Welcome to Sunday Bookends where I talk about what I’ve been reading, watching, listening to, doing, and sometimes what I’ve been writing.

What I’ve Been Reading

Up for reading this week is The Rhise of Light by Max Sternberg, which I will finish this week, Double Minds by Terri Blackstock in hardcover, and The Love Coward by Naomi Musch on Kindle. 

I also need to catch up on Blood Brothers, which I am supposed to be reading with my son. He is reading this book for his social studies/English. Here is a description of this important book, written in 1984:

As a child, Elias Chacour lived in a small Palestinian village in Galilee. When tens of thousands of Palestinians were killed and nearly one million forced into refugee camps in 1948, Elias began a long struggle with how to respond. In Blood Brothers, he blends his riveting life story with historical research to reveal a little-known side of the Arab-Israeli conflict, touching on questions such as: -What behind-the-scenes politics touched off the turmoil in the Middle East? -What does Bible prophecy really have to say? -Can bitter enemies ever be reconciled? Now updated with commentary on the current state of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as a new foreword by Lynne Hybels and Gabe Lyons, this book offers hope and insight that can help each of us learn to live at peace in a world of tension and terror.’

Double Minds is a suspense book in the Christian genre and so far, it’s holding my attention, even though I’ve repeatedly been interrupted while reading it and even loaned it to my mom at one point while I was reading books for book tours. Yes, I do read suspense from time to time. The two genres I don’t read much of are Science Fiction and Fantasy. I can’t seem to keep up with the characters in most of these books since they often deal with aliens or fantastical creatures with strange names and histories.

Little Miss and I are reading These Golden Years, book eight of the Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder at night. During the day we are reading Toliver’s Secret for social studies/English.

What I’m (We’re) Listening To

I was forced to buy a new phone since I share my Apple account with my son and he fills my phone with photos and memes. My phone had very little memory and was also starting to wig out when I wanted to make calls. My old phone became a “game phone” for Little Miss so now she can play her games on it and I can have my phone for things like listening to podcasts. I don’t listen to podcasts often, but I hope to more now. 

My husband listens to a lot of podcasts. A blogging friend and I were talking about her love for all things dark and mysterious (but not too gory) and I told her my husband likes a lot of podcasts that deal with murder mysteries or darkish things. I snagged a list for her and thought I’d share it here as well. His podcast list of mystery type podcasts: 

Death of A Starlet

The Burned Photo

Love Is A Crime

The Plot Thickens

Murder in Hollywoodland

The Black Dahlia Serial Killers

Murder Book by Michael Connelly 

You Must Remember This 

Roanoke Falls

As for me, my podcasts are much less exciting or suspenseful. My list is much different than my husband’s, though he listens to a couple of the same ones I do, including Unashamed with Phil and Jase Robertson. My other podcasts include The Andrew Klavan Show (only when I can handle political things and lately I haven’t watched, read, or listened to politics because my nerves are shot), Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram, Story Chats with InspyRomance, The Basically Bookish Podcast, The Matthew West Podcast, Novel Marketing Podcast, Marriage Today, Elevation Church, and Laugh More with the Skit Guys. 

What podcasts do you listen to? Let me know in the comments.

In addition to podcasts, I’ve also been listening to a new-to-be band called We The Kingdom.

What We’ve Been Watching

Last night I forced my son to watch Armageddon with me, not because I liked it, but because I hated it and I wanted him to hate it too. We had a blast making fun of it for about an hour but just couldn’t stomach it anymore after that. My son made some hilarious jokes during it but mainly was baffled by how some of the things that blew up did blow up. If you don’t know the movie, it is directed by Michael Bey. If you don’t know Michael Bey, he makes films where there are constant explosions and special effects. So many explosions, in fact, that, as my son said, they can’t afford writers for the movies he directs so the movies have no plot.

When my husband came home from a work assignment, we watched a couple of Lovejoy episodes, one of them a mystery that took place in Prague.

The show follows Lovejoy, an antique dealer who has a penchant for getting in trouble, his sidekicks Eric and Tinker, and Lady Felsham who is married but with whom he has sexual tension with for much of the series.

We just started series four so I’ll be anxious to see how that friendship goes or if they simply write her off like so many British shows do.

The Boy and I also watched several episodes of the 11th Doctor of Doctor Who over the last couple of weeks. Watching Matt Smith as The Doctor reminded me of the days when Doctor Who was good. Sadly, they made the show a feminist soap box when they made The Doctor a woman because we all know a woman can’t be a lead in a show without being a preachy woman who has a cause to fight against, especialy in science fiction or fantasy. God forbid she just be allowed to fight aliens, or have space adventures. No, she has to preach for women’s rights or make a statement against racism. In my humble opinion, the lastest series of Doctor Who is the worst I have ever seen and I have been watching it since the 80s. It’s also extremely sexist to me to make a female Doctor a champion of women’s rights instead of just a fun, interesting character. If how the female Doctor was written doesn’t show that the male writers of shows like Doctor Who aren’t sexist, then I don’t know what is. They couldn’t simply let her have fun — she had to be working to fight a cause and preach to viewers too. Gah. Drives me nuts.

So you can remember the “good ole’ days” of Doctor Who (of the modern era anyhow) here is a clip of Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor.

And here is when my two favorite Doctor incarnations met in the 50th anniversary special.

And here is the Doctor I grew up on.

What’s Been Occurring

I took the youngest to a science camp this week, getting up at what felt like the crack of dawn since it was so foggy outside and for the entire 35-minute drive there.

She learned about building and how animals in the wild build homes to protect themselves. While she was learning, I wandered and took some photos of the changing leaves, but not a ton since our leaves never did turn pretty colors but instead turned mainly brown, died, and fell off around us. There were a few pretty oak leaves around us there so I took photos of them.

After the event, Little Miss surprised me by asking me to go home with a friend. She rarely does that since she’s a Mama’s Girl and likes to stay home with me. She spent the afternoon with them and we picked her up later in the evening. Her dad picked her up and when she came up to me she ran up, threw her arms around me, and declared she thought I had abandoned her because I hadn’t shown up at the exact time she thought I would. Apparently, she missed me after all.

It was very weird driving home without her. Weird and a little bit lonely. This is the road I used to travel every day for six years when I went to high school 20-minutes away from where I lived:

This doesn’t really show how windy and twisty it is but every day, for a good 90 minutes after I got to the school, I was car sick after the bus ride. You would think after that many years my body would have gotten used to it, but it never did. I still get sick on this stretch sometimes, or at least am left feeling dizzy.

We have one more of these science classes in a couple of weeks and then we won’t have any more homeschool-related outings for much of the winter, since we are not part of any local co-ops. There isn’t a local co-op, other than one where we used to live, about 45 minutes away.

So that is my week in review.

How about all of you? Let me know what you are reading, listening to, watching, and have been doing in the comments, and if you want to join in some week, feel free to right-click on the graphic below and join in.