Sunday Bookends: Autumn in Summer, mysteries, and classic movies

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends, Sunday Salon

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.

With cooler weather coming in this week, it almost feels like autumn in summer, which stinks for some, but has been so welcome for me. When it is super warm out I like to turn the AC up high for a while and get a blanket and pretend it is autumn already.

The week before last the heat wave, combined with wildfire smoke from Canada, plus some life stress, made me very sick, which is why the cooler temps are such a welcome respite for me.

Luckily it  has been still warm enough during the day that we can take our daughter swimming at the YMCA, which is about a half an hour north.

Last Sunday I took her to their outside pool for the first time. I don’t do super well in direct sunlight but they had thin fabric covers over the tables and it was very nice. The Husband has taken her before, but I had never been there. It’s a nice set up and I’m shocked I’ve lived my whole life in the area and never been there. This is one of those old concrete pools and is probably 60 years old.

Little Miss and her friend both took a test to allow them to swim in the deeper part of the pool and were very proud of themselves. I was too.

It wasn’t a super warm day so the pool wasn’t overly crowded either.

The rest of this past week was fairly uneventful.

I started planning for Little Miss’s upcoming school year, visited my parents a couple of times, and picked up groceries from the Aldi pick up on Friday.

Yesterday was a mostly relaxing day with some worrying about aforementioned homeschool year, overthinking the fact that young people today are reading less and therefore not being exposed to the more eloquent and poetic writing of classic literature, watching The Mark of Zorro, reading a bit of my John Steinbeck book, and cooking a self-created combination dish of turkey bacon, brussels sprouts, onions, and sweet peppers.

Rain is being called for almost every day this upcoming week. We do not have any grand plans for the week other than watching Warren (yes, that is The Husband’s real name) in a community play version of Little Shop of Horrors this weekend. After reminding myself of the difference between the play and the 1986 movie, I think I’ll probably leave Little Miss with her friend or my parents.

What I/We’ve Been Reading

Just Finished

Last week I finished Sad Cypress by Agatha Christie for the July book for the Christie Reading Challenge for 2026. It was very good and I’ll share a review of it soon.

I was supposed to read The Rose and the Yew Tree by Mary Westmacott, which was Christie’s pen name, but I just couldn’t get through it. I was terribly dull. I feel like I want to know the ending (as I mentioned last week) so I think I might pick it up again in August and just finish it up.

In Progress

I am slow reading Stillmeadow Daybrook by Gladys Taber. Since each chapter is a month, I plan to read a chapter a month for the rest of 2026 and into 2027. I’m also reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.

Right now I am reading Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck. It is a non-fiction about his traveling across the country in a camper in 1961 with his dog to learn more about the people of the United States. I’m enjoying it and will finish it this week.

I am also reading  Celia’s House by D.E. Stevenson before bed. It’s a very relaxed, gentle read so far. It is the story of a woman named Celia who is in her 90s, getting ready to pass, and tells her nephew she wants him to have her house and pass it on to a future daughter of his that she wants him to name Celia.

Up Soon

I will be reading By The Pricking of My Thumbs by Agatha Christie for the August read for the Christie Reading Challenge.

I ordered a copy of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain because I have been determined to read it again for the first time since I was a kid.

I’ve also ordered a copy of Mrs. Buncle Married by D.E. Stevenson, which his a sequel to Miss Buncle’s Book.

What The Family is Reading

The Boy is listening to False Gods by Graham McNeal.

Little Miss and I are going to finish Heidi this week.

Warren is reading The Committee Chairs by James Mishner.

New arrivals to my bookshelf

no new arrivals

What I/We’ve Been Watching

This past week, I watched the movies The Mark of Zorro (with Tyrone Powers), Without Love (Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy), Witness to Murder (with Barbara Stanwyck and George Sanders), and Singing in the Rain (which I watched with my daughter for the first time. The first for her, not me, of course).

What I’ve Been Writing

This week on the blog I shared very little actually!

What I/We’ve Been Listening To

Murder, She Wrote: Maine Mutiny by Donald Bain and Jessica Fletcher.

Recent Blog Posts I Enjoyed

I enjoyed this post from Marsha about her thinning hair  because I know a lot of women deal with this as they get older or have medical conditions.

Thinning Hair and What to Do?

Cat writes about silent movies and I love that and this time she’s writing about the king of silent movies — Charlie Chaplin.

https://catswire.blogspot.com/2026/07/silent-movies-dogs-life.html

I enjoyed reading about The Farm Wife Reads’ garden, tomatoes, and North Carolina summer.

Tea Time 003: Summer days

Erin caught us up on her life in this one, some of it more difficult to read, but some of it also happy.

Friday Late Afternoon (Decaf) Coffee Catch Up

Some Housekeeping

Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs), Cat (Cat’s Wire) and I host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea.  This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!). Each link party will be open for a month. You can find that link up for this month here.

Each week, I host the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot with some great hosts. It goes live Thursday night, but you can share any kind of blog posts (family-friendly) there until Tuesday of each week. You can check my recent posts on the sidebar to the right for the most recent link party.

Now It’s Your Turn

What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing?

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

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

If you would like to be the first to get news about my books or just have access to special posts for supporters, you can do so here for $2.99 a month https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/

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21 thoughts on “Sunday Bookends: Autumn in Summer, mysteries, and classic movies”

  2. The YMCA was such a wonderful part of our community until the pandemic hit. It never recovered, but, happily, our city bought it two years ago, and it now runs as a community rec center. I envy you your cooler weather. Ours will not arrive until late October.

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    1. I don’t even think I realized how bad the smoke was making me feel until it left. We ran our portable air conditioners part of the time and apparently I was just sucking the smoky Erin and didn’t realize it. I could smell it, but I just figured it was seeping in the windows because that’s what it did a few years ago when we had this before. I was very sluggish, very exhausted, and my brain wouldn’t work well at all the entire time that was going on. I think what made it worse was we were in the middle of a heat wave on top of that so I had to have some kind of air-conditioning running. With my auto immune stuff I can’t handle the heat well. It was like the perfect storm, but it was not perfect. It was just perfectly hellish for me.

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  4. Yay for a break in the heat! I love those tastes of Fall-in-Summer :D

    And how exciting for Little Miss + friend to pass their swim test! That’s such a great feeling of accomplishment, getting to go to the deep end :)

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    1. I thought that I read that are really hot days were behind us for this summer, but the local national weather service office said that the heat will go back up next week. But I think what they mean is we won’t have super long stretch stretches of high heat for the rest of the summer. Or at least it looks that way right now. I know how quickly things can change.

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      1. I’m hoping we are done with the 90s at least! August can be a scorcher, but I seem to remember last year our 90+ temps stayed in June and July … one can only hope for that again this year.

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  5. I hope you’ll get some relief from the rain. We had a bit today, but temperatures are supposed to go up over 30 °C again, ugh.
    Let me know when you are ready for the next Miss Buncle book!
    Thank you also for featuring my blog post about Mutt and his human sidekick Charlie Chaplin ;-)

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  6. I’m glad the cooler weather has brought you some relief after such a difficult week. Congratulations to Little Miss on passing her swim test, and I hope you enjoy watching Warren in Little Shop of Horrors—it sounds like a fun way to end the week! Happy Reading!

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  7. marsha57's avatar marsha57

    We had a couple of wonderfully cool days, but it’s back to warmer. The humidity is much higher than it’s been so that makes it even more uncomfortable. I’m making my way through an Elin Hilderbrand book. I really want to go see The Odyssey, but Mike would never sit for three hours (even when his hips were OK). I really need to finish writing my part of our fall retreat for the women of our church. Let’s hope we get an early autumn.

    https://marshainthemiddle.com/

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    1. The humidity is the worst for me. A couple of summers ago it was humid like the entire summer and I was just like a wet rag with no brain for the entire time. We had air-conditioning, but if I had to leave it all, I just stared at people and probably looked like I was drugged. My body absolutely cannot handle humidity anymore. The heat is bad enough, but humidity sucks my brain out.

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  8. I am so sorry about the heat making you sick. I don’t do well with it either! I think it’s really hard on those of us who have any kind of autoimmune trouble already going on. It sure was nice to get a little break before the temps go back up!

    And we are getting ready for the Homeschool switch up also. My grandson is going to be doing a couple more online classes this year, and a new co-op. We’ve all been dealing with health issues this summer, so hopefully the school year will be better!

    its nice to check in here again, I’ve been kind of MIA while dealing with everything! Blessings to you and your family♥️

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    1. We have been looking for a local co-op for a little miss but haven’t been able to find one. When I did think I found one they told me they were already full and that was in March or April. They were already full for this upcoming year. Living in a royal area is pretty good most of the time but not very good at times when it comes to homeschooling.

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  9. Becki Bayley's avatar Becki Bayley

    I may need to check out A Good Book and a Cup of Tea – thanks for sharing :) My (adult) daughter and I are watching Ride or Die on Prime and really enjoying it!

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    1. Please do check it out and be sure to share some links if you have them. We enjoy getting book suggestions from a lot of of those posts. I’ve seen commercials for that show and it looked really interesting. I’m such a dork. I actually don’t know if it’s a show or a movie but the commercials looked good. lol.

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