Saturday Afternoon Tea

Saturday Afternoon Chat (with or without a cup of tea)

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 7 Comments



This weekend is very welcome after a very long week.

Today I’m sipping some tea with an insane amount of local honey. The Husband picked up some local honey that has a cinnamon aftertaste and I’m really enjoying it.

It was very delicious and relaxing to have tea when we traveled 90 minutes one way to take Little Miss to an oral surgeon consultation this past week. Little Miss has had some damage to her teeth over the years due to soft enamel and now she’ll need a procedure in March, which I am not looking forward to in many ways, but am in others. I’m looking forward to helping her teeth not become infected or cause her pain (which she doesn’t have now) but I’m very concerned that she will need anesthesia.

The good thing is that the surgeon we consulted with was amazing. He walked in, stuck his hand out, and said, “Hello, my name is Justin.”

Not, “Hi, I’m Dr….”

Instead he made it clear we are on the same level and he isn’t above us simply because of his degree.

He was extremely reassuring, interacted well with Little Miss, and left us dumbfounded with his kindness. So dumbfounded we almost forgot to ask questions. We weren’t used to being treated kindly by a person involved in dental care and let him know that which he said he was sorry to hear.

After we left the dentist, we found a restaurant for dinner and then headed back home north another ninety minutes. On the way home we saw a bald eagle going for fish in the river. Little Miss missed seeing it and lamented how her short stature causes her to miss everything exciting you can see out the window.

Our appointment was in Scranton and we saw a large library on our way out of town. Both Little Miss and I wanted to go to the library but it would have been hard to get out of traffic and find a parking space so we kept going. The Husband was impressed that   Little Miss wanted to go to a library so he decided to make up for her not seeing the eagle by stopping at a library in a town he has to visit often for work.

For a small town it has a very nice library and I’ve been wanting to go there and see the bookshop they have in the back of the library.

The bookshop is like a full-time library book sale and I was thrilled to finally see it. It’s a small room but it has several bookshelves lined with used books in very good shape that are for sale for $2 hardcovers and $1 paperbacks. The Husband didn’t let me stay very long for fear I’d wipe out our grocery money, but being there, looking through the books, was the happiest I’d been in weeks. I felt so calm and relaxed by being able to focus on something other than bad news.



I picked out three hardcovers, Little Miss picked out a book on Pegasus, and The Husband found a book for himself. We also found an entire set of the Lord of the Rings books, which was timely since the Boy and I will be starting The Fellowship of the Ring next week for school.

We were going to go back to the bookstore today after The Husband and I grabbed some lunch, but decided to find a restaurant a little closer. This made me a bit sad because I knew it meant I wouldn’t be able to go to the bookstore. That sadness led me to look on social media and see if any of the libraries in the town we’d be visiting had a similar type store and guess what? They are having a book sale and another, smaller library, that we will pass on the way, is having one too. I told The Husband about the sales and he informed me I am addicted to buying used books.

I’m okay with that. There are worse things to be addicted to.

(Interrupting this blog post to ask for prayer as I am having trouble focusing on The Boy telling me about video games right now while I am trying to write this. How can he possibly have all the lore of these games memorized but not be able to remember what he learns for school? Argh!).

The weather warmed up this past week just a little bit in the beginning and more later in the week. This gave us a chance to not stuff wood into our woodstove the way we had been previously while we tried to keep up with our heating oil bill. We were able to do that this week but now that we know how to utilize the heat from the woodstove more, we will be able to save on heating oil in the future.

We were able to just keep the fire at a nice gentle roll that left a warm glow in the woodstove but didn’t overwhelm us with heat this past week.

Our youngest cat loves the stove and somedays she looks like she is worshiping before it.

I will be glad when the weather is a bit warmer and I won’t have to start the fire or load it and the guys won’t have to haul wood in from the woodpile. At the same time, I will miss the coziness of it.

This upcoming week should be a bit calmer than the past few weeks. We don’t have any appointments planned other than grocery shopping at the end of the week.

The Husband has been doing the shopping for the last couple of months because he actually likes it. Weirdo. I’ll be taking over again this week, though, which I’m not exactly looking forward to since I’m not really a fan of grocery shopping like he is. Still, he does a lot for the family and deserves a break.

This post is jumping around a lot (hey, that’s normal for posts here!), but I have to share that I miss blogging. I have not been blogging as much recently because of either stress, things going on that I had to take care of, or trying to figure out how to market my books. I’m really tired of trying to keep up with social media to market the books and blogging is a stress reliever so I really hope to get back to blogging some more fun things the rest of February and beyond.  

So how was your week last week? Did you drink lots of tea or cocoa or something else warm? What’s on the sip list today? Let me know in the comments.

I leave with you two very entertaining performances by ice skater Scott Hamilton. An amazing skater and an even more amazing man and Christian. God bless him. It’s a joy to be able to look back at his performances. I’m so glad he shared this first one on his Instagram this week. I needed that pick-me-up. The second one is ten years later, which would have made Scott about 46 years old. It was the same year he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He’s since had two or, maybe, three tumors and a couple bouts of cancer but he’s still kicking and preaching Christ too.

Saturday Afternoon Chat: Cold weather, warm fires, and Grandpa’s poems

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 10 Comments

I did nothing this week. Like nothing. I haven’t even left the house once.

Nope, not sick. Not depressed. Oh, wait, yes, I am depressed, but that’s not why I didn’t leave the house. I just didn’t have anywhere I needed to go this week and it was very, very cold. Today it is 11 degrees as I write this and the high is going to be 23. The day started off at around negative five degrees Fahrenheit.

Thankfully tomorrow is supposed to be a bit warmer with temps climbing toward 40 degrees. I will take it after the frigid weather we’ve been having. It’s been so cold not even my adventurous younger cat wanted to go out most days and if she did it was for a very short time.

We have been running our woodstove full bore for the entire week, 24/7. Our pets have enjoyed it very much.

We have also enjoyed it since it has helped us save the little bit of heating oil we have left in our tank until we place a new order sometime this next week. I can’t believe how high heating oil was months ago (and still is really). That just started us on a snowball effect of trying to keep up with the bill and still pay our other bills and buy groceries. Eventually, the snowball became a full-blown avalanche and overran us, leaving us in a pile of Overwhelm at the bottom.

(Excuse the wood chips. We brought in a lot of wood this week and still had to sweep when I took this photo).

This week I was so thankful for the woodstove and electric heat upstairs in our house because without it we would have really been in trouble.

The Boy and The Husband bring in the wood for the stove most of the time but Friday morning I braved the wind and swirling snow to the woodpile behind the garage and brought a few logs in. I have short arms and a big head so I can’t carry as much as the guys can. Have you ever seen that scene in Meet The Robinsons? The T-Rex in it says that and I always think of that when I share about my short arms. I will post it below for your viewing pleasure:



I consumed so much organic peppermint tea with local honey this week to try to keep warm and calm, I was practically floating.

Last week I wrote about how Jesus helped to calm the storm in me while chaos raged around us, and it was the same this week. We still have a lot of weirdness going on and one situation that is not resolved, but this week still seemed calmer overall than other weeks. I had some anger issues over the one situation but was able to settle that a bit by venting to family and pacing a lot. Oh, and there was chocolate. There is always chocolate that is needed in those situations.

On Tuesday I released Shores of Mercy to the world finally. I was glad to have the book out there and the Spencer Valley Chronicles almost complete. As I mentioned in a post on my new newsletter site I plan to have five books in the series when it is all done, but for now, I am taking a break from the series to work on a couple of other projects. You can read about that on my new Substack site, which will only be used as a newsletter for my writing. I will most likely only update it once or twice a month, if that at this point, so if you do subscribe to it, don’t worry – I won’t spam your email every day or week.

I tried to get some writing in on a couple of the new projects this week and then realized I have no idea where the new books are going so I will need to do some more brainstorming and plotting on those.

I may not have gone out much this week, but the rest of my family did. The Husband took Little Miss to Awana on Wednesday at my parents’ former church. On Thursday my parents drove two miles north to see my 90-year-old aunt whose health is not doing well. They made me a nervous wreck because they had to call me for directions, couldn’t hear through the cell phone at one point, and then my mom called out my dad’s name and said, “Oh my!” and I thought they’d had an accident.

Then they decided to stop for dinner on the way home as if they are grown adults and can do what they want to do. I told them that they have to check in when they are going to be out past their curfew but they didn’t seem to listen to me. Parents are so rebellious sometimes.

It is almost like they are trying to get back at me and my brother for the times we were out and didn’t call them and tell them where we were, so they were home worrying about us. Not that either of us actually went out that much. My brother and I were both fairly tame growing up and also stayed close to home. If we did go out it was down the road to a friend’s house or in the yard to read a book. Yep, we were that boring, and proud of it.

I was originally supposed to drive my parents up to see my aunt but then my dad got all morbid and said he’d rather if something happened, it happened to just two family members and not three so that my children didn’t lose three family members at one time. He thinks such pleasant things, doesn’t he? But, yeah, he had a good point.

Last week my parents sent me home from their house with two huge boxes of blankets, comforters, and flannel sheets. They have too many and decided they needed to declutter. They met my brother and his wife for lunch and gave them a bunch too.

One of the blankets I immediately said I wanted was my grandmother’s – my dad’s mom. We lived across the hill from her (over the creek and through the woods to grandmother’s house we went) for my entire life until we moved in with her when I was in college.

She used to curl up in a tiny ball in the corner of this curved couch she had and cover herself with this afghan. She weighed about 100 pounds and wasn’t very tall so the thing covered her almost entirely.

My mom asked if I knew why she used to tie a red piece of ribbon to the bottom of it. I had no idea.

“She didn’t want to have the part of the blanket that was down by her feet up by her head when she laid back down,” Mom said.

Oh. Well, that’s one way to do it. I don’t think about such things but my grandmother apparently did. I have not yet tied a ribbon around the fringe of the blanket but I have covered up with it a couple of times, cried and least twice, and felt very sentimental every other time.

As an aside, I picked up the habit of rinsing out my mug several times under the faucet before using it to make sure it is totally void of leftover soap or dust of any kind. Grandma used to do that and now I do it and can’t stop. It’s my one, small OCD tendency.

Later in the week, Dad brought me a box of poems from my grandfather, which he wants me to place in some kind of scrapbook after I read through them.

It was all a little bittersweet because there was a series of poems in there written about a year before Grandpa died while my grandparents were on a trip to Maine. I never got to know the man since I was two when he died. My mom says I was afraid of men and even him because he had such a deep voice, but shortly before he died she’d leaned over to say goodbye to him (he was in a hospital bed at the house) with me in her arms and I impromptu leaned over and kissed his cheek. She said his expression was one of delight because I had never done anything like that before. He passed away not long after.

My grandfather was such a large figure, reputation-wise, in the family and community, though, so in many ways it feels as if I have known him all my life, even though I never really did.

He wrote a lot of poetry and kept very simple journals that mainly detailed what the weather was, what he’d had for breakfast, where he had gone that day, and who he had played cards with (usually some close friends who are distant relatives and the same couple my parents would later play cards with as well, even though my mom hates to play cards. Ha!).

Dad said he has a ton of large, padded, yellow envelopes with what looks like more of his writing in them spread out at his house. Looks like I know what my job will be Sunday afternoon.

Does your family hold on to family memorabilia or writings as well?

In addition to Grandpa’s writing, my dad also has quite a few items from my great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents, including a blood letter (not sure of the technical name for this) from my great-great-grandfather who was a doctor in the 1800s. This is the same great-great-grandfather who fought in the Civil War and whose brother also fought and then died in Libby Prison. (Trying saying great-great three times fast. After a bit, the words start to sound funny. *snort laugh*).

He also had a box of gold nuggets from my great-great-grandfather but we’re not sure why they are there. Dad thinks that maybe he was going to invest in some firm that was gold panning but he isn’t sure. The nuggets and the box they are in are probably about 200 years old. The nuggets look totally fake to me, but what do I know?

The full word above is “glass” but the g and l are on the other side of the box.

My dad gave The Boy a small framing hammer that my great-grandfather used to frame windows, including the one at the school of the local Catholic Church that we can see from our house. You know, the one with the bell that rings five times a day and the one I’ve featured in photos on this blog a few times.

After all this rambling I am sure you need a warm-up on your beverage. I shall pause while you do that.

Here is our intermission music:



Seriously, though, I do need to wrap this post up as it is dragging out, but I think I will pick up about Grandpa’s poems in another blog post later this week.

I hope you had a wonderful week last week and have a better one this week. As usual, feel free to share what you are drinking today in the comments and come back tomorrow for Sunday Bookends, where I share what I am reading, watching, listening to and writing.

I thought I’d share a poem from Grandpa to close out today:

Listen all here’s the deal,
You’re a cog in the wheel.
Some with a brush, a cloth, a comb,,
Others will pills as they roam.
Quiet you down, ease your pain.
All the duties not the same.
Others are just the nurses aid,
Let’s not forget the cleaning maid.
Some prepare for a transfusion
Inject iv’s its utter confusion.
In every bed there’s someone sick
All ring at once want you quick.
Samples of blood as you go along
Go to the lap to see what’s wrong
Temperature, heart beats, pulse and pressure
Ah yes, ‘tis work beyond measure.
Rub your back, arms they clutch
Get you up on a crutch.
And doctor’s orders you must obey
Among other things in the day.
Don’ know where we’d all be
Without that wheel don’t you see.
You jot a word on our chart
Yes everyone’s a vital part.
Yet ‘tis rewarding to the soul
To keep the wheel so she’ll roll.
So at years end, the yuletide season
We love you all, that’s the reason.
As these words we pause to write
Have a wonderful day and peaceful night
~Walter H. Robinson.

Saturday Afternoon Chat and a Cup of Tea: Snow and letting God calm the storm in me

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 8 Comments

Come on in out of the cold and have a seat.

Excuse the mess. We’ve been busy this week doing crafts, homeschooling, and being outside in the cold.

What have you been busy doing this week?

This week I don’t have anything too exciting or new to drink, but I am glad to have some local honey to put in my organic peppermint tea. I ran out of honey early in the week and added sugar as a sweetener which was completely awful. I haven’t put plain sugar in anything in years, other than a cup of tea a few months ago when I was, again, out of honey.

I never realized how sickly sweet it was. It was so sweet that it actually made me feel sick to my stomach. I cut back on sugar over a decade ago and I won’t lie and say I never eat sugar, but I don’t put sugar in tea or on cereal any longer. It’s just too much to me. If I sweeten things it is with honey or maple syrup or molasses. I think I shared one week that I like to add maple syrup to my hot cocoa, which is only plain cocoa powder mixed in hot milk. I don’t use the cocoa mixes with sugar added because it’s simply too sweet for me.

Don’t worry — I’m not a sugarless snob. I still have candy bars and some cookies or cake, although very rarely on the cake and cookies. I simply don’t have the cravings for sweet food as much as I once did. I do, however, still crave chocolate, so I’m not sugar-free.

Winter remembered it was supposed to be – uh – wintering this past week and dumped a few inches of snow on us over a couple of days.

Little Miss and Zooma the Wonder Dog were super excited because they love the snow. I don’t really love the snow but I went out with them and took some photographs and shivered. After the first little snow, both Little Miss and Scout ended up a tree, but they were both short trees so both of them could climb out easily.

Eventually, we went back inside and I started a fire in our woodstove and The Boy made us homemade French fries while we finished our school lessons. It was really a nice, relaxing day

We had another storm on Wednesday and Little Miss and Zooma the Wonder Dog enjoyed their time in the snow again.



Since we are low on heating oil and have an outstanding bill from the insanely high oil prices, we are trying to run the woodstove more often and I’ve been surprised by how well it is heating the house. It did heat the house well before but we never let it run past our bedtime until this week. Now it heats the house all night as well, which means we can reduce our oil usage and turn down the electric heat.

I was very stressed when I realized how low we were on heating oil. It seems like we’ve been getting hit with a lot lately and this seemed like something else. It isn’t easy, especially if we really do run out of heating oil before we can afford another order, but we really are very lucky. We don’t have it as mad as many people. Our house, while old, is in very good shape, with a fairly new roof and siding. We were lucky the woodstove was in the house when we came here and that it keeps us warm on cold winter nights.

We are able to afford food and lately, people have been giving my parents food they can’t use from the food pantry and they’ve been passing that on to us.

We’ve truly been very blessed by God, even when I feel lost and worried about the future.

There are still some appointments coming up for my youngest that have me worried, but I’m doing my best to trust God each step of the way.

Last week Little Miss had some trouble sleeping. She wasn’t sure why, but she simply couldn’t sleep. I was very upset by this because I was tired and worried about her but also about how I’d function the next day. Eventually, after about three hours, she did fall asleep but by then I was wired and wide awake and my anxiety was high. I prayed and suddenly I felt a strange calm settle over me. I felt almost happy. I closed my eyes and prayed for a couple people, thought about some ideas for a future story and eventually drifted off and jerked awake fifteen minutes later. Then eventually I drifted off altogether and managed a few hours.

As I was drifting off I thought about how sometimes God doesn’t calm the storm raging around us, but, instead, he calms the storm within is.

I need that calm right now, certainly, with all that’s been going on. Only God can calm the storm within us and it’s something I need to remember as much as I can.

It was good to have that reminder pop into my head that night, or morning, and I don’t think it came from my own mind alone.

Have you had any reminders you needed lately?

And what are you drinking today to help get you through your day? I certainly hope it’s some nice tea or cocoa.

An afternoon chat and a cup of tea: More Mary Berry, rainy weather, cuddly cats, and molasses milk

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 8 Comments

 I really need a cup of tea again this week, though it might have been a slightly better week than last week.

I loved the teas that everyone shared with me that they were drinking last week. What are you drinking this week?

I think I was drinking cocoa and maple syrup last week instead of tea, but today I’m sipping a cup of peppermint tea with local honey stirred in.

The cold weather seems to be here to stay and we might receive some snow tomorrow, but so far our winter has remained mild. I’ve enjoyed staying inside as much as possible, covered with a blanket this week while I read or tried to figure out how to design journals and sell them on Amazon.

The only days we got out of the house for very long were a visit to my parents on Sunday and a dentist appointment an hour away for Little Miss.

It was raining and messy the day we went to the dentist appointment so we didn’t enjoy the view of the drive through the local state park on our way there. I was glad when we returned home and I was able to pull a blanket up around me and watch some Andy Griffith. The cats have been inside more often recently due to the weather.

Scout has decided she needs to visit my chest to touch her nose to mine and curl up a few times each day, including in the middle of the night a couple of times, which made me almost scream. She doesn’t seem happy with simply curling up at the end of the bed. She wants to walk up my chest and stick her nose in my face first and then she’ll go curl up somewhere else. She was practically thrown across the room one night because she woke me up and I thought a monster from one of my weird dreams was attacking me.

She is one of the few cats I have had that have let me pick them up and cuddle them, at least for a few moments anyhow. I mentioned this to my husband and he said, “Smokey used to let you pick her up.”

Smokey was one of the cats he had when we were dating. I inherited her, along with Squeek and my husband, when we got married. The issue is that Smokey really didn’t like me. She was The Husband’s cat. She loved The Husband. He could pet her on her nose and put her to sleep while she lay on his chest.

She hated me. At first she hated me. Later she tolerated me. Either way, she did not let me cuddle her.

“She let you cuddle her,” I reminded The Husband this morning. “Not me. I replaced her in your life and she hated me for that.”

The only time Smokey did like me was when I was lactating. She would rub up against my chest during that time. She was a milk fiend and loved when I would pour a little of my lactose-free milk for her in a plate or bowl. When that tradition started, she decided I was okay and she could like me a little bit. She lived 17 years and she did let me pet her, especially when I needed to comfort her after she went partially deaf and would sit in the middle of the living room floor and cry after her longtime companion, Squeek, died. I do miss that cat. Even if she wouldn’t let me cuddle her.

This afternoon Little Miss had gymnastics. She’s getting ready for a small competition at her studio in February. It will be her first. We are hoping she will wear her leotard because she doesn’t like wearing it during her weekly practices. She prefers to wear her stretch pants and a T-shirt instead.

Today, The Boy has a friend over to visit. They’ll talk about video games and whatever 16 and 17-year-olds talk about (sometimes it is a little frightening so I don’t listen. Ha!).  The Husband, Little Miss and I usually hide upstairs when he has friends over and watch shows on our laptops or read books. This gives the boys time to be boys and laugh about body sounds and similar things.

Seriously, though, these boys have quite a few serious conversations about history, dictatorships, economies of foreign countries, former presidents, various battles in various wars, and other topics which sometimes go over my head. My brain can’t really comprehend anything too complicated these days.

Recently, I have been craving simple things. Simple shows, books, food, and days. I can’t always have the simple days, but I try to take a small amount of time out of the day to read a book and drink something warm like a cup of tea or, like I did earlier this week, a cup of molasses milk.

When my dad had his knee surgery several years ago, his doctor required all of his patients to drink molasses milk for a certain number of days to raise their iron levels. I’m drinking the molasses milk for the same reason, hoping it will help either raise my iron or keep it at a good level. I find I feel better when I take iron capsules or increase my iron intake. I, of course, am using black strap molasses.

Earlier this week, after a particularly difficult day, I warmed up a cup of molasses milk, sat at our kitchen table, and opened up Anne’s House of Dreams by L.M. Montgomery. I forced myself to sit still for 15 minutes and read a couple of chapters and I found that I felt a lot more relaxed afterward. I love escaping into Anne’s world.

Listening to good music, such as worship music, or reading a devotional and saying a brief prayer, helps me in a similar way. I would like to do all of those things this weekend as I try to give my brain and body some much needed respite from recent stress.

How do you relax during a stressful time? Do you have to force yourself to relax like I do?

And what are you drinking today? Let me know in the comments.

Last week one reader was drinking a new cinnamon tea from The Republic of Tea, and another was drinking a loose-leaf flavored black tea called Florence by Harney and Sons.

Saturday Afternoon (Actually Evening) Tea and Chat: Gallbladders, sleep deprivation, and comfort movies

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 6 Comments

Hello! So glad you stopped by.

Sit down and have some tea with me. I certainly need a tea break this weekend after the week I had. I might even have cocoa instead of tea, honestly. I meant to have this little chat and tea time up earlier today, but got delayed by . . . well, a lot.

This past week was a nightmare in many ways. There’s no way around it.

Actually, it all started on Friday of last week when my mom started to have horrible pain in her chest and stomach area. She’s had this before many times and has been told it is gastritis.

To make too long of a story much shorter, my mom was taken to the emergency room and diagnosed with pancreatitis caused by gallstones.

She was immediately admitted to the hospital, 45 minutes north of where we live, and a procedure to clean out the gallbladder was performed on Tuesday. The pancreas had to settle down after that procedure and then a plan was made to remove her gallbladder on Thursday.

While all this was going on, I was trying to recover from a cold, and it ended up leaving me up all night long two nights in a row due to coughing. The coughing only happened when I’d try to fall asleep though and wasn’t happening at all during the day. It was so odd. I wasn’t in great shape on Wednesday, ended up at the doctor, and was told I have severe postnasal drip left over from the virus or whatever I had.

This left me grounded and unable to go to give my poor dad a break from all the craziness. Thank God (literally) we were able to find a room at a Ronald McDonald type house across from the hospital for Dad, which cut down on his driving time.

I felt completely helpless yet absolutely unable to drive myself due to the condition I was in Wednesday.

I took magnesium glycinate Tuesday night to try to get myself to sleep but instead, it woke me up which has happened before when I took it but I had hoped wouldn’t happen again. It was horrible and I was shaking and a mess Wednesday. I was so relieved Mom’s surgery was pushed off until Thursday. Wednesday night I was able to sleep fairly well and Thursday I was able to be with Mom and actually function much better. Last night was another not-so-great night of sleep for me, but hopefully, that will get better soon.

The surgery went well and as I am writing this, Mom is sitting across from me talking to my brother on the phone.

After my sleepless night on Tuesday night, I sat in a confused stupor in a chair in our living room, watching the Anne of Green Gables movie sequel. I had watched the original earlier in the week. I sat in the chair, propped up, so all my drainage wouldn’t make me cough, dozing off for half an hour sprints and waking up to watch more of the movie.

I hated how I felt but I loved having that time to watch a movie with good memories from my past. It was very sentimental and nostalgic. I haven’t finished the second movie yet but hope to this weekend.

Homeschool was a total wash this week. Between The Boy being sick, me being sick, and my mom being in the hospital, we truly really couldn’t find time to do it. We will jump in with both feet Monday and get back on track. We are taking our time and learning through experiences and life skills this year, but are also still focused on actual curriculum. I’m trying to create a calmer, less rigid homeschool experience this year and so far it is going well. Letting go this week and accepting we won’t finish our school year when I originally wanted to was very hard, but necessary.

I am looking forward this week to continuing The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with The Boy, and hopefully finishing it, and continuing The Children of The Longhouse with Little Miss.

Of course, we will also have Math and Science to delve into and they can be fun as well, but English is my jam, as some might say (though probably not in 20 years).

I’ll ramble more about what I read and watched this week on my Sunday Bookends post tomorrow, but  will say now that being able to escape into books, especially, was a welcome blessing this week.

Our weather remained warm part of this week, but the damp and gloomy days did nothing to help my cold or lift my spirits. I felt like I was walking in a dream world most of the week, but that may have been more because of the sleep deprivation than anything else. The cold weather is already returning, reminding us that it is still winter.

I hope your week was better than mine was.

Did you do anything exciting or fun? How is the weather where you are? And what are you drinking today? Hot tea, a cup of coffee, or cocoa? Let me know in the comments below. I’d love to know.

(After Mom had been home for a while today, and after her nap, she asked if I would put this song on YouTube for her to listen to. She loves the lyrics and I guess it was running through her head at the hospital this morning. She began to cry as it played. Maybe it will mean something to you too.)

Saturday Afternoon Tea: Snow, Christmassy stuff, and a disappointing read

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 9 Comments


I’m debuting a semi-new feature here where I take a day just to chat about what’s going on in my world over a cup of tea for me and a cup of whatever you want for you (please drink responsibly). I’m calling it Saturday afternoon tea because I’d like to post it on Saturday afternoons. Today, though, I kept getting interrupted (for good things) while writing it so I wasn’t able to post it until early evening my time.

I don’t know if I will share this feature every week or every other week. We will just play it all by ear right now, which is a saying The Husband likes to use a lot.

This feature will most likely replace the What’s Occurring section of my Sunday Bookends post because a lot of it will probably be the same info.

I mentioned in the Sunday Bookends post last week that Little Miss and I went to the town Christmas light parade with our neighbor and her grandchildren. It was so terribly cold that night but I did manage to grab a couple shots of Santa and Mrs. Clause.

Thursday and yesterday my photos were of snow since we finally got our first real snowstorm of the season.

We only ended up without maybe five inches of snow when they originally called for up to ten. I am glad we received the lower amount. `

There are rumors we may receive another snowstorm at the end of next week, which could leave us with a white Christmas. We will have to see how that goes.

Our dog, Zooma the Wonder Dog, loves the snow. As soon as she saw it Thursday morning she rolled over on her back and rolled in it. On Friday when Little Miss ventured out into it, she chased Little Miss and then loved having snowballs thrown up in the air for her so she could catch them.

Our kitten also loves the snow and chases little snowballs that she makes by running in the snow.

I’ve still got the Christmas spirit, for the most part (despite some hiccups here and there), and have been trying to read Christmas-themed books and watch Christmas-themed movies. I’ve been trying to cram so many Christmassy things into my days, though, that I’ve overwhelmed myself a little bit.

There is no way I will be able to watch every movie I wanted to watch or read every book I wanted to read or attend every event I wanted to attend. It simply isn’t possible between working on my short story/novella for the blog, reading a book for a fellow author, letting cats and dogs in and out all day, trying to find ways to make money from home, cooking dinner, and homeschooling the children.

For now, I am watching as many movies as I can and zeroing in on one main book to finish before Christmas – Shepherds Abiding by Jan Karon. I’m also trying to remember for this next week that quality is better than quantity when celebrating the Christmas season.

I’ve been listening to Christmas music during the week, including this collaboration on YouTube. Maybe you’d like to put it on while you bake or wrap or have family time this week.

I will mention it more on Sunday Bookends, but I was disappointed this week by a book I took out at the library that I thought was a clean, cozy mystery book that would work as a Christmas-themed book. I was almost done with the book when out of the blue the author dropped the f-bomb. It was so strange. I told a friend it was like reading a Miss Marple book and then suddenly she asks, “What the bleep is going on around here?” It was just so out of character and odd for the rest of the book. Like getting a nasty surprise in a piece of chocolate or some other special kind of food.

Needless to say, I won’t be reading any more books by Leslie Maier.

If you read my Sunday Bookends posts, you can just skip the paragraph where I vent about this again.

Pretty much off the topic here, but I was thinking this week about how when I write my Educationally Thinking posts it sometimes sounds like we just skip happily through our school days.

That definitely couldn’t be further from the truth, which was proven on Tuesday of this week when Little Miss and I had a huge miscommunication issue and ended up not talking to each other for two hours while we both pouted. That ended up in me having to lay down some new rules about our school days and those new rules actually worked for the rest of the week. We found some rules and a routine that worked for us just in time for Christmas break which starts on Thursday of this upcoming week.

After that, we will have a full week off and we truly cannot wait for it.

We don’t have any big plans for that week. We might play in the snow if we get some more snow, make some crafts as Christmas gifts, watch Christmas movies, read Christmas books, and just simply be together.

How about you? What’s been going on with you and what Christmas-related plans do you have coming up this next week? I’d love to hear. Let me know in the comments.