It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what I and the rest of the family have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing, and some weeks I share what I am listening to.

What I/we’ve been Reading

I was determined to finish Anne of Windy Poplars this week because I started it, not necessarily because I am enjoying it. I don’t like to not finish books I’ve started. I won’t lie. I skimmed the last few chapters. I’d heard from some other readers who have read Anne that this one wasn’t their favorite and I can see why. It isn’t a horrible book but there were parts that just dragged on. I mean, the Anne books sort of drag on anyhow. They are written some 100 years ago now and are in the classic style of “head-hopping” and over explaining, but this one was a bit over the top.

With that book behind me I’m planning to read Anne’s House of Dreams but only a chapter or two at a time.

I’m really itching for a cozy mystery so I wanted to delve into The Cat Who Smelled A Rat by Lilian Jackson Braun, even though it is one of her later books and they aren’t as good. I had purchased a mass-market paperback for my birthday this past year. When I opened it last night, all excited to read, though, I realized that there are tons of bizarre typos in it. Like spaces in the middle of words typos. Like I don’t know how this made it off-the-press typos.

I’m so irritated by these typos (I could deal with some missing commas, etc.) that I don’t know if I’ll keep reading this one. I do have four others in the series in hardcover that I haven’t read yet so I may grab one of them.

I picked up a book called A Case of Bad Taste by Lori Copeland at a library sale I mention below, so I am starting that today instead.

I’m also reading an ARC for an indie author, which I am also done with. It is called A New Day Dawning by Sara Whitely.

It releases on Tuesday.

What’s Been Occurring

I wrote a little about last week in the post I shared yesterday.

The Husband and I went to lunch in a town 30 minutes away yesterday and then visited a merchant center, which is sort of like a flea market. There they had a selection of old books, which distracted me for quite a while, mixed in with other items, such as cast iron pans, handmade products, dishes, DVDs, toys, clothes, etc.

For me, looking through old books is so exciting because I just never know what treasure I’m going to find there. I found a book by two “old time” Christian Fiction authors, Bodie and Brock Thoene, that I hadn’t ready before (though I haven’t read a lot of theirs) and one by an author named Sean Dietrich who I found on Instagram. He writes short little tidbits about life, which reminds me of my blog, or at least the early years of my blog.

After we left the flea market, we headed to a library book sale in a small town we pass through on our way home. Okay, wait, we actually stopped by Aldi first for a couple of items, and then we went on to the book sale. I had looked on social media to see if there were any book sales going on because – yes – I am addicted to buying books, just as The Husband said. I say he can’t say much since he stopped by a library to buy a used book on Friday too. Ha!

The sale was upstairs in a conference room of the library (which is in an old high school) and many of the books appeared brand new. A notice on the chalkboard said that the sale was $5 for one bag full and $3 for a second bag full. I could have probably filled three bags with the books we found, even though the selection didn’t look that large on arrival.

In the end, we came home with 22 books for $8 and many of them were hardcovers that looked brand-new. I picked up three books from the Mitford series that were library-bound and spotless. They looked like they’d never been checked out, which is sad because that means a bunch of readers really missed out. I was also happy because I added them to my collection since I’ve been trying to gather together all 14 of the books in physical form for my bookshelf.

I also picked up a couple books by Lynn Austin (Fire by Night and Candle in the Darkness), one by Francine Rivers (Her Mother’s Hope), two books by Lori Copeland (A Case of Bad Taste and A Case of Crooked Letters) and together The Husband and I picked out seven of the first nine books in the Walt Longmire series by Craig Johnson. We own those books already on Kindle, but I always say we never know when Amazon is going to stop their service or something weird will happen and we will lose all those books. I prefer to have the books I really like in physical form.

For Little Miss, I picked up a couple of Native American fiction books because she loved Children of the Longhouse so much and is now fascinated by Native American culture – at least when it comes to books. Those books included Walk by Two Moons by Sharon Creech, Sing Down the Moon by Scott O’Dell, and Zia by Scott O’Dell.

I also picked her up a few picture books.

I didn’t find any books The Boy might like this time around.

Do you do what I do when you see a book by a new-to-you author and read the first few lines to see if you will like the book? If the first few lines catch me then I snatch up the book, thereby adopting it and taking it home.

I didn’t do that with each of the books I looked at yesterday, but I did with a couple, including the Copleand book.

After we came home, Little Miss’s little friend came over to play for a couple of hours. Little Miss stayed with the little friend and her grandmother while we were gone too, so she had a full day of playing, which was nice because it’s hard to get her together with her friends, who all live a half an hour from us.

The day was extremely relaxing and exactly what we needed after the last month of craziness our family has had.

Today we will visit my parents for some lunch and afternoon watching of The Chosen.

What We watched/are Watching

Last week we watched the last two episodes of season three of The Chosen. You can watch them at www.angelstudios.com or on The Chosen app.

They were pretty incredible but I’m going to need to watch them again to take everything in that was touched on. I’m already looking forward to season four.

During the week I watched an episode of All Creatures Great and Small from the most recent version of the show and sniffled through most of it. It’s a very touching show.

The Husband and I watched an episode of Foyles War and really enjoyed it.

I also watched a documentary on Orchard House, which is the house that Louisa May Alcott lived in and wrote Little Women.

Last night I watched video after video on YouTube of ice skaters I used to watch back in the 90s – Scott Hamilton, Kurt Browning, Elvis Stojko, etc.

Browning just had the most amazing footwork. He has always been quirky and fun on the ice too. He has a style that I’d never seen in skating before and haven’t since.

I love watching him.

Elvis was such a powerful skater and Hamilton? Well, we was the inspiration for them all. What a showman.

As I was falling down the YouTube spiral, I saw a video of Browning from last year and – oh my – he still is in amazing shape and skating well at the age of 56.

I spent 2 hours just watching the various performances and it was so relaxing. I need to take YouTube spirals like that more often.

Here are a few of the performances I watched:

What I’m Writing

Earlier today I had a breakthrough with ideas for a cozy mystery I want to write. I hope to start working on it this week.

I’m also going to be working on my Biblical fiction story.

I didn’t share much on the blog this week for various reasons, part of which I wrote about yesterday.

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.