Unraveled Wednesday

Joining Kat and friends for a long-awaited Inauguration Day and Unraveled Wednesday, with some more teeth on the Hitchhiker. It doesn't look a lot different, just a bit longer, so I'll just show you a photo of my turtle progress marker in action. He's slowly but surely climbing up the edge. I'm wondering if he might be able to move a little bit faster as I hope to be less prone to just clutching my knitting in horror after the inauguration tomorrow. I have 36 teeth completed and ~ 23 teeth or so to go, or until I run out of yarn. With 29 days before Valentine's Day, I should be done in plenty of time to meet my self-imposed deadline. 

I read a wonderful book this week, Committed by Adam Stern. It's Dr. Stern's memoir during his four years of psychiatric residency at Harvard. It's also the story of his growth from an unsure first-year resident to becoming (somewhat) more sure of himself and his abilities to practice psychiatry. He also grows as a classmate, teacher, husband, and human being. There is a quote that really struck me:

I knew I would never be the version of the mythical Harvard psychiatrist that had existed in my mind four years earlier. I had seen too many examples of shared humanity among the patients and those trying to help them to be hung up on formalities. The space where that psychiatrist has once existed in my mind had been filled instead with hard-earned truths about what it means to connect to those people around you, to commit to them, and to purposefully keep moving forward.

Those are words that all of us can live by whether we are psychiatrists, patients, or simply average people trying to maintain our connections with others. I was lucky to receive a pre-publication copy, but I think it's well worth reading after the publication date in July of this year.

What are you making and reading this week?