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.

I made a comment to someone in the comment section last week that the bear I saw on our back porch, and purchased a Ring camera to keep an eye on, probably would never show again.

How wrong I was.

The other night the dog was barking crazily outside. She is hooked up on a lead and I periodically walk back to check on her. Now we have a Ring camera that I can turn on and watch from my phone, but I didn’t because, well, I really didn’t think anything would happen.

The only thing that might happen is she might take off after a skunk like she did last weekend, yanking the stake to her lead out of the ground and disappearing behind our shed where she, and our son, was sprayed by a skunk.

That’s what I thought would happen anyhow but as I headed toward the back door I turned on the Ring camera from my phone and before I even looked down at it, I was at the back door looking out at Zooma face to face with a black bear, ten or twelve feet from our back door.

Zooma was barking bouncing back and forth in front of the bear, who looked quite confused honestly. I called Zooma back with a tremble in my voice, worried the bear might reach out and take out a swipe at her.

Luckily, Zooma barked a few more times but then came to me and I quickly opened the door and let her in while the bear continued to look confused.

This video does not do justice to how close the bear was to the house because of the angle of the camera. I left the audio in even though I sound like I’m crying, which I really wasn’t, but I was nervous and recovering from the virus we had so my voice sounded pretty shaky. I was just worried Zooma was going to get smacked around.

As the bear turned to leave, The Husband and I noticed he or she was limping, which was so sad to me.

I couldn’t film any longer because the bear was headed toward my neighbor’s backyard and sometimes they are out watering their garden late at night, so I wanted to warn her.

We did contact the game warden and they said they’d send someone out, but we never heard anything back. Hopefully, next week someone will update us on the condition or location of the bear.

Seeing the bear has made me very nervous but really it is a little silly to be afraid of the bear. They are black bears and aren’t really huge fans of people. They also aren’t known to attack people or, usually, pets. They simply come down looking mainly for food and our one neighbor has food out for the animals (yes, I’m pretty sure this is illegal and if not it is at least dangerous!). If you make loud noises or have a barking dog they tend to leave.

Still, I don’t relish the idea of stepping outside of my house and finding myself face to face with one.

That was the exciting part of our week. The rest of the week was spent being up weird times of the night while Little Miss coughed a lot from sinus drainage left over from the virus we had earlier in the week. We spend our days napping and trying to catch up from the weird sleep the night before.

We are still trying to recover from all of that and from the lack of sleep.

This next week I am actually going to start school for Little Miss. I wanted to do it the last couple of weeks but with being sick and recovering, that went out the window.

I have all of Little Miss’s curriculum so there is no excuse to not just get started. I’m looking forward to the upcoming year, especially art and literature, which are her and my favorite subjects.

I am still reading the same books, for the most part, but I am making progress. I finished The Scarlet Pimpernel last night. I enjoyed the book, even more so than the 1970s movie with Jane Seymour, but the ending did seem quite sudden to me. I would have liked a little more of a wrap up.

I am still reading Dave Berry Isn’t Taking This Sitting Down by Dave Barry. It is a collection of his columns for the Miami Herald and they are so funny.

I did not read any from Carry On, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse last week but I will be back into that this week. The Jeeves books are so funny.

I was very excited to receive a delivery this week from Thriftbooks that included two P.G. Wodehouse books, one of them a Jeeves book.

The books are Very Good, Jeeves and A Damsel in Distress. I am gathering that A Damsel in Distress is not a Jeeves book, based on the title and the description on the back, which is fine with me. I am interested in trying Wodehouse’s other books.

The order also included Nancy Drew books Nancy’s Mysterious Letter, The Whispering Statue, and The Triple Hoax, Remains to be Seen by Elizabeth Caldell, An Enola Holmes Mystery: The Case of the Missing Marquess by Nancy Springer, and Come, Tell Me How You Live by Agatha Christie Mallowan.

I am looking forward to reading Nancy Drew: The Triple Hoax soon but first I am going to read the Nancy Drew Mystery Password to Larkspur Lane.

Little Miss is reading The Clue of the Missing Diary by Carolyn Keene (Nancy Drew).

The Boy is reading/listening to Red Tithe by Robbie MacNiven.

The Husband is reading. That’s all I know right now because I forgot to ask which book he is reading. I know he finished Targeted: Beirut by Jack Carr about a week ago.

This week I watched Murder She Wrote, The Picture of Dorian Gray, episodes of Canal Boat Diaries,  and a movie called Raffles, which ended terribly.

Book four of the Gladwynn Grant Mystery series.

On the blog:

• Summer of Angela: The Picture of Dorian Gray
• Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot August 8
• Top Ten Tuesday: 10 mystery/cozy mystery book series with men as the protagonist
• A recap of The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries: The Mystery of the Ghostwriter’s Cruise (with spoilers)

I’ve been listening to The Unlikely Yarn of the Dragon Lady by Sharon J. Mondragon.

Breath: Ally or Saboteur  by June Svetlovsky

Mr. Monk Gets on Board by  Cross Examining Crime

Hello Monday, Goodbye July by Southern Patches

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.

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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. Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Reading Reality.

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Lisa R. Howeler is a blogger, homeschool mom, and writes cozy mysteries.

You can find her Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find her on Instagram and YouTube.