Unraveled, Week 46/2025

If last week seemed to drag, this week has flown -- it's already Wednesday! Time to link up with Kat and the Unravelers.

There hasn't been a ton of knitting time this past week, between things being busy at work and things being busy in the evenings (mostly not-fun things, like never-ending loads of laundry to fold), but I did manage to cast on a new project:

My friend Lisa of Fibernymph Dye Works has for several years run a yearlong make-along in her Ravelry group and generously gives out participation prizes throughout the year. Earlier this year, I was lucky enough to win one and selected a kit for her Ryoko wrap. The kit includes a skein of her Sunshine fingering base and a skein of her Floof silk/mohair laceweight base as well as the pattern. But I actually already had the pattern in my library because I tech edited it for her! I'm planning to give this to my mother-in-law as a holiday gift. It's a pretty straightforward garter and eyelet pattern, and what you see here is mostly the result of one evening of knitting, so I'm hopeful I can get it done relatively quickly.

Similarly, reading has been slow, mainly because my typical afternoon reading time has been taking up by work-related reading, so I've finished only two books this week.

Several years ago, when I was on an Elizabeth Strout kick, I somehow missed The Burgess Boys. I loved the character of Bob Burgess in Lucy by the Sea, so I bookmarked the audio of this one on Libby and finally caught it at a time when I was ready for a new book and there was no wait. This book focuses on Bob and his siblings, Jim and Susan, and their complicated relationships throughout the years. They're brought together again in adulthood when Susan's son is arrested for throwing a pig's head into a mosque frequented by the town's immigrant Somali population. In dealing with this crisis, they have to confront the big tragedy from their past that dramatically changed the course of their lives. There's a lot in this novel that's sad, but what I love about Elizabeth Strout's characters is how truly human they are. They aren't perfect people and never pretend to be, and the author portrays them with full respect for their flaws and imperfections. I thoroughly enjoyed this one -- 4.5 stars.

After reading Bonny's review of More than Enough, I immediately went to NetGalley to see if I could request it -- and it turns out I was already preapproved to read it! I've only previously read one other book by Anna Quindlen, and that was many years ago, but I so enjoyed this forthcoming novel that I will definitely be seeking out more of her work. Polly Goodman is an English teacher at an all-girls private school. She's happily married but struggling with infertility, and when we first meet her, she has just gotten some unexpected results from a DNA test given to her as gag gift for her birthday by her book club. She's also struggling with the slow loss of her father to Alzheimer's and a difficult relationship with her mother. This isn't a dramatic book and focuses on the sorts of difficulties that so many middle-aged women have, but it's a beautiful study of friendship, found family, and facing the mortality of aging parents. It's a book I didn't want to stop reading (and I got very annoyed with work getting in the way of my reading time as a result). I gave it 5 stars. Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for providing me with a digital ARC of this book in return for an honest review. This book will be published February 24, 2026.

What are you making and reading this week?

Ups and Downs

This past weekend was mostly good, but with some scares I didn't anticipate. First, after it had rained all day on Thursday, it cleared up on Friday, enabling me to get in a run and complete my first-ever all-running 10K here (I've done it a couple of times in Florida, where the route is totally flat). It's also the first time I've managed it since the broken foot, so that felt pretty darn good.

Molly went trick-or-treating with a friend, so the Mister and I stayed home with our Costco bag of candy -- and handed some out to exactly three kids. I knew all the activity would be tough for Ruthie, so I waited until the end of the official trick-or-treating period to take her out for her last walk. Even so, there were still a lot of people out, and she got spooked by some kids in costume running at her -- and slipped her harness again. This has happened a couple of times on our street, which has been scary enough, but this was even worse because we were several blocks from home and across several streets. The kids who scared her chased her, even after I yelled at them not to, and of course I ran after her. At one point some random guy told me I'd never catch her on foot and I should get in his SUV so he could drive me. Of course I refused -- who gets in a car with some guy they don't know at night? Eventually, with the help of some neighbors and other kind people who were out -- and despite SUV guy trying to get her and making her run again -- I managed to get close enough to her to grab her. She'd basically run back the way we'd come and fortunately stayed away from major streets. SUV guy then yelled at me for not thanking him for his help (what help?) and added that I was a horrible human being. Thank goodness for the kindness of the others, including a young man who had been helping out at a tent set up at the church along our route who immediately got into his car and was driving very slowly in the direction Ruthie had run (and did not, I should add, demand I get in the car with him). One of the people happened to be the pastor at that church, and she told me before she entered this profession, she was a vet tech, so she knew what she was doing. The whole experience was rather traumatic, for both of us -- Ruthie slept in until 7:30 the next morning! Needless to say, a new harness has been ordered that is advertised as being escape proof, and I'm looking into getting private training for her to get her over these fears.

I'm happy to say that that was the low point of the weekend. From there, everything got better. I finished up a charity hat (obviously it still needs to be blocked):

I wound yarn for my next cast-on:

And yesterday, I finished a book, baked banana bread, and made Ina's chicken chili.

This week is likely to be another busy one at work, but we also will be electing a new mayor tomorrow and Molly will be home with me on Friday while her teachers work on finishing up grades for the first term. Here's hoping there is no further Ruthie drama in store!

Let's Celebrate!

Hello, friends! I thought about skipping a post today because I've already posted three times this week and I'm just tired from the week, but then I realized I couldn't let the day go by without acknowledging it. Yes, it's Friday -- always a reason to celebrate. And yes, it's Halloween, which means getting to see cute kids in costumes and eat candy. But there's another reason to mark today: It's my blogiversary! I started posting here on Halloween in 2005, which means this bloggy thing has now be around for two decades. Crazypants! There have been times I've thought about wrapping it up, but now I'm glad I didn't. I've found such a wonderful community and made such good friends because of this blog, so if you're reading this, thank you.

Have a great weekend and don't overdo it on the candy!

Unraveled, Week 45/2025

Hello, Wednesday! Time to link up with Kat and the Unravelers and share what I've been making and what I've been reading this week.

I didn't know what to do with myself with only one project on the needles (my sister-in-law's socks), so I pulled out that last skein of DK tweed from the multipack and the leftovers from my recent charity hat to knit another.

The pattern is Around & About by Lisa of Fibernymph Dye Works, which felt appropriate given that I'm using her yarn. I am knitting the largest size, so as to maximize my yarn usage, but I'm not sure if my scraps will hold out for the specified number of stripes. I had 10 g left, which is about 23 yards, but the pattern says I need about 30 yards. I am hoping that Lisa overestimated that number on purpose, but if not, I'll just make do with fewer stripes.

Speaking of the socks, I was making great progress on the first one and was almost ready to start the toe decreases when I pulled off more yarn and saw this:

Look, I get it, I know knots happen in the production of yarn occasionally and it's acceptable in the industry up to a point. But if the yarn is self-striping, is it really that hard to tie the knot in the right place in the striping sequence? Gah! I wound off until I got to the same point and rejoined the yarn, and it looks like I will have enough to complete the sock, but if I were not making shortie socks, this would have been a bigger problem.

I finished another four books this week -- in fact, I finished the first three of them all on Friday! (I was very close to the end of them all.)

The South was on this year's Booker Prize longlist, and it's set in Malaysia, an area with which I have no familiarity. The Lim family is taking a summer vacation at their family's farm, away from the city where they normally live. None of the family's three teenagers is particularly enthused about this, least of all Jay, the youngest, who discovers he is to share a room with Chuan, the teenaged son of the farm's caretaker. They soon form a bond, however, that is first one of friendship and then one romantic in nature. Meanwhile, it's clear that the farm is failing and will likely need to be sold, and Jack Lim is dealing with difficulties at his job that may complicate his family's life. All of this is set against a backdrop of climate change and the melting pot of races and nationalities that is Malaysia. I thought the writing was beautiful at times and made me think of Ocean Vuong. But the point of view shifts throughout the book, including (confusingly) between a first-person narrative and a close third person. I also didn't understand why sometimes the dialogue was in quotes and sometimes it wasn't, though perhaps a reader who isn't an editor might not even notice. I gave it 3 stars.

Next was a bit of fluff in the form of an audiobook that took me two days. Unless you are around my age or a bit younger, then you likely won't be familiar with the TV show One Tree Hill; if that's the case, all you really need to know is that it was a WB show from the early 2000s that was a sort of teenage soap opera. Dinner for Vampires: Life on a Cult TV Show is the memoir of one of the actors from the series. But rather than a tell-all about what went on behind the scenes of the show, this book tells how the author, in an effort to find community and meaning from a Bible study group, ended up in a controlling religious cult. This entertained me while I exercised, walked the dog, and cleaned the bathroom, but I wouldn't call it fine literature and wouldn't necessarily recommend it unless you're particularly interested in how people end up in these sorts of groups. The author also narrated the book and spoke so quickly that I had to turn down the speed! I gave it 3 stars.

Celestial Bodies was the winner of the 2019 Booker International Prize and is the next title a small group of us are discussing for our women in translation project this year. This novel is set in Oman and centers around three sisters, all of whom have a different approach to marriage. In shifting points of view that change each chapter, we explore their lives in widening circles that include their husbands, their parents, and others in the community and also learn more about the changes happening in Omani society. I found it really interesting to be immersed in a country and tradition entirely unknown to me, but that also meant that there were many terms I didn't know and references that meant nothing to me. I also found the shifting in perspective and time to be a bit confusing, particularly as no actual dates are given but the relative timeline has to be intuited by the context. I'm sure I will appreciate this book more after the group discussion, but for now I gave it 3 stars.

The last finish for the week was also the longest, at 600+ pages. The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is a big, sweeping story that spans continents and, through the back stories of some characters, generations. The title characters are two 20-something Indians who both traveled to America to study and both found they were lonely there. Back at home, their families, who know each other tangentially, decide to arrange an introduction in the hope that, perhaps, they will be a match. But nothing is ever that simple, not least because Sonia and Sunny are both deep in the process of trying to figure out who they are and what they are meant to do with their lives. There are some truly bizarre characters, some truly comic characters, and some truly tragic characters. There is magic realism and mysticism and perhaps even supernatural elements. There's a lot going on here, so it's not surprising that it takes so many pages. It took me a while to read, but it didn't drag; I put it aside when a library hold came in, for instance, and there were days when work was busy and I didn't get to read much. I still feel that there's a lot I just didn't get from this book, but that's okay -- I still enjoyed it. I gave it 4 stars.

I had a brief period of time after finishing Sonia and Sunny when I was reading zero books (basically overnight), but I quickly rectified that. I've been listening to The Burgess Boys (which I missed somehow when I was reading a lot of Elizabeth Strout several years back). On paper, I am reading a YA novel that I was a bit obsessed with as a young teen called The Language of Goldfish. And just yesterday I started Anna Quindlen's forthcoming More than Enough.

What are you making and reading this week?

Less in 2025: October

It's been a whirlwind of a month, so it's probably not surprising that I completely forgot that yesterday was the last Monday of the month and my day to check in with my One Little Word. So a day late, a dollar short? Thanks to Kat for hosting our monthly link-ups!

This month, there has been Less of many things -- free time, daylight, warm weather, etc. But what stands out right now is less patience. Ruthie is now 10 months old and firmly in her adolescent phase, so she is constantly testing me. In the last several weeks, she has starting getting very nippy and demanding, especially when we're trying to eat a meal. True to her terrier DNA, she's always been a digger, and now she has starting "digging" under the cover on the couch, usually while I'm trying to cook dinner. And when we go on walks, she often tries to jump on passers-by or leap out into traffic at cyclists. I'm trying really hard to focus on positive reinforcement, but I'll admit that at the end of a long day, it's really hard not to yell "No! Stop!" repeatedly. So far I've only had to put her in her crate once to keep her out of trouble while I finish cooking, but it may very well be necessary again. I keep reminding myself that these days won't last forever and that we will keep working on the good behavior. And she's already come so far from just six months ago.

On the plus side, there has been much less early morning barking! I think she is finally understanding that I will come down around the same time every morning and she doesn't need to announce that she's awake. Occasionally there's a yip or two, but I think that may be due to her hearing something outside or dreaming. Getting enough sleep is certainly helping me be calmer!

Hallo-weekending

I can't believe it's Monday, again! Isn't it crazy how it keeps coming back? It was at least a fairly restful weekend, aside from a brief period of barking at 5:45 on Sunday morning (I suspect an animal was outside; she got quiet again afterwards). Importantly, we had beautiful weather for a Halloween party, and pretty much everyone brought their A game. Here's a look at some of the costumes:

First, my brother and his family as Star-Bellied Sneeches:

My brother-in-law as his family as Toy Story toys, plus a kid with a boombox:

My parents, the gnomes (my father was a "bathroom gnome," whatever that is):

And then me and the Mister, or Marty McFly and his girlfriend Jennifer:

Molly had had a really rough week at school and was up late on Thursday night because she went to the Sabrina Carpenter concert with a couple of friends, so she didn't dress up as anything other than a tired, stress-out high schooler.

The end of last week also brought with it a finished project:

Tied Knots (Ravelry link) in Fibernymph Dye Works Confetti Tweed DK

and a new cast-on:

The very last of my Felici!

This week is shaping up to be busy at work, plus there's Halloween and extracurricular activities. And I'm already dreading turning the clocks back next weekend, mainly because I know I won't get any extra sleep and it'll just be dark even earlier. For now, though, I'm going to enjoy the fact that it's supposed to be sunny and a high of about 60ºF today. I'll be spending most of the day inside in front of a computer screen, but at least I'll get some vitamin D when Ruthie and I are out for walks.

Friday Fun

For the past several months, I've really appreciated Kym's Friday Sanctuary posts; in these dark times, anything that makes me laugh or smile is extremely welcome. Kym's on a little blog hiatus right now, though, and while I'm not planning to try to replicate her wonderful posts, I thought I'd share a little something fun on Friday when I can. And today, I have something that I think is pretty fun.

Earlier this week, the Mister had to travel to New York City for a work meeting. When he was preparing for his trip, he looked up the location of his hotel and discovered he was going to be in walking distance of Rockefeller Center, so he told us that if he had time, he'd try to go to the Today Show plaza. Accordingly, we set our DVR to record the show on Tuesday morning, because Molly would be going to school and I would be going to work, so we wouldn't be able to see him live if he made there. Through the magic of technology (because he could access our DVR remotely), he sent me this video not long after I left the office:

(Lest you think the TV camera is zooming in, that's because he filmed the footage on his iPad with his phone and zoomed in -- just in case we missed him!)

We should have some fun this weekend: Tomorrow is my brother's annual Halloween party! The Mister and I are doing a costume together, and I believe my brother's family is doing a similarly themed set of costumes. I'll be sure to share some photos on Monday.

In the meantime, have a great weekend and stay warm!