Sunday Bookends: weird days, another birthday,

/ Lisa R. Howeler

Welcome to my Sunday Bookends, where I share what I’ve been doing, reading, watching, writing, and blah, blah, blah.

What’s Been Occurring

The past month has brought a lot of odd occurrences in our family.

It all started with Little Miss’s snake bite that ended with her receiving an ambulance ride to the local emergency room (about 20 minutes from my parents) on Labor Day. The snake wasn’t venomous that any of us know of, but Little Miss passed out and hit the kitchen table and then passed out again and well, after that, we were off to the ER.

After that incident, things were fairly calm until Little Miss and The Boy came down with a cold last week and then a spider dropped on Little Miss in her bed one night while we were getting ready to lay down. Later in the week Zooma the Wonder Dog broke her lead and went head to head with a skunk, which resulted in, yes, of course, her being sprayed in the face by the offended creature.

That old saying “when it rains it pours” has held true for us this past month, but luckily in smaller ways that it does for many.

We washed Zooma twice, but we are still unable to get too close to her without getting a whiff of the skunk’s perfume. We will most likely have to wash her again in a couple of days, but the smell isn’t as overwhelming as I thought it would be. I knew this was going to happen at some point, since I had seen the skunk wandering in our yard on at least one occasion and smelled it on many others.

Yesterday and today we celebrated Little Miss’s seventh birthday by visiting a local Christian camp for children during their fall roundup (as they called it) and then we will have a small family gathering here at our house later today. We also invited a couple of neighbors to stop by.

Little Miss had a hayride and a pony ride yesterday, along with playtime in the woods and some s’mores and then hung out with her little friends the rest of the day at our house.

This week we have nothing exciting planned and will be getting back into the swing of homeschool since it was interrupted this week by sickness.

What I’m Reading

I am reading a lot this week for book tours. I am determined to finish the Walt Longmire book I’ve been reading for a month (oh wait..I think it’s been two months!), but I still have to finish The Weather Girls: Sunny for a review in a couple of weeks.

I am also reading The Rhise of Light by new author Max Sternberg. It is a Christian fantasy novel and it is extremely well written. I’m enjoying it and hope to have a review up soon on the blog.


I have so many books on my shelves (both real and digital) that I want to read, but I feel like there is only so much time. Of course, I would have had more time this week if I hadn’t been so obsessed with that Gabby Petito murder case. I really hope they find out what happened to her boyfriend this week because it’s driving me crazy. In addition, the images and videos of Gabby have left me in tears too many times and it’s starting to worry my family. They believe, rightly so, that watching coverage on it all is traumatizing me, so this week I will be reading more fiction and reading less of the real-life tragedy that is unfolding.

What the family is reading

I’m not sure what my husband is reading right now , but the kids are either being read to or are reading books for school. Little Miss and I just finished Benjamin West and His Cat Grimalkin by Marguerite Henry for school. I am also reading Little Town on the Prairie to her before bed each night.

The Boy is reading a selection from Frederick Douglass’ autobiography in his lit book. This week we will start Blood Brothers, a book about Palestine at the time the state of Israel was established.

What I’m Watching

I did not watch a lot this week at all. Hubby and I watched a McDonald and Dodds episode and thoroughly enjoyed it. The episodes of the show are about 90 minutes long. There were only two episodes, or mini-movies, for the first “season”. I believe there is another season up on Amazon now so we will probably start that season soon.

What I’m Writing

I worked more on The Next Chapter this week and shared another chapter for Fiction Friday.

What I’m Listening To

My son introduced me to a new band Saturday, The Crane Wives, so I am trying them out:

So that is my rather short week in review. Share with me what you’ve been reading, watching, writing, doing, etc. in the comments.

10 thoughts on “Sunday Bookends: weird days, another birthday,”

  2. Hayride AND pony ride? Awesome birthday fun for Little Miss! I haven’t watched any coverage of the Gabby Petito case and my husband summed out how we both feel about it. Although it is a horrible and tragic occurrence for her family, what about all the other girls and young women who go missing every day? Why doesn’t the media crawl all over that?

    Liked by 1 person

    • I think it is mainly the mystery surrounding it because the boyfriend came all that way without her and said nothing to his family about what happened to her. I don’t understand the constant, tabloid like coverage, but I do understand the coverage overall.

      Like

  3. Happy birthday to Little Miss! Sounds like it was a great birthday!

    I’ve never heard of Christian fantasy before, and never really thought it even existed. Most of the religious people I know don’t even touch fantasy books. But it sounds really interesting!

    Liked by 1 person

    • I should have left the description of it: The entirety of living civilization stands on the very brink of death. Undead hordes have rampaged across the world. Determined to do his part, Leon Rhise left his wealthy father’s estate and chose to defend the last living kingdom by joining the military. It had seemed to be a good idea at the time.

      After his career in the airship navy came to an abrupt end Leon arrived home, hoping for a warm reception. Instead, he was abruptly tossed out. Disowned, unemployed, and friendless. All hope seems lost. Then Leon discovers a mysterious relic, which opens up the possibility of him becoming a Judge: a hero of legend. One that has not been seen for centuries.

      As Leon travels the road less taken his destiny converges with newfound companions, each one surrounded by mystery. Advised by strange beings in dreams and visions, Leon learns that the undead onslaught the world has suffered is part of a much larger problem. A solution can be found by learning about the forgotten being known as Adonai. But the world is ending, and time is running out.

      Delve into a world that brings a unique twist and interpretation to faith-based high fantasy. With emotional highs and lows, certain peril, dysfunction, and humor; tough questions are asked, and answers will come to light.

      Liked by 1 person

      • It sounds fascinating! It sounds like it has a lot of what I love in fantasy and I’m intrigued by what makes it faith-based, so I’ll have to look into it.

        Like

  4. It looks like Little Miss had a perfect birthday! What a good time. 🙂

    And I love the sound of the Crane Wives! Thanks for sharing that with us. I am adding them to my Spotify. That song you shared in particular is so jazzy and upbeat! Plus I could frame that cover art.

    Allow yourself five mintues of Gabby Petito coverage a day. Then you can feel updated but not over inundated! That is what I have been trying to do. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    • She had a really great day! She was wiped last night after such a long day.

      Yeah, I won’t be watching as much Gabby coverage. I’m really annoyed at the media right now. They are covering very stupid things about the case now. “Look! The Laundries pulled out of their driveway!” “Here are some photos of Gabby and Brian from high school!” Really, people? Who cares!

      They are taking advantage of this family’s grief for ratings, all while other women have also gone missing or been killed and they barely get a blip. That is NOT the Petito or Schmidt family’s fault at all. It is the fault of the media, which Gabby’s father told them at the press conference. “It’s up to you people here to cover those other cases,” he told them. He was right.

      I still want justice for Gabby but I also want justice for Miya and many others.

      The Boy had me listen to The Crane Wives and some other music on our way back from the camp. I had to sit in the back of the van and I easily get car sickness so he gave me one of his earphones, I put my head back and listened. He has good taste in music and it’s also very eclectic. He has rock, folk-rock, bluegrass, country, etc.

      Like

Comments are closed.