In case you didn’t know I have a newsletter for my writing stuff, well…I do. You can find it HERE and there is an update this week about my newest book that will release this summer. I shared a description and a cover reveal!
I’ll also share about it a little bit more here on Friday, which used to be “Fiction Friday” around here.
If you sign up for my Substack, you will receive an update about my writing, as well as some other writers, in your email once or twice a month. I may occasionally send an update more often if there is something super exciting going on, but otherwise, I’ll do my best not to clog your inbox up!
I’ve written before about why I like to homeschool, and this past week highlighted a couple of those reasons perfectly.
When Little Miss had a major dental procedure due to a soft enamel issue the week before last, I backed off strict homeschool lessons for a few days afterward. Giving her time to recover was possible because of the flexibility of homeschooling. There was no pressure for her to get back into class even though she was having some discomfort and trouble eating.
We spent a lot of time reading books, picture and otherwise, snuggling, watching educational shows, playing with Legos or outside, making slime, painting or just chatting.
On Tuesday Little Miss’s friends were off school because of snowy weather. This gave her a chance to visit with them via the phone and cheer her up after a difficult few days of recovering. We did a little bit of school that day but not as intensive as some days.
We were grateful that pain wasn’t a large part of Little Miss’s recovery. Being unable to eat normally was part of the recovery process, unfortunately.
This left me anxious for two or three days until I decided to make some soups from scratch that would add protein and nutrients to Little Miss’s diet.
She lived on Jell-O, pudding, yogurt drinks, and my homemade soups for about three days. On the fourth day, she discovered she could eat tater tots without pain. On Wednesday she was back to eating almost completely normally.
As someone who was educated in public school, it has been hard for me to change my mind about school needing to be six hours of instructional time, even though that isn’t how many hours students really spend on academics in public school anyhow when you figure in time in homeroom, lunch, extracurricular activities, study halls, and for the younger children, recess.
When you cut out the time on the bus, homeroom, recess, etc., school really only takes 1-3 hours depending on the day. Children who are homeschooled can do their work without having to wait for the rest of the class to catch up or slow down. They can get their lessons done and the rest of the day is theirs to do what they want with (within reason, of course).`
I’ve really had to work hard to change my mindset about education overall in the last couple of years actually. I’m very much still stuck in the mindset that we have to do “book learning” during our school day, every day, versus simply reading books, doing art, or exploring nature and learning on some days.
However, last week I let a lot of that go. I reminded myself that educating a child is a long term commitment that goes beyond what they learn from a textbook.
I also reminded myself that healing from something that was traumatizing to a child is about much more than physical healing.
Little Miss needed emotional comfort as much as she needed her gums to be comforted and in order to do that I had to back off heavily pushing math and science lessons that she could easily make up after her recovery was complete.
The time we spent cuddling on the couch with a book or watching an educational show instead of opening up the textbook was even more important than academic learning.
There are many ways you can enrich your child’s education without doing set curriculum for times when they need some one on one time.
A few ideas:
Read educational or simply entertaining books to them.
Watch educational or enriching shows together.
Create art together
Take a walk together in the woods or somewhere outside to see what you find and can turn into a lesson.
Do only the simplest lessons from your curriculum
Visit their grandparents
Simply hold them and cuddle them as much as they want
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, what I’ve been writing, and some weeks I share what I am listening to.
What I/we’ve been Reading
I finished Confessions To A Stranger by Danielle Grandinetti last week and hope to finish The Burning Issue of the Day (A Lady Hardcastle Mystery) By T.E. Kinsey today or tomorrow.
I’ve already started Murder at the Vicarage which is a Miss Marple Mystery by Agatha Christie. I had started watching this episode on BritBox until The Husband let me know it was based on this book he picked up for me a few weeks ago. I decided to try to read the book instead.
I’m also still reading/listening to The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien with The Boy.
Little Miss and I are reading Land of the Big Red Apple by Roger Lea MacBride. This is a book loosely based on the childhood of Rose Wilder, the daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder and Almanzo Wilder. Roger was adopted by Rose when she couldn’t have children and later became the sole trustee of the Ingalls-Wilder estate. He also wrote a series of children’s books based on Rose and the women in her family. We found this book at our local library.
The Husband was taking his Sunday afternoon when I was writing this so I don’t know what he is reading this week.
The Boy is reading The Fellowship of the Ring with me, along with text from the various school subjects he has.
What’s Been Occurring
I rambled a bit about what’s been occurring in my post yesterday. In that post I gave an update on Little Miss’s recovery since her dental surgery.
I’ll share that again here for those who are like me and just can’t read every single blog post a blogger writes.
Little Miss recovered well this week after her dental surgery last week. I was really a mess for a few days while we tried to figure out what she could eat without some of her important molars.
I kept offering her different foods to eat but some days she didn’t want anything. She would say she wasn’t hungry. I was worried she was in pain, but she told me she wasn’t. Still, she was very down and not bouncing around like she normally does, which I did expect but still didn’t like to see.
Over the weekend I made homemade potato and cheese, sweet potato, and cream of chicken soups. Not only did they give her something with some protein and nutrients in it but it reminded me how easy soups can be to make and that I need to make them more.
I cut up meat really tiny on Monday and offered it to her along with some French fries, which she found she could eat fairly easily.
She looked up at me and said, “Mom. Stop. Let me go at my own pace.”
So I stopped and let her ask for what food she wanted. By Tuesday she was back to eating sandwiches and pretty much the food she’d been able to eat before. On Wednesday she was able to eat potato chips and she was so excited.
Yesterday Little Miss had two of her friends over for the first time in a few months and they had a blast playing together both inside and out.
They didn’t stay outside too long because it was very cold, especially the wind. It is even colder today. I’m guessing we won’t see real spring weather until April, or at least I hope we will see some in April.
Our cat Pixel is not a big fan of noise or a lot of people being in the house so at one point I watched her crawl across the floor, low to the ground, her ears laid back and clearly traumatized by all the craziness going on around her. I let her out the back door and she spent the afternoon curled up somewhere by our garden shed. She was forced to return to the house before the girls left because the temperature dropped very fast and the girls were picked up late, but she hid somewhere in the house, coming out only when all was quiet again.
Little Miss had had a full day with gymnastics early in the day and playing hard all day with her friends. I thought she’d fall asleep early but she fought it and wanted to stay up late with me and her brother. Her dad had already collapsed after having a busy day himself.
I said yesterday that we don’t have anything we have to do this week other than Kids’ Club, but I forgot that on Tuesday we have to drive about 45 minutes north to get Zooma the Wonder Dog a much-needed grooming and nail trimming. After that our week is fairly clear.
Today I am making corned beef, cabbage and pre-made mashed potatoes for our belated St. Patrick’s Day. We were going to share this with my parents but they had a busy week and are resting up.
What We watched/are Watching
The Husband and I have been watching Magpie Murders, a mystery mini-series on PBS Masterpiece. It is based on a book by Anthony Horowitz that The Husband has read, but I have not yet.
We also watched an episode of Miss Scarlet & The Duke and I hope we can finish season one this week.
On Friday I watched The Quiet Man for St. Patrick’s Day. This movie has become my favorite movie over the last several years, replacing Singing in the Rain, which is now second.
I’ve also found a new vlogger to watch:
What I’m Writing
In the last 17 days I have written 17,000 words on Gladwynn Gets Her Footing. I don’t know if I’m going to keep all those words and may decide I have to rewrite half of it, but it’s been fun to dive into a different world for a bit. This one will be a cozy mystery, which I’ve read a lot of, but never written one of. We will see if it is an utter failure or not.
I will share more about expected release dates and a cover for the book later this week.
The Husband found a jazz duo – Rachael and Vilray on Apple Music last week so I’ve been listening to them a lot when I write. Their music is calming and I found several videos on YouTube so I can just plug my headphones in on the laptop and write away while they sing away.
If you’d like to see them live, you can watch this YouTube video. It’s similar to listening to their recorded albums:
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.
It’s a chilly March day and I’m enjoying a bit of organic peppermint tea today for my beverage as I sit down to chat with you. I plan to have some lemon in hot water later on in the day, if I still have lemons.
As we head toward the meteorological Spring, Pennsylvania still isn’t ready to leave winter weather completely behind.
Early last week we had snow, then we had one day of sun and then we were back to winter again with dropping temperatures. Today the weather promises to be gloomy and chilly but at least no snow.
I’ve grown weary of trying to start and keep fires going in our woodstove, even though I’m glad to have it. My sinuses struggle when I have to lean over the fire and try to get it going after it has decided it isn’t going to take. I like the fire, though, when I (or someone else) gets it going. It helps our heating bill, for one, but the house also feels cozier with it lit and roaring. Last night I turned around as I went upstairs and smiled at it and realized how much I’ll miss seeing it when the weather warms up and there is no need for it.
Little Miss recovered well this week after her dental surgery last week. I was really a mess for a few days while we tried to figure out what she could eat without some of her important molars.
I kept offering her different foods to eat but some days she didn’t want anything. She would say she wasn’t hungry. I was worried she was in pain, but she told me she wasn’t. Still, she was very down and not bouncing around like she normally does, which I did expect but still didn’t like to see.
Over the weekend I made homemade potato and cheese, sweet potato, and cream of chicken soups. Not only did they give her something with some protein and nutrients in it but it reminded me how easy soups can be to make and that I need to make them more.
I cut up meat really tiny on Monday and offered it to her along with some French fries, which she found she could eat fairly easily.
She looked up at me and said, “Mom. Stop. Let me go at my own pace.”
So I stopped and let her ask for what food she wanted. By Tuesday she was back to eating sandwiches and pretty much the food she’d been able to eat before. On Wednesday she was able to eat potato chips and she was so excited.
Little Miss, The Boy, and I visited the library that same day to pick out some books for Little Miss’s unit on birds that we are doing and just to get out of the house.
It was nice to sit in the children’s section and reach behind me and just pluck books off the shelves to look at while Little Miss and the Boy built creations with the Legos there. I don’t know why they don’t play with the Legos we have at home as much as they will there, but whatever.
I truly could spend most of my day at the library if people weren’t there. I know. That’s awful, isn’t it? As an introvert, though, sometimes I get drained just by making myself talk to people. We were there a couple of hours and I talked to the library assistants for quite a while and by the time we got home I needed a nap. Sadly, I couldn’t have one because I had to make dinner and then we headed back out for Kids Club at the church my parents used to go to. The program used to be called Awana.
The rest of the week was homeschool or hanging out until I kicked the kids out on Thursday to go pick up sticks in the yard that we can use to start fires. It was close to 60 that day. By Friday the temps had started to drop again.
Soon the temps will be rising and staying up and I’ll feel guilty if I don’t take the kids outside to do things so I better enjoy these cooler temps for now anyhow. I put too much pressure on myself when the weather is warmer out. I think I have to be super mom and expose my children to outdoor activities every day. I do like being outside, but I need to get over feeling like we have to do “big” things on nice days – like trips to parks or lakes or something. Doing that once in a while is very nice, though.
This upcoming week doesn’t have anything too exciting going on so far.
The Husband and I are going to try to head out tomorrow to see Jesus Revolution at a theater about 40 minutes from us. After that I have a pretty open week, other than Kids Club on Wednesday and gymnastics on Saturday.
Today I brought an extra child home with me from gymnastics. One of Little Miss’s friends came to play for the day.
So how about you? How does your upcoming week look? Is anything exciting planned? What warm or cold beverage will you be drinking to get you through the week?
I pulled into the driveway of a little house that looked as if it had been lifted out of Northern Ireland and dropped, unscathed, into the hills of Pennsylvania. The ceilings were low, the windows were small and cute and the stone fireplace had been built by hand.
On one side of the house was a cow pasture and on the other a tiny, century-old cemetery with a sign on the metal gate that read “Enter At Your Own Risk.”
I blew my nose as I parked and began to rehearse what I would say to the elderly Irishman inside, determined to not let him talk me into staying for tea. I did not want tea. I wanted to go home, lay down and fall asleep after a long day of work at the local weekly newspaper and catching a cold that had only gotten worse as the day went…
Originally Published in The Rocket-Courier, Wyalusing, Pa.
About 20 years ago, I was flipping through channels due to a bout of insomnia when I came across Late Night with David Letterman, whose guest that night was the late Warren Zevon.
At the time, I had a vague knowledge of Zevon’s work, but I didn’t feel like flipping anymore and decided to leave it on CBS in the hopes that I would eventually fall asleep.
A little background on Zevon’s visit that night—he had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer and was performing one last time on his favorite late-night show.
I learned about those facts as I watched his interview with Letterman, who then asked him if there was anything he would like to say to people.
“Enjoy every sandwich” was Zevon’s response.
It is such a simple phrase, but it is something that I have just recently been taking to heart.
As I hit my mid-40s, I hate to admit it but I’m starting to get a little more conscious of my own mortality.
And, if we’re being honest, it terrifies me.
There are nights that I have trouble getting to sleep because I’m scared that I’m not going to wake up.
My mind sometimes is flooded with questions like how is my family going to be taken care of if I do pass away? Did I actually make a difference in my children’s lives? Did I remember to close the refrigerator door?
Sorry. Felt that I needed to inject a little levity before I thoroughly depressed the readership.
Back to the point, I am worried that I haven’t done anything with my life, but then, well, let’s bring back Mr. Zevon for a minute.
I only own one Warren Zevon album. It is the one that he recorded just before he passed. It is called The Wind.
The album itself is brilliant. His cover of Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door is beautiful and his duet with Bruce Springsteen—Disorder in the House—is a great rock song.
But it’s the last song on the album that has stuck with me the longest.
It is entitled Keep Me in Your Heart.
Essentially, the song is Zevon’s farewell to the world and encourages those he left behind to live their life to the fullest.
It is that last thought that I’ve been trying to take more to heart these days.
We should all be doing that. As I read one day when I was young, “you only get one chance at life—grab for all the gusto you can.”
Sadly, when I was younger, I didn’t appreciate that sentiment much.
I was always scared about trying something new. I would always come up with an excuse to not enjoy a particular aspect of life.
But over the last couple of years, I’ve wanted to expand my horizons—and I have wanted to become a better person not only for myself but for my family.
Two years ago, I went into the water and back up again at church. I want to think that I did change a little when I came out, but time will tell.
I’m trying to have more experiences with my family and make some new memories as we go forward.
I even got on the stage this last summer, which was a blast. I may do that again. We’ll see.
And there’s still a lot that I want to accomplish going forward.
I’m not looking at my age as the halfway point of my life.
I’m looking at it as the beginning of something new.
First up was Baby Bear, Baby Bear, What Do You See? by Eric Carle
Little Miss loved this book so much that we had to read it three times in a row. We may even read it a couple of more times before we take it back to the library later this week.
She also loved Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson. We read this one three times, with her doing the voices of the animals and me reading the narration a couple of the times. This is a truly adorable book, and we might even buy a copy to add to our collection.
Neither of us really liked the book Eat Like A Bear by April Pulley Sayre (incidentally it was interesting to see the last name Sayre, as that is the name of the town I first lived in when I married The Husband). This was a conservation book and it was just … well, odd. We didn’t enjoy it and only read it once and then put it back in the bag to go back to the library.
I picked Sachiko Means Happiness by Kimiko Sakai up at a book sale and I decided to put that one aside because it deals with Alzheimer’s in a grandparent and I really didn’t like the way it was written.
We did not get a chance to start Match Wits with Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of Black Peter and The Gloria Scott by Murray Shaw but I may try to read that this week. I renewed it from the library, so we have it for another couple of weeks.
I also renewed Spirit of the West by Jahnna N. Malcom, which is a chapter book, because we are using it for history and are learning a lot about the Nez Perce tribe, which I didn’t even know anything about before reading this book. I have used it as a jumping-off point to videos about the Nez Perce so we can learn even more about them and their life in Washington and Oregon before they were driven off their land by white settlers. This tribe was well known for their work with the Appaloosa horse breed, which the white settlers eventually decided they wanted to take from them, sadly.
We have not got to Little Town in the Ozarks by Roger Lea MacBride and I don’t know if we will or not because we have been reading Spirit of the West and the Imagination Station books and Little Miss has been listening to Fortunately the Milk each night before bed.
I have placed four books on hold at the library and have just been told they are available for us to pick up.
Snowmen at Night by Caralyn (sic) Buehner
Monarch Butterflies by Ann Hobbie
The Squirrels Who Squabbled by Rachel Bright
The Invisible Boy by Trudy Ludwig
And
What The Dinosaurs Did Last Night by Refe Tuma
I will keep you updated on what we think about these latest books as well.
What have your littles or grand-littles been reading lately? Anything good?!
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 am finishing up a book by Danielle Grandinetti this week. It’s called Confessions To A Stranger and it will be out on Tuesday. I will have a review up for it on Thursday on my Instagram and probably here. It’s quite good.
I am also still reading The Burning Issue of The Day by T.E. Kinsey and The Fellowship of the Ring, but I didn’t get any of The Fellowship of the Ring read last week. I hope to get more done this week as it would be nice if The Boy and I finished it by the end of the school year at this point. Sigh.
This week I’d love to finish the books I’ve started and then go back to Anne’s House of Dreams and start another Walt Longmire book.
I did have a family friend as me how I read more than one book at once and in case you’ve ever wondered – I switch between books and sometimes I’ll end up reading one more than the other ones, which is why you’ll read on here that I am STILL reading certain books. Ha! There are also times I am reading a chapter here and there of a book, especially the L.M. Montgomery books which are more like little stories in each chapter rather than a book that flows from plot point to plot point.
Little Miss and I are reading Emily’s Imagination by Beverly Cleary again at night and also listened to Fortunately the Milk by Neil Gaiman (and narrated by him) several times this week, including on the way home from her procedure.
During the day for school, we are reading Spirit of the West.
The Husband is reading Upgrade by Blake Crouch
What’s Been Occurring
Friday and yesterday we received some more snow. Earlier in the week we were supposed to receive up to seven inches of snow in a surprise storm but we only ended up with two. Now, watch — tomorrow night we are supposed to get two to four but we will probably get much more because the area 30 miles above us in Upstate New York is supposed to get up to a foot of snow. If the storm slides down just a bit, we could get that amount too. We will just have to wait and see. You’ll have to read yesterday’s post if you want to know my children’s theory on why we are getting nailed by snow.
Also in yesterday’s post, I wrote about Little Miss’s dental procedure. That was our big ordeal of last week. It happened Friday but cast a cloud over our entire week in some ways. It went well, for the most part, but the aftermath of her not being able to eat well has not been fun. I did make her some potato soup with lots of milk and some cheese last night and that was a big hit. I think that’s something I’ll be making for myself from now on too.
I also made sweet potato soup the same way this morning.
I don’t know if I mentioned it yesterday or not, but she has developed a lisp after this and I’m upset by it. No, I don’t love her any less and yes, I am very ecstatic that she is still my same fun-loving kid (though a little more subdued and down with being unable to chew right now), but I was never told this could happen. In fact, I wasn’t told a lot of what would be happening and the fallout.
See that tiny speck of dust on the windowsill over there? (Oops…shouldn’t have mentioned it. The Husband has jumped up to take care of it). That tiny speck of dust is how much I trust dentists at this point in my life. To me they are scammers, liars, cheats, and backstabbing money-grubbing creeps. I’m pretty much over them and how they take advantage of people.
I feel like all some of them are about is money, money, and more money and how to cheat systems so they can get bigger payouts. That’s how I feel about them right now and it’s going to take a lot to change my mind. Sorry for any of you who have family members as dentists. I’m sure they are the exception to my personal rule and feelings about their profession.
People say they don’t know why dentists have the highest rates of suicide. I say it’s because they scam people and they know it and the guilt finally catches up to them.
Pray for me and my disgust with the profession and the people in it! It’s a real hang up for me. I’m serious. Pray for me about it. I know they aren’t all horrible people but we’ve had some really bad experiences of late and it’s left a bad taste in my mouth – in more ways than one.
What We Watched/Are Watching
This week I watched more Miss Scarlet & The Duke. I try to wait and watch certain shows with my husband, but he had a lot going on this week, so I did go ahead a bit with the show and now I’m dying to watch the next episode. I can’t promise I’ll wait for The Husband on this one. We are in season one.
Little Miss and I watched a lot of Bluey this week. A lot. A lot. A ….. loooot.
Hopefully we will take a break this week as I practically have the episodes of all two and a half seasons memorized.
Last night we watched a lot of Studio C, which is a comedy group out of Brigham Young University. We watched the original cast because we haven’t really liked the show since they left.
Friday night we watched the new Puss and Boots movie which is currently free with a subscription to Peacock. It was actually quite good, but I could have done without the bleeping of characters who were obviously saying very nasty swear words, something “kids” cartoons have started to do to try to entertain the parents who are watching with their kids. Before long they’ll simply be saying the words. Mark my words. It will happen. What I’m Writing
I wrote some 5,000 words on Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing this past week to try to keep my mind off all the stuff in my life. It was a lot of fun and I hope to do the same this week. I am doing a challenge with a group of other writers and I think I set a goal of 20,000 words for the month. Or maybe it was 15,000. I need to look at the sheet again. All I know is I wrote 10,000 words on the book in two weeks so I think I might make my goal. I’d love to have the book out by the summer.
This week Little Miss and I were comforted by listening to Matthew West a lot. We really needed his music.
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.
There will be bonus entries for each follow on Instagram as well. See my Instagram (www.instagram.com/lisarhoweler) for the list of authors and their accounts.
✅Third Place Prize Winner will receive 1 e-book of their choosing from the list below.
✅Second Place Prize Winner will receive 2 e-books of their choosing from the list below.
✅Grand Prize Winner – (all the e-books below – yup that’s all 19 e-books) AND Gift Cards to The Flourished Mustard Seed ($35) (@theflourishedmustardseed )and Sweet Sequels ($55) (@sweetsequels)
The books you could win: In the Midst of the Storm by Latisha Sexton,
In the Night Season by Jennifer Q. Hunt,
Confessions to a Stranger by Danielle Grandinetti,
The One Who Got Away by Tara Grace Ericson,
Last Wish by Valerie Howard,
Some Through the Fire by Jennifer Q. Hunt,
A Battle Worth Fighting by Sarah Hanks,
The Farmer’s Daughter by Lisa R. Howeler,
The Uncertainty of Fire by Stephanie Daniels,
Halos by Amber Lambda,
A Summer in Shady Springs by Sarah Anne Crouch,
Shores of Mercy by Lisa Howeler,
The Prodigal Sons by Aubrey Taylor,
Until We All Run Free by Heather Wood,
The Secret of Drulea Cottage by Claire Kholer,
The Darkening Dragons by Sarah Everest,
For a Noble Purpose by Kelsey Gietl,
In the Midst of the Darkest Storm by Latisha Sexton,
Boondock Ramblings 