Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot August 21

On August 20, 2026August 20, 2026 By Lisa R. HowelerIn Weekend Traffic Jam2 Comments

Welcome to the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot, where we offer a place for bloggers to link up and get a fresh set of eyes on their posts. We also feature one blog a week, letting our readers know about the blog and providing a link so readers can learn more about it. Please feel free to post new blog posts or old ones you want to bring attention to again.

Look for the post to go live about 9:30 PM EST on Thursdays.

I haven’t been visiting blogs or writing posts much this week.

Last week was a tough week for our family. Our oldest cat, who we’d had almost 10 years, had to be put to sleep after first getting sick in May. This was after our other two cats were sick as well. If you follow my blog, then you might remember that she is the cat who disappeared for three days and then miracously showed up again. I don’t want to write a lot about it right now because it has been very hard. It’s hard to go from seeing a pet everyday for 9 and a half years to not seeing her at all, especially after checking on or caring for her constantly for three months. It sounds weird but as someone with elderly parents it also makes me think of losing them and if I am taking it this hard with our cat….well, I think you can figure out my worries, but I’ll spare you those for now.

Despite the sadness, we are trying to get through the week without crying all the time and are finding some joy in the midst of our sadness.

Now, let’s introduce our current hosts for the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot:

Marsha from Marsha in the Middle started blogging in 2021 as an exercise in increasing her neuroplasticity. Oh, who are we kidding? Marsha started blogging because she loves clothes, and she loves to talk or, in this case, write!

Melynda from Scratch Made Food! & DIY Homemade Household – The name says it all, we homestead in East Texas, with three generations sharing this land. I cook and bake from scratch, between gardening and running after the chickens, and knitting!

Lisa from Boondock Ramblings shares about the fiction she writes and reads, her faith, homeschooling, photography and more.

Cat from Cat’s Wire is a bookworm, movie fan, crazy cat lady, armed with beads, cabs, wire and a very jumpy brain which loves to go down rabbit holes!

Rena from Fine, Whatever writes about style, midlife, and the “fine whatever” moments that make life both meaningful and fun. Since 2015, she’s been celebrating creativity, confidence, and finding joy in the everyday.

We would love to have additional Co-Hosts to share in the creativity and fun! If you think this would be a good fit for you and you like having fun (come on, who doesn’t!) while still being creative, drop one of us an email and someone will get back with you!

WTJR will be highlighting a different blogger each week this year! We invite you to stop by their blog, take a look around and say hello!

This week we are spotlighting: Coffee and Cocktails At The Casa

Thank you so much for joining us for our link-up!

And now some posts that were highlights for me this past week:

Love this little baby blanket from Two Chicks and A Mom

What a fun outfit and post from Marsha!

Katherine is embracing moments of joy!

Loved reading about Thistles and Kiwis weekly pleasures!

Pamela has a great post about the benefits of color analysis

Loved this tour of Debbie’s backyard cottage garden

Important things to know about the link-up:

This link party is for blog posts only. All other links will be deleted.

Please link only blog posts you created yourself.

Please link directly to the URL of your post and not the main address of your blog.

Please do not add links to videos, sales ads, or social media links such as YouTube videos or Shorts, Instagram or Facebook Reels, TikTok videos, or any other “social media” based content.

But do visit other blogs and give the gift of a comment.

Notice: By linking with Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot, you assert that content and photos are your own property. And you give us permission to share said content if your post or blog is showcased.

We welcome unlimited, family friendly content! This can include opinion pieces, recipes, travel recaps, fashion ideas, crafts, thrifting, lifestyle, book reviews or discussions, photography, art, and so much more! Thank you for joining us!

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube and Facebook.

Book recommendation: Miss Buncle Married by D.E. Stevenson

On August 18, 2026 By Lisa R. HowelerIn book reviews, books and reading5 Comments

I read Miss Buncle’s Book by D.E. Stevenson in July and finished the second book in the trilogy, Miss Buncle Married, this past week.

The first book details Miss Barbara Buncle’s sticky situation that results after she writes a fiction book based on the people in her little English village and that book becomes a best seller.

Before long people in the village begin to recognize themselves and chaos erupts but luckily Barbara has used a pseudonym, so no one knows she wrote the book.

There is a bit of a spoiler to even give the title of the second book, but, yes, Barbara does marry at the end of the first book – hence the title of Miss Buncle Married.

I found the first book, very charming, engaging, and full of humor which is why I wanted to read the second book and continue Barbara’s adventures.

I read the second book in the trilogy with my friend Cat of Cat’s Wire.

In this second book, Miss Buncle is now Mrs. Abbott and is living in a new town. She and her husband, Arthur, are enjoying themselves until they become so popular in the social scene that they get overwhelmed with never having a night off from a party, a dinner, or a game of cards. This prompts them to look for a new house in a new village, and that gives readers a new cast of characters and a new adventure to enjoy.

Here is a quick description from Goodreads: “In this charming follow-up to Miss Buncle’s Book, readers will follow Barbara Buncle’s journey into married life in a new town filled with fascinating neighbors…who may become the subjects of Barbara’s next novel! Miss Buncle may have settled down, but she’s already discovered that married life has done nothing to prevent her from getting into humorous mix-ups and hilarious hijinx. Readers will continue to fall in love with Barbara as she hilariously navigates an exciting new beginning.”

There are misunderstandings and confusion which create hilarious scenes throughout the book. The addition of Arthur and Barbara’s partying and shiftless nephew, Sam, and lecherous artist neighbor creates even more craziness and upheaval throughout the book.

Barbara has essentially retired from writing in this book after all the drama that evolved from her first two books.

She has decided she will no longer write any books. In this book, however, the writing bug bites her again.

In some ways I felt like we got to know the people of the town and their stories more in the first book, but this book provided us with a more intimate look at Barbara herself and how she thinks and her and Arthur’s relationship.

As in the first book, this book also provided a look into Barbara’s writing process, which is also the writing process of many other authors. As a writer myself, I especially enjoyed reading about how Barbara couldn’t avoid writing about her new neighbors, even though she tried not to. There was just something in her that made her feel like she needed to create a fictionalized version of the town and the people in it. When she started writing she became a feral mad woman who couldn’t leave her room until all her ideas were written down. I can relate to this feeling quite a bit.

What’s funny is how often Barbara and Arthur both claim throughout the book that Barbara doesn’t have an imagination, but she creates entire scenarios that jump off the situations involving the people in the village and that’s still imagination to me.

They both claim she doesn’t have an imagination because she has to base her ideas of the situations she experiences or hears about around her but this is ridiculous, of course, because all Barbara needs is a little idea and she’s off. I think that’s a biggest “joke” of the book.

I like both of these books individually but I love them even more as a whole story, read back-to back. Miss Buncle Married feels more like a continuation of the first book, as it should, rather than a separate book and I am glad to have that because I did want to read more about Miss Buncle.

_____

You can find my book reviews, movie reviews, and ramblings about the books I write on Instagram.

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube and Facebook.

Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot August 14

On August 13, 2026August 14, 2026 By Lisa R. HowelerIn Weekend Traffic Jam7 Comments

Look for the post to go live about 9:30 PM EST on Thursdays.

Now, let’s introduce our current hosts for the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot:

Lisa from Boondock Ramblings shares about the fiction she writes and reads, her faith, homeschooling, photography and more.

Cat from Cat’s Wire is a bookworm, movie fan, crazy cat lady, armed with beads, cabs, wire and a very jumpy brain which loves to go down rabbit holes!

WTJR will be highlighting a different blogger each week this year! We invite you to stop by their blog, take a look around and say hello!

This week we are spotlighting: Lisa from Handmade in Israel

A little about Lisa:

Welcome to my ‘Handmade in Israel’ blog. My name is Lisa Isaacs. I am a British-born graphic designer, now living in Israel with my husband and two young sons. After obtaining my BA (Hons) degree in Graphic Design and working in various design related jobs both in the UK and in Israel, I now work from home, designing and creating handmade greetings cards, customised guest books / photo albums, treasure boxes and pictures, primarily working with cut paper.
I am excited to share my work and thoughts with you and hope that you will enjoy reading my blog as much as I enjoy creating the work that I show on it.

Thank you so much for joining us for our link-up!

And now some posts that were highlights for me this past week:

Love this thrifted dress from Chez Mireille

Loved these spots to see cats when on vacation in Greece

Yummy cherry chocolate chip cookie recipe!

I loved reading about Gail’s amazing cross county UK bike trip!

These dried flowers on cards are so cool from Amy!

Important things to know about the link-up:

This link party is for blog posts only. All other links will be deleted.

Please link only blog posts you created yourself.

Please link directly to the URL of your post and not the main address of your blog.

Please do not add links to videos, sales ads, or social media links such as YouTube videos or Shorts, Instagram or Facebook Reels, TikTok videos, or any other “social media” based content.

But do visit other blogs and give the gift of a comment.

Notice: By linking with Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot, you assert that content and photos are your own property. And you give us permission to share said content if your post or blog is showcased.

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Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube and Facebook.

A tour of our bookcases

On August 13, 2026 By Lisa R. HowelerIn books and reading6 Comments

When I decided to give a visual and written tour of our bookshelves/cases, I did worry about showing the clutter that accumulates on them, in addition to the books. I could have cleaned off the shelves for you but decided to be real and honest about the state of our bookcases. They are cluttered, heavy, and disorganized, but, hey, they are still full of good books that we have or are going to read, and I think that’s all that matters.

My husband and I do not have as big of a book collection as some book lovers do.

For some, our collection would be small.

For others, it would seem quite large.

It all depends on what each person defines as a lot of books.

Our modest collection of books is something that has been built up over a 24-year marriage and combines the smaller libraries of two people.

I had much less books than my husband when we met and married, and most of my books were from my childhood (think Little House on the Prairie and The Chronicles of Narnia).

Most of his were Stephen King and Donald Westlake or similar.

Right now, we have four and a half bookshelves that actually have books in them. We have two other bookshelves, but they have either DVDs/Blu-Rays or CDs.

Yes, we are a very analog family. We appreciate the convenience of digital and how it saves space, but we still want our physical media. There was a time when we took a break from collecting physical books and my husband filled up his Kindle. The more I realize that we don’t really own those books and Amazon could take them away whenever they want, the more uncomfortable I feel with digital media.

In addition to the bookshelves, we also have some books stacked in our attic. They were moved there after the one bookcase downstairs started to overflow and the shelves started to sag more.

This house is a lot smaller on the inside than it looks from the outside.

On the first floor, when you first walk into what would be called by most people the front door, but which we seldom use because the front steps are old and dangerous, we have a small bookcase in the foyer. This is our newest bookcase. It houses mainly my books, including my tiny Agatha Christie collection and my even smaller collection of Murder, She Wrote books. `

There are also some Erle Stanley Gardner books and some other mysteries that belong to The Husband. A Little House on the Prairie collection he purchased me a few years ago to try to replace my original paperback version from the 1980s is also there. The collection he purchased me features color illustrations and features five of the eight book series. The pages are glossy. It is very nice but I still miss my original 1980s version which disappeared when we moved.

Next to that set is a boxed set of the first six books from The Mitford Series by Jan Karon. The remainder of the books from the 15 book series are on the shelves in our dining room, with the 15^th book being banished upstairs where I can’t see it because I loathed that book and how Jan practically ruined the entire series with it.

On the top shelf of this little bookcase, I have my aforementioned Agatha Christie books and my Murder, She Wrote books are a shelf down.

My original plan was to have the very top of the bookcase hold a collection of books on my seasonal hopeful lists and then I would pull books from there to read next and “in season.” This went out the window when I started collecting way too many books and didn’t want to carry them upstairs so I stacked them on top of the books as well.

Now the top of the bookcase is becoming as messy as my other bookcases were or have become. I say “were” because I did straighten a couple of our bookshelves and that made me feel a lot better and less cluttered.

Now I just have to tackle the big one in the dining room.

Speaking of the dining room, let’s move to the bookcases there.

The one bookcase is a large, Wal-Mart purchased bookcase. The other is smaller and was built by my dad when I was maybe 11 or 12, and when he started to notice I was turning out to be a reader like Mom.

My dad builds things to last which is why the shelves on his bookcase are so sturdy and the Wal-Mart shelves are sagging.

That bookcase held my Narnia and Little House books and some Christian Fiction/Romance books and sometimes Mom would come in and instruct me to clean my room. For some reason I considered part of cleaning my room rearranging my bookcase so I would take all of the books off the shelves and as I was attempting to put them back up in the order I wanted them, I started looking at them, sat down in the pile and forgot about cleaning. Mom would find me sitting there reading, drawing, or doing something other than what she asked me to do and eventually she could clean it herself.

Yes, it is true I may have a touch of ADD.

Right now the bookcase Dad made me houses Little Miss’s homeschool books and a bunch of books I bought for her and I to read together for school or for leisure.

I’m hoping to have at least one more year where she lets me read to her and then maybe she will start reading books on her own.

That bookcase also has a mix of my and my husband’s books.

The Walmart bookcase next to it needs reorganizing. It is a mess. The books are sort of just shoved in there, every which way.

We have a mix of my books and my husbands, again, with the bulk of my library-bound Jan Karon books that I’ve picked up from various used book sales over the years in there. My husband has the complete set of Richard Stark (Donald Westlake) books and a collection of various history and/or political books.

I weeded books out of the two bookshelves in the spring and put the books in bags to be taken to free little libraries near us but so far they are still sitting in the floor by the bookcase. I hope to remedy that in the next couple of weeks to make room for another, more narrow bookcase.

Another bookcase along that wall holds our CD collection — everything from blues, country, rock, Christian, classic rock, and everything in between is on those shelves. There are also collections of old radio programs.

We have a record/CD/cassette/radio unit that we purchased from Amazon a few years ago to play all that music but we don’t do it as often as we should.

Moving to the upstairs, we have a bookcase in the middle of our hallway against the wall.

This one is one our neighbor was giving away. It started as a hodge podge of both of our books but now that my Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys collection is growing, it’s slowly becoming the home for that collection. So far they fill the second shelf but I’m hoping to take over the first and third shelfs over the next couple of years.

The other night my son thought he was funny and used post-it notes to label everything upstairs — or a bunch of things.

I think this is what he thinks I am because of my Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys collection… *snort laugh*

I don’t know what my poor husband is going to do with his books. *wink*

Right now he has a lot of them in our room in a new bookcase he found at a thrift store near us and there is plenty of room for more to be added there. I didn’t add a photo of this because I forgot to take one and don’t want to head back upstairs. I can say it has a little of thrillers, Lee Child, James Lee Burke, Michael Connelly, etc. and an old fashioned CD player we bought The Husband as a gift for his birthday last year.

So that was a short tour of our bookcases. I didn’t mention that Little Miss has a small one in her room and that The Boy does as well. I’ll go through their bookcases another time. And I also didn’t get into nitty gritty detail on what is on the shelves our bookcases but maybe one day I’ll take each book out and talk about it. Or maybe not.

How many bookcases/shelves are in your house?

Mid-year reading catch up: What I’ve read this year so far

On August 11, 2026August 10, 2026 By Lisa R. HowelerIn book reviews, books and reading5 Comments

I thought I’d share what books I’ve read so far this year.

I haven’t been as concerned with reading a certain quantity of books this year..

I’ve tried some different authors for me and I’m trying to add in some classics, but otherwise I am not being super strict with what I am reading or with keeping track of how many I read.

I do see that I am averaging about four books a month.

January:

My Beloved by Jan Karon

The Secret of Chimneys by Agatha Christie

Miss Read’s Village Diary by Miss Read

Miss Read’s Village School by Miss Read

February:

The Tiger in the Smoke by Margery Allingham

Mrs. McGinty’s Dead by Agatha Christie

Murder, She Wrote: Bullets and Brandy by Donald Bain

March:

Hardy Boys: The Tower Treasure by Franklin W. Dixon

The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery

Whispering Walls by Mildred Wirt

Murder On the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien

Crooked House by Agatha Christie

The Singing Tree by Kate Seredy

April:

Damsel in Distress by P.G. Wodehouse

A Caribbean Mystery by Agatha Christie

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim

Nancy Drew: Nancy’s Mysterious Letter by Carolyn Keene

May:

Murder, She Wrote: Aloha Betrayal by Donald Bain

The Labors of Poirot by Agatha Christie

The Cat Who Brought Down the House by Lilian Jackson Braun

June:

Stolen Past by Tara Randel

Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

The Ivory Dagger by Patricia Wentworth

July:

The Unsolicited Journals of Emma Lion Vol. 1 by Beth Brower

Miss Buncle’s Book by D.E. Stevenson

Sad Cypress by Agatha Christie

Travels with Charley in Search of America by John Steinbeck

I’m looking forward to a lot of good books I have on tap for the next six months of the year.

How about you?

If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin, Cat, and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.

On Thursdays, I am part of the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot blog link party. You can find the latest one in the sidebar to the right under recent posts.

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube and Facebook.

If you would like to be the first to get news about my books or just have access to special posts for supporters, you can do so here for $2.99 a month https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/

Sunday Bookends: My parents partying in their 80s

On August 9, 2026August 10, 2026 By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends, Sunday Salon20 Comments

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what the rest of the family and I have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing.

My mom turned 82 this past week and that morning I called to wish her a happy birthday. I did that but then my dad got on the phone to ask my something and let me know he and my mom had been up until 2:30 that morning watching Crocodile Dundee and cooking hamburgers.

My parents are not super active anymore since my mom is unable to get around well and mainly sits in her chair and Dad has Parkinson’s so hearing that they were partying all night and eating hamburgers at midnight just cracked me up.

On Mom’s birthday the kids and I went over for dinner, and Little Miss made her a watermelon and berry “cake” because Mom doesn’t eat sweets very much anymore (not diabetic) and never was a big fan of cake.

This week we were told our cat is dying – which seems to be something our vet didn’t make clear at the last visit. When we tried to get her an appointment Friday, they told us she was dying and there was nothing more they could do for her so refused to set one up until she needs to be euthanized. At first, I understood the conversation but as the days went on, I found myself pretty disgusted with the vet not wanting to help our cat as much as they could.

They gave us medicine for her before but this time wouldn’t even check her to see if it had helped at all. My son called to try to persuade them to see her one more time and they refused again. He said they spoke to him like he was 12 instead of almost 20. This sounds petty but if we do get to the point of having to euthanize her, I’ve decided I won’t give them money to do it. We will take her somewhere else, which is hard to do in this area where vets are limited.

(Edit: I contacted the vet the day after I wrote this and they offered to refill the medicine she was on before. To shorten the story, I’ll just say I received an apology for them not offering to refill her medicine before and they also said we could take her to a higher end clinic to have imaging done and determine why she is having liver issues. I don’t think we need to do that because her liver only became an issue after she contracted a virus. We worked things out, in other words. Also, we are not sure the medicine will work. It might be too late, but at least we gave it one last try.)

Before I move on, I do want to mention that my friend Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs lost her mom this past week. If you could remember her and her family in your prayers that would be appreciated.

What I/We’ve Been Reading

Just Finished

I finished Celia’s House by D.E. Stevenson this past week and wasn’t a big fan. It was okay and after talking to a friend about it, I understand the style more but still didn’t enjoy it as much as the Miss Buncle series I am in the middle of now.

In Progress

I am slow reading Stillmeadow Daybrook by Gladys Taber. Since each chapter is a month, I plan to read a chapter a month for the rest of 2026 and into 2027. I’m also reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.

I’m still reading Miss Buncle Married by D.E. Stevenson. I’m liking this one a lot.

I’m also reading a Nancy Drew book — Mystery of the Brassbound Trunk by Carolyn Keene.

Up Soon

Later this week I hope to start By The Pricking of My Thumbs by Agatha Christie for the Christie Reading Challenge.

I’m not really sure what I will read the rest of the month, but would love to squeeze The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in before the end of the summer.

What I/We’ve Been Watching

This past week I watched The Big Sleep, A Scandal in Paris, and Footsteps in the Dark.

I also started watching the episodes of Mary Berry’s show about her 90^th birthday, which was last year.

Because I have watched so many Jack Lemmon films lately, and have watched more over the last year than I realized, I will probably be switching things up and doing an Autumn of Jack for Fall and moving Jimmy Stewart movies to winter.

What I’ve Been Writing

I made some progress and a major decision this week for my fourth Gladwynn Grant book. It will help me move forward on the story.

On the blog I shared:

Some Housekeeping

Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs), Cat (Cat’s Wire) and I host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea. This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!). Each link party will be open for a month. You can find that link up for this month here.

Each week, I host the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot with some great hosts. It goes live Thursday night, but you can share any kind of blog posts (family-friendly) there until Tuesday of each week. You can check my recent posts on the sidebar to the right for the most recent link party.

Now It’s Your Turn

What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing?

This post is linked up with The Sunday Post at Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer, Deb at with Deb at Readerbuzz, and Book Date: It’s Monday! What are you reading hosted by Kathyrn at The Book Date and Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Reading Reality.

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

If you would like to be the first to get news about my books or just have access to special posts for supporters, you can do so here for $2.99 a month https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/

Classic movie impression: Witness to Murder (1954)

On August 7, 2026 By Lisa R. HowelerIn classic movie impressions, Movie Impresssions3 Comments

Witness to Murder (1954) wasn’t the best thriller I have ever seen, but it did have its nail-biting moments. I was on the edge of my seat (quite literally) for most of the movie as Barbara Stanwyck did her best to get away from George Sanders.

We knew from the beginning of this one who the murderer was, so all we had to do was hold on for the ride and see if he found a way to shut down his accuser.

Description from TCM:

“In the 1954 Witness to Murder, Barbara Stanwyck plays a woman who, unable to sleep one night, looks across the courtyard from her apartment and sees a man choking a woman to death. The man is a pompous though obscure writer – he’s played by George Sanders – and there’s no doubt about what Stanwyck has witnessed.”

I’ve become a huge Sanders fan over the years. You might remember him in Hitchcock’s Rebecca. He was deliciously evil in that one. I also watched him in Lured with Lucille Ball.

Witness to Murder‘s plot is similar to Hitchcock’s Rear Window and that’s because was aimed at competing with Hitchcock’s movie. I’m not sure what they were thinking by trying that because the film was okay but it was no Rear Window.

The film was directed by Roy Rowland and, no, the plot wasn’t as tight as Rear Window (plus Rear Window was in color and this was in black and white) but Barbara and George’s performances make this one worth watching. I shouldn’t forget George Merrill, who was also very good.

“Sanders appears to be having a great deal of fun with this character, rolling his r’s with mischievous glee, making sure everyone knows how secure his place in the Universe is,” writes Stephanie Zacharek for TCM.com.

At one point he even rants in fluent German, which makes the scene even more spine-chilling and was probably even more chilling since it was only 10 years after the war and Nazis still lingered in everyone’s nightmares.

Zacharek calls the performance “slightly cartoony” and maybe it is, but I still liked it – well, as much as you can like watching a man mental torture a woman.

Barbara plays a strong, independent woman which makes her hysterical breakdowns a little odd at times – but then a lot of men are telling her she’s totally crazy.

What’s annoying about this part of the story is that their insistence that she’s crazy is absurd because they clearly know something bad has actually happened. Then again, men and women alike have been telling me for years that my various illnesses are in my head so I guess that part of the story isn’t too far fetched.

If you’re looking for a movie with an flawless story, maybe this isn’t for you, but if you like films with great performances that have you biting your nails and sliding to the edge of hour seat, then this is one for you. You can find it for free right now on YouTube.

It is also streaming on Netflix.

If you are interested in more reviews or blog posts about old movies, you can find a link to my past reviews at the top of the page and you can also visit The Classic Movie Blog Association.

Additional information:

https://www.tcm.com/articles/202748/witness-to-murder

Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot August 7

On August 6, 2026August 13, 2026 By Lisa R. HowelerIn Weekend Traffic Jam9 Comments

Look for the post to go live about 9:30 PM EST on Thursdays.

My daughter and I are slowly starting homeschool lessons for this upcoming school year and part of our lessons include classes throught Outschool. These are live classes through Zoom. Today we had our first US Geography/History class (it will meet once a week and I’ll be filling in with other history lessons throughout the week). I loved the teacher because she seemed so excited about her topic (even though it was just about Delaware. Sigh. *wink*). Then, after the class….I’m so giddy as I type this … she sent additional resources. She sent two more videos and a link to a game with questions about Delaware. Squeeeeeeeel! More resources that we can draw from and learn from! I announced this exciting development to Little Miss and … I don’t know how to say this… she was NOT excited. What?! Well, she’s just going to have to get old to be excited about having extra resources to learn from I guess. That and new appliances.

Anyhow…. Let’s introduce our current hosts for the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot:

Lisa from Boondock Ramblings shares about the fiction she writes and reads, her faith, homeschooling, photography and more.

Cat from Cat’s Wire is a bookworm, movie fan, crazy cat lady, armed with beads, cabs, wire and a very jumpy brain which loves to go down rabbit holes!

WTJR will be highlighting a different blogger each week this year! We invite you to stop by their blog, take a look around and say hello!

This week we are spotlighting: Taking the Long Way Home

Thank you so much for joining us for our link-up!

And now some posts that were highlights for me this past week:

I loved Joanne’s botanical garden tour!

I love this spray bottle fun from Our Grand Lives!

Oh my gosh cinnamon griddle cakes from Eseme Salon

Loved the photos Life Captured of these geese crossing the road

I also enjoyed Pam’s look at God being in every detail of our life and life in general

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Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

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Book Recommendation: Travels with Charley in Search of America by John Steinbeck

On August 4, 2026 By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings5 Comments

I’m not sure why I got it in my head that I wanted to read John Steinbeck’s nonfiction book Travels with Charley in Search of America this summer since I have only read two only other small works of his and that was many years ago. I guess I thought it would help me get to know the man whose books I wanted to read in the future.

It is true I have not read Steinbeck’s “big works” — East of Eden or Grapes of Wrath but I did read Of Mice and Men and The Pearl in high school…or college. I can’t remember which now. High school was Of Mice and Men and The Pearl was college.

I think.

I don’t know!

I’m old.

Leave me alone!

Anyhow, because I didn’t read a lot of him, in my head I always thought of him as the guy I had to read in high school who had all those run-on sentences. In reality, I realized recently, it was William Faulkner who had all the run-on sentences and I don’t remember minding them when I had to read excerpts of his work.

I did get to know about Steinbeck during this book and learn what an amazing writer he is.

When I finished this book, I was actually a bit sad because I missed curling up in bed at night and reading a chapter or two before I went to sleep, which is something I did for about a month; reading and adding annotation tabs on quotes I wanted to read one again later or share with others.

Steinbeck had a special camper made for him and his dog Charley for a 1960 road trip that he wrote about in the book released in 1962. He named the camper Rocinante after Don Quixote’s horse and traveled from Long Island, N.Y., along the outer border of the United States from Maine to the Pacific Northwest, down to Salina Valley in California (where he grew up), across Texas, through the deep South and back to New York.

There were stops in Chicago, California, and Texas, where he met up with his wife (his final and third) and/or family/friends. He didn’t go into a ton of details about those visits, other than the one in Texas where his use of the word “orgy” had me looking up the various definitions of the word. It was not the definition I thought it was. It just meant a several-day party with friends and booze.

In my opinion, the last few chapters of the book were among the most impactful with him learning first hand about Americans and what makes them tick when he drove to New Orleans and decided to watch the circus that surrounded US marshals walking young black girls into white schools.

Before that much of the book was more like a history and geography lesson with some interesting tidbits thrown in about Steinbeck and the relationship to his dog Charley.

Don’t get me wrong, all of the early stories were good as well. Steinbeck had very serious and deep observations about people, places and other events throughout his journey, but he became the most descriptive when he wrote about the nausea that overcame him while watching racist, demonic women scream at small black children, as the children were walked into schools that the states made them go to during desegregation.

He wanted to see a group of women called “the cheerleaders.” These white women would gather with other whites from town and scream obscenities at the little black children being ushered into the schools the state was requiring them to attend to end the racism of segregation. Most in the town, the state of Lousiana, and the country, seemed to see these women as some kind of heroes.

Steinbeck saw them as something much more evil.

“ No newspaper had printed the words these women shouted. It was indicated that they were indelicate, some even said obscene. On television, the soundtrack was made to blur or had crowd noises cut to cover. But now I heard the words, bestial and filthy and degenerate. And along and unprotected life I’ve have seen and heard the vomiting of demonic humans before why then these screams fill me with a shocked and sick sorrow?

The words written down are dirty, carefully and selected filthy. But there was something far worse here than dirt, a kind of frightening witches’ Sabbath. Here was no spontaneous cry of anger, of insane rage. Perhaps that is what made me sick with weary nausea. Here was no principle good or bad, no direction.

These blowzy women, with their little hats and their clippings, hungered for attention. They wanted to be admired. They simpered in happy, almost innocent triumph when they were applauded. Theirs was the demented cruelty of egocentric children, and somehow this made their insensate beastliness much more heart-breaking. These were not mothers, not even women. They were crazy actors playing to a crazy audience.”

Steinbeck said he had a hard time understanding racism because when he grew up he lived in a town where the most talented, prominent, and kindest people was an African-American family that the entire town, white and black, looked up to.

Before this part of the book, Steinbeck wrote a lot about how unfriendly the country had become and that struck me because I thought this disconnect Americans had started developing with their fellow man had started much later, like the late 1990s and early 2000s.

There were so many well written passages and quotable sentences in this book, many focusing on the desire of Steinbeck, and he believed, most members of mankind, especially Americans, to love the idea of traveling, progressing, going somewhere new.

“When I was very young and the urge to be someplace else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked. Four hoarse blasts of a ship’s whistle still raise the hair on my neck and set my feet to tapping. The sound of a jet, an engine warming up, even the clopping of shod hooves on pavement brings on the ancient shudder, the dry mouth and vacant eye, the hot palms and the churn of stomach high up under the rib cage. In other words, I don’t improve; in further words, once a bum always a bum. I fear the disease is incurable. I set this matter down not to instruct others but to inform myself.”

I’m glad I read this book before I read Steinbeck’s deeper or more acclaimed works. I was able to learn more about what Steinbeck felt was important in life – what virtues and morals he grew up with (even if he didn’t always practice them) and how they shaped his thinking about how the world should be even when it wasn’t.

“We value virtue but do not discuss it. The honest bookkeeper, the faithful wife, the earnest scholar get little of our attention compared to the embezzler, the tramp, the cheat.”

Let me know if you have read this book or other Steinbeck works and I’ll leave you with a few more quotes from the book that I enjoyed or that made me think because they made me so uncomfortable.

“ I think today if we forbade our illiterate children to touch the wonderful things of our literature, perhaps they might steal them and find secret joy.”

***

“I have said that Texas is a state of mind, but I think it is more than that. It is a mystique closely approximating a religion. And this is true to the extent that people either passionately love Texas or passionately hate it and, as in other religions, few people dare to inspect it for fear of losing their bearings in mystery or paradox. But I think there will be little quarrel with my feeling that Texas is one thing. For all its enormous range of space, climate, and physical appearance, and for all the internal squabbles, contentions, and strivings, Texas has a tight cohesiveness perhaps stronger than any other section of America. Rich, poor, Panhandle, Gulf, city, country, Texas is the obsession, the proper study and the passionate possession of all Texans.”

***

“Everything we use comes in boxes, cartons, bins, the so-called packaging we love so much. The mountains of things we throw away are much greater than the things we use. In this, if in no other way, we can see the wild and reckless exuberance of our production, and waste seems to be the index. Driving along I thought how in France or Italy every item of these thrown-out things would have been saved and used for something. This is not said in criticism of one system or the other but I do wonder whether there will come a time when we can no longer afford our wastefulness—chemical wastes in the rivers, metal wastes everywhere, and atomic wastes buried deep in the earth or sunk in sea. When an Indian village became too deep in its own filth, the inhabitants moved. And we have no place to which to move.”

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