It's Friday!

Here's hoping the day goes quickly and we can all fly into the weekend like this silly pup!

(I have no idea what was going on here. I was making dinner in the kitchen, and when I turned around, she was like this.)

Have a good weekend, all!

Unraveled, Week 15/2026

What a week it has been already! I'm glad we've reached the midpoint of it, which means it's time to join Kat and the Unravelers and to give you an update on my crafting and my reading.

Though it's felt like slow going at times, I have been making steady progress on my sweater, and you can really see how much I've done when you compare this photo to last week's:

The last time I measured the body under the arm, I had about 5 inches knit. The pattern tells me to knit until I have 12.2 inches (yes, that's a weird measurement; I presume the designer started with metric and converted to imperial) before the ribbing at the bottom, so I'm nearly halfway done.

And I am getting close to the toe of the first Home Movie sock, which -- as predicted -- did some fun pooling throughout the gusset decreases:

I've done a ton of reading this past week and finished six(!) books, but because it's been a busy week, I'm going to stick with brief reviews today.

Good People by Patmeena Sabit

5 stars

This the next Read With Us selection, and I predict we'll have an amazing discussion about it! This debut novel tells the story of a tragedy in an immigrant family in a truly inventive way: in a series of short statements given by friends, neighbors, reporters, police officers, and others who all have an opinion of what happened. And what happened isn't clear; I'm convinced the author made this deliberately ambiguous. I don't want to give any more than that away. Suffice it to say that it's a nearly 400-page book and I flew through it in just a few days. Highly recommend!

Go as a River by Shelley Read

2 stars

I'd seen the cover of this one a lot of places and it had decent reviews, so I listened. I should have listened to my gut when it was telling me to DNF it during the first quarter of the book. I found the plot and characters to be a bit far fetched and I wasn't impressed with the writing. I only kept listening because so many people seemed to love it and I thought it would get better. Sorry to say it didn't for me. (It might be better read with the eyes; the narrator was not to my taste and I'm sure that colored my opinion quite a bit.)

The Details by Ia Genberg, translated by Kira Josefsson

4 stars

I found a hardcover of this book in the nearest Little Free Library (aka the good one!) and recognized the title as one a couple of friends had read. It's a quiet novel in which the narrator, sick with a fever, pulls a book off her shelf that leads her to remember four people from her past and the role they'd played in her life. I thought the last one was particularly affecting. 

Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved by Kate Bowler

4 stars

I've enjoyed listening to Kate Bowler on one of my regular podcasts but had never read any of her books until Carole's review of her new one convinced me to give one a try. This memoir that deals with her diagnosis and treatment for Stage IV colon cancer was available, so that's what I started with. I was surprised by how funny and uplifting a book on such a serious subject could be, but that's the kind of person Kate Bowler is. 

The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey

4 stars

Another quiet book, this is a memoir about the comfort the author found in observing the life and behaviors of a snail brought to her bedside by a friend while she was recovering from a serious illness that prevented her from doing much other than lying in bed. It reminded me quite a bit of Raising Hare in its focus on a singular animal that led the author to learn more about it. I know several of you have read and enjoyed it, so thanks for the recommendation.

Thank You for Listening by Julia Whelan

4 stars

This is sort of a romance but also pokes fun at the world of romance novels and their common tropes. It's set in the world of audiobooks and their narrators, clearly informed by the experience of the author -- a well-known and well-respected narrator herself! I was looking for something entertaining and more lighthearted, and this certainly fit the bill.

Currently reading: The Hakawati and The Personal Librarian, plus I've got Kate Bowler's newest book on audio from the library!

Gotcha

One year ago today, Ruthie joined our family. Can you believe it? It's been quite a year. There were the early weeks of sleeping in the family room with her and taking her out at all hours, when her most comfortable place was curled up in my lap and when she was so scared of everything that sometimes when we'd go on a walk I'd have to pick up her and carry her home. Then she made friends with other dogs in the neighborhood and learned the pleasures of picking up sticks on walks. We've been through vet visits, puppy kindergarten, several days when she was left home alone with the Mister, and the two weeks she spent boarding in December.

I still remember the day we brought her home and how surprised we were by how tiny she was:

Our lives have changed a lot, especially mine, but for all the lack of sleep and accidents to clean up and vet bills to play, I wouldn't change anything. She's my velcro dog, my best buddy, and my napping companion. Happy Gotcha Day, Ruthie!

Never Dull

Well, friends, life was certainly ... life-ing this week. The Mister was away for work, so that meant two school runs a day and cooking and cleaning up in the evening (plus dragging the garbage and recycling to the curb). All of it doable, just more. When I took Ruthie in for her rabies booster, they told me to bring a stool sample. And wouldn't you know it? It tested positive for parasites. So I had to go back to the vet to pick up some meds. Then, yesterday, she decided she was no longer interested in eating her food at breakfast and it sat in her bowl most of the day while she occasionally ate a piece or two. (She was her normal self at dinner and gobbled it all up. Seems she just wanted me to worry more all day.) And all week my brain kept waking me up way too early, like before-5-a.m.-early in some cases.

All of this is to say that it's been a long week and I'm ready for the weekend. And there are good things, too. The Mister is back and working from home today. Passover ended last night, which we marked with pasta for dinner and freshly baked brownies for dessert. Molly has PSAT's today (this is just for practice; they don't really count for anything until next year) and is done at school at 10. And it looks like we're going to have a full weekend of spring.

You know what else is good? How these colors are pooling in my current sock WIP:

It's been a good number of years since I knit a multicolor variegated sock, so this is entertaining me more than it probably should. I'm sure it'll get even more wild as I get through the gusset.

So it's been an interesting week. Molly joked that Ruthie has taken her place as the family member I worry about constantly, and she's not wrong. I suppose that's a common feature of parenting, whether we're talking about humans or pets!

We've got nothing on the calendar this weekend, and that's just fine by me. I plan to have as normal a weekend as possible, and even if Ruthie wakes me up at 6 both days, it'll still feel a bit like sleeping in.

Have a good one, friends!

Unraveled, Week 14/2026

I'm thankful that Monday whooshed by and we've arrived at the middle of the week. Time to join with Kat and the Unravelers with an update on my making and my reading!

I promised an update on my sweater and here it is, in all its glory on Matilda:

I'm now at the point that should be going pretty fast but hasn't really in the past several days because this is my evening knitting project and my evenings have been full of late (we were out to dinner over the weekend and then I had multiple loads of laundry to fold several evenings). But it's all stockinette for quite a while now, and all I have to pay attention to is changing strands when I get to the end of round. I expect I will have made much more progress by this time next week. Or at least I hope so.

I also cast on the socks for my sister-in-law, and as I expected, I'm getting some really fun pooling with this yarn:

Please forgive the less-than-optimal lighting; I didn't want to wake the sleeping dog.

I'll be making these with a relatively short leg, both because this sister-in-law has rather shapely calves and because her feet are so much bigger around compared to the other recipients that I don't want to risk running out of yarn.

It's been another good week of reading! I finished four books this week.

I would classify I Cheerfully Refuse as dystopian fiction, as it's set in the United States at some unspecified time in the future when the divide between the wealthy and powerful and everyone else has broadened drastically and even the president is illiterate. Most people are just trying to get by, and some of them are still willing to do kind things for others. Rainy is one of those, offering a room for rent to a fearful man who has clearly run from a punishing work contract. Offering him shelter is the kind thing to do but leads to tragedy for Rainy, who is eventually forced to flee from his home and take up residence on a boat on Lake Superior. It's a difficult plot to explain, but it's a well written story that praises the values of human kindness, finding joy in the moment, and the power of music and the written word. I gave it 4 stars.

After having it on my shelf for at least a year and following way behind Katie in our buddy read, I finally finished Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey. I'd first read the epic poem way back at the beginning of high school, and the translation we'd read for class was old even then. I thought this newer one was so fresh and modern and certainly much more engaging. Though the setting is ancient, the characters feel like people you might encounter today (well, maybe not Polyphemus the cyclops or Athena walking around in disguise, but you know what I mean). I think it took me just as long to read the introduction and the translator's note as it did to read the actual poem, but I wouldn't have skipped those parts and wouldn't recommend that anyone skip them -- they're full of great information. I really enjoyed this experience and gave it 4 stars as well.

My next finish was an ARC, so if this one interests you, I'm sorry that you'll have to wait about a month to read it. I have now read all of Douglas Stuart's novels, and I have to say that his newest, John of John, is my favorite of the three. Cal is in his early 20s, and after finishing his degree on the mainland but not succeeding in finding work, he is headed back to the small Scottish island where he was raised by his stern Presbyterian father, a sheep farmer and home weaver, and his maternal grandmother, Ella, after his mother left them when he was young. Cal has always had a difficult relationship with his father and feels a bit of a failure in heading home to this insular community where everyone knows everything. But everyone in his family is also keeping a secret, and these secrets, if revealed, would have the potential to devastate the entire family. Both Cal and his father wrestle with their inner demons and their relationships as they try to figure out how to live a life in this place where it's becoming increasingly apparent that their way of life won't be an option much longer. There is some poverty, some family discord, and even some physical violence, but it's nothing like what was depicted in Shuggie Bain or Young Mungo, which I know a lot of readers struggled with. It's clear that Stuart is drawing on some of his own life story again (the knitters will likely enjoy the bits about weaving and yarn and sheep!), but this iteration feels more hopeful. I gave it 4 stars. Thank you to Grove Press and Edelweiss for providing me with a digital ARC in return for an honest review. This book will be published May 5, 2026.

Finally, a quick audiobook (I listened to all of it in a day). I'd heard about Abigail Thomas from Honoré and had her short memoir What Comes Next and How to Like It bookmarked for several months. When I needed a short audiobook, it fit the bill perfectly. This isn't a typical memoir as it's not really a sequential story but rather a collection of short vignettes. Thomas tells stories about her relationships, her friendships, her children, her alcoholism, her dogs. She is blunt and to the point, and I really enjoyed her voice -- both literary and literal, as she reads the audio. I don't think her life has been extraordinary, but then I tend to like hearing about the lives of ordinary people. She kept me good company on a run, two dog walks, and while folding a load of laundry. I gave the book 3 stars.

I am currently reading a short novel in translation before bed, and I just started Good People, the next Read With Us selection, yesterday.

What are you making and reading this week?

Two Days, Two Seasons

Well, that was a super weird weekend! On Saturday, it was a little damp from the rain overnight, but the sun soon came out and it warmed up -- a lot. We reached a high of 83ºF, and I got a bit sweaty walking Ruthie even though I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt. We actually had to turn the air conditioning on because it was so much warmer in the house and we'd had trouble sleeping because of it. Yesterday, I woke up to rain again, but it was about 40 degrees cooler -- I needed a jacket, a hat, and gloves to walk the dog! I felt really bad for the little girls out in their Easter dresses and the kids out hunting for eggs in the wet grass, but I guess this isn't all that unusual for early April in Western Pennsylvania.

Fortunately, it was comfortable inside the house, and while I didn't sleep as much as I would have liked, I at least got a fair amount of downtime. It was enough to finish the first pair of sister-in-law socks:

They aren't quite a perfect match, but they are good enough. I did wind off a little yarn to start the second sock in the same place in the stripe sequence, and you can really only tell that they're not exactly the same if you look at the toes. And they're done, which is the best part.

I spent a little bit of time going through my sock yarn bin and came out with this skein for my other sister-in-law:

This is Knit Picks Stroll Hand Painted, a 75/25 superwash Merino/nylon blend, in the colorway Home Movie. I expect this will pool and flash rather than stripe, especially at the 80-stitch circumference I'll need for this recipient's feet. But I am rather enjoying the patterning that happened when I wound it into a center-pull ball!

This week Molly is back at school (so her bad mood will likely be back as well) and the Mister has a work trip, so I will be doing a lot of chauffeuring. Ruthie also has an appointment at the vet this morning to get her rabies booster. She'll be mad at me for withholding breakfast this morning (which I always do before she has to go in the car), but I'm sure they'll give her treats there and I'll make it up to her later in the day. And the cold will be sticking around for a few days yet, so I guess my hand-knit socks will get a few more wears before they go into hibernation.

I hope you have an easy start to your week, and I'll see you back here on Wednesday with a big sweater update!

Good Friday, Indeed

It's been a busy week, so I am feeling happier than usual about the fact that we've reached the end of it -- though perhaps the fact that I am done with work at 2 p.m. this afternoon has something to do with it! 

It's been a wet start to the month. We woke up on Wednesday having gotten an inch of rain overnight, and on a walk, Ruthie and I discovered that a neighbor had a pond in their backyard.

Fortunately when it's rainy outside, I feel less guilty about staying inside to read and knit! And progress has been made on both projects since you last saw them.

I've finished the colorwork on the yoke of my sweater, though that wasn't until last night after dinner and I had to take the photo earlier in the day, so what you're seeing here is about a round and a half short of completion.

It's been quite interesting to see how both yarns have striped, though the main color is obviously more subtle than the contrast. I've been working with the smallest skein of the three I have for this section, but now I'll be alternating to blend the skeins and avoid very obviously lines. I've also noticed that the purple yarn is a bit more robust than the other yarn, so there's an added textural element to the colorwork. I'm hoping that blocking will help to even it out a bit.

I've also gotten to the gusset of the second sock in the current pair, which means I'm about 75% of the way done with them.

On my to-do list for this weekend will be to pull out my bin of sock yarn and pick something for my other sister-in-law. She has the biggest feet of the four recipients, so perhaps I shouldn't have left her for last, but at least there's still more than a month left before Mother's Day and that should be plenty of time.

We had some interesting Passover Seders this week (four kids under 6 the first night made for a rushed and noisy time of it!). My mother, as per usual, made about twice as much food as was needed, so I expect we'll be eating leftovers for a while. Meal planning will be a little difficult for next week without our go-to of pasta, but we have more options than we used to since the Reform movement ruled that a lot of things that Eastern European Jews used to avoid during Passover (like corn, rice, and legumes) are, in fact, permitted -- but those aren't necessarily things Molly will eat, so it's still complicated.

We've got another quiet weekend ahead, and that's just fine with me. Molly may be working tomorrow (I expect they'll be busy because it's supposed to be close to 80!), and I have a couple of errands to run, but we have no fixed plans. And Monday she goes back to school, so it's the last weekend of spring break.

I wish you a very happy Easter if you're celebrating this weekend!