Category: everyday musings

Sunday Bookends: Finally reading A Classic, Bookstore Bliss, and Warmer Temperatures Come Upon Us

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, Sunday Bookends10 Comments

Welcome to my weekly post where I recap my week by writing about what I’ve been reading, watching, writing, doing and sometimes what I’ve been listening to.

What’s been occurring

The weather has finally started to warm up and has helped to take the foot and a half of snow we had left on the ground to about 8 inches. I can see the corners of my garden boxes now and there is grass peeking out of the snow on a hill on the other side of town. We’re hopeful to see the grass in our yard for the first time in two months.

Our cats seem to have some sort of cabin fever. They’re so bored with looking at the snow they now come into the bathroom when I’m taking a bath and just stare at me, which is creepy. Pixel is getting used to Scout, the kitten we brought home in August. She still doesn’t love her, but she tolerates her and Pixel is either enjoying chasing Scout or is hoping to kill her. I’m not sure which.

My animals have teamed up now too. Pixel and Zooma did it before, but now Scout gets in on the action when she can. Pixel is very adept at opening doors and if Zooma wants to get in a room, Pixel finds a way to open the door for her. My daughter has a door that slides open and closed and in the morning, when I get up for my third trip to the bathroom, either I or my husband close it to keep the animals from waking Little Miss up too early. Pixel knows how to open the door so she slides her paw under it, moves the door and Zooma runs in and jumps on the bed for cuddles. Scout seems to be learning how to do the same thing from Pixel because my husband found her in my daughter’s room one morning after he’d already closed the door.

On Friday we took a family trip to a book store. Yes, we are that boring. We live in a rural area and there aren’t a lot of malls or bookstores around us so we took a 45-minute trip to eat at a Cracker Barrel and walk around a Books-A-Million at a small mall down the road from the restaurant. I had been wanting to go to this store since my husband visited it and sent me photos. So many books in one place! I haven’t been to a bookstore in years but my husband and I used to go to Barnes and Noble near our old home (near in this area means a 30 minute drive), walk around, look at books and sip coffee (coffee for him, milk and sugar with a splash of coffee for me) so this brought back memories.

When we walked in to this store I seriously almost cried to see so many books. I kept going, “Oh. Oh. Oh it’s amazing.” I don’t know if I am sheltered or what but the idea of so many worlds under so many roofs was exhiliarating to me, especially since I have gotten back into reading again in the last couple of years. The Boy was embarrassed by my exuberance and wandered into the fantasy section so no one would know we were together.

I couldn’t find a section for Christian fiction and thought they might have slid them into the regular fiction section, or removed them all together, but a half an hour into our exploration of the store (it was fairly large), I found an entire corner dedicated to “religion”, which was mainly Christian-based books.

There were four or five sets of shelves of journals, Bibles, devotionals, Christian living books and an entire wall of Christian fiction. Sadly, since I found the section so late, I didn’t have as long to peruse the books as I would have liked. Print books are so expensive anymore ( trust me, I know why — when I price mine on sites, you have to set them high or you will make next to nothing as the author from their sale), but I did find a used copy by a new-to-me author, Nancy Mehl.

I also grabbed a couple of bargain classic books. I originally had a larger pile, but we have bills so I put two back. I grabbed Emma by Jane Austen and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain and I was going to buy Uncle Tom’s Cabin, but for financial reasons (like I was trying to spend too much on the week before we pay our mortgage) I put that one back, hoping I’ll still be able to buy them after all the ranting and raving some in our country are doing about what is racist and what isn’t. I want to make sure I have these books in print in case some try to ban them and in case Amazon decides to remove them from my Kindle, which I learned this week they are doing with books they have deemed “unacceptable.”

What I’m Reading

It seemed like a good transition to move from the bookstore visit to what I’ve been reading. This week I finished Sweeter, a book by an indie author, Jere Steele. It was a nice, easy-going and light read. I’ll have a review for it on the blog later this week.

I enjoyed Sweeter but decided to switch to Death Without Company: A Walt Longmire Mystery by Craig Johnson for a little more grit and suspense. I shouldn’t read Longmire books before bed, though, because then I have very intense dreams about being chased or trying to solve a murder in Wyoming.

I will probably start Emma this week as well to keep me to my plan to read more classics this year.

Little Miss and I are still reading Stormy: Misty’s Foal by Marguerite Henry. This book is a little tougher than some since it deals with the aftermath of a winter storm that wiped out more than half the pony population of Assateague Island. I’ve been skipping the many references to “airlifting dead ponies off the island” and instead reading “lifting debris off the island.” I don’t think the 6-year old needs to go to sleep picturing dead ponies being dragged onto the backs of trucks.

The Boy and I took a break from reading The Lord of the Flies this week, but will pick it back up on Monday.

What I’m Watching

We’ve been watching The Muppets and Friday we watched episodes with John Cleese, Peter Sellers, and Steve Martin. I loved all three but enjoyed Sellers the most. He was such a versatile talent.

We also went back to Doc Martin this week. We started season 4 and I don’t know if I will enjoy these later seasons as much as the first. I’m finding Louisa annoying and sort of want to throttle her and hug her all at the same time. Continuing on the British show theme, I started Agatha Raisin this week on Acorn TV and enjoyed the first episode. I will not, however, watch this series with my kids. It is not graphic so far but there are some adult themes featured that I’d rather not discuss with them.

What I’m Writing
Last week I shared some random thoughts, but not much else. I shared some photos from February as well. I have a few posts lined up for this upcoming week, however. I am also working on a couple of fiction stories, The Farmers’ Sons (notice the name change there. I had meant to change that before. It’s a book about at least three farmers’ sons, maybe a couple of more), and Lily. I may share the prologue of Lily sometime in March, but I’m not sure I’m ready to share this one yet. It’s going to be a tough one for me, dealing with some tough topics, but I still hope to have some joy in it.

As I mentioned Friay, The Farmer’s Daughter, is available now on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Apple iBooks, Scribd, and Smashwords.

For blog readers, I am offering the first two chapters free HERE.

I shared photos of our week yesterday in the February recap post, but here are few from the past week.

The hills are bare but still pretty impressive from this overlook. Our area isn’t called the “Endless Mountains” for no reason.
My dad decided to take us up to the overlook on this road, covered completely in snow. The higher we got the more snow was on the road and I was starting to get nervous, but Dad has a 4-wheel drive truck so he seems to think he can go wherever he wants. Luckily we made it down the road safely.

So that is my week in review, how was yours? Let me know in the comments!



Sunday Bookends: Balancing Books and Feeling like we live in Antartica

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn books and reading, everyday musings, Sunday Bookends6 Comments

Welcome to another Sunday Bookends where I share what I’m reading, watching, writing, eating, seeing, smelling — no, wait. Only what I’m reading, watching, writing, sometimes what I’m listening to and a little about what we’ve been up to. Feel free to let me know what you’ve been up to in the comments.

What’s Been Occuring

Aparently we are never going to have warm weather again. Or that’s how it feels right now, anyhow. I know we will eventually have warm weather, of course, but this has been one long winter.

Most of the 21 inches of snow that fell on us the week before last is still here and now they are calling for several more inches on Monday and Tuesday. We just got our driveway cleared from the last storm and now more snow is coming. I can’t even wrap my head around it. While the snow can be pretty, there has been anywhere from 2 to 24 inches of snow in our backyard since the end of December and at least a foot of it there since the beginning mid-January. There is so much snow that the deer are now coming into our yards to eat our bushes and trees.

We were able to get out of the driveway last week to go to my parents for a game night and the little supermarket downtown. Saturday my husband took me out for Valentine’s Day and we were able to get out of town and explore an area about 45 minutes away from our house. We had a late lunch at a restaurant we hadn’t been to before and then we – I can’t believe I am writing this but we went to buy cat food and cat litter at Walmart.

Yes, that was part of our Valentine’s Day date. This shopping trip for necessities was promptly mocked by The Boy who texted to me (after I told him where we were):

“Ah yes Walmart the most romantic place in the world. It’s the only place where you can find scented candles right next to the guns. Waiter: here are your Walmart specials pulls out Twinkie’s and a half warmed up frozen pizza.”

He’s quite funny and we’re hoping that he’ll be a famous comedian one day and puts us in a nice nursing community. You know, if the world allows us all to have humor again.

What I’m Reading

I’m almost finished with ‘Til I Want No More by Robin W. Pearson, which I am really enjoying, even though Maxine (the main character) was really driving me nuts in the first part of the book. When you read it, you’ll know what I mean. This story of redemption is very complex and a little heavy at times, but Robin is such a wonderful writer, it makes it all easier. Plus, we get to see Evelyn again from Robin’s first book A Long Time Comin’. The two books are not connected, other than Evelyn and Maxine being friends and both facing difficult secrets in their lives they needed to address.

I will probably finish Harriet Beamer Takes A Bus in the next couple of days as well. This book is so charming and sweet, I don’t want it to end, but luckily I have discovered that there is a sequel.

Little Miss and I just finished Misty of Chincoteague by Margaurite Henry last week and have moved on to Stormy, Misty’s Foal.

The Boy and I continue to suffer through The Lord of the Flies (good book, but a bit depressing with all the craziness going on in today’s world). It’s taking us a while because he has chapter questions and quizes every two chapters and I am really not in any rush to read it since I know how it ends.

What I’m Watching

I’ve been watching McLeod’s Daughters, an old Australian show on Amazon. It’s essentially a soap opera set out in the bush of Australia but without graphic sex or violence.

My husband and I are also watching Lovejoy, an older British show about an antique dealer who often gets wrapped up in some sort of criminal situation when trying to sell or buy antiques. It is much more interesting than I just made it sound. I promise.

We continue to watch Wanda Vision (a Marvel show on Disney), which is getting better each week.

What I’m Writing

Last week I wrote about censorship and freedom of speech;

Some random thoughts

And, the second part of chapter 1 for The Farmer’s Son.

I’m also finishing up edits on The Farmer’s Daughter and it will go live on Kindle on February 23rd.

What I’m Listening To

I am try to listen to more sermons and will continue that this week. I listened to a good sermon by Holly Furtick from Elevation Church, which I missed Sunday because I watched Robert Morris from Gateway Church. Here are links to those sermons in case you need some spiritual guidance or Biblical thoughts to chew on this week.

I’m also trying to make more time for podcasts and this week I hope to listen to more of Relatable by Allie B. Stuckey and The Babylon Bee podcast.

So that was my week in review. How about you? What have you been reading, watching, listening to, or doing? Let me know in the comments.

The Awkward Day My Dad Showed Me Where He’s Going to Be Buried

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings19 Comments

I wrote this post 7-years ago. I don’t know why, but I wanted to share it again today. Certain conversations with my dad lately reminded me of this one. I don’t think I ever shared this post on this particular blog so – yeah, you’re welcome for this one. Another note: shortly after this incident we found out my dad was dealing with Lyme Disease. It made him a little tired and gave him brain fog. Maybe that’s why his humor was a bit dark on this day, or maybe my whole family simply has dark humor at times.

A walk in the local cemetery is always a source of great joy in our family.

Not really, but we can pretend.

It seems like sometime around Memorial Day every year Dad and I end up at the cemetery down the road from his house, looking at the gravestones of dear departed relatives, most of which died before either of us were born.

The trips used to be a chance for Dad to tell me about the people buried there and how I am related to them. Always interesting, but the older my dad becomes the more morbid and depressing these trips become.

I’m also suspecting that some kind of internal switch has been switched off in Dad’s head the older he becomes because on our most recent trip he decided to regale my son and I with the story of how one of our relatives departed this earth. My son is six.

“That’s cousin So-And-So. She burned up in a barn fire.”

“Um…yeah…Dad…maybe not now…” and I jerked my head toward my son whose mouth was hanging open.

My Dad didn’t catch the head jerk. He squinted his eyes at me and looked confused. “Huh? No. I said she burned up in a fire. In a barn.”

Apparently being subtle wasn’t going to work here.

“OK. I got that but maybe saying it in front of the six year old wasn’t the best move,” I said and stared at him for a bit.

“Oh. Yeah. Ok.” He shrugged and kept walking.

Before long we found some ground under two big trees, away from some other stones.

“I bought two plots here years ago,” he said walking around the spot and making gestures with his arms in the pattern of lines while he looked down. “I think it was….” He stepped over a couple of places. “Right here.”

He stood looking at the ground a few moments. I shifted nervously next to a gravestone dated 1863 and hoped he would suggest we head back home now and end this awkward moment.

“Yeah. I think it was here. Not really a lot of space. I guess they can have my feet face the roots of these trees I helped plant when I was in Boy Scouts. Then my old body can feed the tree as it decomposes.”

The next time he suggests we visit the local cemetery I am going to emphatically say “no.”

Photos of the Week: A Whole Different World

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, Just the Photos Ma'm12 Comments

This intro is a re-share from part of my Sunday Bookends post.


When we moved to this rural Pennsylvania county last year, I told my husband how it was like living in an entirely different world. I grew up two miles from the county line and we could drive from our house to this town and it would be dry with green grass in our little village and a foot of snow in this town. I’d said it before and I don’t think he believed me until we moved here. Honestly, I don’t think I believed me until we moved here. It shouldn’t be any surprise to me that there has been snow on the ground here since Christmas Day (the week before 24 inches was dropped on us) but when my husband said the other day that the town he works in, which is only about 20 minutes away, doesn’t have any snow, reality hit me hard. I knew winters here would be a challenge and they are, but, hey, at least the snow is pretty. I don’t actually mind the snow that much, but the ice and the bitter cold temperatures? I could do without them. On Thursday of last week, the high was 16, the low 3. On Friday the high was 19, the low 3. Temperatures warmed up some for Saturday, with a high of 27 but Saturday also came with a Winter Storm Warning for Sunday through Tuesday. And here we are now: under several inches of snow and ice (the ice from last week) — again.
But, hey, I could live in Manitoba. Or I could be in the Northern Territory of Canada and never see green again! Winter will soon pass and while we won’t miss the cold, we will miss the pretty snow.

Sunday Bookends: Father Tim, Bitter Cold, Finally Trying to Read Non-Fiction

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings12 Comments

This is my weekly post where I share what I am reading, watching, writing and occasionally what I am listening to.

What I Am Reading

The problem I am having right now is there are too many books I want to read. I don’t know which one to pick first so I’ve just been reading a little bit of all of them.

I finished my first Agatha Christie book, And Then There Were None this week. I told my husband I would and I did. I finished it because he wants to watch a mini-series based on it and I said we couldn’t until I finished it. My mom, him (he?) and I all read the book in January — I think it was the first time for all three of us.

While her writing seems simple on the surface, she writes some profound things in a very short space.

Some favorite quotes from And Then There Were None:

“Emily Brent said in a clear voice: ‘In the midst of life, we are in death.'”

“There was nothing hidden in this house, nothing concealed. It had no atmosphere about it. Somehow, that was the most frightening thing of all. . . They exchanged good-nights no the upper landing. Each of them went into his or her own room, and each of them automatically, almost without conscious thought, locked the door . . .”

“The little eldlerly spinster was no longer slightly ridiculous to Vera. Suddenly — she was terrible.”

That last one reminded me of a family member, but we won’t go there.

I also started reading Bathed in Prayer by Jan Karon, which is a collection of Father Tim quotes from her Mitford series.

I enjoyed several parts from Jan’s introduction to the book including the following quotes:

“Over the years, I have learned to bathe my work in prayer. Say the word ‘bathe.’ It is a soft and caressing word. At the end of it, the tongue barely touches the upper teeth. I could dunk my work in prayer, or dip it, as into a vat, but bathing seems to work best.”

“A lot of readers wonder if Mitford is real. In truth, Mitford is everywhere. You can even find it in the heart of darkness. But we must do our part. We must give a hand we must learn to console and uplift and encourage and be courageous. Bottom-line, we simply can not wait for others to reach out. We must reach in.”

I also started 12 Rules for Life from Jordan Peterson which is one of the few non-fiction books I’ve read in my life.

Within the first few pages I realized I will have to read this book very slowly because it’s much too intellectual for my puny, brain-fogged brain. Right now I’m skimming through it, lighting on things I like, and will go back to the beginning in the future.

If you’ve never heard of Jordan Peterson, you can look him up on YouTube or Google him. He’s been caught up in some politically-motivated drama in the past, so some consider him controversial, but even if you don’t agree with him politically don’t dismiss him right away. Listen to his lectures and you will find yourself pondering life in a different way. I’m not a “follower”, no, but he does make me think.

Here are a couple of quotes from his book that caught my attention:


“But Christ’s archetypal death exists as an exampe of how to accept finitude, betrayal and tryanny heroicaly — how to walk with God despite the tragedy of self-conscious knowledge — and not as a directive to victimize ourselves in the service of others. To sacrifice ourselves to God (to the highest good, if you like) does not mean to suffer silently and willingly when some person or organization demands more from us, consistently, than is offered in return. That means we are supporting tyranny, and allowing ourselves to be treated like slaves. It is not virtuous to be victimized by a bully, even if that bully is oneself.”

“Random wandering will not move you forward. It will instead disappoint and frustrate you and make you anxious and unhappy and hard to get along with (and then resentful, and then vengeful, and then worse). Say what you mean, so that you can find out what you mean. Act out what you say, so you can find out what happens. Then pay attention. Note your errors. Articulate them. Strive to correct them. That is how you discover the meaning of your life. That will protect you from the tragedy of your life. How could it be otherwise? Confront the chaos of Being. Take aim against a sea of troubles. Specify your destination, and chart your course. Admit to what you want. Tell those around you who you are. Narrow, and gaze attentively, and move forward, forthrightly. Be precise in your speech.”

He has another book due out in March and people are – surprise, surprise – protesting it because that is what people do now when they disagree with someone. God forbid they use their disagreement as the basis for a conversation instead.

For fiction this week I am reading Harriet Beamer Takes the Bus by a new to me author, Joyce Magnin.

And Northwest Counter-Terrorism Task Force Book One (First Wave) by Lisa Phillips. It’s a fast-paced, quick read so far.

I’m also continuing to read Lord of the Flies with my son for school.

What I’m Watching

This past week we distracted ourselves from life with clips from the IT Crowd (we don’t watch entire episodes now because some of the topics of shows aren’t appropriate for the kids to watch with us.). This is one of my favorite scenes from that show. It reminds me a lot of my life.

We also started a mini series on AcornTV: Agatha Christie’s Partner’s in Crime. It is six episodes of a espionage mystery.

Of course we also continue to work our way through 14 seasons of the Canadian show Murdoch Mysteries.

What I’m Writing

I shared a Randomly Thinking post this past week and also shared the first chapter in The Farmer’s Son for Fiction Friday. I’m finishing the editing of The Farmer’s Daughter and it will go live on Kindle on February 23. You can pre-order it here. For those who followed the story here on the blog and would like a epub or mobi copy so you can read it in full, let me know by emailing me at lisahoweler@gmail.com so I can send it to you. If you would be willing to read it and leave a review on Amazon that would be awesome as well.

What’s Been Occurring
When we moved to this rural Pennsylvania county last year, I told my husband how it was like living in an entirely different world. I grew up two miles from the county line and we could drive from our house to this town and it would be dry with green grass in our little village and a foot of snow in this town. I’d said it before and I don’t think he believed me until we moved here. Honestly, I don’t think I believed me until we moved here.

It shouldn’t be any surprise to me that there has been snow on the ground here since Christmas Day (the week before 24 inches was dropped on us) but when my husband said the other day that the town he works in, which is only about 20 minutes away, doesn’t have any snow, reality hit me hard. I knew winters here would be a challenge and they are, but, hey, at least the snow is pretty.

I don’t actually mind the snow that much, but the ice and the bitter cold temperatures? I could do without them. On Thursday of last week, the high was 16, the low 3. On Friday the high was 19, the low 3. Temperatures warmed up some for Saturday, with a high of 27 but Saturday also came with a Winter Storm Warning for Sunday through Tuesday. And here we are now: under several inches of snow and ice (the ice from last week) — again.


But, hey, I could live in Manitoba, right, Lisa? Or I could be in the Northern Territory of Canada and never see green again! Winter will soon pass and while we won’t miss the cold we will miss the pretty snow.

Saturday I was sitting on the couch, depressed after my dad dumped a bunch of political stress on me (I’ve been doing a very good job avoiding all of that in the last week or so), so I decided to get off my computer and go find some life outside the house (even if I can’t pull our van out of the driveway right now.) My daughter and I braver the cold to some kindling for the fire in the woodpile.

We gathered some wood, found some kindling, explored the yard, and froze our faces off before we came back in – refreshed with the escape to the real world.

You know, the real world.

The world where wood stoves need to be filled, where driveways need to be shoveled, dogs played with, children laughed with. The longer I live, the older I get, the more I realize that the world of politicians and national media is some kind of alternate universe where everyone functions in fear, anger, and the desire for power. Trust me, the real world is much more calming.

So that was my week last week. How about you? Reading anything interesting? Watching any good shows? Doing anything fun? Listening to any new music? Let me know in the comments.

Randomly Thinking: Feeling Like I’m in High School Again, TV Shows stress Me Out, and Ack! Spiders!

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, Randomly Thinking14 Comments

Welcome to my weekly Randomly Thinking post where I share random thoughts that pop into my head throughout the week. Enter at your own risk. There is a lot of saracasm, teasing and jokes and a little bit of seriousness.

I need to stop getting so emotionally invested in TV shows. I remind myself everytime I start to get upset over how a particular plot line is going, “This is fiction. This is just a TV show. These are not real people. You do not need to feel anxiety about what does or does not happen in the next hour or hour and a half.” I find the fact I have to do this, sad, quite frankly, but I am sure I am not alone.

***

I have assigned Lord of the Flies to my 14-year old son for English class. We have assignments that go along with the reading as well. I haven’t read Lord of the Flies since 9th or 10th grade so I am reading it again with him and I’m going to be honest — this feels like high school again.

I don’t want to read Lord of the Flies.

I’m not really interested in it, the same as I wasn’t interested in it in high school. I feel like a teenager again when I realize I haven’t read the assigned chapters. I look at the book, tip my head back and do a little bit of flouncing and then go “Fiiiiiiine. I’ll read it! Stop bugging me.” When no is bugging me to do it, except myself. I was similar when I read Silas Marner with him but I ended up really liking that book.

***

While I’ve ditched most of my social media accounts, I can’t quit Instagram just yet, mainly because I can’t quit Grant Gosch who shares an Instagram live ever Saturday night from Ocean Creek, Oregon where he shares stories he’s written, or reads stories he hasn’t written. He talks a lot about whiskey and I don’t drink whiskey but I do like watching him talk about whiskey. I call him the “Bradley Cooper look alike writer of Instagram.”

You can find him here:


***

On Tuesday, when other homeschooling mothers were probably cooking dinners from scratch all while teaching their children two languages, every subject, and making oragami swans, I made a Play-Doh bunny with my daughter.

That’s right. I’m nailing the homeschooling Mom thing over here. I did teach her some other things, of course, later, but the Play-Doh bunny was the highlight of our day. We made puppies and bunnies after we created atoms and molecules out of Play-Doh

***

I’ve been fighting with the woodstove this week and I’ve won twice. I seem to have the hardest time getting the fire to light, but we’ve needed it throughout the days due to some kind of crazy Polar Vortex moving through, dropping temperatures into the teens. I have been getting the wood from the woodpile behind our garage myself on some days and asking our son to get them on others.

I’m always worried about a spider living in the woodpile and that fear was somewhat recognized this week when I pulled out a log with a dead spider in a web. Or at least I think it was dead. It wasn’t moving and I didn’t stick around to see if it was going to. I flung the piece of wood to the back of the storage area with a quick scream. While I’m worried about the spiders, my husband worries about snakes. Luckily we mainly have non-venamous snakes here and he’d probably only encounter a garter snake, but it would be fun to hear him scream like a — well, like me.

***

Standing in the snow, in our quiet backyard one night this week, I looked around at the woods behind our house, at the peaceful town below the hill we live on, at the church on the hill on the other side of town, and I realized what a blessing it is that we were able to move here from our previous house. I love it here. I love the fact we have a little bit of country and a little bit of town around us. I love going outside to gather wood from the wood pile for our woodstove. I love that we wake up many mornings, look out and see deer in our backyard.

(I love that it is winter and the bear are hibernating too).

Our neighbors’ homes are close to us on the sides, but behind us and in front of us and a little bit down the road, and really all around us, there is plenty of country scenery to take in. Moving here really has been one of the best things we ever did for our family.

***

We played Yahtzee with our neighbor last week, as I mentioned in last weeks “Random Thoughts.” It further proved I am horrible at math.

***

In writing news, I figured out how to set up pre-orders from The Farmer’s Daughter and you can do that here, for Amazon, and here, for Barnes and Noble. I will also be offering a free ebook of the book to my blog readers via Bookfunnel as a thank you for all the support while I was writing it and sharing it here. I’ll provide an update on that when I get closer to the February 23 release date.

***

Speaking of books, I am looking forward to the release of the second novel by Robin W. Pearson, ‘Til I Want No More, which releases February 2 and is available for pre-order anywhere you buy books.

***

My husband was in a super good mood after work yesterday. It was a shame because I hadn’t had a lot of sleep the night before so he was firing 100 percent and I was batting zero. Or, was he batting 100 and I was firing zero? Well, you get my drift.

***

My son stayed with his friend at our house the other day and I told them, “no playing with guns and no lighting anything on fire.” When I got back home, they told me they’d played video games, ate snacks, and laughed for 15 minutes at a funny sounding fart. Apparently, I had given them way too much credit. Two days after the friend left, he texted my son to tell him he had corona symptoms. We’ll see how that turns out. I’ll keep you all updated.

***

We subscribed to a weekly trial of Broadway HD last week so we could watch Peter Pan Goes Wrong, a production by the Mischief Theatre Company. The concept behind the “goes wrong” plays are that there is a fictional theater group who presents plays during which everything, yes “goes wrong.” Enjoy this clip from YouTube and if you want to watch more you can either see their show on Amazon or you can subscribe to Broadway HD and cancel the subscription like we did because no one really watches Broadway shows on TV, right? Or, obviously, you can find clips on Youtube.

So those are my random thoughts for the week. What are yours? Let me know in the comments and remember, I have a profanity filter on. *wink*

Faithfully Thinking: Peace Be Still

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings7 Comments

I don’t want to be afraid
Every time I face the waves
I don’t want to be afraid
I don’t want to be afraid
I don’t want to fear the storm
Just because I hear it roar
I don’t want to fear the storm
I don’t want to fear the storm

Peace be still
Say the word and I will
Set my feet upon the sea
Till I’m dancing in the deep
Peace be still
You are here so it is well
Even when my eyes can’t see
I will trust the voice that speaks

I’m not gonna be afraid
‘Cause these waves are only waves
I’m not gonna be afraid
No, I’m not gonna be afraid
And I’m not gonna fear the storm
You are greater than its roar
Oh, I’m not gonna fear the storm
No, I’m not gonna fear at all

Peace be still
Say the word and I will
Set my feet upon the sea
Till I’m dancing in the deep
Peace be still
You are here so it is well
Even when my eyes can’t see
I will trust the voice that speaks

Peace, peace over me

Let faith rise up
O heart believe
Let faith rise up in me
Let faith rise up
O heart believe
Let faith rise up in me
Let faith rise up
O heart believe
Let faith rise up in me
Let faith rise up
O heart believe
Let faith rise up in me

Peace be still
Say the word and I will
Set my feet upon the sea
Till I’m dancing in the deep
Peace be still
You are here so it is well
Even when my eyes can’t see
I will trust the voice that speaks

Sunday Bookends: Book abandoned, cold winter days, and Social Media Changes

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings14 Comments

This is my weekly post where I share what I am reading, watching, writing and occasionally what I am listening to.

What I’ve Been Reading

I had to abandon Maggie this week. Charles Martin is a really good writer, and I enjoyed The Dead Don’t Dance, but this book had to go a little more than half way through. It was like he was trying to see how much he could beat this woman down – literally and figuratively- and I just couldn’t handle it. She’d lost one baby and in the second book she lost another one after she was beat up by criminals. I was like “I get books need a lot of drama to keep a reader hooked, but this is ridiculous.”
With all the sadness and darkness and anger in the world, I just didn’t need to read it in my books too. Again, I love Martin’s writing, but I don’t get books that have to have so many bad things happen to the main characters that you just wished they’d die so they didn’t have to feel the pain anymore.

I started reading another book by Amy K. Sorrels called, How Sweet the Sound, on my Kindle so I have something to read at night when I turn the lights off. This is the second book I’ve read by her and so far I am enjoying this one, even though it isn’t super uplifting so far.

I’m also still reading a paperback copy of Rescue Me by Susan May Warren and a couple chapters a week of The Lord of the Flies with The Boy and Paddington at night with Little Miss.

What I’ve Been Watching

We had been continuing to watch Doc Martin together as a family until we hit an episode with an unexpected sex scene and traumatized my 14-year old son before we could get it turned off. Honestly, it traumatized all of us because of who it involved but that’s all I’m going to say about that. We will cautiously watch future episodes with my husband and I probably screening them from now on before our son watches them with us.

This last week I also started McLeod’s Daughters which I think is an Australian show, but then they also said something about living in New Zealand so I am confused where it takes place. I don’t know if I will stick with it or not but it is a nice distraction from all the weirdness of the world right now.

For Family Movie Night tonight we plan to watch The Goes Wrong Show’s Peter Pan Goes Wrong on a trial of Broadway HD.

What’s Been Occurring

I made sure my Facebook account was wiped and deleted last week and moved over to MeWe.com but won’t be on there much. Social media is too distracting and I have a lot of writing I want to get done. I went to MeWe.com to connect with homeschooling moms and readers of Christian or clean fiction and I found them. I found less political strife and censorship of conservative beliefs there so far.

We’ve been stuck inside the house lately either due to weather or the battery in our van dying. The time at home has been filled with homeschooling, me working on the final draft of The Farmer’s Daughter (rewriting, proofing, etc.), reading, learning how to light fires in the woodstove and of course worrying about the state of the world . I printed part of The Farmer’s Daughter out last week and am now taking it page by page and making corrections and will then print it again and have my mom and husband read through it before I kick it up on Amazon in February.

Saturday we woke up to more wet, heavy snow on the trees and ground, covering the grass that had started to appear as our previous snow started to melt at the end of the week.

I haven’t been taking a lot of photos lately since we’ve been inside so much but I’ll share a few here at the end of the blog. We did try a little sledding at my parents last Sunday but Little Miss hadn’t brought her winter coat or gloves (I thought we had them with us) and doesn’t really like sledding anyhow. The Boy decided he liked the sledding and Zooma the Wonder Dog decided she did too because she could chase The Boy and bark at him all the way down the hill. He almost ran her over more than once and she also dragged him down the hill by grabbing on to his boots at one point when the sled stopped sliding. While my dad often sleds with the kids, I think he decided that day it was too cold so he decided to watch instead.

With all the cold weather, we’ve lit our woodstove almost every day to keep the house warm and also cut down on our heating oil bill. Heating oil is new for us since we had natural gas at our other house. The animals love the warmth of the stove and some nights we find them passed out in the floor near it like they’ve been drugged.

What I’ve Been Writing

Last week I didn’t share a lot of blog posts, partially because I am dealing with issues with my eyes watering every day but the allergy medicine I usually take making me dizzy, and partially because I was flat out depressed by the state of the world.

I did share a post about homeschooling one day and enjoyed all the encouraging responses from other homeschooling moms and others who don’t even homeschool. Having a supportive blogging community is one of the bright spots in the world today and for that I am thankful.

As I mentioned above, I’m also editing The Farmer’s Daughter and have started writing more on The Farmer’s Son, which will be the story of Molly’s brother Jason. I’m trying to decide if I want to go back in Jason’s story or pick up around Robert’s accident. I’m not sure yet so I will be working through that this week.

What I’m Listening To

My husband pointed out a new song by Zach Williams this week called Rise Up, where he joined with someone called CAIN (not sure if that is a band or a singer) and Elevation Worship also released a new album we’ve been enjoying. I also found a new video by Zach Williams on YouTube.

So that’s my week in review. What have you been reading, watching, listening to, writing or doing? Let me know in the comments.

Educationally Speaking: Homeschooling updates or why I have more gray hair now

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings23 Comments

Based on the title you might think my children are causing me stress during our homeschooling journey, but they are not.

I’m causing my own stress by worrying I’m not teaching them correctly and comparing our journey to the journey of other other students, homeschooling and otherwise.

Or at least this is what I had been doing for part of our school year but in the last month or so, something clicked and I realized my children are following their own educational path and that’s not only okay, but a good thing.

In addition, the students who are attending public school around us right now aren’t even receiving a consistent education with students being pulled in and out of the classroom and tossed onto virtual learning on a whim. I can’t even imagine how hard it is for public school students right now to figure out whether they are coming or going in their subjects.

I think some parents who do not homeschool their children, see homeschooling parents as being foolish, unqualified, and unable to provide their children an actual education. In some cases, this may be true, but in the majority of cases, a parent truly can provide a very well rounded, high quaility education for their children at home. One reason they can do this is because of the plethora of homeschooling and educational resources available to parents, students, and teachers in book form and online.

Another reason they can do this is because of all the support available within the homeschooling community. Homeschooling parents love to see other homeschooling parents succeed, no matter why a parent has decided to homeschool.

One thing I have had to overcome with the idea of schooling at home is my preconceived notion that children have to be sitting at a desk with school work for six hours at time to be properly educated . This really isn’t realistic and isn’t even how children are taught in public schools. In public schools there are breaks for recess and lunch and extracurricular activities, so a child isn’t strapped to a desk for such long periods, but somehow new homeschooling parents seem to think our children should be.

One of the benefits of homeschooling is that it isn’t traditional schooling, which means it doesn’t have to operate like traditional school.

I find that Little Miss (6) does much better with short spurts of learning and breaks in between for art, creating or playing. Since we are homeschooling, we have that luxury and flexibility to allow that for her.

She’s also learning a lot more with this style of education than I first realized.

During the beginning part of the school year, I really felt like I was failing her because she is behind on her reading, or at least I feel she is behind. On one particulary frustrating day I wanted to cry I was so frustrated. I gave up on reading for a bit. Instead, I handed her a paper about sea animals and said she could color the animals. The paper suggested the child look at how plants and animals rely on each other, but also how some animals rely on another animal to survive.

I explained this to her and she said, “Oh, you mean like this Oxpecker bird and the crocodile.”

I looked at her with wide eyes and waited to see what else she would say.

Without prompting she said, “So, the Oxpecker bird helps the crocodile because it cleans its teeth and the crocodile helps the Oxpecker because it gets fed. Symbiotic.”

“What’s symbiotic?”

“Their relationship. It’s symbiotic.”

Symbiotic? Whoa. Where had that word come from?

“Where did you hear that word?”

“Wild Kratts,” she announced.

If you don’t know, Wild Kratts is an animated show on PBS about wild animals. It is a shoot off of other shows with the Kratt brothers (Zomoomafoob, etc. ). The brothers travel the world (or at least pretend to) and encounter different animals and teach their young viewers about the animals. Wild Kratts presents them as animated characters who have joined with other characters to rescue various wildlife.

It wasn’t only that she had learned the word that startled me, but that she had retained the information, was able to repeat it clearly, and also remembered the rather large word to describe the relationship.

She moved on as she pointed to a fish on the page and slid her pencil across the paper to indicate it was related to the shark on the page.

“So this is a Remora fish,” she announced, pointing to the picture of the fish, which was not labeled. “Remoras hang on to the shark and when the shark kills something there will be little bits of food for the Remora to eat. It swims underneath this shark because it gets the pieces of food that drop from whatever the shark is eating. They have a symbiotic relationship. Their relationship is kind of different from the others. I mean, Remora is a fish and the shark is eating fish so it’s a little weird for him, but it still gives him a meal and it’s still a symbiotic relationship. It’s good for the environment. It’s how everyone survives.”

I just sat and stared at her and wanted to cry, this time from joy. Thirty minutes earlier I had been in tears because she was writing her “c” backward and blanked on identifying “s”, but here she was now defining symbiotic for me. And when she couldn’t figure out I wanted her to combine the sounds of letters together to create words? I was like “Oh my gosh. She probably has a learning disability.”

Mind you, this was the first week we were really focusing on blending sounds so why my mind went to her having a learning disability, I have no idea, other than I knew I’d have to research how to teach her differently if she did have a learning delay. I wanted to nip it in the bud early so she doesn’t struggle later.

I should have realized she is learning a lot more than I thought by how she speaks about activities or crafts, such as when she was making slime and was explaining to me, “You mix it until, well, you know, you get the right consistency.”

She couldn’t explain what consistency was with an official definition, but she knew that her slime had to be either thicker or thinner and knew that was somehow related to the word consistency.

My son was similar at her age. Reading letters wasn’t really his thing but his comprehension and verbal skills were way beyond his age. It’s the same now, which is why at 14 I have him reading books he probably wouldn’t be reading until 10th grade, at least at the public schools in our area.

Right now we are reading Lord of the Flies, which I think I read in 10th grade, but maybe 9th. I can’t remember.

In the first part of our school year we read Silas Marner by George Elliott, which isn’t really a book I hear about a lot of 14-year old boys reading.

We will read To Kill A Mockingbird in the last half of our school year.

In addition to reading and comprehension, I will be starting a new math program through The Good and the Beautiful with my daughter once it arrives in the mail. The program incoporates storytelling in teaching math and since Little Miss loves storytelling (making them up, reading and watching them) I think she will love this curriculum. I bought it on sale last week because they are going to be phasing it out for a new curriculum sometime this year.

We have also started a science program that I can use for both of the children. It offers an extension for my son to answer questions from for additional information from each lesson. It is also through The Good and the Beautiful.

For my son’s history, we continue to use Notgrass’s From Adam to Us and I continue to supplement with various videos, books, web sites, or activities. We also use resources they provide through their history site.

Two weeks ago I started adding open-book quizes to his History lessons by developing the questions and answers myself. I allow him to use his books to find the answers as I feel it will help to solidify the information for him. It means I have to sit and read every section I assign him and take about 30 to 45 minutes to develop the quiz, but I like the idea of getting even more out of the reading than he can simply by reading the section.

I am trying to add more to his schedule, but I am also trying to not stress if he either misses an assignment or we both forget to complete one. I have learned that homeschooling is a journey in education and the more relaxed we are about it, the better the kids and even I learn, because through homeschooling I am also learning more about the subjects they are studying.

I either forgot a lot of what I was taught in middle and high school or my school did a horrible job at teaching history especially.

I would like to add a government course to my son’s classes in the spring, but we will see if that happens or if we push that off until the fall. With all that is going on in the world I think it would be a good idea for him to know how our government is supposed to work instead of how it is working right now, which isn’t great.

I’m finding one of the benefits of homeschooling is being able to take the time to show my children what actual adults should act like and that bullying, while glorified now by Hollywood and all of the media, is not what we should be doing. In some ways I am sheltering them from this by keeping them in a home education environment versus a public one but in other ways I am exposing them to the cruelty of the world in a slower, less overwhelming and panic inducing fashion.

There are a lot more the kids are learning this year that I haven’t mentioned in this post, but I plan write about that in some separate posts in the next month or so.