a different time as well and things get strange. I really enjoyed the first third or so of this book, but then it started becoming somewhat of a slog. If you enjoy books that are a little weird, that make you think about time, and that make you question what's real in the world of the book, you might enjoy this. I gave it 3 stars.

Finally, a novella that I read in two relatively brief sittings on Monday: The narrator in The English Understand Wool is a 17-year-old raised by her French mother to avoid being in bad taste at all costs. She is given the best of everything, traveling with her mother to Scotland to obtain tweed fabric and then to London to have it made into suits by a tailor there, but if she wanted something in linen, that would need to be obtained in Ireland and be sewn by a Thai seamstress in Paris. One day her entire life is turned upside-down when she learns that everything she thought she knew about her family was a lie, and what follows is how she proceeds with her life with the training she's been given. It's a weird little story, very well written and very odd. I gave it 3 stars.

What are you making and reading this week?