Whoa! Another mention! I am in the "blogs by women" at The New Homemaker (You will have to scroll down to get to the link). This was brought to my attention by a blogger who uses the handle "Moominmamma" (Her blog is here, looks like some interesting and meaty stuff about converting to Judaism, homeschooling a child, and attempts at having more children).

It's been a quiet weekend. Saturday I worked on research-stuff. Saturday evening I hauled out my neglected "Spools" quilt (this has been in the frame since 1999) and quilted on it. I am getting close to done, which means I am beginning to get excited about this project again.

Am I alone in that? I am most excited by ANYTHING (be it a research project, a quilt, a knitting project, a book) when I am beginning it or when I am closing in on the end. It's the middle - the slog-through-it part - that I have a hard time with.

I also began another project. I figured if I was actually going to make the Lily Chin shawl for my mom and have a prayer of finishing it in time for her birthday, I better begin now. I already had to rip back to the beginning once. I think I am going to have to recite the pattern aloud as I do it, and count stitches every row (ugh. This is supposed to be an easy pattern. But then I am using black yarn).

Then I realized Emily's due date is before my mom's b-day, and that I was nearly done with the Toddler Towel anyway. So that's on my lap now as I surf, and I get in a few sts as I wait for pages to load. Soon, I am going to log off and go read a book and knit. I can do that when it's a simple pattern.

I'm currently reading "Crossing to Safety" by Wallace Stegner. You almost never hear anything about Stegner, but he's an amazing writer. Unfairly neglected, I think. He wrote a lot of great short stories (hrm, should check that book of them back out from the library), many interesting essays on matters literary, environmental, and environmentally literary. And he wrote novels, which I am just beginning to discover. This one chronicles the lives of a couple of families that come from very different backgrounds, meet and become friends as professors at the University of Wisconsin in the 1930s, and then the novel covers the millions of losses and disappointments and sadnesses that we all have to deal with. It's a compelling read. And it's very vivid - I can so totally imagine what the characters and settings look like.