I'm a Hooker, Too, Sometimes

You know what's even better than getting to Friday? Getting to Friday before a long holiday break! Molly and I just have to get through today and then we're (mostly) free until early December. That feels darn good.

I hinted in my last post that I was working on a crochet project, and in truth I didn't want to share photos until I was sure it was going to turn out okay -- I mean, I'm pretty good at the basics of crochet, but I don't have a ton of experience following a pattern to get something that fits. Fortunately, with a couple of instances of ripping back (because apparently I can't count), all is well and I have this after a couple of evenings with my hook:

There's a lot of embellishment left to do, but I'm reasonably certain you can all identify that as a hat. It's this hat, specifically, that I'm making to wear in this year's Turkey Trot. People really do dress up for it here, and of course as a crafter I figured I could manage something fun. Molly and I were planning to make them together last year before my broken foot messed up our plans; it still remains to be seen if she'll make one for this year, if I'll make it for her, or if she decides she doesn't want one after all.

This weekend we have absolutely nothing on the schedule, other than some errands I need to run tomorrow morning, and that's just the way I like it. One of those errands is to Costco, so I may pick up a rotisserie chicken or two and make chicken broth for the freezer. Molly will likely be working a shift or two, and we'll have to plan for next week's cooking. I'm hoping the weekend includes plenty of reading and knitting time.

Finally, I just wanted to mention that the Indie Designer Giftalong kicked off on Ravelry yesterday evening, and the 25% off pattern sale runs for the first week of it. If you're interested in any of my eligible patterns, you can find my bundle here. The coupon code is the same for all participating designers: giftalong2025.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Unraveled, Week 48/2025

Is anyone else a bit panicked looking at that number -- we're really on the 48th Wednesday of the month? Egads, I don't know where the time goes! But I do know that this morning I'm here to update you on my making and my reading*.

After finishing up those two WIPs over the weekend, I naturally needed to cast on something new, particularly something I could work on during Ruthie's "snoozy time" while I work or read. I thought instead of a pair of socks (because his feet are so big and they'd be interminable), I'd make my brother a hat. So I found a OOAK skein of Fibernymph Dye Works Bounce from a grab bag that seemed suitable and cast on one of my hats:

It's not yet big enough to qualify as a partial Ruthie.

The colors lean more blue than they appear here; it was snowing and raining and generally gray all day here yesterday, so the lighting was not optimal. I've finished the crown increases and am now in the knit-until-the-cows-come-home phase of the project, which is just perfect for when I've got a computer on my lap and a dog wedged next to me.

I've also started a special seasonal crochet project, but you'll have to wait a bit to see any of that.

I've finished four books this week, evenly split between digital and audio.

First up, Endling from the Booker Prize longlist. This is a strange book that's a bit hard to describe, though I'll start by saying that it's set in Ukraine in 2022, just before the start of Russian aggression. Yeva is a biologist whose main focus is on snails and who is traveling through the country with a camper ("mobile lab") trying to find rare snails in the wild in an effort to save them from extinction. Funding for this kind of work is hard to find, so to earn money, she gets involved in the thriving romance industry, in which foreign men come to take romance tours and meet native women. She's not interested in meeting a husband, but the money is good. Also involved in this industry are Nastia, barely a legal adult, and her sister, Solomiya, who works as her interpreter. Their mother, once a radical protestor of the industry, has disappeared, and Nastia hopes that if she stages something involving the bachelors, it will make the news and cause their mother to return. One of these bachelors is a man who was born in Ukraine but left it for Canada as a child and is seeking to find his heritage in some weird way. And then come the Russians, with their bombs, their guns, and their propaganda makers. In the middle of all this, the author pops in with a bit of her own history and her worries about her grandfather, who is still back in Ukraine and refuses to leave. Though I honestly wasn't sure what to make of this book, I enjoyed it, and it was good on audio (the author even narrates her own interjections). I gave it 4 stars.

While I was waiting for some holds, I turned to my Kindle library and decided to read the second installment in the Thursday Murder Club series. The club is back at it in The Man Who Died Twice, when a man from Elizabeth's past shows up at Cooper's Chase looking for safety in a situation involving the mafia, international ne'er-do-wells, and a middleman who brokers the deals between them. Meanwhile, the club's police friends are trying to finagle a way to arrest the local drug kingpin, and three members of the club are looking after the fourth when he's injured in a mugging and plotting a way to avenge his injuries. There are spies, assassins, and perhaps double agents. There's also quite a lot of humor. I can't say I find this series to be at all realistic, but it's good light fun, at least if you can consider a murder mystery to be light. I gave it 3 stars.

Several of you have already read and recommended When the Cranes Fly South, and though I usually prefer to read with my eyes, I opted for the audio from the library because the wait was shorter. I'm sure it's good either way, but it was wonderful on audio thanks to the excellent primary reader. This novel tells the story of Bo, an elderly man who is physically and mentally struggling more and more but who is determined to keep living as he has been. His wife is in a nursing home with dementia, and now his adult son is threatening to take away his beloved dog, Sixten. Bo spends his day thinking back on his earlier life, recalling his childhood and his difficult relationship with his father, the early days of his marriage, and his sometimes challenging relationship with his son when he was a child. His thoughts are interspersed with notes from the carers who come in to prepare food for him, help him bathe, and check that all is well around the house. This is a sad book, but I think it's well worth reading for the reminder for those of us who are younger to treat our elders with the dignity they deserve and to give a better understanding of why so many people seem so stubborn about leaving their homes or giving up aspects of their lives. I gave it 4 stars.

Finally, I was excited by how quickly I got The Black Wolf from the library given the demand -- I'm pretty sure I had it on hold less than a week! It has been almost a year since I read the previous book in the Gamache series, so I'd no doubt forgotten some of the details, but that didn't seem to hold it back. After stopping a plan to poison the water of Quebec, Gamache and his team have realized that was only a prelude to a bigger plot, but they're not completely sure what that bigger plot is, who is behind it, and who to trust. As I've come to expect from Louise Penny, there are twists and turns, people who appear to be allies turn out to be enemies (and vice versa), and the same characters in Three Pines who bring levity to the plot are there -- though I would have liked more of them. I'll admit I found it hard to keep a couple of the non-regular characters straight, so sometimes I felt a bit lost, but I always know I'm in for a good time when I pick up a book in this series. This one felt a little too real at times; thank goodness for Rosa the duck! I gave it 4 stars.

*I want to close by noting that there's no link-up this week -- if you haven't seen it already, Kat has posted a sad update on her blog. Please keep her family in your thoughts.

The Slowdown

It feels like the weekend was just starting, but here we are back at Monday again. It was a quieter weekend for a number of reasons. Molly ended up staying home from school with a cold on Friday. Thankfully she was feeling well enough Saturday morning to attend the birthday brunch, but she was kind of grumpy all weekend because she didn't feel well and had lots of homework to do. I'm glad she rallied because the birthday party was fun. It was just immediate family, but there was plenty of good food and plenty of amusement in the form of my nephew, who wanted to open all the presents for his little sister. The sweater was a hit, and we finally took a photo of the photo of Molly wearing it so I could share it here:

Can you see the spot of drool?

Once we got home from the party, it was time for Ruthie's midday walk and then "snoozie time," during which I read the newest Louise Penny, having just gotten my hold from the library, and knit. On Sunday morning, I was on a two-hour Zoom with the dog trainer (super useful!) and then another one-hour Zoom before, again, the midday walk and puppy nap time. So I didn't get in any walks on my own, but sometimes it's nice to take a little break from a lot of physical activity. I figure I had a really good run on Friday and was still getting in a few miles in walks each day with Ruthie, so I embraced the slower pace. It also allowed me to finish up two projects.

First up was a charity hat using some leftovers -- most of the remaining Fibernymph Dye Works Confetti Tweed DK that I had remaining from the last hat held together with fingering scraps (two other FDW yarns and about half of the leftover Felici from the first sister-in-law socks). I used the Sagamore Flyover pattern (Ravelry link), with a slight modification to the crown decreases, and US 7/4.5 mm and US 8/5 mm needles. I've knit a bunch of these hats this year, though all the previously completed ones have now been donated, so this is the first in my rebuilding of the charity hat stash.

I also finished the Ryoko wrap for my mother-in-law -- and as you can see, it needs very badly to be blocked to be a triangle rather than a diamond!

I don't have any idea how busy this week is going to be at work, but even if it gets chaotic, I know I only have to get through the next five days and then I'm off for a week -- nine days in a row, if you include the weekends on either end! I think I can manage whatever gets thrown at me if I keep that in mind. Here's hoping I didn't just jinx myself!

I hope the week is off to an okay start for you -- and if you have a minute, be sure to go wish Mary a happy birthday today!

An FO and a Blast from the Past

It's Friday, finally! It's not been too bad of a week, but the shorter days and the cold have made it feel like it's dragged on, so I'm happy to see the weekend almost here. I'm even happier that I have another pair of socks off the needles:

These are for my larger-footed sister-in-law and used my last two skeins of Knit Picks Felici (unless there is more buried deep in the stash). The colorway is Secret Garden. I tried my best to get them to match, but obviously I got a little off somewhere. They're close enough for me, though, and the recipient, if she even notices, is too nice to say anything. I still have some leftovers from the most recent pairs, all of which will become charity hats of some sort.

Today is an exciting day because it's my niece's first birthday! We will be celebrating her at brunch tomorrow. She's going to be getting a contribution to her college fund for her main present, but I thought I would also give her something a little sentimental.

This is a sweater I knit back in October 2010 -- for Molly. In fact, she wore it when we had photos taken of her to commemorate her first birthday (sadly, we don't appear to have any digital versions). I'm not sure if she wore it other than that one time, but I kept it, just in case. And as it's still in great shape, I think it's time to pass it along to my niece. It got a nice wash and block, and it'll be wrapped up for her parents to open tomorrow.

Other than the birthday brunch tomorrow, we don't have much planned for the weekend. I have a Zoom scheduled Sunday morning for a consultation with a dog trainer who I'm hoping can give me an idea of what we can do next to help her have some better manners, and there might be some chicken soup on the stove at some point. We are supposed to get some heavy rain tomorrow afternoon, so I plan to stay cozy inside as much as possible!

Have a good weekend, friends, and see you back here on Monday!

Unraveled, Week 47/2025

How is it Wednesday again already? Time to link up with Kat and the Unravelers!

I am still working on the same two projects but at least am getting closer to finishing them. I got a bunch of work yesterday and so only managed a handful of rounds on the socks, but the evenings have been dedicated wrap/shawl knitting time, and the rows are getting shorter:

I managed to leave Ruthie for about two minutes to snap a photo of this upstairs while the sun was actually out (not that it did much to warm things up) so you could get a better sense of the actual color of the yarns. I'm hoping I'm able to stretch this out and get a bit more length when I block it, because as written it's not a very big wrap, but I think the mohair/silk will make it very cozy. I might have to find a pretty shawl stick or other closure for it.

I've once again had a good week of reading with four finishes, though two of them were ARCs.

In Life: A Love Story, 92-year-old Flo has received a terminal diagnosis and knows she doesn't have much time left in her life, so she resolves to write a letter explaining some things to Ruthie, the now-grown little girl who used to live next door and was like a daughter to her. Flo has decided to leave her house and all her possessions to Ruthie, but she also wants to leave behind some life lessons she's learned. In giving the history of some of the objects in her house, some of which might seem worthless or mundane, she shows that what matters isn't always things but the memories and the people they recall. This is a quiet book, and while it's not without difficulties that arise in people's lives and marriages, it's a peaceful and welcome departure from the news. That said, I also found it to be rather schmaltzy and, at times, a little over-the-top with religion. Your mileage may vary. I gave it 3 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 March 17, 2026.

After enjoying her forthcoming novel so much, I decided to listen to Anna Quindlen's most recent release. After Annie follows a family in the year following the sudden death of its mother. There's the husband who is overwhelmed at being the sole parent and the one who rarely did much of the heavy lifting of parenting before. There are her four children, the oldest of whom, her only daughter, finds herself feeling responsible for her three younger siblings. And there's her best friend, who finds herself slipping back into drug addiction without Annie to keep her on the straight and narrow. It's a sad story, as you would expect, and it certainly highlights how much work mothers do to keep their families running, but it paints a picture of how families can come together after a tragedy. I gave it 4 stars.

Some time back, I bought a used copy of The Language of Goldfish because I couldn't find it any of the library apps (probably because I think it's been out of print for a while). This is a book I can remember reading multiple times as a young teenager, and I wanted to revisit it as an adult because my memories of it were vague and I was curious about what it was about it that spoke so loudly to me. This book follows 13-year-old Carrie as she struggles to adjust to living in a new place and growing up. She begins to have episodes of visual hallucinations and even has an instance of losing awareness of time and where she is before she attempts suicide. Following that, she is hospitalized and then goes to see a therapist every day to address what was causing her such distress. I can't say that I loved this book as much on a reread (at least as an adult) as I did as a young teen, but it at least held up relatively well in the time that's passed. It was probably pretty advanced for when it was published, in fact, in that it addressed mental illness frankly and as something that should be talked about and addressed. Adult me, however -- particularly the adult me who has a degree in psychology -- felt a little frustrated that Carrie's illness was never really defined and that her therapist didn't seem to do much other than listen to her talk. But all the same it was nice to read something from my childhood that didn't surprise me with something like overt racism for a change. I gave it 4 stars.

If there's one historical era I've read more about than any other, it's the Holocaust and WWII, so it's always a pleasant surprise to learn something about the history of that time period that is new to me. Once There Was a Town: The Memory Books of a Lost Jewish World introduced me to the documents known as yizkor books, volumes created as memorial records of the towns and shtetls essentially erased by the Nazis. They describe what life was like in these places and what sort of people inhabited them in addition to containing lists of the names of those killed. While the book addresses this topic generally, there's also a focus on the town where the author's relatives came from, making this a memoir of sorts, too, as her study of the yizkor book for their shtetl was able to tell her things about the family left behind that her grandmother and great uncles could not and would not discuss. I found it to be a fascinating read. My only disappointment in the book is that the ARC I received did not contain the photos that are referenced in the back of the book -- I would have loved to see those family photos! But that just gives me an excuse to pick up a physical copy of the book when it's published. I gave it 4 stars. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me with a digital ARC of this book in return for an honest review. This book will be published January 20, 2026.

What are you making and reading this week?

Sweater (and Socks and Hat and Scarf) Weather

Brrrr! We are waking up to the coldest weather yet of the season. Yesterday we had rain showers on and off, and it was supposed to turn to snow overnight (as usual, I'm getting this post ready the night before, so I can't yet confirm if it did indeed snow). I think the ground is still too warm for any to stick, but it's cold enough for it to come down. Time to switch from the fall jacket to the winter jacket (but not the long winter jacket just yet)!

Ruthie's new harness arrived on Friday, and I'm happy to report that it works really well. If she pulls, it tightens, making it extremely difficult for her to slip out of it.

It doesn't quite match the collar and leash, but we can live with it.

On top of my to-do list this weekend was sending off quite a large number of charity hats. I've been collecting the ones I've been making for about a year, and Molly made a ton using up scraps and leftovers, so Saturday morning I boxed them up and sent them off to two collections:

Yesterday I made a big vat of vegetable soup, which we had for dinner along with some crusty bread, and Molly gathered up the M&Ms from the Halloween candy, supplemented them with some chocolate chips, and made us some cookies (using this recipe, which I highly recommend):

I'll add that she did everything -- all I did was empty the mini packets of M&Ms, tear the sheets of parchment paper, and cleaned up the dishes. They were fantastic!

And there was knitting. With apologies for the poor lighting, here's where my WIPs stand:

I've finished the gusset on the second sock for my sister-in-law, and I've officially passed the halfway mark on the wrap. 

I expect it's going to be another busy week at work, but we've got two more weeks until Thanksgiving. Molly is off school all that week, and it turns out that I've reached the maximum on my vacation time, so I decided to take Monday through Wednesday off as well. I think I can get through the next two weeks knowing I'll have an entire week off after that! I hope your Monday is as gentle as possible and you're staying cozy. Time to break out those hand-knit sweaters, friends!

Friday? More Like Fri-YAY!

We've reached the end of another week, and while I'm always happy to celebrate the arrival of Friday, this week there are additional reasons to be happy.

Molly is off today because her first trimester ended yesterday. Yes, my baby is 1/3 of the way finished with 10th grade! She's got a really tough schedule this year, with all of her core classes every other day in her eight-day schedule, so the homework tends to pile up. But despite that, she is doing well, and I'm proud of her (though I think that goes without saying).

Yesterday, I got caught up on my work by early afternoon, which gave me some time to read and do a little knitting while Ruthie napped. Because of that, I got through most of the heel flap on the second sock of the pair for my sister-in-law:

I'm sure you're all well aware of the election results from Tuesday. We didn't have any big offices up for grabs, but we did get a new mayor -- the son of a former mayor who tragically died less than a year into his first term -- and our state voted to retain three left-leaning state supreme court justices. I was rather amused the next day when I opened a mini package of peanut M&Ms from the Halloween candy and saw this:

Finally, today officially marks 20 years at my job -- 20 years and people still don't know how to use a comma correctly or how to put things in alphabetical order! I'm supposed to be getting a gift that supposedly shows that the university is grateful for my years of service, but I wouldn't be surprised if they decide there's a freeze on those things while the union contract is being negotiated, just like our annual raises. I've now made it through three chancellors, five vice chancellors, and a heck of a lot of changes. But I guess what doesn't change is that a lot of people need help with their writing and I've gotten a reputation for being very good at what I do. I do complain about it, but I like improving things and finding the mistakes others have missed (not to mention the paycheck and the benefits), so I guess I'll keep doing it as long as I can.

Tonight we're taking my mom out to dinner (she just got back from Florida; my dad is there for a few more days), and tomorrow Molly's going to a sleepover birthday party, so the Mister and I will get a night to ourselves. There's snow(!) in the forecast for Monday, so I'll also be enjoying the more temperate weather while I can. Have a good one!

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!

Unraveled, Week 44/2025

Last week seemed to crawl by and this week seems to be going by in a blur; it's already Wednesday! Kat is back, so it's time to link up with all the Unravelers.

Today I've got some finished socks to share:

These are for my sister-in-law (my brother's wife) for Christmas. Her feet are the same circumference as mine, which makes the stitch count easy, but quite a bit smaller -- 9 inches long compared to my 9.75 inches. At the moment, she has the smallest feet of anyone I knit socks for, but that's mainly because I haven't knit socks for any of my niblings yet (it seems rather pointless when they're so likely to grow out of them so fast). I used my regular plain-vanilla recipe for these and 77 g/336 yds./307 m of Knit Picks Felici in the colorway Painted Hills. I started both socks in the same point in the stripe sequence -- conveniently, both socks started withs the dark blue -- but must've gotten off a little on the foot of the second sock because there's a little more red on one toe than the other. Do I care? No. Will the recipient? She's unlikely to even notice. She also loves getting hand-knit socks, so I know she'll be happy with these. And I love that I now have only two more skeins of Felici left in my stash (unless there's some in there I don't know about), which are already being turned into socks for my other sister-in-law.

It's been another good week of reading, thanks in large part to some shorter audiobooks:

I think many of you have already read and enjoyed Is a River Alive? already; I know I'm a bit late to the party. The author reads this work that examines how rivers have shaped our world and how we humans have exploited, polluted, and restricted them to our peril. Detailing visits to rivers in Ecuador, India, and Quebec, he details the plight of these three rivers and their impact on the surrounding ecosystems, all the while making a case for recognizing the "aliveness" of rivers as a way of asserting their rights to exist, thereby saving them. He's an excellent writer and a great narrator, and as a longtime proponent of environmentalism, I thoroughly enjoyed it (though I'll admit there's a lot that went right by me as a result of reading with my ears rather than my eyes). I gave it 4 stars.

When we first meet Dawn, the narrator in Love Forms, she is a pregnant 16-year-old in Trinidad being smuggled by boat to Venezuela to a home run by nuns where she will give birth and then give up her child to adoption. We then meet her 42 years later, when she is a divorcee with two grown children in London looking back on her spotty memories of that experience and trying to find the daughter she gave up. This novel from the Booker Prize longlist takes a hard look at the hard choices we make for ourselves, at family relationships that can be damaged by those hard choices, and at how we -- particularly women who are mothers -- look at our own identity. It's a quiet book with a lot of introspection, but I like that sort of book. I also learned more about Trinidad and Venezuela, two places with which I am unfamiliar, and a novel that teaches me something is always a good thing. I gave it 4 stars.

The Hero of This Book is a work that challenged me. It is labeled a novel, and in it, the narrator, a writer of fiction, is taking a trip to London less than a year after the death of her mother, who loved the city, and reflecting on their relationship as she explores places her mother had visited or would have enjoyed. She recounts episodes in her mother's life and her childhood, and she repeatedly states that she promised her mother she would never make her a character in one of her books or write a memoir about her. And yet it feels very much like a memoir of grief, and many of the details of the narrator's life match the life of the author. I suppose that, in a way, it's a commentary on the fact that all writers draw on what they know, what they have lived, what they have experienced, to a degree. Unless you are inventing an imaginary world with its own rules, it's hard for pieces of your world to not find their way into your work. So the question is, then, how much of this book is truth and how much is fiction. I gave it 3 stars.

Finally, Dayswork, though it's not described as such, felt like a novel of the early pandemic to me, those strange days when we were all stuck at home and on our computers way too much, leading many of us to fall down rabbit holes. For the narrator, that particular rabbit hole is Herman Melville. In between her ordinary tasks of daily life, she reads anything she can find about the famous writer of Moby Dick, which leads her to follow the trail to other writers and biographers who similarly fixated on Melville. Again, this is a novel, but it feels very much like it could be a true story -- after all, the authors are husband and wife, and who's to say that this sort of thing didn't happen in the first couple of months of lockdown? I found it an interesting read from an academic standpoint but not especially compelling. I gave it 3 stars.

I'm still working my way through The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny and Celestial Bodies, though I'm well past the halfway point on both, and I've now added The South to the mix after getting it from my holds from the library just yesterday. I'm not trying to read all of the Booker Prize-nominated books this year, but there were several from the longlist that intrigued me that I put on hold before the shortlist was announced, so I still intend to read them.

What are you making and reading this week?

Fall Color

And just like that, it's Monday again. We had a nice weekend, though the weather was strange. On Saturday, it was warm and sunny, more like summer. I took advantage of the sun on Saturday to take a 6-mile walk, and the Mister went for a bike ride. On Sunday, it was still warm, but then it got windy and rain came through. It held off until after our brunch yesterday for my father's birthday; we were inside, but it's always such a pain to get a bit dressed up and then get wet going to and from the car.

It's supposed to get cooler again this week, more like normal fall weather, and though we should be seeing the leaves changing color and some are, a lot of the trees in the neighborhood have just dropped their leaves because of the lack of rain. So I am making up for it with a very bright new cast-on:

One of the special challenges for the Pigskin Party this month is a pink challenge in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. It'd also been a while since I last knit a charity hat, so I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone. I had this bright pink skein of Fibernymph Dye Works tweed DK in my stash and the pattern (Ravelry link) already in my library, so all I had to do was wind the yarn and cast on. It's been a little slow going because of the ribbing and the cables, but I'm pretty sure I'll be able to finish it up by the end of the month.

My other colorful project -- my sister-in-law's socks -- are getting close to being done, too, so perhaps it will be a multiple FO week!

I'll leave you with a puppy pic because I don't have any other knitting photos to share. This is from Saturday afternoon, when Ruthie took a long nap. She would like you to know that although she was naughty and slipped her harness again on Friday night (thankfully staying to our street and away from traffic until we could lure her into the house with a cookie), she was a very good girl on Saturday and Sunday, when she slept in until 6:45 and 7:05, respectively!

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

Tesselation

It's been a while since I had a real FO (a pair of socks doesn't seem all that impressive to me), so it feels good to finish up the week with one!

Pattern: Tessella by Alina Appasova (Ravelry link)
Yarn: Lorna's Laces Solemate (55% Merino/30% rayon/15% nylon) in Reno, 103 g used, and lolodidit Everyday Sock (75% Merino/25% nylon) in Tea on the Green, 83 g used
Needles: US 5/3.75 mm
Started/Completed: September 7/October 14

As you'll see from the completion date, I did actually finish this before my Unraveled Wednesday post went live, but I'd set it to publish at 6 a.m. and only finished binding off right before bed, so I figured I'd just leave it. 

This was a lot of fun to knit. It'd been a while since I'd worked mosaic knitting, so it took me a little bit of time to reacquaint myself with how to read the charts plus account for the increases. As far as the shaping of the shawl, it's very similar to a Hitchhiker, though the increases are placed a bit differently. But once I grew used to the construction and could intuit how the color patterning worked, I didn't really need to refer to the charts other than to count my repeats of each one.

The only modification I made, if you could even call it that, was to add most of an additional repeat. A pattern repeat in this pattern is three repetitions of each chart; I managed 2.5 more of Chart B. The pattern does explain how to enlarge it, and the way it's written, you can do half of a chart without it looking strange. I knew I would not have enough of the darker color to work those final six rows, so it worked out just fine. And this shawl is plenty big. To give you an idea (because why would I actually measure it and make it easy?), here it is laying out to dry -- on two drying racks:

The yarns I used for this shawl both came home with me from Nashville. The lighter color, from lolodidit, is really a light fingering, at 463 yards/100 g, so I'm not surprised that I have more of it leftover. The variegated Lorna's Laces was, fortunately, overweight to begin with, so I have a few grams remaining even after using 103 g in the shawl. It was generously sized at 425 yards/100 g, but it was noticeably thicker than the light tonal green.

This shawl was a lot of fun to knit, and it only took as long as it did because my knitting time on it was limited. I would definitely knit it again, and I think it'd be great for handspun because you can end it pretty much anywhere when your yarn starts to run out. I very well may knit another; next time, I'll try two yarns with greater contrast.

We've got a pretty boring weekend ahead, with the only plans on the calendar at the moment a brunch on Sunday for my dad's birthday (his birthday was this past Wednesday). I feel a bit like I've got a long weekend because Molly has a noon dismissal today and the day off on Monday for parent/advisor conferences, so I won't have to do the mid-afternoon school run. I'm hoping she'll get her homework done early in the weekend so she can relax; it's been a rough week for her. It's been a long week for me, too, so I'm hoping I can get in some extra rest as well. Ruthie has not been barking early in the morning much this week -- dare I hope she'll let me sleep in on the weekend? Fingers crossed!