New post on my #knitting blog: the end of Fall Semester and updates on various projects and my continuing struggles with TOO MUCHness. https://whitknits.wordpress.com/2025/12/17/farewell-fall-semester/

I cleaned our bathroom sinks even though our bathrooms are stupid cold and I can’t wear my handwarmers while cleaning, please clap.

A sign I've been subjected to too much Gen-Z speech recently: I saw an email that had "It's Giving Season!" in the subject line...as in, you know, the season of giving that we are currently in...but I was actually confused for a moment, because I read it as a variation on the "it's giving X" […]

I'm worked on campus today and had a student drop by who I first taught during her first semester of college, and then just finished teaching during her last semester of college (in my Cognition & Writing class) and it really is the most amazing thing to get to experience someone growing from a […]

I was just working on the Bach Double with the kid in front of the big mirror that’s over our fireplace, and y’all…she’s taller than me!! I mean, this isn’t THAT shocking…I always knew this day was coming and just a couple weeks ago at her 14 year checkup she measured at exactly the same height […]

New post on my #knitting blog: a snowy start to December, and various project updates (including a new pair of socks!) https://whitknits.wordpress.com/2025/12/08/hello-winter/

New post on my #knitting blog: welcoming December with a look back at the final week of November. https://whitknits.wordpress.com/2025/12/01/back-to-december/

I will ask chat GPT I will boil the last of our drinking water Salt the soil of the scrub-lands Tear the pages from books and feed them to my fire I will ask copilot I will scramble your library maim the faces of your favorite paintings I will bury you in poor copies of your dreams I will ask […]

My newly 14yo kid wants to know what she should read once she finishes all of the Randall Munroe books in our house (which is all of the books he's written). People of Mastodon, what other books would she love if she loved Munroe's What If? (1&2), Thing Explainer, and How To?

My hair has gotten long enough to put in a single French braid!! I did this one fully by touch while sitting on the couch giving feedback on papers; I’m surprised by how nice it turned out. (Photo credit goes to kiddo, since I can’t take photos of the back of my own head!)

We had literally every digit EXCEPT for 4 in our candle stash, so kiddo got creative and went with 9+5, rigging up a + with a toothpick and a twist tie. (She gets birthday pumpkin pie, rather than cake!)

Me, excitedly: "hey kiddo, your birthday is also World Linguistics Day!" Kiddo, deadpan: "how convenient for you!"

My kid is 14! She’s grown into such a brilliant, sweet, and thoughtful teenager and is my favorite duet partner and an awesome artist (she drew my profile picture…it’s me as a cat!) and I just think she’s the coolest human.

New post on my #knitting blog: updates on various projects and coping with lots of change. https://whitknits.wordpress.com/2025/11/24/monday-musings-back-on-schedule/

Feeling so sad right now, because our beloved chamber orchestra director is retiring and the new director is great, but needed to change the schedule for the rest of the year, and now the concert next session is a day I'm away at a conference. So I'm going to need to sit out the next session […]

New post on my #knitting blog: a post on Wednesday instead of Monday, how weird! Thinking about colors and future projects and getting off bad social media apps. https://whitknits.wordpress.com/2025/11/19/weird-wednesday/

New post on my #knitting blog: pockets of goodness (both literal and metaphorical). https://whitknits.wordpress.com/2025/11/10/pockets-of-goodness/

New post on my #knitting blog: saying hello to November with small bits of progress on various projects and a recap of October's books. https://whitknits.wordpress.com/2025/11/03/hello-november-2/

New post on my #knitting blog, in which I am a dork about knitting optimization problems and four-letter acronyms, among other things. https://whitknits.wordpress.com/2025/10/27/lifo-fifo-fomo-jomo-yamo-yolo/

New post on my #knitting blog: just trying to keep my head above water, my balls in the air, and my hands occupied with small simple projects in the middle of the semester. https://whitknits.wordpress.com/2025/10/20/treading-water-while-juggling/

New post on my #knitting blog: a hat, a mouse, and various other things. https://whitknits.wordpress.com/2025/10/13/a-hat-and-a-mouse-and-other-things/

I absolutely love spotting these sparkling leaves bedecked in beads of water! Kiddo was giggling at me on our walk home from church because I wanted to stop and take a picture of every single one, though none of them look quite so magical in photos as they did to my eyeballs.

It was so wonderful to be able to play at my friend’s memorial today, and to hear everyone’s stories of her sweetness and her delightful ability to go off-topic. I love you, Joanie! And thank you for the wonderful final gift: re-learning the Thaïs Meditation some 20+ years after I’d last played it.

New post on my #knitting blog: on having too much to do and not enough time for knitting or anything else, and also not enough rain, and also the new Taylor Swift album because I am a weirdo who contains multitudes. https://whitknits.wordpress.com/2025/10/06/too-much-not-enough/

september’s end. The end of September has been busy. Like, my teaching/workshop running schedule has been such that it was borderline impossible to keep up with laundry at home...by the time I was home for the day, I was generally too wiped out to fold it! And also too wiped out to knit, or […]

New post on my #knitting blog: celebrating the Equinox, reminiscing about my college days, and working on a mouse and a hat. https://whitknits.wordpress.com/2025/09/22/hanging-on-at-the-equinox/

New post on my #knitting blog: a perfectly imperfect ending for my spouse's hat, and other things. https://whitknits.wordpress.com/2025/09/15/imperfect-endings/

Just an idle thought (not really, I'm sure everyone knows who I'm referring to here), but: I hope to live in such a way that quoting my own words in response to my death doesn't end up sounding like a celebration of said death.

New post on my #knitting blog: a lunchbox mouse, and other various things from the first week of September. https://whitknits.wordpress.com/2025/09/08/september-sillies-and-sadness-too/

Got my lunch out to eat it in my office and then a mouse ran across my lunchbox!! Aaaagh. I’m eating in a tutoring room now and hoping I don’t have any other unwanted visitors!

New post on my #knitting blog: updates from the first week of the new semester and the new kitchen! https://whitknits.wordpress.com/2025/09/01/settling-in/

This morning kiddo and I played a duet for our Backpack Blessing service. Pretty fun to play with a duet partner you grew from scratch, ha! (We’re at about the 46min mark here: https://www.youtube.com/live/bVLIvP1sFSY?si=ww_XO5Zb87nkCDKp)

I was noodling around on Bach this evening because that's what I do when everything feels out of control, and when I got to the end of the Sonata 2 Grave, kiddo was like, "mama, that sounded SO GOOD! Why did it sound so good today?" I don't know, kiddo! (Other than: practice?) But thanks?

Welp, my promotion package has been submitted, and I simultaneously learned that the university is going to be adding a line to all instructional track contracts upon renewal/promotion granting them the right to shorten contracts if enrollments drop. So that's fun.

New post on my #knitting blog: an almost-finished kitchen and the start of a new semester. https://whitknits.wordpress.com/2025/08/25/beginnings-and-endings/

Baking bread in my own kitchen for the first time in 6 weeks!! Didn’t realize how much I’d been depending on space as a memory cue for what to do…so disorienting! But amazing to have good light and nice counters and to be able to talk to family members while baking because I’m not behind a wall!

New post on my #knitting blog: no kitchen updates, and preparing for the upcoming semester is crushing my soul, but I made a hat with flowers on it! https://whitknits.wordpress.com/2025/08/18/i-can-knit-myself-flowers/

My last bite of Cheerios this morning was a frowny face and it made me laugh. I’m with you, Cheerios!

New post on my #knitting blog: this past week was a LOT. https://whitknits.wordpress.com/2025/08/11/suboptimal/

I’ve walked past this “suboptimal” installation so many times this year (it’s part of my 1k walk from the parking lot to my office), but finally stopped today to read about it.

Pocus is very done with kitchen remodeling. Alas, kitchen remodeling is not done with Pocus! #catsofmastodon

New post on my #knitting blog: update on kitchen renovations and other works in progress (including a hat AND fall course prep), but also a finished pair of socks! https://whitknits.wordpress.com/2025/08/04/omg-its-august/

We have light!! And it’s dimmable, and OMG, even without the lighting that’s gonna go over our snack bar, it’s already so much better than the lighting in the Before Kitchen.

Playing headache-detective is super fun when literally everything could be causing it thanks to kitchen renovation (eating VERY differently than normal, probably being exposed to VOCs, sensory overload) and also our weather has been horrendously hot and humid so I’m sleeping like crap. Too many […]

New post on my #knitting blog: a little bit of knitting, a lot of trying to cope with life during a kitchen renovation in the hellscape that is the USA in 2025. https://whitknits.wordpress.com/2025/07/28/this-is-me-trying/

New post on my #knitting blog: updates on kitchen renovation and a new little piggie. https://whitknits.wordpress.com/2025/07/21/this-little-piggie/

Kitchen demolition has begun. I’ve got my Loops in (for as long as they’ll stay; my ears seem to push earplugs out and I’ve tried tons!) but holy moly my nervous system is so jangled. So loud. So loud.

New post on my #knitting blog: not much knitting or sewing, but a whole lot of stress and chaos preparing for our kitchen renovation. https://whitknits.wordpress.com/2025/07/14/the-chaos-of-preparing-for-a-new-kitchen/

New post on my knitting blog: Good Bear now has clothes, and everything else is terrible. https://whitknits.wordpress.com/2025/07/07/good-bear-bad-government/

My cat is a goober and this picture delights me, perhaps y’all could use some delight too? #catsofmastodon