A Summer Reset | 2026

It is almost mid-July! I don’t think I had a chance to acknowledge the summer solstice in this space this year? It’s a minority opinion, but I love it when the days start shortening. It’s strange, but I prefer cold, short, dark days and we are inching our way back to my happy place. I write the sunrise/sunset time in my notebook every day and it is so satisfying to watch everything reverse; it’s almost like watching a movie in rewind.

Matthew was on vacation last week and we made it up to our little spot in the mountains. It was chillier than expected but it didn’t stop the kids or Dawsey from wading into the water and splashing around. Dawsey was very young when we went last year so it was fun seeing him enjoy himself more this time. Maybe next year we’ll feel more confident about unleashing him in a strange place and giving him a little more freedom? We’ll see. (Probably not)

And thanks to Matthew’s vacation, we had a week full of mahjong, Sorry!, smoked meat, and various barbecues. I got as much rest as I could to gear up for the new week and am already feeling the benefit, so I’m feeling more like myself with today’s post. I have a smattering of updates and only a handful of finished books for you, so this post has been a lot of fun to write!

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Home:

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I received five handwritten letters from you all last week! Thank you! I’ve added them to the three from a couple of weeks ago that I haven’t found the motivation to respond to yet. I am planning to schedule a “correspondence hour” every day this week to get my letter writing mojo back. And did you know that I cut out the stamps and carefully peel off every sticker and piece of washi tape that you send me and paste them all into my notebook? One day I’ll find a way to show it to you.

Summer school starts for all of us today. I’m relieved to return to some semblance of a routine. Colton will return home for the day around noon so there will still plenty of time for the kids to enjoy their summer but it will be nice to fill their mornings with something more structured. We focus on the basics in the summer: reading, writing, and math, so it’s not very overwhelming. But we also try to keep our history curriculum going while allowing ourselves to fall down more rabbit holes than usual. It’s a much easier time of year for all of us!

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Knitting:

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Strangely, my knitting motivation returned last week. There has been no knitting in this house since April so it’s odd that the itch to knit suddenly arrived, but there you go.

I decided to start Flower Child by Wool and Pine, so I bought the pattern and dug out stashed yarn. When I opened my needle case to start the swatch, my size 4 tips were missing. So I went through my knitting bag and found those tips attached to my Inclinations Cowl (my Ravelry link with yarn details). I remember putting it aside to give myself time to decide if I wanted to finish it — I was feeling bogged down given the length of each row – and decided to keep going. I love this shape of cowl and the ribbing is so pretty. Thanks to last week’s work, I’ve made it to the decrease section.

I am definitely going to run out of yarn and have no intention of buying more – another reason I put the project aside, now that I’m thinking about it. I’ll be digging through my stash to find something suitable to finish it with. This isn’t my first rodeo and I’ve had fairly good luck trying this before (see: my Travelers Cowl). So I’m kind of excited to find something funky for the last few repeats.

And once this is finished I will be casting on for that tee (I hope)!

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Reading:

The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett
(Amazon | Bookshop)

“Unfortunately, paint can’t fix what’s rotten down deep, Meg. There is bound to be a life lesson in there somewhere.”

I was hesitant to read The Calamity Club because of the controversy around the author’s previous novel, The Help. But I decided to give it a try and am relieved to report that the author learned from her experience and managed to create something heartwarming, funny, and hopeful while avoiding the tropes that were the downfall of The Help.

The Calamity Club is set in Mississippi in the 1930s and we see the fallout from the stock market crash. In some cases, it’s the downfall of the super wealthy who made their money from slavery. But of course, most of the pain is felt by the working class families who are just trying to survive. The Calamity Club is created out of the sheer desperation of a group of women who need money fast. I laughed out loud several times and enjoyed watching these women band together to create something out of nothing. It’s a book of friendship and strong will, full of memorable characters.

A downside for me:
I was struck by the author’s liberal use of the r-word and nearly stopped listening because of it. I am still thinking about the author’s use of the word and know that it was much more common in the 30s. And still. I felt like it didn’t need to be used in so many contexts.

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Troy by Stephen Fry
(Amazon | Bookshop)

“The action is played out on the golden horizon between reality and legend, the beguiling penumbra where fable and fact coexist.”

This was the book I should have read before reading The Iliad and The Odyssey! It gives you all of the important characters and history of those epic poems in an entertaining and easy to follow way. I am so happy that this has become my summer of mythology because I feel like I’m finally beginning to understand the characters and their motivations. And it’s so fun to see all of the characters I’ve been reading about (especially Briseis and Cassandra) threaded together like this.

If you’re wanting to read something before The Odyssey comes out this summer, this book will be helpful. But Stephen Fry also has a retelling of The Odyssey that I haven’t read, but I’m sure will be excellent. (And all four of the books in Fry’s Greek Myths series are $3.99 each on Kindle as of this writing.)

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The Road Home by Rose Tremain
(Amazon | Bookshop)

“He’d never seen a rain quite like this so gentle that it seemed barely to fall yet slowly laid its shine on the bay leaves and hydrangea flowers”

I read The Road Home because of my goal to read all of the Women’s Prize winners and this one won in 2008 (I’m 77% through the list now!). This is the story of Lev, a man from an unspecified Eastern European country who briefly immigrated to England to find work to support his family in what seemed like the early 2000s. And what a culture shock! Despite speaking excellent English, it was difficult for him to understand the numerous idioms native speakers don’t even think about and he was often treated in despicable ways just because he was an immigrant.

Despite this, Lev stayed positive and found ways to achieve his goals. He made some really terrible decisions along the way and I found myself cringing often, but I couldn’t help but root for him. And it was a wonderful reminder that we never know what difficulties other people are experiencing and to do my best to choose kindness as often as possible.

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Ahh — it felt nice to give a good old fashioned update this morning. I hope to actually write a Substack post this week, too. Not because I’ve made any progress on my learning plan but because I plan to think out loud about how to get back on track. You are very welcome to join me over there.

I hope your week is getting off to a good start, that you’re staying cool, and that you find some time for the things that bring you joy. Take good care!