Sunday Bookends: The family gets a cold…except me?! And a fun cozy mystery series.

/ Lisa R. Howeler

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

This week was way more relaxed than I thought it was going to be but only because the whole house, except me somehow, came down with some kind of cold virus. I’m usually the one who gets sick when no one else does so that was very unusual. Maybe I had a minor version of it since I had a slight sore throat and headache on Monday.

I could, of course, still develop it, I suppose, but so far only Little Miss and The Boy and maybe The Husband have had it. It was fairly minor but a total nuisance.

The Boy was hit the worst with running nose and leaking/burning eyes and a major headache and sore throat. Little Miss had a sore throat but then the dreaded postnasal drip set in and Little Miss refuses all help for that particular symptom, so she slept very little the one night due to a dry, repeated cough.

Not being able to go anywhere was tough on me because I wanted to be at my parents helping them but none of us wanted my mom to get sick since she is still dealing with some health issues.

I didn’t develop symptoms by yesterday so I went to their house and took Mom some fresh fruit and visited for a while.

It was chilly and raining almost all week and I am not going to lie, I really enjoyed that. I am not a fan of warm weather so curling up under a blanket and being able to sleep comfortably at night (other than the nights Little Miss hacked all over me all night) was very welcome this week.

I spent most days with a blanket around me while I worked on blog posts, my book, and read. Okay, so the real bitter cold wasn’t as welcome this past week, but I can warm up easier than I can cool down. Humidity makes me very sick and cold makes me achy …. I’m a mess. I need it to be just right. I’d take about 67 to 72 all year around if I could.

This week I should be able to help my parents again and next week The Boy is graduating. Two weeks after that we will be meeting with our homeschool evaluator and official school for the 2024-2025 year will be complete. We still do a lot of educational stuff over the summer and after July 1 that can all be counted toward our hours for the next school year. So any field trips, 4-H groups, museum visits, books we read, or art projects we undertake for July and August counts as “school”. I love that about homeschooling.

Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I are still holding Drop-In Crafternoons once or twice a month.

We will be holding another one on May 24 at 1 p.m.

The crafternoons are events where we gather on Zoom and craft at our respective homes and chat while we work on various projects. There is one woman who creates with beads, another who colors, I sometimes draw or color, and Erin has been embroidering lately. We are calling them drop-in crafternoons because you can drop in and out during the time we are on. No need to stay the whole time if you can’t. Come late if you want or leave early.

If you want to join in, email Erin at crackcrumblife@gmail.com and she will add you to the mailing list.

The Hardy Boys: A Twisted Claw by Franklin W. Dixon.

This week I started Peg and Rose Solve A Murder by Laurien Berenson and finished it last night.

It is a cozy mystery and it took until chapter 11 (!!!) for a mystery to unfold but I still enjoyed the book and learning about the two women, who are sister-in-law’s who haven’t gotten along for years.

I guessed the guilty party before the end of the book but I was entertained enough with the characters and backstory that I didn’t mind. I hope to read more in the series, but they aren’t free on Libby and I can’t bring myself to spend $10 for a kindle book so it might be a bit before I get to the rest.

I am still reading, slowly, All Creatures Wise and Wonderful by James Herriot. I hope to continue Grave Pursuits by Elle E. Kay this upcoming week. I had taken a break from it because it dealt with the topic of a serial killer, and I wasn’t sure I could handle that with all the stress we had going on in our family. Still, I would like to know what happened so I am going to pick it back up again

I am still reading, slowly, All Creatures Wise and Wonderful by James Herriot. I hope to continue Grave Pursuits by Elle E. Kay this upcoming week. I had taken a break from it because it dealt with the topic of a serial killer, and I wasn’t sure I could handle that with all the stress we had going on in our family. Still, I would like to know what happened so I am going to pick it back up again

Last night I started Miss Austen on Amazon, which is about Cassandra Austen, Jane’s sister, and her decision to burn all of her letters between her and Jane to keep their lives private. She also burned letters between Jane and other family members.   I was really getting into it and looking forward to part two and then discovered part two doesn’t drop until tonight. Siiigh.

For some reason I’ve always been fascinated with Jane and Cassandra and how fiercely Cassandra protected Jane’s privacy. We would have known a lot more about Jane and how she thought and spoke in her real life if it wasn’t for Cassandra, but, at the same time, I can totally understand her protecting her sister from being scrutinized after her untimely death.

This week we also watched Everybody Loves Raymond, Blue Bloods, Murder She Wrote, Charade, and my “farmer guy” on Just A Few Acres on YouTube.

This past week I worked more on the fourth Gladwynn Grant book (by the way, the first book is free on Kindle right now) but I am still quite behind on finishing it.

On the blog I shared:

Recent Posts

I also updated what has become the most popular (view-wise) post on my blog:

You Are My Sunshine is a happy song? Isn’t it? And who actually wrote it anyhow?

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.

This post is linked up with The Sunday Post at  Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer, The Sunday Salon with Deb at Readerbuzz, and Book Date: It’s Monday! What are you reading hosted by Kathyrn at The Book Date.

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17 thoughts on “Sunday Bookends: The family gets a cold…except me?! And a fun cozy mystery series.”

  3. Well hopefully you stayed well and didn’t catch the cold! That would be a nice Mother’s Day present, to get to stay well! I’m still keeping your parents in my prayers. I hope the springtime is bringing them some cheer and healing.

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    • Somehow I did not get the cold. Or I had a much milder version than everyone else. I didn’t feel good the one day but nowhere near as bad as everyone else.

      My parents are having a few more good days and the sunny spring days have helped. This week and last week we had a lot of rain which makes the days with sun that much nicer.

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  4. I have watched “Wellington Paranormal” which was new on German Pluto TV and I enjoyed it. Just the right weird for me.
    I haven’t read much last week or been productive. Not sure if spring has caught up with me, but I’m tired and kind of unstructured at the moment, doing a bit here, a bit there, and in the end I’m wondering if I have done anything at all 😉

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  5. That is weird everyone except you got the cold. But, yay, right? I am with you on the temperatures. I don’t particularly have any body aches due to temperatures. I just hate being really, really hot. I don’t mind really, really cold days because I can just add layers, but ain’t nobody wanna see me runnin’ around nekkid when it’s hot (not even me)! I love a good rainy day when it’s about 65 degrees…just enough you need a blanket or throw over you…and you don’t feel guilty for not going outside!

    We finished season two of the White Lotus and have begun the third season. We also finished The Righteous (I think…I always want to say Fabulous) Gemstones. It was the last season, and while it was raunchy and parts of it were just not my jam, it’s also a show I’m going to miss for some weird reason. I guess I was more invested in the vapid characters than I thought.

    https://marshainthemiddle.com/

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    • I still think I must have had it but it was just really mild. I didn’t feel great but thought it was just allergies.

      And I’m like that with a rainy day too. Right now it looks like the rest of May is going to be mild and perfect for some blanket time. IN the summer I’ll just have to blast the AC and sit in front of it to pretend it’s a chilly, cozy night. Ha!

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  6. I wish I could smell those lilacs — I love them and unfortunately, our lilac bush was decimated by deer years ago. My week was a little busy – leading my Bible study, still working on family histories and the dreaded blog issue (I’ve got a long way to go on that). But the highlight was attending our oldest granddaughter’s very first band concert. She’s a 4th grader and just started playing flute this year. She advanced quickly and her band teacher moved her up to 5-6th grade band a couple months ago. So she got to play in both bands at the concert. Plus her band teacher was our son’s band teacher in elementary school too, so it was fun to see him again.

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    • Our lilacs don’t bloom as well as they used to. Both of the bushes were hit hard in an ice storm two years ago and it pretty much killed the one and damaged the other one. We had a cherry tree that took a huge hit too. We might just yank out the one lilac bush since the neighbors said it gets in their way when they are mowing.

      That is so great about your granddaughter’s concert and about her being moved up! I’m sure that was such a delight to watch!

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  7. I hope everyone is on the mend! We had lots of cold and rain too and I am battling my allergies since all that rain really made everything green up overnight (or so it seems!). We’re pretty lucky that in our state there are currently no homeschooling laws so we are pretty much left on our own; I found that SO intimidating at first but now I love it! We definitely felt like we schooled year round most years even if summer found us going more art and field trips and less book work. Your lilac photos are so lovely!

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    • Our allergies are a mess. that’s why we thought it wasn’t really a cold or virus at first.

      We have homeschool laws but they aren’t as bad as people think. I do wish we lived in a state where we didn’t have to file objectives and lists of curriculum to the local school district. It makes them feel like they have more power over us than they do.

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  9. I’m going to help my friend set up her Kindle this week, and I will try to download your book during the setup. I bought a copy earlier in the year and I fully intend to read it soon.

    Thanks for the heads up on the Crafternoon. I need to get some supplies for that.

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