Feel-Good Friday, Late July Edition

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That's a Wrap -- Almost

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Unraveled, Week 28/2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

Little One by Olivia Muenter

Digital library loan

3 stars

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

Slow Horses (Slough House #1) by Mick Herron

Audiobook library loan

4 stars

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

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

Paperback

2 stars

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

The Place of Tides by James Rebanks

Audiobook library loan

4 stars

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

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

What are you making and reading?

Home Again

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Unraveled, Week 26/2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What are you making and reading this week?

A Free Friday

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

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

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

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

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

Unraveled, Week 25/2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Summer Long Weekend

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

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

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

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

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

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

Unraveled, Week 21/2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Meanwhile, in reading, I finished another five books:

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

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

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

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

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

What are you making and reading this week?

Not Quite Summer Yet

We had a taste of summer to start the week, but for Memorial Day weekend, traditionally the start of summer, it's gotten cooler again and an awful lot of rain is in the forecast. We don't have any cookouts planned, so it's all the same to me, but I feel bad for all the people who are opening the pools and the local amusement parks this weekend -- I don't think they're going to get much business!

My holiday weekend will start at 2 this afternoon, when my office closes early. I'll be curled up with a napping puppy at that point, most likely, so that just means closing my laptop. And there's not much planned for the weekend, other than going to a dinner with the extended family on Monday. Molly will likely work over the weekend, we've got to do a Target run to stock up on some stuff, and we'll try to get her some driving practice. Because of the expected rain, I'm hoping to plant some flower seeds in the front (I'm going to be tossing a bunch of stuff in the ground and seeing what comes up), but mostly I'm planning to use the weekend to rest, read, and knit.

Speaking of knitting, here's where things stand with my WIPs (at least as of last night):

All that's left on the sweater is the cuff on the second sleeve, and the heel has been turned on the second sock of the pair. These aren't going to be WIPs for much longer!

I may also spend some time this weekend digging in the stash and browsing patterns because yesterday I found out that a friend who has been dealing with fertility issues for several years is expecting a baby this fall -- knit all the baby things! She and her husband are currently living in Sweden because of his job, so that baby will need some warm woolies, and I'm happy to supply some of them.

I hope you all have a wonderful, restful long weekend!

A Monday, without a Case of the Mondays

Good morning, my friends! Even though it's my least-favorite day of the week, I am feeling rested and less anxious than usual this Monday. Part of it is that I had a bonus day off (though, in all honesty, it still felt like a typical Friday except for not being on the computer all day). Part of it is that I was able to sleep in a bit and wake up naturally both Saturday and Sunday. And part of it is that Molly is done with exams and stress for this school year and is more or less recovered from her sinus issues, so I can look forward to a happier girl around the house for the foreseeable future.

We did make it to the movie on Friday afternoon (I believe that there were fewer than 10 people in the theater altogether!), and I took my sock in progress with me. At one point I was concerned that I was getting close to the measurement for the foot before starting the toe, so I put it away until I could measure it. Wouldn't you know that I had knit to exactly the right length? Seems like there was some good luck or magic or karma at work because not only had I not knit too far, but when I finished the first sock later that night and measured the remaining yarn, I had more than 50 g remaining, so I shouldn't need to worry about playing yarn chicken with the second sock.

We had a quiet Saturday, with some strange weather (dark clouds threatened much of the day, but it only rained lightly a few times). Molly had a get-together with some friends that evening, so the Mister and I went out to dinner -- and lest you think we had a lovely, romantic evening, I'll tell you that when we came home, we collectively folded three loads of laundry. Middle age is very exciting! We spent some of our dinner reflecting on the fact that this was the second Saturday in a row that we'd been able to go out as just a couple and that in about two more years, we'll be doing it all the time. Seems like just yesterday that we were talking about how we couldn't wait to be out of the diapers phase, the tantrum phase, etc.

Yesterday we had what felt like the start of summer. Even though it was about 40ºF on Friday morning when I took Ruthie out first thing, yesterday it warmed into the mid-80s and we had to switch off the heat and turn on the air conditioning. Today and tomorrow we're supposed to break 90! I'm fully convinced that we're not going to get a real spring this year and that it'll either be colder or much hotter than average. I picked up the plants I ordered (two types of tomatoes, bell pepper, basil, and rosemary) yesterday, and I'm hoping that at least we've seen the last of the frost and I can safely plant them.

The Mister is headed out of town on a work trip for a few days, so it'll be just us girls at home. Now that Molly is done with classes (they do mini courses for the last two weeks of the year), she won't have homework or studying to do, so I'm hoping she'll help me with dinner and spend time with me in the evening. We still have to finish watching the most recent season of Only Murders in the Building, which came out last fall, because she soon got so busy at school that she needed her evenings to do homework. I'm expecting work to pick up a bit this week, though I assume we will have an early dismissal on Friday ahead of the holiday weekend (how is it already almost Memorial Day?!). Though we're past the worst of this school year, there's still a lot on the schedule before the start of summer, so I'm just taking it one day at a time.

I hope your Monday isn't as bad as it could be and the week goes quickly. I'll be back on Wednesday with a sweater update!

Happy Weekend

I do love a Friday off! Molly is officially done with exams, so she is no longer stressed out, but she's also come down with what we believe is a sinus infection (thanks to the aforementioned stress + allergies + lack of sleep). If it's not one thing, it's another! She is, understandably, sleeping in late today, and provided she feels up to it, we're going to the movies to see The Devil Wears Prada 2 with my mother later this afternoon. In the meantime, though I've taken the day off from work, I'll be up to my usual non-work activities today: a run, cleaning the bathroom, doing some laundry. And of course there will be some knitting. If we do go to the movie, I'll be taking my brother's socks with me.

Colors aren't accurate thanks to bad lighting

As of Thursday afternoon, I was about an inch and a half past the completion of the gusset decreases. My brother's feet are 10.75 inches long, so there's still quite a bit of foot to go! It'll be good movie knitting or, if we stay home, good reading-while-Ruthie-naps knitting.

We had cooler weather this week, but we're supposed to get back to the 80s and may even hit 90 on Monday! I'm picking up the plants I ordered from our synagogue's plant sale on Sunday and am hoping it's safe to plant them -- I never would have expected we'd get frost warnings in May! We have no big plans for the weekend, but our neighborhood business district has an art fair happening this weekend (which always seems to bring on the hot weather), so I expect we'll stroll through at some point to see if there's anything interesting. There's also some filming going on in our neighborhood, pretty much across the street from our street, so perhaps we'll spot some actors on our walks.

I hope you're able to relax, get some sunshine, and do something you enjoy this weekend. And to leave you with a little eye candy, I present the first rose of the season to bloom on our last remaining rose bush:

Rested and Drying Out

It was a cool, damp weekend here, with rain much of the day on Saturday and during the morning on Sunday. Thankfully the sun came out Sunday afternoon, so it didn't feel like a total wash-out. Ruthie and I still went out for our walks; she seemed even more interested in sniffing everything now that it was wet, so some of them were even longer than usual. The Mister and I had a good dinner out on Saturday, Molly had fun at her event, and we all ate too much at brunch on Sunday. The socks were a hit, and given that we've got a potential for frost overnight early this week, they might even get worn soon! My request for Mother's Day was not to have to cook dinner and the Mister obliged. And now it's Monday again and time to start the weekly grind over.

One item on my to-do list that I crossed off over the weekend was blocking the two hats I just knit.

The ribbing is obviously making these look very skinny, but they are very stretchy and accommodating. The pattern is the free Two by Two (Ravelry link), which I had knit at least once before. It's a very simple pattern -- 2x2 ribbing for a while, then eight decreases every other round at either side of four markers, then eight decreases every round for the last handful. I actually did one more than called for so that I ended with 8 stitches at the end rather than 16. I used Fibernymph Dye Works DK-weight yarn for both, Mountain House Autumn on Beguiled (superwash Merino/nylon/sparkle) on the left and Gnome Place Like Home on Strong DK (superwash Merino/nylon) on the right. The pattern calls for worsted, but the DK worked out just fine; I went down to a US 5/3.75 mm needle to work with the slightly lighter yarn. I'd originally intended the one on the right to be for my brother, but the stripes might be a bit too wild for him. I wouldn't give it to him until Chanukah in any case, so I have some time to decide. But in the meantime I needed a new mindless afternoon project, so I cast on a pair of socks for him.

This is also Fibernymph Dye Works yarn, a colorway called Winter's Bite, one of Lisa's Middle Earth-themed colorways. This skein was actually a prize from her ongoing make-along, and I thought these darker, moody colors would suit my brother well. This pair will either be for his birthday in July or be put away for Chanukah.

This week Molly has finals, which means she'll be super stressed out but at least after Thursday she'll be done and has only fun stuff for the rest of the school year. And I am taking Friday off so we can have a girls' day. I'm hoping that the shorter week moves quickly!

Unraveled, Week 18/2026

Wednesday again -- time to link up with Kat and the Unravelers!

Not that much progress has been made on either of my two WIPs, so I'll spare you another photo of a little bit of a sleeve and some ribbing. Instead, I present for your viewing pleasure the four pairs of Mother's Day socks, all washed and blocked:

I don't feel a need to block socks I knit for myself, but I like to do it for socks I'm giving as gifts, not least because it helps to get rid of the magic loop ridges. These will get wrapped up later this week, and who knows, they might even get worn right away because it's supposed to be a slightly chilly weekend!

In addition to a slower week of knitting for me, it's been a slower week of reading as well, though I think that's in large part due to the fact that one of the two books I finished was 700 pages.

I had heard about The Remembered Soldier from several friends who had read it after it was named to the International Booker Prize longlist. It follows the life of a Belgian man who had fought in WWI but had lost his memory and had been living in a psychiatric asylum until a woman shows up and identifies him as her husband, Amand. Though he has no memory of her, he returns home with her and learns about his life as Amand, a photographer and shopkeeper with his wife, Julianne, and two children. Over time, Amand and Julienne have to get to know each other and fall in love all over again, even as Amand struggles with the horrifying dreams of war and his uncertainty of what is real and what is not. Then he starts "disappearing" for longer and longer periods of time, during which he claims to be someone else -- a man married to someone else. What is real? What is dream or imagined? Are these disappearances caused by the trauma of war or glimpses of his real self? And can he not remember Julienne because he has truly lost his memory or because he never had the memories to begin with? This is a long book, and it's written almost entirely in run-on sentences that give it a sense of breathlessness, but it gives the reader a lot to think about and certainly raises some big questions about memory and its reliability. I gave it 4 stars.

Crooks was mentioned on a recent episode of the What Should I Read Next podcast and sounded like something fun and a little lighter, which I was in the mood for. It follows members of the Mercurio family, who come from a long line of criminals and thieves -- crooks, in other words. Each section of the book follows a different member of the family, starting with the father and then moving through his children, all of whom are involved in crime in some way. The exceptions are Alice, the smart one, who has known what her family is all along and has avoided it for most of her life, and Piggy, the baby, who feels like he's missing out. I had a little trouble staying focused on this book at the beginning, but the narrator does a great job of reading with appropriate emotion and made it more entertaining. I'd never heard of this book or this author before, and I can't say I'm eager to read more of his work, but this made me laugh, and that's what I wanted. I gave it 4 stars as well.

I'm currently in the home stretch of The Hakawati, am a little more than a third through Dominion, and just started a really interesting work of nonfiction on audio.

What are you making and reading this week?

Weekending, Late April

Can you believe this is the last week of April? It's been such a strange month of weather; we've had to keep alternating between air conditioning and heat in a way I can't remember doing before. After several glorious days of sun to end last week, it was rainy for most of Saturday and then much cooler on Sunday, making for two days I was happy to be inside curled up next to a snoozing pup.

We truly didn't do much over the weekend, in part because it had been such a busy week. The Mister worked from home Thursday and Friday (his office is right near where the NFL Draft was happening, and he didn't want to deal with all that craziness). I picked Molly and her friend up early on Friday so they could go down to Point State Park and hand out flower seeds to visitors. Her friend's father picked them up and then we all went out to dinner. Molly was so worn out from the week that she fell asleep on top of her bed shortly after taking her shower, with her hair still up in a towel! We all stayed home pretty much all day on Saturday (I went for a walk and took Ruthie out, obviously), and we got takeout and had my in-laws over for dinner. Yesterday Molly worked, I did a Costco run, and we had a lazy afternoon. I may have taken a little snooze as well, as some-puppy decided to wake me up at 5:45 (but I wasn't too upset because I slept until almost 7 on Saturday!).

My big accomplishment of the weekend was finishing the last of the Mother's Day socks:

I essentially used my regular sock recipe for these, though upsized to 80 stitches rather than my usual 68. This sister-in-law has feet that are the same length as mine but at least an inch wider. Usually I make her ankle socks, but as this yarn was more of a light fingering, I though I'd make them a little taller. I'm hoping they fit!

Because those socks were my knitting for while Ruthie naps, I obviously needed to cast on something else right away, so I wound a skein of DK and started a hat for my brother:

This is one of the skeins that came in my recent Fibernymph Dye Works grab bag; the colorway is called Gnome Place Like Home. A gnome-themed color naturally made me think of my brother, so a hat for him it had to be. I'm using the Two by Two pattern (Ravelry link), which I've knit a couple of times before, and at this stage it's pretty mindless -- just 2x2 ribbing. I do that for something like 9 inches and then work decreases, so this should keep me occupied for a while.

This week things should be pretty normal: the Mister is in town, Molly has her last week of school with new content in her classes (next week they'll start reviewing for finals), and the city will resume normal operation now that the draft is over. The weather isn't looking so great -- cooler highs and lots of rain -- but I'll take that over sweating like it's the middle of summer. It's also the final week before commencement, so I'll be keeping my fingers crossed that we have no last-minute shenanigans to deal with! I hope it's a calm week for you as well.