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

What I’m Reading

This week I finished The Rhise of Hope by Max Sternberg (a Christian fantasy book) and Still the One by Susan May Warren and Rachel D. Russell (a romance).

Next up is to finish the fifth book in the Longmire Series, The Dark Horse by Craig Johnson.

I’ve also started The Reckoning Trees: A Seth Browne Novel, Book One by Alicia Gilliam and will finish it after I finish The Dark House because my husband told me last week after he read my blog, “One book at a time, honey! One book at a time.” Sigh. He reads one book at a time and then another and another and another until he’s read like 100 in a year. I’m a much slower reader who often gets distracted by other books.

Little Miss and I finished Freedom Crossing this week for her history/literature and I will be sharing a review of it here on the blog later this week. We also finished Emily’s Runaway Imagination by Beverly Cleary and started The Mouse and the Motorcycle also by Beverly Cleary.

The Boy is still reading A Long Walk to Water.

What’s Been Occurring

This past week provided even more cold weather. I can’t remember a winter this cold in a long time. I didn’t want to leave the house at all but on Friday Little Miss and I had a hair appointment. I woke up to surprise snow, which annoyed me to no end. I hoped it was only a dusting and the plow trucks would come through before I had to leave in the afternoon but apparently they were just as surprised because the roads were not clear when I prepared to leave.

I often have to rely on others to get me places, either because I’m nervous about driving or have some weird health thing going on. I was determined, though, to do this on my own so I backed our van down our very steep driveway, onto the snow-covered street, and hoped the road I was going to be driving on to would be better.

It was not.

Not at all.

It was covered in snow and a thin layer of what looked like sleet. I carried on, hoping the road would get better.

It did not.

My dad had offered to take me and Little Miss in his truck, but he’d already had a busy morning and, like I said above, I wanted to do this on my own and not bother others. There comes a point though when trying to be brave becomes succeeding in being stupid and that point came when I hit the county line and saw the road was even worse the further I went. I finally pulled off and found enough cell service to call the salon and apologize because I knew the roads where they weren’t as bad.

You see, where I live is like a whole different world than the next county over. You can drive three miles south and the roads are only wet, while the roads in my town are covered in a couple inches of snow. You can be at my parents’ house and they have a dusting of snow and drive to my house and we have a foot. Okay, no, it’s not usually that extreme, but still — it’s a little weird.  

The woman who answered my call at the salon said she lived near me, so she totally understood the circumstances. One minute the road can be clear, the next covered in snow or ice.

So, I turned around and headed back home. We drove the half-mile and then it was time for me to go up our street so I could pull our van up the driveway. I usually go around to the other end of our street so I can pull the car in at a straight angle.

I forgot, however, how steep that end is so as I headed up, my van decided it would stop at the top of the hill of it and then slide back down. I shifted the van into low gear and hit the accelerator before it could slide very far and inched the car up to the flat part of the street.

That took about thirty seconds and when we hit that flat spot, I knew we were fine to make it the rest of the way down the street. The next task was the driveway, and I floored it but didn’t make it.

For reference, here is our driveway looking down, pictured last winter:

It’s a challenge even without snow

The car started sliding backward toward the street. Little Miss decided she didn’t want to be in the van when I tried it again so she requested (demanded) to be released so she could walk up the driveway to the house.

After two more tries and lot of accelerator pushing, (during which I hoped I didn’t destroy my engine), I managed to pull the van back into the garage, where it will sit until the driveway is free of snow and ice.

So, I didn’t accomplish getting to the hairdresser on my own, but I did accomplish getting the van back into the driveway despite the snow and ice. It was a small victory, but I took it.

What I’m Watching

My husband and I watched the last episodes of Lovejoy and to say I was disappointed in the last episode is an understatement. I can’t remember my exact words when it ended but it was something like, “Are you serious?! That’s it! Six seasons and that’s how they end it?”

Suffice it to say, I was not impressed and felt like the ending was a total cop-out. My husband reminded me that we can always go back and rewatch the beginning but somehow it doesn’t feel the same knowing that ended in such a depressing way. I would still recommend the series since it was very entertaining, but it did not end the way I hoped it would.

What I’m Writing

I have been participating in writing sprints with the writers at Novel Academy (a writing school of sorts) for the last two weeks. We meet in a “room” on Facebook, chat for ten minutes, share what we are going to work on and then go and write for 50 minutes. We return at the end and report how we did and then we do it again, up to four times if the host is able to and if we want to continue our writing for the day.

Thanks to these sprints I have marched on toward the end of A New Chapter’s first draft and I hope to finish it by the end of this week, or next at the latest. After that I will go back and edit and fix plot holes or errors or maybe even rewrite entire scenes or chapters. We will see.

At this point, my release date has been set for April 26. I’m excited for my readers to read the story in its entirety with all the changes or additions made (and there are going to be at least two new scenes that were not shared in the chapters I shared here). I have also narrowed the choices down for the book cover and think I will go with this one:

Last week on the blog:

 I shared a review of the book Blood Brothers by Elias Chacour;

Shared my random thoughts;

And shared a new chapter of A New Chapter (ha!)

What I’m Listening to

This week I enjoyed relaxing and writing while listening to a Jack White concert:

and then his new song:

Then I slipped into some White Stripes,

Mumford and Sons,

And then The Lumineers:

I know. Quite different for me. Don’t worry, I still love my Christian artists and worship music, and, of course, Needtobreathe.

Mac Powell, the lead singer from Third Day has a new album coming out so I’ll probably be listening to that this week.

Now it’s your turn

So that’s my week in review. How was yours? What are you reading, watching, doing, listening to, writing and all that jazz? Let me know in the comments.