Sunday Bookends: Little Miss hates Mountain Born with a passion, lots of new British shows to watch, and writing updates

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

What I/we’ve Been Reading

I am still reading the first book in the Joe Picket series by C.J. Box, Open Season. It’s very good and fast-paced but I was also reading a book for another writer, so I had to keep setting it aside.

The other book I am reading is Violet’s Vow, a Christian historical romance novella by Jenny Knipfer.

Little Miss and I are reading By The Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder again. This is our second time around with this book and the second time I cried when Laura’s dog, Jack, dies. Good grief even working my way toward that part makes me cry. I wish Little Miss would find a new book series to become obsessed with, but it could be worse, I suppose.

Little Miss and I also finished Ribsy by Beverly Cleary this week. Ribsy is the story of the dog of Henry Huggins, another of Cleary’s characters, who gets separated from his family and has to find his way home.

For school, she and I read Mountain Born by Elizabeth Yates. As it often is with old books, there was a death at the end of the book. Little Miss seemed to know what was coming and declared that if the main sheep in the book was dead at the end, she was tossing the book out the window. Our windows have screens, and she couldn’t get it open, so I told her to throw it out the back door instead.

She did and then later her brother threw it off the roof of the garage.

After that, Little Miss placed it in the burn barrel and told me to set it on fire the next time we burn the trash. That’s how much she hated how that book ended and I can’t say I blame her. I always hate books where the pet dies at the end. Curse Old Yeller. I’ll never read the book or watch the movie.  Not even if someone offers me a million dollars. Actually, I’ll watch it only if someone offers me a million dollars to watch it.

The Boy was supposed to finish The Strange Case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Friday but I am pretty sure he did not. I am encouraging him to start a book he wants to read for the last month of school to see if we do any better.

The husband is reading: The 100-year-old Man Who Climbed Out The Window And Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson.

What’s Been Occurring

The weather — I’m sick of writing about it, but well, it’s the only “interesting thing” going on right now. We had chilly days all week, but at least we had sun.

I have to say I don’t mind the chill at times. It’s nice to sip a cup of peppermint tea with honey (lots of honey, of course) and snuggle under a blanket while reading a book and brainstorming ideas for books and blog posts.

But I would also like some temps where the kids and I can go for a walk or sit on our porch without huddling in our coats and sweaters.

Little Miss had two of her little friends over one day last week and they lasted about five minutes outside when I tried a craft with them involving food coloring in ice cubes. The idea was to either rub the ice cube on the paper or let it melt and see what happened but the wind was too chilly so they dashed back inside after about five minutes. Kids today also have the attention span of a gnat so by the time they got inside they didn’t want to do the project anymore.

My goal this month is to help Little Miss focus on an activity for longer than five minutes at a time. My main goal then is to also wean her off the devices and instead have her find activities that will stimulate her brain.

Unrelated, but it seems everyone I know is going on vacation this week. One friend is on her way to Florida, another to Virginia.

My husband doesn’t get a vacation until July, and we aren’t sure what we are doing then, but we usually don’t travel far from home, for a variety of reasons, but mainly money.

Well, money and the fact my husband and I aren’t big on traveling or staying places we aren’t familiar with.

Now, unrelated to vacations is that I have been having horrible sinus issues for two weeks — to the point I have been barely able to breathe because of his stuffed my nose because of how stuffed my nose has been. I don’t want to do anything because breathing has been too hard.

My husband suggested I take an antihistamine to help dry me out. Apparently, it dried me out too much because my nose constantly felt swollen shut inside and my mucous was very thick. Thursday night I didn’t take any Loratadine and the next day I was still congested but nowhere near as bad.  Apparently, Claritin was drying me out to the point my nose couldn’t even run and my lungs were so dry I felt tight inside.

I believe the weather change was what has been causing all my sinuses issues anyhow, so I probably didn’t even need the allergy medicine. Who knows. Maybe when the weather finally settles, I’ll be able to tell.

What We watched/are Watching

This week we watched Mystery Science Theatre 3000’s kickstarter project which my brother purchased for us for Christmas this year. They are starting a new subscription service and we are part of the lab rats while they figure it out and it’s been fun.

My husband was busy with a lot of work stuff so we didn’t watch a lot of shows together during the week. We did watch two episodes of the fourth season of Shakespeare & Hathaway, a British mystery show, which is finally up on Britbox.

While looking for clips from Shakespeare and Hathaway, I found a clip for a show called Why Didn’t They Ask Evans, which is a three-episode mini-series directed by Huge Laurie. I’m adding that to our que to watch this week.

Alone, I started a show called The Larkins. It’s very quirky and odd and I might be in love with it. It is based on a series of books and I have added those books to my list to buy.

I’m also looking forward to checking this show out while I take a much needed social media break in May (though I will be posting some on social media to promote Beauty From Ashes and helping with a reading group on Facebook I am a part of, I won’t be “surfing” on social media this month.):

It is about the real vet who still serves in the in the area where James Herriott, or Alf Wight, worked and based his All Creatures Great and Small books on.

What I’m Writing

I am writing two different stories at the moment, switching off depending on my mood, but I will most likely only share one on the blog if I decide to start sharing again on Fridays (pretty sure I will, probably this Friday).

It will probably be Mercy’s Shore that I share at this point, which is the fourth book in the Spencer Valley Chronicles series.

The other book I am working on is called The Devil’s Been Talking and it will be a stand-alone book, separate from the Spencer Valley Chronicles.

I have had a few ideas for blog posts but couldn’t seem to finish them for final posting. However, I wrote all or part of five blog posts yesterday. Shutting off the news and abstaining from social media helped that process. In other words, I do have plans to post more this week.

What I’m Listening To

I have not been listening to a ton of music and I need to remedy that because I feel better when I have good music in my ears. It helps to drown out the negative thoughts.

Now it’s your turn

Now it’s your turn. What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.