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

You might recall that last week I had a list of books from which to choose from for my reading pleasure but hadn’t decided on which one.

After I posted that post, I chose The Boomerang Clue by Agatha Christie, which I had picked up at a book sale at the local library. It was an old copy, maybe from the 70s and after reading it for a bit I realized it smelled like an old book and that wasn’t a good thing. I started getting a weird headache and coughing so I had to place the book aside. I looked online to see if I could download an ebook copy of it, but lo and behold, much like some of Christie’s other books, this book had been renamed. I’m not sure what was offensive about this one’s name and why it was changed, but I do know why And Then There Was None was changed from its original name. You can look that up if you are curious.

The book was the basis for a mini-series on Britbox which we recently watched so I decided I’d see if the book had been renamed to that and, indeed, it had been renamed at some point in the past, even before the series. Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? was the new name for the book but it was $9.99 on kindle and I’m pretty cheap (aka broke) so I decided I’d see if I could get it at the local library instead since I was already invested and wanted to see if the book was different than the mini-series. I mentioned all this to my husband who said, “Well, good thing I bought that book on a super great Kindle deal a couple of months ago then…”

Needless to say, I am reading the book on the Kindle instead of breathing in all the spores and who knows what else in that old book. I should be done with it today or tomorrow.

I am continuing to read the 80s Rom-Com Club, which is a series of novellas in the evenings, and also hope to start a book by Sean Dietrich who writes Southern stories, both fiction and non-fiction this week.

What’s Been Occurring

Last week I got way too wrapped up in trying to figure out Instagram and how to promote myself not because I want to be rich and famous but because even an extra $50 bucks a month would be such a help right now. In the end, none of it mattered because one day I had 5,000 views on a video and the following day I had three and when I Googled it said my drop in views was probably because I had somehow pissed off the Instagram lords and they were hiding my account.

I don’t have time for those games. School starts in a couple of week, I have a house to try to keep up and clean (though my husband moves faster and does a better job so I am always behind), photos to edit for stock, and just reality to live in. Social media is a putrid toilet right now and I don’t want to be caught up in the downward spiral, especially if it means I have to sell my soul to the Devil just to get a few new followers and maybe a few sales.

Little Miss and I visited my parents Thursday and tried to go swimming but the water was simply too cold, a sign that fall will be upon us too soon. As if the changing leaves weren’t enough to let us know that. Luckily, we were able to get a swim in yesterday instead since the temperature was warmer then and might get one in today.

On Thursday the kids also helped my dad pick some of the collard greens in his garden and we cooked some of them down for freezing and I brought some home to do the same.

On Friday the kids and I drove 45 minutes one way to the town where we used to live to get Zooma The Wonder Dog’s nails trimmed at the vets and also made a stop at a small market across the NY State border for some meats. It is a market we shopped at often when we lived there. We did drive by our old house and it’s always weird to see it and know we don’t live there anymore.

I am having a horrible time with the keys on my laptop. I took them off to clean them because the keys were sticking and now they won’t go back on and I sort of want to cry. This is how my life seems to go lately – something is always failing or falling apart. Because of the broken keys it took me a little longer to write this, but I can at least still hit the keys. Replacing them is apparently not possible and replacing the laptop is definitely not an option, since we can’t even pay our heating oil bill.

This week I will be getting ready for school as well, by cleaning out and straightening my homeschool closet, as well as double checking what we do and don’t have for the upcoming year. I originally wanted to start back on August 31, but we may end up waiting until after Labor Day. We aren’t sure yet.

What We watched/are Watching

I finished Cool Hand Luke yesterday. Man, that is a terribly depressing movie. I have a couple more Paul movies to watch in August as part of my Summer of Paul and hope to find a couple of happier ones before the summer is complete.

The Husband and I watched Torn Curtain last night with Paul and Julie Andrews. It is an Alfred Hitchcock film about a professor who infiltrates East Germany looking for information for a defense weapon which won’t require the use of nuclear weapons. His plans are almost foiled thanks to his poor communication skills, which results in his fiancé (Andrews) following him. This leaves both of them in great danger. I’ll write more about it in a separate post later this week, but it wasn’t one of Hitchcock’s best, probably because he was not happy with Paul and Julie being in the film and hated the script. I don’t blame him for hating the script. The movie was pretty awful really.

We hope to cleanse our pallets with The Sting later in the week. I also plan to watch The Prize, which is supposed to be a comedy.

Earlier in the week, we watched Brokenwood Mysteries.

What I’m Writing

Last week on the blog I shared:

• Classic Movie Impressions: The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
• Book review and giveaway with Just Read Publicity: Dead Sea Conspiracy by Jerry B. Jenkins

I am also working on Mercy’s Shore and hope to continue this week if my keyboard will continue to work.

What I’m Listening To

This week I plan to listen to TobyMac’s latest album Life After Death which just came out.

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.