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!