Rough Reentry

I'm very glad that it's Friday. It's been a challenging week in a number of respects. First, my sinuses took offense to being taken out of the nice Florida air and being brought back north and have rebelled. I typically get a sinus infection once or twice a year and am used to having to ride them out, and thankfully this one has been pretty mild, but it's still uncomfortable to have sinus pain and pressure and then have a nose that's either dripping like a leaky faucet or completely stuffed up. Then, Ruthie's had some trouble readjusting to our schedule and was barking at 4 a.m. on Tuesday. Molly's been a typical moody teenager back at school after a long vacation. And the Mister's has to be at work early and been late getting home most of the week, so I've been doing double duty on school runs and had to do cooking and clean up. All that is to say that I'm pretty tired and ready for a weekend!

Fortunately work has been calm (as it should be, given how much I had to do before the break!) and I've been making steady progress on my knitting. I've finished the first of the three sections of the colorwork cowl:

I'm really enjoying this pattern, and though this particular cowl is likely going in the charity pile, I could see myself knitting it again. Wouldn't it be fun in some handspun, for instance?

I also located the yarn I intend to use for my cabled sweater and wound up a skein so I could swatch. I'm using size 7 needles and they feel so big!

I know it looks a little brown here, but that's just the lighting. It's actually a medium-to-dark gray called Wordsworth -- seems appropriate that for a sweater named after one poet, I'd use yarn with the name of another! Here's what it looks like on the Knit Picks site, for comparison:

I should be finishing up the swatch soon and blocking it, so by the weekend I'll have a better sense of whether I can proceed with the called-for needle size or need to swatch with a different one.

We've got a fairly quiet weekend ahead. Molly is attending a leadership event Saturday morning (during which time I plan to make a Costco run) and then a dinner party for a friend's birthday Saturday evening. The Mister and I are having a date night with dinner out at one of our favorite local restaurants. And Sunday is wide open. I'm really hoping Ruthie might sleep in a little, but if she doesn't, at least we'll have longer snuggle time in the afternoon. After a bit of a warm spell this week, it's supposed to get cold again over the next couple of days, so it'll be good to snuggle up with a warm pup inside. I hope you have something relaxing and enjoyable planned -- happy weekend, friends!

Unraveled, Week 1/2026

It feels good to start the count over again on Unraveled Wednesdays! It's the first one of the new year, and as per usual, I'm joining Kat and the Unravelers to share my making and my reading.

Since Monday, I have finished the knitting of my colorwork cowl and blocked it, but I still have to do the embroidery. That's going to happen later on in the week because I'll need to take some photos for the pattern while I do, and obviously that needs to happen during the day when there's sufficient light. But I'm very pleased with how it turned out.

The green is still looking very yellow in the photos, but I think that's to be blamed on the January light (or rather lack thereof).

I've also started another colorwork cowl, this one for a Pigskin Party challenge for the month in which we have to use exactly four colors. I had picked up a bag at SSK that was a kit for a cowl, but it contained only the yarn -- a full skein of Emma's Yarn DK and three DK minis. I'm using them for this pattern (Ravelry link) and will be doing the taller version with the three repeats so I can use each of the three minis.

Reading has been pretty prolific, given that I spent most of the last week on vacation. Since this time last week, I've finished five books. To keep this post on the shorter side, I'm giving abbreviated reviews this week.

On the Calculation of Volume II by Solvej Balle, translated by Barbara J. Haveland

My rating: 4 stars

Tara is still trapped in November 18 and decides that staying at home is not going to help her stay sane, so she decides to create an artificial passing of the year for herself by traveling through Europe in order to create the seasons -- heading north for winter to find snow and then making her way south for the warmth of spring and summer. She adapts to her changing circumstances and needs and begins to write more seriously about her experiences. And it ends with a bit of a cliffhanger, so I'm eagerly awaiting what happens in book three!

The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, Vol. 3 by Beth Brower

My rating: 4 stars

This series continues to delight me. Emma is getting to know her tenant better and begins forging a friendship. At the same time, she is forced to team up with her dreadful cousin Archibald in order to obtain the much-coveted tickets to the secretive neighborhood performance of Julius Caesar. And of course she continues to be at the beck and call of her aunt Eugenia in service of her cousin's marital prospects.

So Far Gone by Jess Walter

My rating: 4 stars

Rhys, a former journalist, has been living off the grid in a remote house in the woods of the Pacific Northwest for seven years after being disgusted with the state of the country following the 2016 election and the rise of conspiracy theories, but when his two grandchildren are dropped at his door by a neighbor after their mother has disappeared, he knows he has to reenter the world to keep them safe. This book deals with far-right conspiracy theories, radical evangelical groups, guns, and Christian nationalists, and it becomes quite a caper, but it's also a beautiful story about family and fixing ruptures within them.

The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, Vol. 4 by Beth Brower

My rating: 4 stars

Perhaps my favorite yet of the series! Emma is deepening her relationships with three men in her life -- her tenant, the resident vicar, and the Duke of Islington -- all of whom show up to care for her at a very difficult moment in her life.

Together in Manzanar: The True Story of a Japanese Jewish Family in an American Concentration Camp by Tracy Slater

My rating: 4 stars

This work of nonfiction just came out last year and tells the story of Karl and Elaine Yoneda, who, together with their 3-year-old son, Tommy, were imprisoned in the Manzanar internment camp beginning in 1942. Elaine was one of few individuals not of Japanese descent who willingly entered the camp in order to keep her family together. This was a really interesting and well-researched account of a dark chapter of our country's history. 

What are you making and reading this week?

There's No Place Like It

Home, that is. We got back early Saturday afternoon, right on schedule, and spent the rest of the day unpacking, cleaning, and running errands. As nice as it was to have to break (and to be away from the cold and snow), I slept better in my own bed Saturday night than I did all the nights we were away. I picked Ruthie up from the dogsitter yesterday morning, and we had a quiet day at home. Of course she spent a lot of time following me around and whined a bit at first whenever I left the room, but that's to be expected. The dogsitter reported that once she got over the initial unease of being left in an unfamiliar place, she really settled in and was much less anxious. She made a great dog friend who was there several times over the two weeks and got lots of exercise. All in all, I feel like it was a good experience for both of us -- good thing, too, because she'll be boarding there again MLK Jr. weekend, when we're going to a bat mitzvah out of town!

The start of the new year brought a quick finish and some new cast-ons. First, after failing to finish my hat before the end of 2025 (though I got very close), I succeeded in making my first FO of 2026:

This is my Same as It Ever Was hat (Ravelry link) worked on US 2.5/3 mm needles using Fibernymph Dye Works Bedazzled (superwash merino/nylon/sparkle). I used 99 g of the skein, or about 433 yards. It feels good to start the year at a deficit -- especially as I may have ordered a couple of skeins from Lisa in her New Year's sale.

Also on New Year's Day, I started first my project of the year and it's another colorwork cowl design, this one in DK:

What looks kind of yellowish here is actually a pale silvery green. I'm a little past halfway and will be adding some surface embroidery over where you see those single stitches just above the corrugated ribbing. I'm hoping it turns out how it looks in my head!

Because I am not a monogamous knitter, I cast on a pair of socks as well, which I worked on a little on the flight home:

I've only just started the main stitch pattern, but I'm using forest floor (Ravelry link) and some Miss Babs fingering that I picked up from the giveaway table at SSK last year. These will be for my mother, likely for her birthday in June. I haven't knit patterned sock in a long time, and I wanted to knit this pattern in memory of the designer, who passed away this past summer.

I have stopped making new year's resolutions because they're so easily broken, but I do have some goals and intentions for the year ahead, at least as far as my knitting is concerned. First and foremost, I want to continue to use up stash yarn. I did really well with this last year and bought very little new yarn relative to how much I used up (Molly certainly helped). I'm hoping to track my yarn acquisitions and usage in a spreadsheet this year to get a better sense of my balance (or lack thereof). I also want to make at least one charity item a month; I've made a lot of hats in the past couple of years, but I will likely add in other warm items like mittens and cowls for a little variety. I want to do more crochet and more design work this year, and I'm already making strides toward the design goal with a pattern sent off to my tech editor just yesterday. Finally, I want 2026 to be the year I finally make this sweater (Ravelry link):

 

(c) Carol Sunday

I bought this pattern in November 2015 and bought yarn for it (Knit Picks Simply Wool) in 2018, so it's been waiting long enough. I know where the yarn is and will be winding up a skein and swatching this week.

Do you have any resolutions or goals for your knitting this year?

Today I'm back to work, but thankfully it's a fully work-from-home day. Molly doesn't have to go back to school until tomorrow, and this afternoon she and the Mister are going to the inauguration of our new mayor. I would have joined them if I didn't have to work -- and if it didn't conflict with my afternoon snuggles with Ruthie!

2025: A Year in Books

Last year ended up being a really good year of reading for me. I've been setting a reading goal for a number of years, pretty much since I started using Goodreads to track my reading, but it's always been rather arbitrary and never much of a stretch. So it wasn't a surprise that I exceeded my goal of 110 books in 2025, but it was a surprise that I recorded my largest number completed since I started tracking.

I would have thought that I would have read less this year, given more demands on my time (Ruthie, increased responsibilities at work), but this graphic from my Storygraph reveals a very likely explanation:

More than a third of the books I read were on audio -- all those hours running, walking, and taking the dog out ended up being very productive!

Those of you who follow my book reviews know that I tend to be very stingy with my 5 stars, so I thought you might like to see which of my 2025 reads earned this rare honor. In only the order in which I read them, they were as follows:

• You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith
• Small Rain by Garth Greenwell
• The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
• The History of Sound by Ben Shattuck
• Nesting by Roisin O'Donnell
• Heart the Lover by Lily King
• Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks
• Isola by Allegra Goodman
• The Antidote by Karen Russell
• Heartwood by Amity Gage
• Loved and Missed by Susie Boyt
• My Good Bright Wolf by Sarah Moss
• Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy
• Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips
• The Salt Stones by Helen Whybrow
• Flashlight by Susan Choi
• More than Enough by Anna Quindlen

What were your favorite reads of 2025? Do we have any overlap?

* * *

Today's our last day in Florida and we're headed home tomorrow morning. We decided to go home on a Saturday so we'd have most of the weekend to get the house back in order, restock the fridge, and get ready to get back to the normal routine on Monday (though lucky Molly doesn't have to go back until Tuesday). It's been lovely to have this break, but I'll admit I'm looking forward to being back in my own home and especially being reunited with my puppy!

Unraveled, Week 53/2025

It feels pretty special that the last Wednesday of the year is also the last day of the year -- and it feels like we've gotten a bonus week, too! I don't think Kat is doing a link-up today, but I'm always happy to join her and the Unravelers.

Our vacation has gotten a bit more chaotic this week because my brother and his family came down to join us on Sunday, so we've shuffled bedrooms and bathrooms and had to reorient our schedules around those of a 1-year-old and a 2 1/2-year-old. But it's been fun. My aunt and uncle, who spend their winters on the other coast of Florida, drove over to spend some time with us on Monday, and yesterday nearly all of us (the Mister stayed behind to do some work) went to the Naples Zoo. I've even spotted some unusual wildlife in the housing development:

Don't worry; I took this photo from far away and cropped it.

There are man-made bodies of water throughout this place, and there are signs up all over saying not to go in the water or disturb the alligators, but I always figured that was just bluffing. I've never spotted one this close before that wasn't in a zoo or nature preserve!

I honestly haven't been knitting a ton, especially in comparison to years past, but I did finish the cowl -- even weaving in all my ends and blocking! And I also wrote up a draft of the pattern so I can get it to my tech editor before we head home! (See how much I can get done when I'm not working and catering to the whims of a very cute but demanding dog?)

For the last couple of days, I've been focusing on what I hope will be my last finished project for the year:

I had about 40 g of yarn left on Monday night, so I'm hoping if I give it a lot of attention today, I just might get it done.

Reading time has, of course, been more plentiful, and I've finished several more books in the past week.

The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 2 was just as delightful as the first. I can imagine that one day I might want to own physical copies one day, but they've been great on audio. In the second installment, Emma learns more about the mysterious tenant who is renting Lapis Lazuli Minor, makes the acquaintance of a friend's "cousin" serving as her chaperone, comes to the aid of current and former classmates at her school, and has an interesting interaction with a duke. She continues to work to ensure she can keep her home, in spite of her cousin's efforts to spend all the money left to her. I gave it 4 stars -- and I expect to finish Vol. 3 today!

In Kin, we meet Niecy and Annie, two motherless girls raised in Honeysuckle, Louisiana, Niecy left orphaned by a murder/suicide and Annie abandoned when her mother left town. United in friendship from their early days sleeping in the same cradle, they together have to navigate life as Black women in the Jim Crow South as they approach adulthood and their lives begin to diverge. For Niecy, that means going to Spelman College and being exposed to a more privileged life to which she can aspire. For Annie, it means heading to Memphis in the middle of the night to search for her long-missing mother. Both encounter the racism of segregation, the challenges of being poor, the complications of failed first relationships, and the unreasonable expectations of women. Through it all, their friendship is a constant.
What Tayari Jones has captured in this novel is the power of female relationships and the deep impact that the lack of a loving mother can have on a girl's development. She also paints an unflinching portrait of what life was like for a poor Black woman in the South in the '60s, when the limitations imposed by segregation only added to the lack of options available to women in general. More than anything, she shows that it's not blood that makes someone kin. Thank you to Knopf 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. I gave it 4 stars.

My Chanukah gift to myself this year (mainly because my request came too late for anyone else to buy them for me) was volumes I-III of On the Calculation of Volume. Translated from the Danish, these short novels tell the story of Tara Selter, who discovers on a work trip that she is trapped in time, reliving the 18th of November over and over again. While this might sound like the movie Groundhog Day, it's much more serious. In Vol. I, Tara is struggling to understand what is happening and, returning home to her husband, tries to come up with both an explanation and a way to get time to start working as it should again. Each day he is surprised to see her, and each day she explains what has happened again. Together they attempt to formulate some sort of logic to what stays changed and what reverts to how it was at the beginning of the day, but Tara realizes that this approach isn't sustainable in the long run. I gave 4 stars to Vol. 1 and immediately started Vol. II; in fact, as I'm writing this post ahead of time, I may have already finished it.

I took a pause in my listening of Emma Lion's journals to listen to 107 Days, read by Kamala Harris. Reading a book about a recent presidential campaign isn't necessarily exciting because you know the outcome and lived through it, but I was still interested to hear about the details and the experience from Harris' perspective. And of course I opted to get the audio because I wanted to hear it in her voice. Listening to this book brought back the hope and the excitement I felt last year, even though I knew that the outcome wouldn't change, and I think I appreciated the campaign even more getting the inside story. I also felt much more hopeful at the end hearing what gives Harris hope for our country's future. I won't recommend it to readers trying to avoid politics, but it was a bit of a balm for me after the year we've had, and I gave it 4 stars.

Tonight we'll be having a quiet evening in; even without taking the little ones into account, I'm well past the age where it's exciting to stay up late. It's gotten unusually chilly here, so I'll be going for a run this morning and then likely spending the day inside. I plan to knit and read, play with my niblings, and spend the day with my immediate family, and I really can't ask for a much better last day of the year than that.

Thank you, dear readers, for spending another year with me. I think it was a hard year for many of us, and I don't expect the change of the calendar to magically make things better. My wish for you in 2026 is that it's a year in which you're able to find joy and love and good health. May the new year bring you happy times with your loved ones, an abundance of good books, and a world in which you can still find beauty and kindness. I will be back on Friday with a look back at my reading this past year. Until then, thanks for being part of one of the best parts of my 2025 and happy new year!

Less in 2025: December

Somehow it's the final Monday of December and the final Monday of the year. I know that every year I complain that time has gone by too quickly, but this year seems to have been especially fast. As we prepare to draw the curtain on 2025, I have to thank Kat for hosting our monthly One Little Word link-ups each month.

When I chose LESS as my word for 2025 at around this time last year, I couldn't have predicted how my life would change in the months ahead. All I knew at the time was that simplifying my life sounded good. Who could have guess that just a handful of months into the year, life would get a whole lot more complicated and busy?

While welcoming a puppy into our home meant much more work and more stuff (and the resulting less sleep and less free time), what I didn't anticipate was that caring for Ruthie would mean less time to focus and perseverate on the small things that in the past would have taken up residence in my head. Being focused on the here and now means less time and energy to think about the what-ifs, and for a worrier, that's a good thing. Especially given the current state of the world, it's been a relief to focus on things like when the dog last went out for a walk or if I need to order more dog food rather than whether I've lost any more personal rights on a daily basis.

Less also has proved to be a great word for me this year because it's helped me to cede some control and let go of some things that I previously would have had a hard time doing. One of the side effects of having less time to myself is that I've found I care less about looking perfectly put-together all the time. Years ago I never would have dreamed of going into work without a full face of makeup and styled hair. These days, I'm perfectly comfortably going in with a bare face and my dirty hair pulled back. I've realized (probably very late in the game) that no one else really cares whether or not I'm "done up" and that it's more about feeling good about myself -- confidence shows.

Finally, though it wasn't my main reason for choosing Less this year, it's been a main theme of how I've approached my job (especially since adopting Ruthie!). Since our leadership change about a year and a half ago, it's become very apparently to me that few people outside my immediate team at work had any idea of what I do and thus didn't value my efforts -- not to mention that our vice chancellor has decreed that no one can receive higher than "satisfactory" on their annual review even if their supervisor thinks their efforts are extraordinary. I realized earlier this year that my performance could be just as good if I actually spent less time on any given project and there was no need for my previously very time-intensive process and that putting in extra effort wouldn't benefit me in any way in any case. It's proved to be a good decision because I've been given more work and more responsibilities as the year has gone on, so needing less time for my editing process has enabled me to get the work done without getting too stressed out.

I don't plan on having a word for next year, unless one appears and insists upon it in the next couple of days, in which case Less has been an excellent wrap-up to my One Little Word experience. Each year I've had a word, it's led me to reflect on my inner life, to take stock of my values, and to focus my intentions. What Less has taught me this year is that it's okay to not do everything, to be less than perfect, and to simplify my life in favor of what matters most. I know I'll be carrying the lessons of this year with me for a long time.

It's Sort of a Time Warp

Don't you love it when you're on such a relaxing vacation that you have trouble remembering what day it is? It doesn't happen often to me, but it does usually happen on this vacation -- yet another reason to look forward to it. I kept thinking that Christmas was falling on a Wednesday this year, so all week I've been a little mixed up. Luckily I haven't had anywhere to be at any particular time. We've been very lucky to have gotten consistently beautiful weather since we've arrived, around 80ºF and sunny, with low humidity and a light breeze. It's been great for exercising and sitting out by the pool -- though the pool heater was broken when we got here and didn't get repaired until Wednesday, so we didn't actually go in the pool until yesterday. I haven't minded one bit, as I've just been happy to be able to wear a single layer of clothing again and to need sunglasses!

I've spent most of my knitting time working on my cowl, which is now about 2/3 done:

I took some time to weave in ends after I'd finished the first repeat because there are an awful lot of ends, but I'm actually not minding it all that much. With so many short floats on the inside, it's actually pretty easy to hide those ends.

We had a quiet day yesterday, as you would expect. After a breakfast of waffles and fresh fruit, I went for an eight-mile walk while listening to an audiobook, and then I spent part of the afternoon floating in the pool and starting another book. We had a nice dinner and a relaxing evening. It was all very satisfactory.

This weekend we'll look forward to the arrival of my brother and his family, at which point the vacation will get slightly less relaxing because there will be two toddlers in the house. But I'm looking forward to spending more time with them and to seeing my aunt and uncle, who are going to drive over from the other side of the state for the day early next week.

I hope your holiday week has brought a much-needed pause and time for what matters -- being with those you love, whether they're family, friends, or both. I know it's been a rotten year for so many of us for a number of reasons, so I hope you're going out of your way to find joy wherever you can.