And Just Like That! September 2025 Comes to a Close

I can’t tell you what happened to September. Well, I could flip through my notebooks and tell you the things we did, but it all feels like so long ago already. I think September was the fastest month of 2025 (so far). The weather has been mostly warm and sunny this month, but we finally got some good rain this week. It was short-lived and there isn’t anymore on the forecast — and there are still days forecasted to be over 80ºF in early October, which is bananas. No thank you!

I have just a few updates for you. I’m following the same format I’ve used for the last few Sundays: home stuff, knitting, and reading. I have been making progress in all three areas somehow!

---

Home Stuff:

It’s fair season in New Hampshire and we went to the Deerfield Fair on Friday. I wish we would have went in the pouring rain on Thursday because it was so crowded and warm on Friday. It really wasn’t very much fun. The only picture I took from the fair was the giant pumpkin up top because there were just too many people to stop for anything. These are the same fairgrounds where the NH Sheep and Wool Festival is held and I couldn’t help but compare the two – the S&W Festival is so much more low-key and easy to navigate. But we survived another year.

And other than that stressful day, Bryce and Bronwyn had a pretty good week of homeschooling and Colton is still happy and healthy. Bryce’s 12th birthday was yesterday! He chose blueberry pie and ice cream to celebrate, which we get at a local farm. It was delicious! And of course, I can’t believe he’s 12. Yikes!

Personal Learning:

I am still making progress on my personal learning project. This week I finished the first chapter of White Trash, read about Aristotle’s Nature of Slaves (which Spain used as a justification to enslave the people of Haiti after they landed), and read the second chapter in These Truths. This project is still fascinating to me and I wish I could spend more than my current allocation of time for it, which is 40 minutes a day. I’m taking careful notes and annotating the books and my notes and feel like I could sit at my desk all day!

I think I’ll be starting The 1619 Project next week. A few of you mentioned that you own this and also want to get started on it. One thing I noticed about the chapters is that they’re fairly short so committing to 2 or 3 chapters a week would be a reasonable goal for almost all of you who read this blog regularly. And I’ll be reading this through December and probably January, so you would have a buddy reader for encouragement!

---

Knitting:

---

I finally worked on my sweater this week! I decided to set a small goal after I published Sunday’s post last week: just finish the first front shoulder. I knew I was close to finishing it back in July and that it would be possible to accomplish — I just wanted to give myself a little motivation to get started again. And it worked because I was able to finish both front shoulders and start the back. So woohoo! This sweater is moving again and that feels great.

This week’s goal: to knit 4 rows a day on it. 4 rows a day is certainly progress and better than none at all, right?

---

Last week I shared this picture – it’s the yarn for my next pair of socks. I casted on for the first sock last Sunday and have finished the leg, heel flap, heel, and gusset. Now I’m on the foot. I just don’t have a picture to show you. Maybe next week?

---

Reading:

The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and his mother) by Rabih Alameddine
(Amazon | Bookshop.org)

Raja got on my radar thanks to this year’s National Book Awards Fiction longlist. I was especially interested in this one because I enjoyed an earlier book by Alameddine, The Wrong End of the Telescope. In this story, Raja is a sixty-something gay man in Beirut who lives with his hilarious mother. The two of them go back and forth a lot and made me laugh out loud several times. This book shows us what life was like to grow up gay in such a conservative culture and how Raja managed to survive such a tumultuous time.

As an adult, Raja taught philosophy at the school he attended as a teenager. We learn throughout this book how many kids he impacted through his years as a teacher and how important he was to their lives, which surprised Raja more than anyone else.

This book was funny and uplifting, as well as educational about life in Lebanon. I’m excited to see if it makes the shortlist!

---

Hot Wax by M. L. Rio
(Amazon | Bookshop.org)

This book began with Suzanne a long way from home and broken down in her recently deceased father’s bright yellow Ford Ranchero named Blondie. As the book goes on, we learn more about Blondie and about Suzanne’s brief stint on the road with her father and his band, Gil and the Kills, in the summer of 1989. Early on in this novel, we know that something awful happened that summer and it caused Gil to lose all custody of Suzanne and for their relationship to fall apart. But now that her dad has died, Suzanne leaves her new life (and husband) behind to search for answers about what happened.

Rio’s writing in this novel is electric — she captured the nostalgia of rock bands in the late 80s perfectly. There are also fantastic images of Suzanne running free through malls and at concert venues like only a street-smart 80s kid could do. My only reservation about enthusiastically recommending this book is that I felt like it was a tiny bit predictable and there was never really any suspense about what happened to Suzanne. And maybe that’s what Rio wanted because the writing was on the wall from the beginning, but I like surprises in stories like this and felt like that was missing. Just a personal preference and I think a lot of people will really enjoy this book!

---

Currently Reading:

Right now I’m reading On The Calculation of Volume (Vol. 1) by Solvej Balle – this one was longlisted for the National Book Award in 2024 and the third volume in this series was longlisted this year, so I have some catching up to do! I am only about 40 pages into it and it is fascinating – the premise is intriguing and all of the details are perfect. I can’t wait to make some real progress on it!

And I’m listening to The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai – which was just shortlisted for the Booker prize! I’m only about two hours into this 25+ hour audiobook but wow! I love the setting and the characters. I will report back with a little more information next week.

---

And – that’s it! Today is going to be over 80º again, so yuck. I’ll be doing laundry and hopefully taking Dawsey out to the Town Forest to burn off some energy. I’m hoping for some long quiet moments to read my physical book and that I find time to knit with my audiobook. That’s asking a lot for a Sunday, so wish me luck.

I hope your week is full of things that bring you joy. Take good care!