Category: Saturday Afternoon Tea

Saturday Afternoon Chat: A brief homeschool update, I broke my book-buying ban….again, and Ilia Milanin is just – wow!

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Saturday Afternoon Tea9 Comments

This homeschool year has been different than the past nine years I have been homeschooling.

One, I’m only homeschooling one child this year. Of course, I was only homeschooling one child for a year or so before I moved Little Miss into official lessons when she was about 5.

But this year, my oldest has already graduated.

Little  Miss is in fifth grade, and this year we added online classes to the lessons we were doing from our physical textbooks.

We were already using online videos/curriculum for math, but this year we found Outschool and began to add art classes, two science classes, and three clubs where Little Miss can interact with other students and an instructor.

Little Miss absolutely loves the art classes. We will not be giving them up anytime soon.

She also enjoys the other classes — even the science, which I thought she might want to give up over the summer, but doesn’t want to.

She actually wants to continue all of her classes this summer, so we are becoming semi-all-year-round homeschoolers.

Doing that would actually be great because it means we can take breaks whenever we want and still hit our required 180 days of school under the Pennsylvania homeschool law.

In addition to the online classes, we recently enrolled Little Miss in art classes once a week about a 45-minute drive from our house.

She’s really enjoying this.

Mixed with online and in-person classes is the curriculum-based work we do.

This year we are using Beautiful Feet’s literature-based history curriculum, Evan Moore worksheets for grammar, punctuation, and spelling, and The Good and the Beautiful for science unit studies.

We have read The Singing Tree by Kate Seredy this year and excerpts from a fiction book about the Civil War.

The Singing Tree focuses on World War I from the perspective of Hungarian-Austrian farmers.

We usually read more books throughout the year. I’m not really sure what happened to us this year but since we are continuing to homeschool during the summer (at least part time anyhow), we have plenty of time to dig into another one.

We meet with our homeschool evaluator in the beginning of June, but before that I have to give Little Miss a standardized test online, which is required in Pennsylvania for third, fifth, and eighth grades.

Yesterday, Little Miss, The Husband, and I stopped at a book sale at a library in the town where Little Miss takes her classes.

That visit resulted in me breaking my book-buying ban for March and April. I am, however, going to try to restart the ban on April 1—no fooling!

I did not institute a ban on myself because I think it is bad to own books but because I have plenty I want to read and I’d like to get through those before I buy anymore.

There was a nice selection at the sale this year but I stuck to authors I knew, for the most part, and even bought two books I already own.

They were both Jan Karon books. One of them is a paperback version of a huge hardback collection I own, and I thought it would be nice to have a “lighter” version of that one.

Of course, Little Miss needed to pick out a couple of cozy mysteries for me, a tradition when we visit this sale. I was very excited she picked up Cat Who book I haven’t read yet and then I found another one I hadn’t read yet as well.

The Husband found three books I might read after him, including a Raymond Chandler one, The Big Sleep.

Here is my stack, without The Husband’s books:



The only problem is finding places to put these books we keep buying. Luckily, I have a plan to rehome the ones I have read and don’t think I will read again. That went very well last time when I put them all in a bag for my husband to distribute to the many free little libraries he drives past. Sarcasm alert because both he and I forgot about the books and I’m fairly certain they are still sitting in the trunk of my car.

I’ll keep trying to find homes for these little guys.

The weather has been so crazy for the past month, but the last two weeks have taken the cake. One day it is 70, the next 32 and so on. My sinuses are miserable from it all. Today the high is going to be 34 and I won’t be doing much other than taking some groceries to my parents.

This upcoming week shouldn’t be busy at the beginning of the week, but definitely will be after Thursday, which is when my husband is having dental surgery. I’m not looking forward to that day because we have to get up so early and because I am just nervous about the procedure itself. We aren’t sure how he will be feeling afterwards but he is calling Monday to get more details.

Completely off topic but I just watched Ilia Malinin win his third World Figure Skating Championship and fell into a YouTube spiral of watching his videos afteward.

I’ve never seen anyone skate the way he does, pulling off those quad axels and jumps like he’s just skating along on a frozen pond somewhere. It’s like nothing for him. Of course, I know it has taken years of practice, discipline, and work to get there but it just feels like it’s nothing for him.

The height he gets on those jumps is like nothing I have ever seen before. I’ve been watching skating for more than 30 years and I definitely have my favorites from way back. Some were stronger in artistry and some in technical skills but they were so entertaining either way. With Ilia you have someone who is strong in every aspect of skating. He is outstanding technically but also artistically.

When he does those jumps it is almost other worldly — beyond human capability.

In case you haven’t seen him yet, here is his program from today’s World Championships and a then video that shows you how amazing his quad jumps are.

How have things been going for you? Anything interesting going on or going to go on?

Saturday Afternoon Chat – Return of the King just won’t end, weird weather, and adventures in driving with a new driver

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Saturday Afternoon Tea4 Comments

It has been a long time since I have written a Saturday Afternoon Chat, but it feels good to be sitting down just to chat with all of you.

I have tea news!

I plan to finally try a new tea today. An apple cinnamon one.

That’s right, I am going to be brave after usually only drinking peppermint tea because sometimes other teas cause me to break out.

My sister-in-law gave me a sampling of teas last year, though, and my husband really liked one of them, so I bought us another pack and I am going to try the tea.

I’ll let you know what I think next week.

What teas have you been drinking lately?

Little Miss has been taking art classes once a week for the last couple of months in a town about 45 minutes away from where we live.

The Husband took her the first month, and The Boy and I have been taking her this time around.

The Boy has been nice enough to drive because long drives sometimes flare up some of my autoimmune symptoms.

The trips have been quite an adventure, with us getting pulled over last week due to the officer thinking our registration had run out, then me almost causing us to get into an accident when I told the boy he was in the wrong lane, but didn’t tell him to look out to make sure a car wasn’t coming before he moved into the right lane.

As a new driver, he drives well but was a bit on edge, and after we were almost hit, he made me drive the rest of the day.

The police incident happened when we pulled into a gas station parking lot so I could use the bathroom and The Boy could pick up a soda.

He blocked us in and then turned his lights on, and The Boy and I almost wet ourselves…I am not going to lie.

He was very polite and asked us if we had just renewed our registration, and I said we had the night before. He said he thought so and said something about the computer and our information, and and and…. I don’t even know how it works, I’m just so glad he didn’t make us get out of the car because I would have fainted.

I have never actually fainted, but I feel faint when I am anxious. I call myself a fainting goat. Somehow, I stayed conscious when the officer (chief, actually) was talking to us.

The thing about these trips is that they are never quick or simple. Something weird always seems to happen.

The classes are 90 minutes long, but we usually have to run other errands while we are in town. One of those errands is picking up sushi for Little Miss at a local supermarket after her class. She thinks she has to have sushi every time we visit that town.

Last week we picked up our groceries at Aldi, made a Walmart run and bought sushi and fruit.

This week, The Boy and I ran to get the sushi while Little Miss was in her class and The Husband picked up the grocery order in another town. That made our trip a little shorter than others.

This weekend, we are mainly relaxing, but The Husband is taking Little Miss to a movie, and I will be taking some groceries to my parents and maybe straightening up their house a little.

Tomorrow I will be participating in a Crafternoon (some fellow bloggers get together to do crafts and chat), though I am not sure who is attending since it is spring and some will probably be out enjoying the nice weather. We, however, do not have nice weather yet.

We’ve had rain, snow, cold, some warmth, then more cold in the last couple of weeks.

My sinuses are begging for some relief as the up and down temps cause them to suffer.

Also begging for relief is my brain since I am almost done with Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien but it.will.not.end.

Don’t get me wrong, I have enjoyed the book, but it should have ended about six chapters ago. I had no idea we were going to walk a bunch of characters home and then have a whole battle with “ruffians” in The Shire before the thing would end. Then there is 100-200 page appendix that lists the history of Middle Earth, characters, events, language and a bunch of other stuff I will not be reading.

The phrase “it will not end” makes me think of the time Elijah Wood was on Graham Norton and said he ran into Jack Nicholson who asked him how the trilogy ended because he got up and left before the end because the last movie would never end.  He was right too.

Imagine if Peter Jackson had decided to include the chapter called “The Scouring of The Shire.” It definitely would have never ended.

Blah. No, thank you.

I looked online, and some fans say it is the most important chapter in the book because some believe Tolkien was using it as an allegory to the aftermath of World War I or something or other. It might be, but for me it is terribly boring and I don’t know why it is there.

Ha! I’m kidding a bit. It isn’t totally boring…just a bit dragged out.

I mean, I get that Tolkien just wasn’t ready to let go of his characters, but he really needed to. They completed the task they set out on two books ago (or five when he first released them). Task over, story over. That’s how I feel.

Anyhow, I hope to have the book finished today so I can finally say I read The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

And that I enjoyed most of it.

Before bed tonight, Little Miss and I have to wind her cat up. Cass is the kitten that was dropped off at our house the day before Halloween last year. He is young and a bit annoying because he is used to my husband getting up at 7 for work and letting him outside.

With the time change, he started yowling at 6 to be let out but for the past week he’s started running his little mouth at 5 a.m. every morning. It wakes my husband up and once he’s up, he can’t go back to sleep. It’s also woke me up but I am very blessed to be able to lay back down and usually fall back to sleep.

The second morning he tried this I almost let him out at 5 a.m. but it was 14 degrees out. The next time he tried it I got up at 6 and put him out the front  door.

Then I started to think that if we got him extra tired before Little Miss and I go to bed at night maybe he would sleep through to when The Husband gets up. We tried it Thursday night and he didn’t yowl until 6. We did it again last night and I only saw him at 7 when I got up to use the bathroom so I put him out so The Husband could sleep in some on his day off.

Little Miss loves this cat, but between him stealing raw meat from the counter when I am trying to defrost it (he literally rips the packaging and gnaws on the meat or drags it off!), screaming at 5 a.m., almost tripping us by flopping over on his side in the kitchen floor when he wants attention, and all his other antics, there are days I want to give him away.

But then he looks up at me with those big eyes, and I know I could never do it.

He also follows Little Miss around, curls up with her in the mornings, and lays his head on her shoulder like a big baby any time she picks him up.

I guess that’s it for me this time around.

I hope you are all doing well and had a good week last week.

Saturday Afternoon Chat: Major winter storm prep and mischevious cats

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Saturday Afternoon Tea18 Comments

What I like about winter is how, when it snows or is icy outside, I have an excuse to stay at home, drink tea or cocoa, and read books or watch movies.

What I don’t like about winter is that sometimes we get a snowstorm that dumps so much snow on us I can’t get out of my driveway for a week, and I am stuck inside and unable to have the choice to go anywhere if I want to.

Tomorrow we are getting a snowstorm that could dump almost two feet of snow on us.

Today we have temps in the single digits.

Neither situation is good and has our family in lockdown mode.

Luckily, today’s boredom should be helped with a Crafternoon zoom call (those are still a thing we do and if you are ever interested in participating, let me or Erin know), and then a zoom art class for Little Miss.

The art class is with Cornell in Ithaca, NY, and was suggested by my sister-in-law who is also attending.

Crafternoon is where a bunch of bloggers hang out on Zoom and chat while doing crafts.

At our vet appointment a couple of weeks ago the vet estimated his age around nine months which means he really is a kitten/child and he shows it a lot.

My cats are going stir crazy with all the cold weather we have been getting and keeping them inside a few more days is not going to be fun. The youngest is especially crazy lately.

He likes to chase our feet and toes for one, but yesterday, after The Husband and The Boy brought in the groceries, he got into the meats before I could get them put up (I was on the phone with my mom). He gnawed the plastic off a beef roast and then gnawed part of the roast as well. While we were putting that up, he stuck his head in another bag and tired to eat some raw chicken. Yes, we do feed him.

I was hoping that the temperature would rise when the snowstorm came in and I could let him back outside to get some of his energy out, but it appears that our high temps during the storm will be 15. That means Little Miss won’t be able to go out and play in the snow like she usually does.

This could definitely mean downed power lines and power outages in this rural area with a lot of trees, which does have me on edge. I am more on edge for my parents than us since we have the benefit of a woodstove to help with heat and they don’t.

But I’ve been working on not focusing on “what ifs” so I will try my best not to worry about all those things for now.

Thursday, the kids and I headed to my parents’ house to help clean up a bit and do some things before they and we get snowed in.

The Boy helped my dad get his generator ready, and I cleaned the kitchen and vacuumed the living room floor.

The Boy also took Zooma the Wonder Dog for a long walk in the cold temps, but at least it was 34 that day verses the 1 degree it was here this morning. It’s 5 now. It’s supposed to get to only 8 today. Three degree warm up! Whoot!

 It’s so cold out there that last night our back porch was snapping and cracking and going off like a gunshot. I wonder if it will explode like the trees might out west. I guess we will find out.

I am preparing a list of movies today that I want to watch during this winter storm event which could last through Tuesday or longer for me, since my driveway is so steep.

They will most likely be classic movies – before 1970.

Making the list is The Public Enemy with James Cagney from 1931 because I can’t find Angels with Dirty Faces streaming anywhere (even YouTube!) and that was the next movie in my James Cagney line up. I really should have double checked if these movies  were streaming before I chose them. You think I’d learn but I never do. I will have to adjust my list yet again.

I also plan to rewatch After the Thin Man.

I hope to be able to watch a John Wayne film too. Or some sort of Western. I’ve been itching for one.

I’m sure there will be some Cagney & Lacey and Murder, She Wrote watched as well.

Maybe even an episode of The Rockford Files since The Husband will be home from work part of the time.

How is the weather where you are? Gross and nasty or fairly pleasant? I always hesitate to ask this because there is always some Southern California resident who is like, “I just went for a walk in my shorts and flip flops and now I’m having a mimosa on the veranda,” and I want to throat punch them (not really!) but I’ll take even that today. I can live vicariously through you. Ha! Seriously, if you live somewhere warm – like Australia or New Zealand or something – feel free to tell me because I actually love knowing there are other parts of the world that are nice and warm when I am cold and trying to light the fire in the woodstove.

If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.

On Thursdays, I am part of the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot blog link party. You can find the latest one in the sidebar to the right under recent posts.

I also post a link-up on Sundays for weekly updates about what you are reading, watching, doing, listening to, etc.

If you would like to support my writing (and add to the fund for my daughter’s online art/science classes), you can do so here.

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.

Saturday Evening Chat: Small things that make me happy

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, Saturday Afternoon Tea14 Comments

The world is absolutely insane right now, I think many of us can agree on that.

Yesterday, Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs wrote about combating all the stress from national/world event by focusing on some small things that make her happy and I thought that today I would copy her.

First, I have to agree with Erin wrote about enjoying oranges lately. My parents’ neighbors gave them some oranges called Cara oranges the other week. They are pink inside and so delicious. We picked some up from Aldi for ourselves and now opening one is like having a moment of respite in the middle of a crazy day.

This is not my photo…I didn’t have any of the oranges left to take a photo of! Ha!

I love the smell of them, but I’ve always loved the smell of citrus things. I have an essential oil called Energy and it is full of citrus essential oils — lemon, orange, etc. It’s such a mood booster for me when I sniff it. Sadly, I haven’t been able to find my bottle, so I’ll have to get another one soon.

Another small thing that is making me happy these days is reading Miss Read’s Village School by Miss Read.


It’s an easy-going book about a teacher in a small school in a small village in England. There are quirky characters and interesting storylines throughout, with most of the chapters set up as their own little stories, but with the same characters.

Reading it helps me feel like I can escape the craziness of my life and the world right now, if only for a half an hour or so. I read and I step from Little Town, Pa. to Faircare, England.

Another small thing that is making me happy is finding Cagney & Lacey on Amazon Prime and starting to watch it for the first time.

For those who aren’t familiar, it’s a show about two women cops that use to air on CBS back in the 1980s.

The main characters are Christine Cagney (Meg Foster for the first six episodes and then Sharon Gless) and Mary Beth Lacey (Tyne Daly). The show is surprisingly pretty good, though there are some cheesy 80s moments. It’s similar to Murder, She Wrote in that it is good and addictive but sometimes it must be made a bit of (affectionate) fun of.

I’m also finding happiness in the journal The Husband gave me for Christmas. It’s a journal in the front with an agenda in the back. It has a pretty front cover and nice lined pages inside with a place to write the date as the month, day, and year.

I am using it to get back into personal, daily or at least weekly journaling. I hope to record the good as much as the bad because when I was younger, I recorded mostly the bad, which made me look either super depressed or super cranky all of the time.

If I don’t write a full entry, I am trying to at least list three things I am thankful for. Let’s see how long that lasts.

Another small thing that is making me happy is warming up my rice pack in this cold weather (which is starting to return), sticking it under my blanket near my feet and either writing, reading, or watching something.

I’ve already shared that sometimes I then pull my blanket over my laptop and head and create a makeshift heated dome/tent for myself.

It’s very cozy and feels like shutting out the world in a small way.

My neighbors have not taken all their Christmas lights and displays down yet and I love looking out my window and seeing them. They started taking them down today but I told the wife I’d love if they at least leave the ones up on their front porch (they’re white and blue) to perk up the darkness of January and February.

I could probably list a few small things that are making me happy, but I think I’ll save those for another day because I have a feeling I am going to need to make my world smaller again to feel less overwhelmed.

Saturday Evening Chat: Bad weather, Christmas “recovery” and a recovering kitten

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Saturday Afternoon Tea13 Comments

Sleet was slamming against our windows and had been doing so for close to 90 minutes when I started writing this Friday night. It continued for another couple of hours until our driveway and streets were a thick layer of ice.

The first alert about a winter storm said we might receive up to eight inches of snow but then we were told we would get more ice than snow. It appears the report about the ice was right.

This unexpected storm scuttled our plans to go see a big Christmas light display Friday, so we stayed inside with the tree still lit, the fire burning in our woodstove, and an old movie on TV. Actually, we watched three old movies Friday — The Thin Man, Meet Me In St. Louis, and – uh-oh, a mystery one from the 1930s with William Powell that I don’t want to look the name up of now. I’ll do that for tomorrow’s Sunday Bookends post.

Today we are inside again as the leftover from the storm has made travel a little dicey or at least unpredictable. Little Miss has a friend over and they were looking forward to the light display but we feel safer hanging out at home. Luckily we still have a few more days to see  the display.

We might say we are recovering from Christmas, but we really aren’t. Christmas wasn’t too big of a challenge since the kids, husband, and I simply headed over to my parents for pizza and wings on Christmas Eve and Christmas dinner on Christmas. We provided the pizza and wings and the dinner but none of it was too hard to make.

The Husband has more reason to be tired since he worked part of the week. Luckily, he is now off until January 5.

Earlier in the week, The Husband drove our new cat (Cass) to the vet to be neutered, and we went up in the afternoon to pick Cass up. It’s about a 45-minute drive to the clinic. Our son (The Boy) drove up and then we both became a bit overwhelmed with the Christmas traffic in the town we used to live in – which is much bigger than the town we now live in.

The worst was the Walmart parking lot, where we went to wait for a pickup order that included a new iPad for my dad.

I believe social media can be very evil, but Facebook has given my dad a way to connect with friends and family. His old iPad has been dying for a bit, so it was time for a new one for him.

He didn’t exactly act surprised when he opened it but he did act appreciative.

I’m sure he overheard Mom making the suggestion to me a couple of weeks ago. It’s funny because I had a similar idea about that being his gift this year.

My brother and his wife helped with it as well (a lot actually), it was my mom’s idea, and we drove to pick it up after I ordered it, so it was a joint gift.

Back to the cat — he is recovering well from his surgery, but has been desperate to get back outside. He cried and cried and yowled for the first couple of days, but then he got very quiet and kept lying on the floor looking sad as if he had given up hope of ever being let outside again. I decided to let him outside a bit today to cheer him up, and I think he was very happy at first — until he realized how horribly cold it was. He didn’t last long, but I think it was a relief to him to realize he had the freedom to come in and out again.

Now he’s back inside, curled up and happy to be in the warmth as he continues to heal.

When I let the cats out, I try my best not to worry about them being hit by the cars that sometimes fly by our house to take a shortcut to the local garden store.

Sometimes I would prefer to keep our cats inside all of the time, but they love to explore and hunt and mainly stay close to home. I have a feeling they won’t want to be outside much next week since we will have a stretch of days with temps that won’t even reach above 18!

Totally off the subject, but today I watched White Christmas by myself on my laptop and noticed things I don’t normally notice about the movie. For one, I never noticed how when Bing and Rosemary’s characters meet and start to argue, they keep inching closer to each other instead of farther away. The body language is so subtle yet makes it clear that the two feel a pull toward each other but are both stubborn and want to be right.

I noticed a lot more little details this time around that I don’t normally notice, maybe because I had the laptop so close.

I’ve been doing this a lot lately – watching movies on my laptop with a blanket and my heated rice pack. I pull the blanket up over my head and laptop and have a little heated comfort cocoon. The only days I don’t do it are when we have the fire roaring. Then it is too hot. I find this little cocoon very comforting and a chance to recharge mentally. Maybe I need to buy one of those heated igloos that restaurants use so people can sit outside on the patio in the winter. I could just sit in it while my family does whatever they do around me.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. Let me know in the comments how it went or if you received anything special as a gift.

If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.

On Thursdays, I am part of the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot blog link party. You can find the latest one in the sidebar to the right under recent posts.

I also post a link-up on Sundays for weekly updates about what you are reading, watching, doing, listening to, etc.

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.

Saturday Afternoon Chat: Cozying down for winter and protecting my peace

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Saturday Afternoon Tea19 Comments

What I like about winter is that it forces me to slow down and really focus on the things that bring me joy.

“Winter?” you might say. “Isn’t it still fall?”

Technically, yes, but this week in addition to our temps falling, we had snow on the ground, which to me is the sign that winter is really here. Because of our steep driveway that tends to get slippery, I spend a lot of time at home in the winter.

When I am home, I try to keep things as cozy as I can, which means watching movies and reading books I find comforting and that aren’t full of dark subject matter that will remind me of dark moments of my past.  This past week, the little bubble I usually create around me this time of year was punctured against my will, so this week I will be doubling down on creating a cozy atmosphere around me.

This is even more important this week as our family lost a very close friend on Thursday.

I won’t be on social media much, and I will only be reading books and watching movies I feel comfortable with. Today, for example, I am reading a Nancy Drew book for my Nancy Drew in November. Nancy Drew books can sometimes be silly, but that is totally fine with me.

My family has asked me to turn off all news sites (not that I was on them much anyhow), social media, and even refrain from visiting a lot of blogs, so I can get some peace back before the next depressing thing in my life hits.

What depressing thing?

Who even knows?

They just keep coming, so I am actively searching for those little pockets of peace I once wrote about on the blog.

 That means that even if I only have an hour, half an hour or even a few minutes, I work to do something that will bring peace to my soul.

I do allow some cozy mysteries during this time because they’re usually fairly clean and light without super dark subject matters- other than murder. Ahem. However, even if a person dies in a cozy mystery, they don’t show or describe it or linger on suffering and I appreciate that these days.

Some might call me a prude or unrealistic or whatever they want to call me when I choose not to watch films with certain subject matters (cancer deaths, r*pe, suicide, incest, etc.) but quite frankly, I have hit the point in my life where I no longer care what others think.

I face enough sadness and heartbreak in my life, I sure as heck am not going to choose “entertainment” which offers the same.

This will sound selfish but this weekend, members of my family will have to figure out their own ways to get places or do things, or be entertained.

I am making a cup of cocoa, warming up my rice packs, putting on a favorite show and pulling my blanket around me in an attempt to keep my peace tight against me.

I know I can’t keep it all out.

There could be another tragedy, another sad call, another family member who isn’t feeling well or my husband’s former boss trying to get him fired yet again (two months from now,  Imma gonna let  loose on this subject.).

Those will be things I won’t be able to control.

For the things I can control, though?

Oh yeah — I’m going to control the ever-living heck out of those things. Because my soul doesn’t need to have any more sadness dumped on it – at least not by choice. I hope you all have a great weekend, and I’ll see you tomorrow for Sunday Bookends!

If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.

I also post a link-up on Sundays for weekly updates about what you are reading, watching, doing, listening to, etc.

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.

Saturday Afternoon Chat: What comments on a semi-viral post about Angela Lansbury tell me about today’s society and specifically men

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, Saturday Afternoon Tea8 Comments

A couple of weeks ago, I uploaded a clip of Angela Lansbury becoming emotional when talking about the cancellation of Murder, She Wrote.

The show was canceled in 1996 and this interview was conducted that same year. Maybe six months later.

It was on 60 Minutes and Leslie Stahl was the interviewer.

I showed maybe 30 seconds of that interview on a reel on Instagram and it also posted to Facebook.

Before I knew it I had thousands of views and hundreds of comments on both platforms.

Most of the comments were extremely sweet and reflected on pleasant memories of the show. Men and women remembered watching it with their grandparents, watching it themselves, or just starting to watch the reruns now.

Many expressed sadness that the cancellation hit Angela Lansbury so hard. It was hard for them to see Angela crying.

Murder, She Wrote ran for 12 seasons on Sunday nights CBS before being moved around a few times in its last season.

There are different theories as to why the show was moved, but whatever the theory, it essentially killed viewership, as loyal fans no longer knew where to find the show.

After 12 years, Angela, who was now a producer of the show and the star — playing mystery writer and amateur sleuth Jessica Fletcher — had been told her show was over.

No amount of letter writing from fans would help. The production ended and Angela, doing an interview very shortly after the cancellation, was still emotional.

In the 30-second clip I showed, Angela teared up talking about it and had to reach for a cup of tea and then a glass of water to keep her emotions in check.

While most comments were supportive of Angela, there were other callous, unsympathetic, and downright rude comments left, and I couldn’t figure out why. Those who commented actually seemed angry at Angela for crying.

Many of those comments focused on how long the show ran.

Almost all of them had poor punctuation so they read like this: what’s her problem? it ran 12 years come on get over yourself lady

It ran for 12 years lol nothing to be sad about

12 years. Over 200 shows. Get a grip woman, you had a good run

And this one was the worst I got out of more than 20 comments like the ones above: She was an aging hag. And all her alcoholic actress friends were on the show looking rancid.

Another horrible one I deleted very fast called her a classy lady who was “being classless by crying.”

There is one thing every single one of the mean, nasty, and rude comments had in common.

They were almost all written by men or people with profile photos that showed they were men.

These men had a very big problem with a woman showing emotion.

It was so uncomfortable to see chauvinism happening right in front of my eyes.

Something about a woman over a certain age crying just set them off.

There were a few semi-rude comments from women on both platforms, but most of those comments were more encouraging like they felt bad she was sad, but it was a good run.

I was surprised, though, by the men who felt the compulsion to stop their scrolling, pause on this reel, and take the time to comment something ignorant.

Yes, 12 years is a long time for a show to run, and Angela knew it. It was the way the show was cancelled that hit her so hard.

The show had become special to her and beloved by millions. It was a wonderful escape from life on a Sunday night.

I  mentioned these comments and how many of them were men to my friend Erin, and we agreed that they were misogynistic comments, one, and that, two, people can no longer handle emotion because so much of our world is fake, even the emotion.

I shared this with her in an Instagram chat: “What people don’t seem to get is this interview was held shortly after it all happened. Her emotions were raw. She was sad. It is called human emotion. The issue is that we now live in a world where we watch videos all the time where people use fake emotions to manipulate people, so when somebody is faced with real emotions, they don’t understand it, and they recoil from it. They think it’s another manipulation attempt. That’s the real big problem with technology and social media. It has warped our humanity. It has made us question human visceral reactions that are real in a way that we start to hate the people who have legit emotions.”

And hate is an accurate word based on the comments. These people were angry about a woman crying. Not just confused or questioning. Many of the comments, which I couldn’t quote here, were legit full of rage over an older woman with tears in her eyes, experiencing real sadness.

I started deleting the comments, not because I don’t support free speech or do support censorship, but because the comment section was full of people connecting in a positive way through nostalgia about a show that had positive memories for them.

Many commentators remembered watching the show with their grandparents or parents, many of those people now passed on.

Many agreed that 12 years was a good run, but they related to Angela’s sadness at how it all happened, at how moving the show was a horrible way to end the show and marred its legacy.

Of course, we know now that it didn’t really ruin the legacy of the show, which is still popular in reruns. At that time, though, Angela felt it was a horrible ending for a wonderful time in her life.

I’m going to keep deleting those horrible comments, whether from men or women, not because people aren’t allowed to have an opinion but because these comments were meant to strike at the pleasant memories of others and inject negativity into positivity.

I just don’t have patience for that anymore.

Saturday Afternoon (Evening) Chat: Winter has come early and everything is 45-minutes away

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Saturday Afternoon Tea13 Comments

*This was supposed to publish this afternoon, but I forgot to hit…yes…publish. Hahaha!

Winter is coming early to Pennsylvania, it seems.

Temps have dropped into the mid-to-high 30’s at night and aren’t reaching much above 55 most days.

We have been inside a lot, bundled up under blankets and sweaters, with The Husband determined not to turn the main heat on until November 1.

I, however, have been turning our electric heat on in the hallway upstairs at night to try to chase away some of the chill. Shhhh.. we will keep that our little secret.

I am a fan of curling up under blankets and tossing a warmed-up rice pack at my feet so I don’t  mind keeping it cozy in the house but having it just a touch warmer on some nights would be nice.

This past week was fairly non-eventful. The Boy visited his grandparents most days, helping them with various household chores and projects.

On Thursday, Little Miss and I visited them and helped around the house.

Yesterday we stayed home and did some school and housework of our own. Tonight, I will be taking the kids downtown for a trunk-or-treat and then trick-or-treating around town if they want to do that.

I don’t usually walk around, but instead sit in the car, sipping hot cocoa and reading a book. I am hoping The Boy will go with us and walk around with his little sister and her friend so I don’t have to. I am not a huge fan of trick-or-treating or walking around a small town in the dark with a knee that sometimes gives out.

I think we will probably have lunch at my parents tomorrow and Monday night The Husband and I have to drive . . . can you guess how long of a drive to pick our car up from the mechanic?

If you guessed 45-minutes, you were right.

I swear everything is 45-minutes away from us now.

This is a mechanic we used when we lived up that way and was able to fix something on our poor, war-torn car that mechanics in our area couldn’t. The Husband hit a deer — again — with this car two weeks ago. We have now hit a deer with it every fall for the last three years. The last time, Little Miss and I were with him. Each time the deer has smashed in the hood and kept going. I’m not sure if they made it any of those times, but they weren’t along the road afterward. Those creatures are a lot more solid than they look out in our yard or fields. They are all muscle and that makes even more of an impact when you are going along at 40 miles per hour, which is about how fast he was going the last two times. Not sure about that first time.

On Tuesday, The Husband and I might go to a theater to see Pyscho on the big screen. Guess again how far away the theater is….

This past week I received some used books in the mail from Thriftbooks which I will talk about more tomorrow in my Sunday Bookends post, but I also received some book and reading related stickers.

I am such a nerd — I couldn’t wait to open them up and look through them and then decide where to put them. I placed them in my reading journal which is much messier than I intended for it to be. I always think I’m going to  keep my journals neat but instead they become a bit of a free for all of all my notes about books and movies and blog post ideas.

I was also excited to receive some magnetic bookmarks earlier in the week.

Yes, my life is very, very exciting. You should be jealous.

This upcoming week promises to be just as “exciting”

The Husband ordered a special book for me that came today too. I was so excited to see a hardcover copy of My Beloved by Jan Karon. It will probably be the last Mitford book so I am excited to have it in my hands. I don’t even care if it is awful, though I doubt it will be. To read more of Tim and Cynthia’s story is just so exciting for me. And an update on Dooley and Lace too? Squeal! I can’t wait.

So how was your week last week? Do anything exciting? Let me know in the comments!

Saturday Afternoon Chat: Teaching my kids about Whitney Houston and a shared moment with strangers

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, Saturday Afternoon Tea18 Comments

Good afternoon! Care for a cup of tea?

Which one would you like to try?

Simply Cinnamon Apple?

Salted Caramel?

Peppermint Bark?

Pumpkin Spice?

I personally liked the peppermint bark, but not as much as plain peppermint.

The last couple of days we have been celebrating Little Miss as she turned 11 on Thursday. We didn’t mean to celebrate her for four days but that’s how it worked out because activities we wanted to do with her were spread out a bit.

On Thursday she wanted to have pancakes at a diner downtown so her brother and I took her down. She had chocolate chip pancakes and a fresh fruit cup. The owner sang happy birthday to her.

The diner was decorated very nicely for fall. This diner always does a very nice job at decorating, from what I understand, but I have only visited there twice. My dad and son have visited there more.

After breakfast, we hung out at home for a bit and then Little Miss and I headed to my parents’ for some pizza and to celebrate her birthday with them.

We played a board game called Aggravation and Little Miss won (with a little help from Grandma and me this time, but usually she wins outright on her own). What was funny was my dad was going to play but sat down in his room for a few minutes and drifted off to sleep. I decided I would play for him and for myself until he woke up, but in the end, he didn’t wake up until the game was almost over.

Dad usually wins at this game, and he almost won this time, even though he was asleep. He was three spots from winning when my mom sent him home again because she didn’t have any other moves she could make.

After we played board games, Little Miss had an animal club meeting on Zoom and then she went home and rode bikes with her brother and then …. Yes, there is more… they watched two Disney movies. She really wrung every last minute out of her birthday and crashed pretty hard that night.

The Husband had to work on her birthday but yesterday he took the day off and we all went out to dinner at a nice restaurant and then they all went in Walmart to pick out a new dog bed and a gifts for the dog because that is what Little Miss wanted to do for her birthday. She also picked out a gift for her friend who is coming for a sleepover today because that little girl’s birthday was this past Monday.

I stayed in the car due to a sore leg and read my book. It was very cozy.

Tomorrow we are headed to a reptile zoo called Reptileland because Little Miss loves reptiles.

We are already fairly tired from celebrating already. By tomorrow night The Husband and I will be virtually comatose. We will be this way because we are, as Little Miss has reminded us a few times this week — old.

She’s been watching YouTube Shorts making fun of life in the 1990s and early 2000s and asking us if that is what it was really like “back then.”

It is hard to accept those years are so long ago, so I just pretend they aren’t and ignore her. Ha!

To show how old I am and how I have failed at educating my children about the 1990s — I learned yesterday that neither of them knew who Whitney Houston was. They sort of rolled their eyes when I mentioned her. There was some meme that mentioned her and my almost 19-year-old son said, “I don’t even know who that is.”

I was horrified and pulled up YouTube to educate them. They did recognize “I Want to Dance With Somebody” and “I Will Always Love You,” but I also made them watch her doing the Star Spangled Banner and The Boy was blown away.

“Okay, yeah, she was amazing,” he told me.

I went to tell him how she threw her life away and it was so heartbreaking to me and started to cry. She shouldn’t have died so young. No matter her talent and her beauty, she never seemed to feel worthy enough to enjoy her life of happiness and health and that always broke my heart. Now all we have left of her is her music and memories and we should have had her for so much longer.

Thank God we still have her friend and my favorite female singer CeCe Winans.

I am going to have to show them videos of CeCe this week too.

Earlier in the week I saw a beautiful sunset and even though I’m having an issue with my sciatica and leg, I made it outside to take a photo. While I was there, two guys (probably about my age) riding bikes came by our house. We do have some bike or foot traffic on our street but it is a back street so we don’t as often as some streets.

I was startled a little by them but had to laugh when the one guy looked at the sunset, pumped his fist and yelled out “’Merica!”

The other guy, with a shirt or something wrapped around the top of his head, looked up at me smiling and said, “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

I said it was, and they kept going while smiling and left me smiling.

Later, Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs) told me she thought it was cool that we’d had that shared moment together. I hadn’t thought of it that way, and her comment made me think.

After weeks of anger, hatred, and just all out sadness in the world, it was nice to have that shared moment of joy while admiring a gorgeous sunset.

The photos do not do it justice.

How about you?

How was your week last week? Anything exciting coming up for this week?