Today would have been my maternal grandfather’s 98th 99th birthday. (Mum has informed me that I’d made Grampa a year younger. I assured her that he would have appreciated it and would have asked me to shave off another 30 years.) He liked to play golf and pool, sleep in (after he retired from being a mechanic), eat my grandmother’s baking, mix beets and mac and cheese (so the latter turned pink), watch sports (but not basketball) on tv, and build things (including beautiful dollhouses and delicate furniture to fill them, desks, cabinets, and stools). He was opinionated (but held those opinions close to the chest when he ran his own business) and kind and curious and proud and getting deaf in his old age (Saturday lunches were loud!), and I’m surprised (but shouldn’t have been) by how much I still miss him, even after 18 years.

I’d hoped to have this cowl off the needles last weekend, but did relatively little sitting around, so it’s still on the go. I’m about to add the final set of red stripes, so potentially it’ll be done this weekend. I did finish off two books (a verse novel in honor of National Poetry Month and a gender-bending retelling of Sherlock Holmes), and while I still have several others in progress, Word by Word from Kory Stamper, is probably the next title I’ll add. She’s one of the people involved in the website and social media of Merriam-Webster. If you aren’t following this dictionary on Twitter, you’re missing out. They share trending look-ups (and what’s caused that trend) and vocabulary of the day (sometimes in direct response to what’s happening in current events) and are generally snarky and fun and smart — everything you’d look for in an online friend/entity. So, obviously I’m looking forward to spending a book’s worth of time with one of the people behind that.

Ginny has hung up her Yarn Along hat, but Kat has offered a home to those of us who like to knit and read at her blog with her weekly Unraveled Wednesday post.