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

What’s Been Occurring

As I started this post, my cat, Pixel, is asleep in the dog bed (because it’s obviously not for the dog in her mind), snoring away. Yes, literally snoring. I often find myself looking around the room for the source of the snore and finding her as if I keep forgetting that she snores. There is a reason I call her my spirit animal. We’re both fatter than we should be, both snore softly (sometimes louder) and both have sinus issues.

We are also both moody, but that’s a story for another time.

As I continue the post, Saturday afternoon, the wind is blowing hard outside, ripping the last of the brightly colored leaves from the trees and scattering them across the yard, reminding me Autumn has been a beautiful yet short season this year and soon cold will settle in for good for at least four months. I’m not ready for winter, as I never am. I want to hold on to the crisp autumn weather with its mixed days of sun and rain, brilliant colors splashed across the hillside, and leaves crunching under my feet.

We were able to see a lot of the changing foliage Friday, before the wind moved in, as we traveled an hour away to Wilkes-barre (right by Scranton) to visit a mini-Build-A-Bear store for Little Miss to use a gift card she’d received. We traveled some backroads, cutting down on our travel time and adding to the beauty of the journey. It isn’t a trip we’d probably take often due to the twists and turns of the road, how it took us up to higher elevation then back down into valleys, which would leave those roads an icy or snowy mess during the winter months.

I took my camera and my phone, but the camera card malfunctioned, and the phone was barely charged, leaving me frustrated as I couldn’t grab as many photos as I had planned to. Luckily, The Husband let me use his phone for some photos and then he ran into a Wal-Mart and grabbed a spare card for me. That let me take some more photos, but I was still kicking myself for all the missed opportunities earlier in the day.

What I’ve Been Reading

Last week I abandoned the Donald Westlake book, High Adventure, at least for now, because I realized I hated all the characters and didn’t care what happened to them. I may pick it back up again this week because I am curious to see what happens.

This week I am reading The Do Over by Sharon Peterson which I may or may not finish depending on how risqué it gets since it is a mainstream romance and I usually read clean romances.

I am also reading You Are The Reason by Mary Felkins.

Little Miss and I are reading Paddington At Work at night and will be starting a book about Booker T. Washington for school this week.

The Husband is reading Q-Squared by Peter Davidson.

What I/We’ve Been Watching

This week I watched The Baroness and the Butler from 1938 on YouTube. It starred William Powell and a French actress who simply went by Annabella. It was the story of a butler in the house of the Prime Minister of Hungary who gets elected to parliament in the party that opposes his employer.

There is, of course, romance involved.

The Boy and I also watched The Nightmare Before Christmas for the Spooky Season Cinema feature I am doing with Erin of Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs.

Then we watched The Emperor’s New Groove for nostalgic reasons for him, since he watched the  movie as a young kid.

Last night The Husband and I watched Patriot Games, which I had never seen before and he saw many years ago.

What I’m Writing

I’ve been steadily working on Shores of Mercy so I can start the full edits and get it to editors in November and release in January.

This week on the blog I shared:

• Special Fiction Saturday: Mercy’s Shore Chapter 24
• Fiction Friday: Mercy’s Shore Chapter 23
• Spooky Season Cinema: The Nightmare Before Christmas
• Hodge Podge: The brain edition

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.