Friday | The End of an Era

Good morning! I hope you’re happy that it’s Friday. Fall continues to arrive in New Hampshire – the apple orchards opened for picking last weekend, school has started, and the nights are delightfully cool. And we have more sunflowers blooming! I hope you’re also seeing signs of the changing season wherever you are because we all earned it after this brutal summer. Today’s post is about losing Queen Elizabeth, an update to the start of our school year, and knitting. Kind of a smorgasbord, but that’s the kind of week it’s been.

I followed the news about Queen Elizabeth all day yesterday. I have such an interest in the royal family and Elizabeth in particular. (My in-laws seem to think I wish I was a princess? I’ve been called Princess Katie a time or two, to my profound dismay. But that’s not the case at all – I have no desire to be a part of the royal family. I just love learning about the history and watching history before my eyes, and I’m anxious to ensure that you don’t get the wrong impression about my interest.) What a loss. What a life! I’ll be tuning into all of the subsequent pomp and circumstance as much as I can. Of course, for most of us this will be the first time we’ll experience the death of an English Queen*. I brewed Earl Gray during yesterday’s teatime because it was the queen’s favorite and we opted to turn on the television at the table because it felt like a special occasion. I have a feeling we’ll be doing that more often in the coming days.

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We’re wiggling into our new routines now that we’ve begun school in earnest for the year. I have to admit that it’s been hard. I was quite spoiled with our summer school routine and often found a few pockets of time for myself throughout the day. In the last few days I’ve managed to read about 10 pages on my own, which is not at all conducive to finishing the big books I’d hoped to tackle this month. On top of that, my early morning time has been coopted by a couple of early rising children, so my time at the computer has dwindled considerably this week. I know I’ll figure out my rhythm again as time goes on so I’m trying not to get too upset about it AND wow — our homeschooling days are finally looking the way I envisioned them before we started this journey. It makes it all worthwhile.

The news about the queen was kind of serendipitous for me because we’ve been steeped in English history this week. We’ve studied the first Elizabethan Era in our history lessons, started a middle grade novel called Shakespeare’s Secret (it’s so good and I’m way more into it than the kids), began learning bits about Shakespeare’s plays, and I’ve watched some of Queen Elizabeth’s Secret Agents and The Boleyns on my own in the evenings. So whew! – things truly felt like they came full circle for me on Thursday morning when I first got the alerts about the queen.

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I haven’t shared any knitting progress in quite a while. I actually didn’t pick up my needles much throughout August but returned last week when Colton was so sick. It was much easier to pick up/put down a knitting project than put down a book and then try to find my bearings again after each clean up. This is my Inclinations Cowl and its progress is slow. I really have to look at this while I’m knitting because it uses half-fisherman’s rib, where you knit through the stitch in the row below, not off the needle. So I have to be careful about when I sit down to work on it; it’s definitely not a project for a show with sub-titles! It’s perfect when paired with an audiobook, but opportunities for that have been few and far between.

My most recent pair of DRK Everyday Socks are much more convenient to pick up/put down. I finished the first sock last Friday while lazing on the couch with Grantchester and was smart and immediately started the toe of the next. I’ve finished the increased gusset and hope to turn that heel tonight so that it becomes mindless again. I’m anxious to finish this pair so that I can cast on with the yarn that Sarah sent me. I’m petting it as I type this!

Also! Kat mentioned using the suspended bind off on a recent pair of socks and loving it. I tried it with this one and YES! It’s amazing. It made the perfectly straight edge that I’ve been looking for since about 2005. So thank you, Kat!

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And friends, that’s all I have for this week. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to pull things together for a post on Monday, but I will try. I hope you have a weekend full of exactly what you need. Take good care.

*I had a really hard time knowing what to capitalize throughout this post and didn’t have time to study up on it. So I’m presenting you with a smorgasbord of options (second time I’ve used that word today, oh boy), and you can choose what works better for you. You’re welcome.