Today is the last day of the Summer Reading Challenge. I moseyed over to TheBookJunkie's place for the closing ceremonies and found that people were posting their total number of books read. I went back through my xanga from June 1st till now and found that I have read 41 books this summer.

Mostly novels. Mostly mystery novels, in fact. Not much of a challenge at all. I had hoped there might be some conclusion I could draw, as some of the others did, but there really was nothing there. I just read in my off time in the usual way. Zipping through the summer's posts, however, I decided to make a little summer report for myself.

In three months, I had only four weekends off. Nonetheless, I completed two knitting projects and eight sewing projects. I put a lot of energy into supporting my erstwhile college girl's transition to career girl, and kept up pretty well with normal life until mid-August.

The great failure of the summer was in the area of health and fitness. It was early in June that my doctor told me to be more rigorous with diet and exercise. At the time, I was doing an average of 90 minutes a week of cardio and strength training, and eating right probably about 80% of the time. Between then and last week, I gradually went down to zero minutes a week of exercise. With excessive work and the death of my refrigerator, I am now eating right (that is, eating only fresh produce, whole grains, nonfat dairy products and lean meat) about one third of the time. Specifically, when I have my breakfast of oatmeal and raisins. I don't know what this has done to my lipids profile, of course, but I know it is not good for me. Add stress and lack of rest, and I am living like the average American, who is a very unhealthy person indeed.

For September, I plan to finish the sweater I am now working on and get back to Erin, a Fair Isle sweater I put aside in the spring. If it is too hot, I will alter that plan and make some small things instead. In sewing, I intend to make a three-piece suit this fall, though at the moment this seems like an over-ambitious plan. However, I have a book of directions on tailoring, and I will give it a serious try. I have not yet decided what to do in the way of music, apart from church choir. I will be getting back to my Tuesday night class and teaching Sunday School -- both of those begin next week. I may join a Spanish class, perhaps instead of the two singing groups I am trying to decide between. If I find a tailoring class, I might do that instead. As of this week, I am back on my 90 minutes per week exercise, and I intend to bump that up to 120 minutes in September. As of next week, I will be more diligent about eating right. This is the first week of the HGP, so I also have that to keep up with. I have some other crafting ideas and must harvest and preserve my garden. I also still have a couple of kids at home and a husband to pay attention to, so I think I have a full autumn ahead.

That's the plan.

We're looking to hire a clerical assistant at work. Having just gone through a job search (vicariously) with #2 daughter, I was particularly aware of the process. The first thing that struck me was how little time we spent with each application. The ad had listed specific skills, including machines and software the person needed to be able to use, and anyone who didn't mention that specific set of skills or experience was out right away. Grammatical errors and such -- gone. We are, after all, looking for someone highly accurate. The Empress looks for a stable job history, so spotty experience crossed them right off the list.

This is the right way to do it, of course. The whole point of the applications is to winnow down the field quickly to just a few to interview. In our local job climate, job-hunters aren't available for long, so there is no time for lollygagging. But I thought about the hours the candidates had probably spent working on their resumes, and the bare minutes we spent reading them, and it seemed a little poignant.

Later, a customer was talking loudly on his cell phone. People do that all the time, and it doesn't bother me, but I also cannot help but hear what they say. "He doesn't understand," the man was complaining. "He doesn't believe that bipolar disorder exists. He doesn't understand that I was so depressed that day that I just couldn't function at all." Shortly thereafter, he ended that call and began another. "I hear that you are looking to hire people," this one started.

Is he planning to tell his prospective employer that there are days when he just can't function at all? Probably not.

The Empress said we need someone without dramas, someone who will join the group smoothly and make things easier. I pointed out that we needed someone who would enjoy sitting in that office and working with the numbers. "They can't be coming out here and talking to me," I said forbiddingly.

You know I was joking. Sort of. The Empress also knew it, but recognized the reference to JJ, our most recent hire. They have been working together at the other store. "She probably has the skills we need," said The Empress. "I bet she does," I agreed, "but she's not discreet enough. She's too emotional." We are very glad to have her, and she does a good job, but we were in agreement that she wouldn't be what we needed for the new position. Nor would she want that position, fortunately. But thinking about it helped clarify for us what we are looking for in a worker.

So we need someone who can run the machinery and the programs we need them to, and enjoy it, and not require a lot of emotional investment from us. Someone discreet and honest and capable. Someone who will not have to support a family on what we can afford to pay them. Someone who will stay long enough to justify our investment in training them. Where can we find such a paragon?

That Man intends to hand the candidates a stack of checks and have them prepare and post a deposit. If they can't do that right off, they will have shown their lack of fitness for the position. The Empress thinks there is a bit of pressure there, but I agree with That Man. I think their eyes ought to light up at the prospect of getting their hands on his ten-key. I could do the task, but my heart would sink at the thought that such a thing would be the center of my work, and it would show. That Man can watch their hands and see if they have that real accountant rhythm, and I will watch their faces for that love of numbers, the appreciation of repetitive tasks, the pleasure in doing everything right.

It isn't any easier to be the seeker of an employee than it is to be the seeker of an employer.

I was kind of expecting #1 daughter to come to lunch with me at work yesterday, but instead she and Son-in-law went to my house and cleaned. They scrubbed the kitchen and bathroom, mopped the floors, left White Linen candles burning... It was wonderful. Son-in-law pruned the jungle on our walkway, too. What great kids!

My sister used to complain that her mother-in-law came over and cleaned. She didn't know what to say, she complained -- I suggested "You missed a spot." I think it is lovely to have someone clean your house. I don't believe I have ever done that for my mother (since I was a kid and it was my job, I mean), but perhaps I will some day.

At left is the view from my front porch (in the rain) as of Sunday.

And here, on Monday, after pruning.

It looks more welcoming, I think.

A great start to week 1 of the HGP. The cleaning for this week is the front porch. I will be doing that at some point this week -- maybe even this morning, once it gets light.

The other thing we are supposed to do is make lists: the things we plan to bake, the meals we plan to put in the freezer, all the ingredients for the holiday meals, the gifts we want to make and buy, the people we plan to send cards to.

In some ways, this is the hard part, because we don't feel like thinking about Christmas right now. Netflix happened to send me a holiday movie I had put on my list last November, and Booksfree happened to send me a holiday book (No Clue at the Inn, book two for the final week of the Summer Reading Challenge), and these serendipitous bits of Christmas helped. Then I had to get up at 4:00 a.m. to see my husband off to work, so I seized the opportunity. I sat down with a cup of tea and a stack of cookbooks and craft books and made my lists.

Yesterday, MLweaving said "I'm curious too as to why you are dropping stitches off Addis but not knitpicks? They're both metal." Quite right, but the Addis are not normal metal.

I should mention that I usually use metal needles, mostly Boye or Susan Bates, and many of the needles in my collection are older than I am.

Gaze upon this sad picture. One sleeve of this sweater is sitting politely on a Knitpicks sleeve needle, waiting to be knitted. The other, on an Addi sleeve needle, is being knitted, and still dropping off the stitches every time I set it down. The body is also on an Addi circular needle. I have taped the ends, because otherwise the stitches fall off. I have never had to to do this before. And here is the other striking thing about these needles: perhaps you can see that the left side, still in the sweater, is straight as it should be. The tape at the end draws the eye to it, and there it is, with stitches on it, straight. The right end I have pulled out of the stitches so that you can see how hideously deformed it is. In the course of normal knitting, it curls up. I straighten it out, and it curls up again. By now it has excitingly wavy contours, and I am afraid to keep straightening it for fear that it will just break before I finish the sweater.

These needles are very popular, and cost about three times as much as your average metal circular needle. I have not seen in any knitting blog any mention of their tendency to change shape. I may be the only knitter in the world who has had this experience. But Addi Turbos are clearly not for me. Unfortunately, my LYS only stocks these, and the Big Box craft store doesn't stock anything smaller than a 6, so I had perforce to buy these needles when I had a sudden need for small needles.

The sudden need arose because my old #1 needles are still stuck in a lace shawl I started a year ago. This is embarrassing, but there it is. I needed new ones.

Today and tomorrow #1 daughter and Son-in-law are spending with his parents, and #2 daughter will not be home till Friday, so normal life rather than celebration is the order of the day. I will be meeting with Book Club today, though, which is always a lot of fun.

And speaking of books, Master of None was a good book, with many thought-provoking bits about music and art and men and women and crime and stuff like that. There was a happy ending stuck on in the form of an epilogue, following an ending that read to me as though the author had a lot of leftover unpleasant stuff he or she wanted to get into the story, but had tired of writing the book. It just all got thrown into a sort of courtroom scene, and then the happy bit was tacked on. Still worth reading.

We all went to church yesterday -- or at least me and #1 daughter, Son-in-law, and both my sons. My husband was at work and #1 daughter is still in another state. I shamelessly showed them all off, and took a shameful amount of pleasure in being told what a beautiful family I have. It's true. Well-behaved, too. They make me proud.

Okay. No more bragging.

We sang Rutter's "When the Saints Go Marching In" and then there was a potluck dinner and ice cream social. I sang in a quartet which spontaneously grew to an octet, and between the noise level and the distortion of the sound, it didn't matter in the least what we sounded like.

Here is the back of pipes. I have put the sleeves on a couple of sleeve needles, left the body on the original large circular, and am doing a sleeve first.

Since I am using both Addi Turbos and a Knitpicks circular, I have a good opportunity to compare them. Thus far, I have not found that the turbos make me a faster knitter, but I do find that stitches drop off them irritatingly. If you want to leave part of the sweater on needles while you do another bit, I strongly recommend that you not use the turbos for the purpose. The Knitpicks needle is behaving just fine.

The Holiday Grand Plan has begun. The HGP is a schedule you can find if you click the link. Every week, you get a list of things to do: cleaning, cooking, shopping, and holiday preparation. If you follow the list, then you will have a clean house and all your holiday preparations done by Christmas with no money or time crunch in December. I've done this for years and it really works. This week we are to clean our front porch and make lists.

So I intend to do just that.

Musing on the list of gifts to make/ gifts to buy, I encountered a discussion at a knitting blog about whether people like handmade gifts enough to justify the trouble of making them -- or would people really prefer a good CD and we should keep our handwork for ourselves and fellow artisans, who will appreciate them?

Opinions?

Here in the final week of the Summer Reading Challenge, I am reading Master of None, a science fiction novel that my mother loaned me.

You might have noticed, if you see the "currently reading" bit of the page at the place where you read this, that I rarely read science fiction. Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, occasionally Robert Asprin. I have read the classics, of course, Asimov and Heinlein and all. And I read my mothers' novels. But in general, I don't read science fiction.

I think, as I read this book, that it is because they are so unpleasant. There is plenty of unpleasant nonfiction around that I feel I have to read for the sake of well-informed citizenship, so I don't usually read unpleasant fiction. And science fiction tends to be pervasively unpleasant. I read a lot of mystery novels in which someone invariably gets killed, and yet the people and circumstances surrounding that killing are generally pleasant. Gardens, you know, and knitting. Or witty takes on modern corporate life and romance. Architecture, travel, stuff like that.

When was the last time you read a science fiction novel in which there was a charming setting? Happy relationships? People enjoying their work? A little humor?

Well, yes, I've read some, too. But it is rare, you must admit. If you're ordering books based on their advance descriptions, and you look for expressions like "joyous romp" or "hilariously biting satire" then you don't spend much time in the science fiction section.

Last night, #1 daughter said that she doesn't read fiction at all. I tried to lend her some Pratchett books, actually, because he came up in the conversation. She reads science and philosophy. Me, too, but I probably read ten to one fiction to nonfiction.

It was wonderful to have her here, and Son-in-law, too. Today we are all going to church. There is going to be a luncheon afterwards, with music. This will include me in a quartet where --exhausted by my work marathon -- I was snookered into singing soprano. So I will have family witnessing my screeching. Oh well.

I got to the division on Pipes while we talked. Pictures tomorrow, most likely.

Experts on male/female communication tell us that men hesitate to join a group of talking women for fear the conversation will be about underwear. So I give you fair warning: this is about underwear.

Specifically, about sewing underwear.

The mad sewing idea that I mentioned a while back all began with Dweezy, who linked to this article. "Even when you would like to have these underwear, you cannot get maybe," it says wistfully. "Why not make one by your own?"

I was enchanted by the use of language -- I really like bad translations, for some reason.

Then, while making a nightgown, I checked my Singer sewing book (which happens to be of 1943 vintage) and found, along with nightgown advice, the suggestion that a bra and panty set makes a welcome gift. This struck me because it seemed to imply a change since 1943 either in underwear or in friendship.

Instructions for drafting patterns for undies were included. And, while I can't really see myself giving lingerie to The Empress or the Poster Queen in lieu of the Christmas cookie box, I did toy with the idea of making some frillies for my daughters' stockings.

The idea stayed in the back of my mind, where Christmas gift ideas ought to be in the summer, but I did pick up some lace when Hancock's had it on the clearance table, and some remnants of satin at Hobby Lobby. Just in case.

Some of the sewing blogs included mentions of sewing underclothes. And when you actually look for online information on the subject, you can find a lot. You will learn that you can make a pair of panties in 20 minutes. That a perfectly-fitting bra can be made for under $10. That one or two yards of silk and a couple of souvenir T-shirts will provide a week's worth of underwear.

You will also learn that a search for "lingerie construction" leads you to ads for naughty construction worker costumes, but the internet is full of surprises like that.

Then a Frugalreader (Frugalreader is a book-swap service) listed a couple of modern books on sewing lingerie, and I requested them. It seemed providential, really.

The August SewRetro challenge is to make a vintage take on a fall wardrobe basic. Reasoning that few things are as basic as underwear, I used the 1943 instructions to draft patterns for panties and a camisole.

I was surprised to discover that panties in the 1940s were completely different from what they are today. They had plackets and buttons. Are you surprised?

There was also a bra pattern, but again this was not like a modern garment. It did not seem worth the trouble, because there is no way it is going to end up with an underwire.

I had never drafted a pattern before, and I was surprised to find that it was pretty easy -- at least if you are making a set of underwear. If you can measure and draw lines, it is rather fun. I plan to do this some more in future.

Once my shopping and tidying were complete, I made the camisole and a half slip. I have the panties cut and pinned but feel no hurry about making them because, frankly, I think they will be of historical interest rather than a thing I -- or any potential recipient -- would really want to wear. It seems to me that panties have improved a whole lot in the past 60 years.

Elastic, for one thing.

I assume also that the '40s underpants were an update of something else -- Directoire knickers, perhaps, or a Liberty bodice and combinations or something. When folks came up with modern panties along about the 1960s or whenever, it must have been quite exciting. "Gee!" women must have said, "Something shaped sort of like a girl's bottom! Why didn't they think of that before?"

The modern lingerie-sewing book said to sew lace onto the raw edge of the fabric. I did not like this, even though when I checked my RTW stuff I found that it is customary.

So I cut a bias strip and bound the edge, behind the lace. This was an improvement, but still doesn't seem like the best option. I may return to the vintage book for directions on that when I do it again.

While I was doing the handwork, I watched the current Netflix. It was finally our turn to have The Polar Express, which takes its title from a rather special Christmas picture book. The Holiday Grand Plan begins tomorrow, and the first week is for making lists -- what gifts to make or buy, what meals to cook, what baking to do. So I thought it would be inspiring to watch a holiday movie while I sewed.

The Polar Express will strike you as filled with holiday spirit if hurtling toward death is one of the essential motifs of your seasonal celebrations. I am not quite sure why Santa's elves speak Yiddish, nor why they live in a city that looks kind of like Manchester. But it did sort of provide a backdrop for the sewing.

Now I am knitting and waiting for #1 daughter and Son-in-law's arrival. They will be going to his parents' house tonight and coming to us tomorrow, so I am not really actively waiting. I am lolling. No bonbons.

After 19 straight workdays, I have a day off.

I had intended to spend the entire day lolling around, possibly with bonbons. However, the glad news that #1 daughter and Son in law are arriving tonight has inspired me to do housework and grocery shopping.

More anon.

We must get to the bottom of the saveloy question.

In case you have not been following the saveloy adventure, here is the background: last year, when Sighkey came to visit us (she was in our hemisphere and decided to pop round), she taught us some thrilling New Zealand words, including "saveloy." We, having so few sausages, thought that it was simply the Kiwi-a-go-go-land word for hot dogs.

In actuality, it is more complex than that. Using "saveloy" for hot dogs is like saying "Gruyere" for Kraft American Processed Cheese Food.

Here is a recipe for Battered Saveloys, which I think is what you would get in New Zealand if you asked for a hot dog. Except you must remember that when they say "tomato sauce" they mean ketchup. I think that the little cup of red stuff is ketchup -- tomatoes and sugar and vinegar. They are not battered in the sense of being beaten up, but are dipped in batter and fried, which reminds me of the county fair food known as "corn dogs." I have never eaten a corn dog, and I doubt I will ever batter a saveloy, but I think we in Hamburger-a-go-go-land could do this with hot dogs to get the feeling of it. Let me know if you try it.

Further research allows us to determine that saveloys are eaten in the UK as well, where one can buy them at a chippy (fast food restaurant?) along with chips (French fries?) and kebabs (which appear not to be shish kebab at all, as I had thought, but perhaps what we would call gyros). Oh, and fish, which seems to be what we would call "fish." They define "saveloy" as a sausage, which seems accurate though odd. I mean, in Hamburger-a-go-go-land, I think most of us would agree that sausage is spiced ground meat, either Italian sausage, for pizza and pasta, or breakfast sausage, which may be either cylindrical ("link") or disk-shaped ("patty") by the time it gets onto the plate. Putting sausage meat into a casing is sometimes done, but not necessary. Describing a hot dog as a sausage gives us that "-- Oh. Well, yeah, I guess it is" feeling that we get when someone describes an avocado as a fruit. That is American sausage (we do not say "sausages" here) nestling with the pancakes.

Not that saveloys are utterly unheard of in the U.S., because here is an 1871 recipe for it, published in New York. It sounds like a mild breakfast sausage, and nothing at all like a hot dog. Or frankfurter, which is not a hot dog in NZ, but something from which you can make hot dogs, or frankfurter sandwiches, which may well be what we would call hot dogs.

Now, to return to the British saveloy, I offer you Tasty-Bake, a British maker of sausages and saveloys. The "and" presupposes that saveloys are not properly sausages. Nothing in the picture I have linked you to is recognizable to me as a sausage (they all look like hot dogs).

And here is a New Zealand company which offers numerous things that look like hot dogs but in fact are called things like "breakfast sausage" and "white pudding," which would really be confusing for us Americans, and "frankfurter," and , yes, "saveloy." The saveloys are the reddest ones. I think this may be significant. There are cocktail saveloys, which may be the same as the Australian Cheerios. To the right you can see American Cheerios.

I think that "frankfurter" and "hot dog" are interchangeable in the U.S., the choice depending on where you come from. There is also "wiener," which has comical overtones where I live, but might be in common use elsewhere for all I know. Around here people also put bratwurst in a bun, especially in football season (football also being a different game from what the word means in NZ), when local men may offer you "brats and dogs" from their grills, which I think the Kiwis might call a barbie, which is a doll in the US.

Bratwurst, like kielbasa, chorizo, and andouille, is among the foreign sausages widely enjoyed in the US. What kinds of foreign sausage you find in the local grocery store depends entirely on the part of the country you are in and where the local people's ancestors came from. Saveloys are not among the popular foreign sausages of America.

Below left  you will find a picture of a hot dog.  You can put onions, ketchup, relish, sauerkraut, or chili on a hot dog, but I am quite sure that all Americans would find this a recognizable picture of a hot dog. If you wanted one of these in New Zealand, perhaps you would need to ask for a frankfurter sandwich. Sighkey will confirm or disconfirm my hypothesis, I feel sure. You can also have tomatoes on it if you want, but in New Zealand you will have to call them "to-mah-toes" in order to be understood.

If our hot dog is merely a frankfurter and not a saveloy, I will have to give up calling them saveloys. (Not that it arises often, because you know how much saturated fat is in those things.) I will not take up calling them frankfurters, though. In my region, that sounds oddly formal.

I think we are now prepared for sausages when next we make a round-the-world trip to English-speaking countries. In Japan, of course, hot dogs (or whatever they call them) are used to create cute little animal sculptures, as seen on this page, because Japan is absolutely tops in cuteness. I have already been informed that New Zealanders do not make cute animals with saveloys. I don't know about the Brits. I do know that they put prawns and baked beans in baked potatoes, so really who knows what they might do?

As I embark on my 18th straight workday, I am thinking about work itself. I was brought up to believe in work. I admire hard workers. I believe that working hard toward a goal is satisfying, and that we are designed to work and to gain a sense of accomplishment from our work. I believe that work is love made visible and that he who chops his own wood gets warm twice.

I just don't, at the moment, remember why I believe these things.

My continual working this summer has made me cross, tired, whiny, and self-centered.

Obviously, there is a limit. But the new term is beginning, so I am getting calls asking me to teach  Sunday school, to help on projects, to start my Tuesday class, to make a decision about the Chamber Singers and the Master Chorale.

I will not be going to the first rehearsal of the Chamber Singers tonight, of that I am sure. I am just too whiny, cross, tired, and self-centered. I did go to choir practice last night, but that is a duty as well as a pleasure, while the Chamber Singers is strictly for fun.

The HGP begins on Monday and I am determined also to get back to the gym next week. But this week I have been determinedly loafing in the mornings -- after fixing breakfast, cleaning the kitchen, doing the laundry, and seeing the boys off to school, of course.

Am I whining again?

Anyway, here is the sheep modeling Pipes. I have a bit less than 2 inches to go before dividing the work into sleeves and body.

It is not a very good fit for the sheep, I fear, but I think you can see the nice geometric effect of the colorwork.

I am about to get to the end of what is, I think, the third skein of Telemark. Nice yarn. It knits up pretty stout and wintery on small needles. I want to try it on larger needles as well, out of curiosity, but I think it would still be a smooth, warm fabric. Just the thing for hats and mittens, but not for socks, I think, unless you are going to tramp about in the snow. Which, come to think of it, many of us will be doing along here sometime. Hard to imagine as the temperature continues to flirt with triple digits, but it will come.

Update from yesterday : Saveloys, Sighkey tells me, are not hot dogs. I am now confused. Here you will find a picture of saveloys, with the explanation that they can be used for "quick and easy hot dogs or a main meal component." So now I am really confused. What kind of hot dogs are not quick and easy? And how could they be a side dish? Apparently, in the country where this ad was made, hot dogs are a complex dish created with some kind of sausage. What's more, Cheerios are also a sort of hot dog, I mean sausage, but you can eat them cold after boiling. Really -- up your jumper!

Work is back to normal. This may not be the ideal from a business standpoint, but it is good for me personally, especially as everyone else has gone to work at the other store. That Man is at the store with me sometimes, but mostly it is just me.

Yesterday I was able to return order and beauty to the math and science sections. My husband cooked dinner, having gone to the grocery and bought fresh food for the purpose. The Empress came by with chocolate cake that The Princess made from scratch. The house was decent enough that I was glad to see her. Both my daughters called to talk. And this morning I woke up to the sound of rain, and did so early enough to lie in bed for a bit and enjoy it.

So I'm feeling better.

We are coming to the end of the Summer Reading Challenge. I notice that I failed to post about my last two books. First, there was The Lion in the Cellar, by Pamela Branch. If I had read this book first, I would not have been so eager to read the rest of her work. The plot is so convoluted and weird that it borders on the absurd. I really can't even summarize it for you.

There was some cool unfamiliar slang in it, though. I always like the outmoded colloquialisms I find in vintage books, as well as the mysterious ones I find in foreign novels. There is the problem, however, of not fully understanding it. This book includes the expression "Up your jumper!" used as we might say "You're kidding!" Tell me that's not cool.

You cannot usually use these exotic terms, however. We have been able to take up calling hot dogs "saveloys" chez Fibermom, and often refer to money as "spondulicks," but try that outside our house and your interlocuters will be lost. I have never yet been able to work the '20s expression "Not in these trousis!" into a conversation, and still am not clear about how exactly the Irish use the term "pants." Appreciation of arcane slang must generally be passive, rather than active.

The other book, Hardly Working by Betsy Burke,  is your basic chick lit from Red Dress Ink, an important rather new publisher of chick lit. A fairly young woman with a cool but ill-paying job struggles with her identity, family, romantic relationships, and work-related crises, eventually overcoming her difficulties and learning about herself in the process. Tango-ing takes place, and there are some messages about water and corporate greed. I'll read more of Burke's novels, too, when Booksfree happens to send them to me. I don't have any of those youthful struggles, myself, but I can enjoy reading about them as an outsider.

Maybe #2 daughter should read more chick lit.

Anyway, you might enjoy either of those books, but you can see why I didn't feel inspired to post about them. Still, it would be a shame to give up on the Summer Reading Challenge so close to the end. So I have done it.