Saturday Afternoon Tea

Saturday Afternoon Chat: I don’t like change and changes are coming

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 18 Comments

This summer has brought a lot of changes, and I am not a person who adjusts well to changes.

Some of these changes I can’t write about because they aren’t my changes to talk about. One of them I can’t talk about because it hasn’t been made public in our area yet.

I can say that the changes and adjustments have involved employment situations, my aging parents’ health, and my own health.

Some of them are serious and scary, but I’m hopeful that my own health issues are something I can deal with by making even more adjustments to my diet and supplements.

One thing I do know with my health so far is that I do have some autoimmune issues going on. Doctors just aren’t sure which issues yet.

As for my parents, they are getting older and struggling with some issues, including whether they want to stay in their house or not. Their health and age is a big part of that decision. 

As Summer draws to an end, though, I am looking forward to some cozy days this fall. I enjoy the weather when it is cooler. I function better physically and mentally on cooler days. I don’t function great on super cold days unless I am inside under a blanket with my warm rice packs.

I’m actually looking forward to those days. I get more writing done for my books in the fall and winter, which is probably why book four of the Gladwynn Grant Mysteries is going so slow.

In the Summer I feel like I have to be busy and do things because “it’s nice out”. This Summer whatever autoimmune condition I had got worse, though, so I couldn’t do that as much as I wanted. The symptoms that go so bad were mainly the exhaustion and achy legs, the dizziness and the anxiety. I learned I have to put more salt on things, drink electrolyte drinks, and simply eat more regular meals. I have this tendency to eat a protein but not add carbs or veggies to it. By the afternoon I feel like a wet noodle.

In the last couple of weeks I’ve cut out gluten, reduced sugar, and added more vegetables, though I’m still not at the level of veggies I should be at.

I’m reaching for grapes or apples instead of chocolate, but still have a square or two of the Aldi brand chocolate, which tastes so much better to me than most of our American brands. I’m taking four supplements — Iron (with B12, b6, and vitamin c), garlic, probiotics, and an elderberry gummy with elderberry, vitamin D, and vitamin C.

I’m noticing small changes. I still don’t have a ton of energy, but I do have a little bit more. My weak legs aren’t quite as weak on some days. My achy legs are a bit less achy. The anxiety was still there and intense at the beginning of this week but by mid-week it had actually faded some and on Thursday when I had a doctor appointment to discuss all his it had actually gone away. Praise the Lord!

Even without knowing what autoimmune issue I have (pretty sure it is thyroid related since I already have hypothyroidism), the diet change is helping immensely.

Shifting gears a little….

Have you ever watched those reunion videos with mothers hugging their sons or grandparents with their grandchildren after not seeing them for a long time? It’s always a surprise and everyone is crying and then I’m crying.

Sometimes I’m crying because it is so sweet and sometimes I am crying because I think about how wonderful it would be to hug my grandmothers or aunts again.

I think about how wonderful that feeling must be for those people and how wonderful it would be to feel the same. I know why the relatives of the soldiers who return are crying so hard. They thought that soldier might not return alive. They don’t say it out loud, but it is tucked there in the back of their mind and then when they are finally holding them in their arms it all breaks loose. They aren’t injured. They aren’t dead. They are here in their arms and all those worries and fears just rush out in that moment.

Shifting gears again…

Did I mention that the weather is cold right now?

Like, for instance, while I am working on this post at 11:30 in the morning it is 61 degrees out! In August!

I know that summer weather isn’t done with us yet, though. Pennsylvania has been known to drop temps in the 80s on us right up until October and sometimes into October so we are going to enjoy these nice cooler temps but not plan on them staying.

I can tell you, though, I am already gearing up for hot cocoa, apple cider, leaves crunching under my feet after they’ve fallen off the trees. The leaves are actually already falling but they are just brown and dead, which makes me nervous that we won’t have pretty fall foliage. We will just have to wait and see but even without it we can have all the fall feelings.

I’m definitely an autumn person. I love the chill in the air, the smell of the leaves, hayrides (or watching others go on them at least), reading books under a blanket on the front porch while colorful leaves fall around me.

I’m not a fan of pumpkin spice anything or Halloween, however. I don’t hate either but they aren’t what I look forward to most. However, I might actually try something with pumpkin spice this year just for fun.

This next week Little Miss and I will be doing school every day after Monday, so while we were easing into it before we are fully immersing ourselves this week.

We are studying Paleontology for science for the first half of the year. In English, we are reading The Good Master and will be tackling parts of speech and sentence diagramming.

In History, we are reading about the early days of our country, but later will begin moving into some more modern history through historical fiction. I’m not sure which book we are reading first but there is a list of them that I am looking forward to.

Math is being studied through CTC Math, an online program out of Australia, for now. Art is going to be fun this year since I purchased Little Miss a huge art set with all types of paint and canvases. I hope we will be able to take a few online classes.

It looks like we might not be joining a co-op this year since the co-op that was local might have dissolved, but I am still looking into that and 4-H classes.

How have you been doing? Have you done anything exciting to finish out your summer if you are in the northern hemisphere? If you are in the southern hemisphere, are you planning anything exciting for your spring?

Let me know in the comments. I love catching up with you all.

Saturday Afternoon Chat: I finally saw a black bear — right on my back porch!

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 29 Comments

This past week was interesting if only for one thing that happened to me — something I knew would happen one day, but luckily it wasn’t as dramatic as I worried it would be.

I don’t have any photos, but it finally happened — I went out to my back door to get my cats in, and there was a black bear on the back porch. A black bear. Yes.  Maybe three feet away from me but luckily there was a glass door between us.
 
I thought I was seeing a reflection on my door or just a shadow, and then the shadow moved! It hopped off the porch and took off across the yard while my cat watched from the other side of the yard, apparently amused by how I gasped, slammed the door shut and locked it (because the bear was clearly going to open it again) and then tried to get Little Miss to come see it by gasping. “Bear. Bear. Little Miss. See. Come.”

It was gone before she got there, sadly.

The Husband and The Boy were both upstairs so I couldn’t call for them.

(I want to say that the bear was as big as the one on the left, but it was actually probably more like the one on the right.)

We are now investing in a ring camera so I can get a better look before any of us step out there from now on.

I did a search on Facebook in a group that focuses on bear sightings in our area to see if anyone had seen our bear and learned that bear sightings are up. One reason they are up is because the state game commission has changed the weigh-in locations for bears when they are hunted. This means hunters aren’t as interested in hunting bears. They have to drive them too far to weigh them. Since the bears aren’t being as hunted as much, there is more of them. More of them means more of them are wandering into backyards and small towns.

Hopefully, we can keep ourselves and the bears safe. In most cases bears leave as soon as they see a person and we’re lucky that black bears aren’t like their grizzly bear cousins who sometimes do attack people (but probably rarely).

This week we lost three celebrities. I’m not a huge celebrity follower but these three were connected to my childhood. When the second one passed away I told my son there would be a third and on Thursday there was.

First,  we lost Malcom-Jamal Warner who used to be on The Cosby Show. He sadly died in a drowning while on vacation and his 8-year-old daughter witnessed it. That made me flat out cry. That poor child. I can’t imagine the trauma she experienced and will experience from here on out. My heart goes out to her and his family.

Credit PEOPLE Magazine.

I have positive memories of Malcom on The Cosby Show. I know a lot of people today want to forget anything that Bill Cosby was involved with because of what he was convicted of but I can’t toss the baby out with the bathwater on that one. That show was part of my formative years and helped shape a view of black people for me that fought against the ideas that many TV shows and books focused on at the time that said that black people were only “former slaves” and “lived in poor neighborhoods” or were “members of gangs.”


The Cosby Show starred (clockwise from top left) Tempestt Bledsoe as Vanessa Huxtable, Malcolm-Jamal Warner as Theodore “Theo” Huxtable, Lisa Bonet as Denise Huxtable, Phylicia Rashad as Clair Huxtable, Keshia Knight Pulliam as Rudy Huxtable, and Bill Cosby as Dr. Heathcliff “Cliff” Huxtable. (Credit AP)

 I didn’t even know about these stereotypes until I was much older because my parents never spoke about other races based on stereotypes, and because I watched shows like The Cosby Show. Bill was a doctor and Claire was a lawyer and they lived in a very nice house in the city and their kids were smart, pretty, and fun. That’s all I know about black families before my teen years, when others I met tried to suggest black people were inferior. I knew they weren’t because my parents taught me they weren’t and because I’d seen shows like The Cosby Show. They weren’t any different than me other than the color of their skin and the fact the Huxtables were rich and I wasn’t. I sometimes got a bit jealous of all they had but one thing I had that they had was a loving family.

I absolutely loved that about the show. There was so much love in that family. Unconditional love too.

I know Malcom was an actor but to me, he was part of my family, in some ways, back in the 1980s. It was so hard to hear of his passing, even though I hadn’t kept up with him a lot over the years. He seemed so sweet and nice when I saw interviews with him. It must have been so hard for him and the other actors to lose parts of their past because of what Bill Cosby did. The show was taken off the air and it was as if it was blacklisted in a way because of one man’s actions. Plus, finding out much of your childhood was a lie because the man you worked with was living a double life has to be very traumatic too.

In 2023, he told People magazine, “”Regardless of how some people may feel about the show now, I’m still proud of the legacy and having been a part of such an iconic show that had such a profound impact on — first and foremost, Black culture — but also American culture.”

The second celebrity death was Ozzy Osbourne. I’ve never been a huge Black Sabbath or Ozzy fan, persay, but I did watch The Osbournes off and on when I was younger. Despite all his drug issues and his effort to be “the prince of darkness”, Ozzy was a softy. He cared about people. He loved his family. My heart breaks that he was never able to come to know God and his love for him, as far as I know. There was a lot of trusting in self for him and his family, and that has to be a very hard way to live life. Only God knows his heart, though.

I won’t lie that I cried some looking back on videos of him and his family. I wish they all could have had more time with him.

Thursday afternoon my husband texted me to let me know that the wrestler Hulk Hogan had died. My husband has a lot more of a connection to Hulk Hogan than I do. He grew up watching him when he was a kid. I grew up seeing his toys and gear and even a match or two, but I really didn’t know much about him. I was playing with Barbie and My Little Ponies.

My husband sent me a few matches from his past to watch on YouTube last night to honor him, so I will be doing that today.

He seems like a complex person with faults, but one who a lot of people also cared about despite those faults.

The rest of my week was fairly mundane. Today I am supposed to go to my parents to take Little Miss swimming, and tomorrow we are going clothes shopping for the kids. They truly need new clothes, especially Little Miss who is growing so fast.

Next week we will be starting school a little more, easing into it, but otherwise it is another fairly mundane week planned.

How was your week last week?

This week’s encouraging verse:

“May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble; May the name of the God of Jacob defend you; May He send you help from the sanctuary, And strengthen you out of Zion; May He remember all your offerings, And accept your burnt sacrifice. May He grant you according to your heart’s desire, And fulfill all your purpose. We will rejoice in your salvation, And in the name of our God we will set up our banners! May the Lord fulfill all your petitions.”

Psalm 20: 1-5

Saturday Evening Chat: A little pool, a little busy, and some photos to look back on

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 11 Comments

I’m the type of person who has never liked summer unless I can spend most of it in a pool. This year, though, we don’t have the pool we had before at my parents. Maintaining it has become too much for my dad with all his mounting health issues and it’s hard for us to maintain it the way he would like.

The decision to take it down was made a couple of weeks ago and it’s been very sad to walk out back and not see it. This past week my dad and son put up a small pool that our neighbors gave us a couple of years ago but it is a ton smaller than the last one.

It will at least be something that we can sit in, almost like a hot tub, when it is super hot out at least. Of course, I have to get myself in the pool without injuring myself. I am short and round so climbing in and out of a pool without a ladder, even when it is a shorter pool, can be a challenge. I did manage to get in the pool while it was filling on Thursday. It was nice to sit in it and watch Little Miss play and splash around. It was less fun trying to get back out again, especially since I needed to use the little girl’s room.

It was only comical after the fact, of course.

We are looking for a small ladder or step stool that will make getting in and out easier for all of us.

Last week was very busy for us, compared to our usual schedule in the summer.

Little Miss and I went to a library event and her 4-H Wildlife Club on Monday. On Tuesday we went to VBS but had a not-so-great experience there so on Wednesday we went to my parents to help clean. We went back on Thursday.

Yesterday and today, we stayed home and watched movies and TV, read books, ate watermelon, cooked dinner, bathed the dog, and tried our best to just relax.

Tomorrow The Husband and I are celebrating 23 years of marriage, so we are going out to dinner and to a used bookstore. Yes, we are that exciting. We both love books, though, and the little village where the bookstore is located is very picturesque so it should be a nice day.

Next week The Husband is on vacation and we have a few day trips planned but nothing very exciting. He and the kids are most excited about seeing the new Superman movie, but I’m really not that excited so I might sit this one out.

While typing this blog post up, Microsoft’s One Drive suggested I look at some photos from this same date five years ago.

Here are those photos:

These are from a trip we took a friend’s farm for me to take some photos for them and to sell for stock photography. I don’t know why but my dad took me out with the kids and on the way home he took the long way back and we ended up with a flat tire. Luckily, he knows how to change tires, but we had to wait a bit while he did that. While we waited there was a wonderful sunset for us to watch.

It was fun to visit the friend and see all her cows and the creamery she had opened. Sadly, life circumstances led to the creamery being closed and the cows being moved but her sons are still involved in farming and in showing cows for 4H.

In closing, I’ll leave us all with a quick reminder of how we need some breaks from all the hard stuff in the news. I read a couple of reminders this week that we as humans are not meant to consume all this information about the tragedies in the world all at once. Our minds are not infinite enough to handle all the grief, all the horror, all the fear on our own.

My advice to myself and to you is to take breaks from it all.

Don’t take it all in at once.

Just because we can know everything that is going on these days, doesn’t mean we need to.

Read a book. Watch a nice movie. Take a walk outside. Play with your kids and grandkids. Pet your dog and/or cat.

Sing some hymns.

We can’t ignore all the bad news, of course, but in the end we have to leave it in the hands of the only one who can carry it all.

How was your week last week? I hope it went well and I hope you have a good week this week.  

Saturday Evening Chat: Fourth of July and prayers, not blaming, for Texas

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 19 Comments

I hope everyone in the U.S. had a very nice Fourth of July. My family did and partly thanks to cooler temperatures in our area.

It wasn’t too cold or too warm for our afternoon cookout and an early evening waving of sparklers in the backyard at my parents’ house.

Today we stayed inside from the warming temps and watched movies and relaxed while our son went to visit a friend.

Last night some neighbors were shooting off fireworks, which always freaks out Zooma the Wonder Dog.

She hates gunfire (which does happen here occasionally), thunder, and fireworks and lately when she hears any of those she has been getting so nervous she just paces back and forth and goes to each of the family members and paws at us. She was doing this last night. We tried to let her out to see if she needed to use the bathroom, gave her an extra treat, and do other things we thought she might want but finally decided it was indeed the fireworks upsetting her.

So last night I finally got a clue – after looking online and after an hour of her pawing and pacing and refusing to settle. I closed all the windows and turned on the fan and air conditioner for some white noise. Then I wrapped a blanket around her (thankfully yesterday was a cool day) and rubbed her temples and she started to close her eyes and finally flopped over on the couch next to me and fell asleep.

The poor thing had had a long day at my parents, running all over their property, and I knew she had to be exhausted. She laid next to me asleep under that blanket for a good hour.

I think the blanket is a comfort to her because in the winter our daughter covers her up like she is a baby and they fall asleep together that way.

She is a bit of a spoiled dog and she pretty much knows it.

Tonight I also I want to offer up prayers for the people of Kerrville, Texas and the surrounding area. I’m sure many of you know about the flooding there so I won’t go into detail. I’ve been struggling with the news of this since last night. My 10-year-old daughter has gotten a lot of hugs and kisses since I first heard yesterday. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about those girls and their families and the other victims.

I know that it seems to be common these days for people to try to politicize absolutely everything, but in this case, I wish people just wouldn’t.

The fingers of blame have been shot out at everyone from the current administration, the past administration, meteorologists, camp leaders, media, and everyone in between.

The fact is that sometimes some people might be to blame for a response to a weather event, but sometimes weather is going to do what weather is going to do. That doesn’t make the aftermath any easier or less horrifying, of course.

In 2011, when I lived 45 minutes north of where I live now, we were told by the National Weather Service we would get heavy rain from the remnants of Tropical Storm Sandy. There might even be flooding, we were told. It could be significant flooding, especially since our town was along two rivers that converged right at the end of town. We were not told the whole town might flood, though. That hadn’t happened since the remnants of Hurricane Agnes in 1972.

What we were not told until the middle of the night, mainly because forecasters didn’t know this was going to happen, was that the storm system had stalled over our area. That meant that rain kept falling and falling and falling. Hours earlier, business owners in our town’s business district were told they would get some damage, but their businesses should be fine. Homeowners were told to get to higher ground, but they should be okay.

By 2 or 3 a.m., though, it was clear those assurances were absolutely wrong. One business owner recalled to my husband that when they got the middle-of-the-night call from the fire department, they were told, “We were wrong. The weather people were wrong. The river is coming over its banks. You’re going to lose everything. You can’t come into town, though because there is water over the bridge and it’s not safe.”

The business district was destroyed. The next day, people were in boats on main street, just like in the photos I had seen from 1972. It was completely surreal.

People who hadn’t left their houses were trapped on their roofs. A few houses floated downstream, just like the photos we are seeing in Texas. As far as I know, the owners were not in the houses at the time. We did not have the high number of fatalities like they have in Texas.

I’m sure a lot of blame flew around after that flood, but most people understood what really happened was that nature did what nature does — acted in an unexpected way for us, but an expected way for it.

No one, or at least very few people, could have predicted that storm system would stall and dump more than 10 inches of rain on the area overnight and even more the next day.

From what I am reading about Texas, a similar situation occurred, but even worse because dams overflowed. I watched a video of how fast it all happened and yes, people knew there would be flooding, but flooding that wiped out entire towns? No. They didn’t predict that because the area had been a drought about two months ago. A lot of news channels are choosing not to share that because they want to stir up controversy.

While some responses might have been lacking (I have no idea yet), most people were completely caught off guard — even officials. This area isn’t like a city or even a well traveled rural area, from what I understand. This is true wilderness without not a ton of communication and that’s how people want it. These are campgrounds. They did have cellphones in some areas but even then they were keeping an eye on the water, but had no idea it was about to break loose further upstream.

I just wish the hyper-political people in our country (those who see life through political lenses only) would keep their mouths shut until we can at least bury the dead.

I should also add that there are still people missing in North Carolina from the flooding last autumn which surprisingly people have stopped talking about. That entire area is still devastated, and people are living in temporary housing, and others are still waiting to bury their dead.

There is too much tragedy in the world for us all to keep up on it, so I don’t blame people for not knowing about what is happening in N.C. still. I can’t take it all in most days. I disassociate myself by watching movies, reading books, and then writing blog posts about it all.

I simply wish we didn’t all have to start dividing each other even more during these tragedies. Screaming that this or that party is to blame for this or that natural disaster isn’t going to help these families through their grief. I hesitate and hate to say this, but I think in this situation, no amount of warning was going to help stop some of this from happening.

Even if they had known the rivers would rise fast, I don’t see how they could have known it would rise up to 20 feet in less than an hour. That’s just not something that normally  happens….which brings me to another topic that I probably won’t write about on this blog ever because I usually try to keep posts here as happy as I can.

All this being said, I’ll be back to happier topics tomorrow in my Sunday Bookends when I write about Thriftbooks sending me the wrong book but it turned out to be a possible collectible.

Next week Little Miss and I will be going to VBS, helping my parents, and dealing with some heat again. Maybe we will even find some time for swimming.

What have you been doing and what do you have going on next week?

Lisa R. Howeler is a blogger, homeschool mom, and writes cozy mysteries.

You can find her Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find her on Instagram and YouTube.

Saturday Evening Chat: Meeting fellow bloggers, no link party here, and flowers are blooming

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 18 Comments

Hello! Good Saturday evening. This was supposed to go up this afternoon, but life got busy so it got delayed.

Sit down and have some tea and a snack with me. My sister-in-law sent a whole bunch of tea with my brother when he visited last week so I have a variety for you to choose from. A honey ginger tea, green tea with lemon, Earl Gray, one for relaxation (I may ten cups of that tonight!), and a couple of others. And, of course, I have my go-to, plain peppermint.

First, a bit of housekeeping:

This post will no longer be a link party. Why? Because there are so many link parties out there already that I am a part of or participate in and they are great. And because I like my Saturday posts just to be a chat post with my blog followers.

If you are looking for a link party to participate in, I co-host one with three lovely blogger ladies that goes live on Thursday nights. The Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot goes live about 9:30 p.m. each Thursday (unless I’m late like this week. Whoops!) and if you scroll on my right-hand sidebar you should find the link to the latest one.

I also have added a link to parties I participate in at the top of my page.

I am going to leave up my monthly link-up for all things book-related. You can find a link to the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea link party at the top of my page.

With all of that out of the way, on to today’s post which will be about pretty much nothing. Ha!

No, it will be about something. I did actually do a few things this past week.

One very exciting something I did this past week was meet the blogger at Mama’s Empty Nest this past week. I don’t know if she shares her first name on her blog or not, since I’ve never seen her do it, so I won’t share it here. I’ll just call her C.

Over the years, I have loved reading C’s stories about her various trips across our country or into Canada. I have also been blessed and encouraged by the posts she shares about her faith. She’s hit a bit of a snag with her blog lately because WordPress says she is almost out of storage space and is trying to force her to upgrade. She likes to share photos from her various travels, so this has created quite the conundrum for her. and I am about in the same boat. The snag has led to her taking a bit of a break from her blog while she tries to reduce what’s in her storage. It’s also led to her and I both feeling like Wordress stinks a bit as a blog host.

C and her husband are trying to travel to each county in the state of Pennsylvania in the next few years. They are from the western part of Pennsylvania and I am in the East so they were able to mark a few more counties off their list this week, including mine.

C was also able to mark off seeing yet another covered bridge, which is another goal of hers. We have a beautiful covered bridge about 20 minutes from us that is located next to one of our favorite restaurants, so I suggested that as our meeting place. It let C check off two of her goals in a row — visiting another county and seeing a covered bridge.

Of course, they actually did see our county on their way through to visit Williamsport in Lycoming County. They were even able to see our county’s one stoplight in the middle of the town I live in. How terribly exciting for them. Ha!

The Husband had a later-than-planned day of work that day and The Boy wasn’t feeling well, so in the end it was just Little Miss and I who met with them. We were excited to introduce them to our local Philadelphia cheesesteak place. The restaurant is owned by someone who is originally from south Philadelphia. There are a variety of different ways to make a cheesesteak in Philadelphia and Big Mike (the restaurant owners) offers it a few different ways. C and her husband had never tried a cheesesteak with cheese whiz so they were excited to try one.

We had a nice dinner of cheesesteaks and chicken salads, sweet potato fries, and fried pickle chips, sitting on the picnic tables by the restaurant, overlooking the Loyalsock Creek and the Forksville Covered Bridge.

Little Miss is very shy around her peers and tends to open up more to adults at times. She usually opens up more when she gets to know a person, but for some reaso,n she connected immediately with C and her lovely husband.

C said later, maybe it is because they gave off “cool grandparent vibes” and Little Miss had to agree.

C and her husband have four grandchildren, one of them Little Miss’s age, and from what I have read on her blog, they really are the cool grandparents.

Little Miss loved sharing all kinds of stories with them and showing them photos of a range of pets and people from her life. She also enjoyed feeding the birds and a chipmunk hopping around the outside tables.

After filling our bellies and chatting, C and her lovely husband were back on the road again, with plans to leave the next day for home. Before leaving C gifted me with a box of Amish Inn Mysteries books after she read on my blog that I have been reading them. I’d take a photo of them to post here but they are in the back of my car, which isn’t here at the moment since  my husband is using it to pick up a friend of Little Miss’s for a playdate.

I am not including photos of myself here, even though we took a photo together, because I don’t enjoy photos of myself, but here is a lovely photo of the covered bridge.

C and I met on Wednesday. On Thursday I went to my parents to help clean and ended up chatting the afternoon away with the wife of a man who came to purchase some old collector bottles from my dad.

My grandmother collected bottles for years and also won awards for her collection. Those bottles are still at my parents but with them getting older and me not having room for the collection my dad is beginning to sell them off.

It will be hard to let them go but there simply isn’t any way to keep everything.

On Friday, the kids and I had to stop at two government offices for various reasons and pick up groceries. It was a frustrating day in many ways and that really isn’t a surprise since the previous sentence included the words, “government offices.”

I believe frustration is the main feeling you end up with after dealing with government offices. That and anger. Sometimes even rage  — especially when those offices have new rules every time you walk in the door.

One week they allowed us to use certain documentation to obtain a replacement social security card for our son and two weeks later they denied us the ability to do the same for our daughter. I truly feel that government employees either don’t actually know the rules, don’t care about the rules, or change the rules every time a new person comes in just to make their own, mundane life more exciting.

We did come home with what The Boy needed from his government office visit, but not what Little Miss needed.

After we came home, I tripped over a shovel in our garage and fell hard on my hands and needs on the concrete floor. I landed on both knees but more so the knee which had only just healed up from a fall on our sidewalk last summer.

There are many reasons I hate summer, and I can add falling on my face at least once during the season to that list now, apparently.

I actually didn’t fall right on my face, but close to it.

I bent my glasses, possibly cracked my phone (I found that crack later in the evening), and was left with a very bruised knee. Despite all that, I feel very lucky. Usually, a fall like that leaves me very, very sore the next day and could have left me with a broken bone, but I’m doing fairly well today. The knee isn’t feeling too great, but it isn’t as painful as it was last year when I twisted it.

While I was sitting and trying to recover from my fall, my mom called and said my dad was having chest pains that were radiating to his back so The Husband ran out the door and drove him to the ER. Dad refused an ambulance.

Because my mom has been having falls lately (luckily ones that have just left her on her bottom and not seriously injured), I headed over to stay with her, limping into the house. I left there at midnight after Dad had a clean-bill of health from the ER. They determined he had gas and a severe muscle pull.

This afternoon I had a Crafternoon with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and others. I am also not leaving my house for the next several days for my mental and physical health.

We are scheduled to have dangerous heat for the next four or five days and my nerves are a bit shot from yesterday. We already have a heat advisory in place. Humidity is supposed to be very high on top of temperatures in the low to mid-90s.

 Heat and I don’t mix well together. It bothers my asthma and other issues.

The roses outside my house bloomed in full force this week but are quickly falling off and will be gone by the end of the week most likely. I will miss them as they seem to be one of the few highlights for me in summer.

The rest of summer is a muggy, hot, yucky mess that leaves me not feeling good. This year we won’t have a pool at my parents because it has become too much for my dad and us to maintain. This is disheartening to both me and Little Miss because we enjoyed it so much.

 So there has been a mix of sadness and happiness going on in my neck of the woods lately.

How about you? How was your week last week?

I’d love to hear about it in the comments, or you can leave me a link if you have a weekly round up post of some kind.

Lisa R. Howeler is a blogger, homeschool mom, and writes cozy mysteries.

You can find her Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find her on Instagram and YouTube.

Saturday Afternoon Chat Link Up: VBS, pretty churches, and the end of homeschooling for one child

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 13 Comments

Good afternoon! Welcome to another Saturday Afternoon Chat.

What are you drinking today?

Tea? Coffee? Lemonade? Water?

Let me know what I can get for you.

Yesterday we met with our homeschool evaluator and school is now officially over for this year.

We drive 45 minutes one way to meet with her each year.

This week it was a long drive after a week of driving to VBS 20 minutes one way and spending two hours there each night for a few nights. We missed Tuesday night because of a flat tire on our car and Thursday night The Husband drove her. This was VBS at a church we don’t belong to.

I appreciated that because I’ve been having pain in my neck and driving around the windy roads and curves and hills we live on flared it up quite a bit.

I enjoyed taking her on the days, though, because we were able to chat about different things and watch for animals together while we were driving to and from VBS.

Little Miss is fairly independent and usually attends most events without us but lately she’s been a little clingy. She wanted me to stay with her during VBS since she didn’t know anyone, but she got involved easily and most of the time didn’t mind if I was there or not. I didn’t follow her around. Instead, I simply sat in the back of the sanctuary on very pretty, but uncomfortable pews.

 She would run up to me off and on and get a hug, almost like a reassurance. The next day I told her I would probably sit in the car and read that night instead of sitting in the church, but she said she wanted me to be in the church.

“You don’t need me,” I told her. “You were having fun without me.”

“Yes, but it’s just nice knowing you’re there,” she told me.

That definitely got me in the heart and left me feeling emotional. I didn’t mind sitting in the church as much after that and enjoyed the hugs she gave me when she ran back to me. Plus, the church has beautiful stained glass windows and it was nice to look at them and watch the sun pour through them.

Two of the days of VBS were very hot but the rest of the week the weather was pretty much perfect. The hot temperatures are gone again for now, but it is not as cold as it was in May. I prefer the cooler temps, though. Not freezing, but cooler. The heat and humidity really takes a toll on me. Much worse than simply feeling too hot.

Yesterday our drive to the homeschool evaluator was uneventful. It was a little emotional for me because it is the last time The Boy will be evaluated now that he has graduated. This marks the end of our six-year homeschooling journey together, and he’s thrilled, but I’m going to miss it.

I loved picking out a curriculum for him and learning it with him. The last two years were pretty hard because he was pretty much over school, but we made it, and he’s ready for his next steps..

Little Miss and I will be continuing homeschooling for this next year and I’m planning to use a curriculum but also be open to more deviations from strict curriculum, as long as it is still educational.

I’m looking forward to our school year and to using art and literature even more than I did last year. I also have my eye on a really interesting music curriculum. Looking for different curriculum is a highlight of my summers, so I do feel a sense of loss not looking for curriculum or books for The Boy this year.

There is another VBS at another church this upcoming week, but we haven’t decided if we are attending it or not. There are two or three other VBS events this summer we hope to attend as well. And there are also 4-H events coming up. So we might have a busy summer, but maybe also a relaxed one at times.

So what have you been up to this past week? Any vacations yet? Family gatherings? Shopping. I’d love to know. Let me know in the comments.

P.S. I am offering a link-up here on Saturdays now, but I’m also part of a great link-up on Thursday — The Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot — so please come join us and link up your favorite, new, or older posts there as well. Just search “Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot” in the search bar to the right and you’ll find the latest link-up! We are also looking for additional hosts so don’t be afraid to throw your hat in the ring for that.

Also, feel free to grab graphics with a right click save (if it works). I have no idea how to offer a code so you can just pluck it down on your sidebar.

A few guidelines throughout the week.

  1. Leave an unlimited number of posts throughout the week. They can be new or older posts. Please link to a blog post, though.
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  3. Please visit and comment on at least two other posts in the link (don’t just drop a link and run)
  4. Have fun!

Come back tomorrow for Sunday Bookends, where I chat about what I’ve been reading, watching, listening to, doing and share some favorite photos and links from around the blog community.

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Lisa R. Howeler is a blogger, homeschool mom, and writes cozy mysteries.

You can find her Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find her on Instagram and YouTube.

Join us for our weekly link-up: The Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot on Fridays (it goes live Thursday night at 9:30 p.m.). Come join us and link up your favorite, new, or older posts.

Saturday Afternoon Chat: Visiting a cute bookstore and enjoying Memorial Day

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 8 Comments

Saturday Afternoon Chat is what it sounds like — a post to chat about what’s been going on or, well, anything I and you want to chat about. You can also feel free to leave links to similar posts or to a post you want to get some extra eyes on at the bottom of this post.

Welcome to our Saturday Afternoon Chat. So glad you are here to chat with me because during the week I mostly chat to my pets and my 10-year-old daughter and sometimes neither of them respond to me. Huh.

Well, anyhow, it’s nice to have some adults to chat with.

Last Sunday The Husband, Little Miss, and I traveled to a small tourist town year us after we found out there was a small, used bookstore there.

The store ended up being bigger than I thought and it was extremely cozy and inviting.

I can’t believe we have lived here for five years and I had no idea the store was there!

The town it is located in starts to get active in the spring and summer because most of the residents have summer homes there along the lake.

Our county is made up mainly of state game land that is full of cabins and hiking trails. This town was built probably 100 years ago as a getaway for residents of the city. Yes, many of those residents are fairly wealthy, so there is definitely a different feel to this town than others in our county.

There is a beach along the lake in the town, but it is only accessible to members or those who stay at the local inns in town, so, yes, it is an exclusive beach.

The bookstore was not exclusive to members, though, so we were free to visit it, look through the books, and even buy some.

What drew us to the store this past weekend was the beginning of summer sale where the owner places select books out front and in a room in the back and marks them at either $1.50 or $3.

There were plenty of books to choose from in those sections but there were also very many reasonably priced books throughout the three rooms of the store.

Of course, the section that most excited me was the children’s section because this is where she had a nice, small selection of Nancy Drew books. I only owned one or two of them and wanted all 17 of them, but we (okay The Husband) had established a budget for all of our purchases so I ended up only grabbing one. The newer editions, and even some of the older ones, were about $5 each, with the larger reprints of the original text priced at $8.50.

Little Miss chose the one I purchased, The Clue of the Velvet Mask.

It looks like the blob is coming up behind Nancy.

I really hope to be able to head back there soon and snatch up a few more.

She also had some vintage books, lovely collector’s editions, new books, history books, art books, mysteries, and so much more.

I could have spent the entire afternoon in there simply exploring.

After we left the bookstore, The Husband and Little Miss grabbed an ice cream cone at the Sweet Shop, a small restaurant and ice cream stand in town. From there we headed to the boat launch of the lake and took a few photos.

We drove by the beach area of the lake, but, again, since we were not members, we were not allowed to visit it.

On the way out of town, we stopped at the reserve, which features a walking trail and a 18th-century log cabin. During other times, the cabin is open and features a mini-museum and local historical information.

The rest of last weekend was spent with family, including a friend of The Boy’s, to celebrate The Boy graduating from technical school.

On Monday, we spent the day at my parents, reading books on their porch/deck, eating chicken spiedies, and the kids took a golf cart ride over the hill with my dad.

The rest of the week was fairly uneventful and not worth writing about. Yesterday we drove to pick up groceries. Ooh…so very exciting. Ha!

Tomorrow Little Miss will start attending a VBS about 20 minutes from our house. It’s going to be going on each evening for five nights.

How was your week last week? Do anything exciting? Go anywhere fun? Let me know in the comments.

Come back tomorrow for Sunday Bookends, where I chat about what I’ve been reading, watching, listening to, doing and share some favorite photos and links from around the blog community.

Saturday Afternoon Chat: My son is a technical school graduate!

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 8 Comments

I’m so glad you stopped to chat today.

This weekend we are celebrating because on Thursday, our son graduated from a local high school technical school, and in two weeks, he will receive a diploma from the state education department for finishing up all the requirements under the state homeschool law.

This is an exciting weekend for us, but also a bit bittersweet.

I am absolutely flabbergasted that we are already at this time in my son’s life. When I look at him, I still see my little boy. It feels like just yesterday when I was watching him take his first steps. I can close my eyes and see him in a tiny cap and gown when he graduated from Kindergarten.

Now he’s getting ready to step into the workforce or further education. He isn’t sure yet which he is doing. He’s going to take a few months to decide, and his dad and I are fine with that. There is no reason for him to rush into a decision. We are very glad to have him home with us for awhile longer. His sister is as well.

Today we are celebrating with a friend of our son’s and my parents by picking up some traditional Philly cheesesteaks from a restaurant near us. Then the kids will hang out at our house and play video games and watch movies.

Both of the kids have a few things to finish up for me next week to add to our portfolios for our homeschool evaluator, but otherwise, we are done for the school year.

I can’t even believe the school year is over. It truly feels like we just started it.

Next year will definitely be different and probably full of more colds and stomach bugs (ha!) since we plan to join a local co-op that meets once a week.

This next week will be a week where we don’t have a ton going on other than visiting my parents, and the week after that, summer events will start for Little Miss. We are trying to get her more involved in events so she can meet more children her age. There are VBS events, 4-H clubs, library summer reading programs, and so much more we can attend and are going to try to.

I don’t do well physically in heat and humidity, so pray I can get through it all without fainting. When I mean I don’t do well, I mean I really, truly have severe physical responses to the heat, so especially pray I don’t faint!

Right now, we don’t have to worry about the heat. This is one of the coldest Mays I can remember, other than the year we first moved here when it snowed in May! Our temps have been mid-50s during the day and the 40s at night. It has been odd but not totally unusual for Pennsylvania. I am a person who loves to cuddle up under a blanket to read a book or write or watch shows so I haven’t minded this extended cooler weather. I look forward to the days when I can have my blanket, my warm rice pack on my feet and warm tea or cocoa next to me while I write, teach Little Miss, or watch a show. I’m going to miss them when it is so hot I can’t even think.

I have read that our summer is going to be very hot, so I am bracing myself.

So, how was your week last week? Did you do anything exciting?

I’ll be back tomorrow for the Sunday Bookends post to share what I’ve been reading, watching, listening to and all that jazz.

Saturday Afternoon Chat: A trip to picturesque Lewisburg Pa

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 13 Comments

Last weekend my family and I headed about an hour south to visit a small town called one of the most  picturesque towns in the state of Pennsylvania — Lewisburg, Pa.

The week before had been a very long one for all of us so it was nice to escape for a little while and see some different scenery.

That weekend was also Free Comic Book Day, so the trip had actually been planned for a while to pick up some free comic books at a comic bookstore in town.  The store also is a Warhammer shop, which is the main reason our son wanted to visit it.

He has really been enjoying painting the models. He doesn’t do the gaming with the models, but he loves figuring out how to paint them to look realistic and, well, just cool. He does play the online game, read the books, and knows all the Warhammer lore.

Lewisburg is a small town featuring colonial-style homes and buildings. Many of the buildings are something I would expect to see in some parts of colonial-era Philadelphia or Gettysburg. Of course not every house is picture-worthy, but it is close. Even the churches downtown (there are three different denominations on one corner in one section) are elegant and photo-worthy.

There was an independent bookstore near the comic shop that The Husband and The Boy found on a trip they took back in November for The Boy’s birthday, and The Husband wanted me to see it.

I have some autoimmune issues, and I often get very tired out or weak in my legs, so I was worried about having to walk a lot. I had also been on my feet a ton throughout the week as I helped my elderly parents. I prayed throughout the week and the day of, though, and ended up doing just fine. I was able to walk further than I normally can and visit stores without feeling dragged out or my legs hurting, or at least not hurting as much as they sometimes do.

The Boy was thrilled with the part of the comic store which featured the Warhammer gear. It was small but still packed solid with models, paint, merchandise, books, etc.

The shop is small overall, but The Husband said there was a room in the back where the comic books were being given out and the atmopshere was very jovial. Out front the feeling was more subdued and a bit underwhelming to me after attending free comic book day celebrations in the past at other stores where cosplays and more “celebratory” events were going on. Still, the store is nicely set up and offers a good selection for it’s small size.

The Husband and The Boy had visited a pizzeria the previous time they were in town and we headed there after leaving the comic store because Little Miss was “starving.”

It was a very quiet, small and unassuming place but the food and service were amazing.

If you are ever in Lewisburg, be sure to check out Pi Pizza on Market Street. They were the nicest people and the food was great. I recommend the chicken Caesar wrap.

After eating, we walked down the street to Mondragon Books, an independent bookstore that sells a mix of new and used books and records.

It is a cozy store with its walls covered with attractive bookshelves packed to the brim with books of all genres and varieties. There is a tree inside the store, people. A beautiful tree. Okay, the tree isn’t real (I mean..I don’t think? It really looked real.) There is also a record player up front behind the counter where the owner/staff member sets records on to play throughout the speaker system. Real records.

Here is a bit about the store from its website : “Our collection focuses largely on literary fiction and poetry, social studies of all sorts, the arts, children’s books, health & wellness, the home economy, the political economy, DIY skills, nature connection, and other books that foster knowledge and power to the people.

In 2024, Mondragon relocated to 302 Market Street, across from the post office and into what was once Lewisburg’s downtown CVS (& before that Newberry’s Department Store). Aside from books, we also sell high-quality used LPs, a selection of postcards, buttons, & stickers, japanese incense, earth flags, and small goods from a few local artists.”

There are chairs, couches and other seats for customers to relax on while they look or read. I could have sat on their plush leather couch for the rest of the afternoon, but The Husband wanted me to see the three-story Barnes & Noble down the street, so, alas I had to leave. Not before grabbing a book about horses for Little Miss and a book of recipes by artist Georgia O’Keefe.

I hope to go back there again and simply take my time looking at each and every book there.

About a block from this bookstore is the Barnes & Noble/Bucknell University campus bookstore and spirit shop, built in 2017.

The first floor is the Barnes & Noble and a snack shop. An escalator leads to the second floor where merchandise and gear representing Bucknell University is held. The third floor is a campus bookstore where textbooks and other college supplies can be found.

Bucknell is not a “ivy league” school but it is considered very close and offers what most consider “high academics”.

From what we could tell the students there really like to party.

When The Husband took The Boy in November they walked past a frat party and there was another one going on on like an entire block near the playground we stopped to visit. The music was so loud it was like we were at a live concert.

One thing I learned while visiting Lewisburg is that fat people do not live there.

Almost all of the women I saw were well-dressed, skinny or in amazing shape and were jogging, walking, or running.

I only saw one or two overweight girls. I also didn’t see very many people who “looked poor” in this part of Lewisburg. Whatever that means.  Ha! I just mean they were all dressed very nice with expensive clothes and shoes.

On our way out of this part of Lewisburg, I did see an entirely different side of the town, which I guess is “the other side of the tracks” since it was literally across the railroad tracks. The homes in this part of time looked more like average day homes and the people who lived in them are probably people I would hang out with versus the more wealthy people a couple of which who watched me with a suspicious eye when I was in the Barnes & Noble and the comic store.

While the Barnes & Noble was very nice, I was not that bowled over by their book selection. That might be because I am used to the old Barnes & Noble that had rows and rows of bargain books and book genres and an entire wall of journals. Also, I didn’t explore every inch of the place so there was probably more there than I realized.

Their mystery section was not very exciting to me, and I noticed the store focused more on the romance genre than anything else. The store is operated by Bucknell University and was built in 1942. It once housed a Hardware Store and there is a small display on the lower floor of some historic items found in the building when they were demolishing the inside to renovate it. I wish I had grabbed a photo of that but I didn’t think to.

After leaving the Barnes & Noble we found a playground for Little Miss to have some fun on.

There was a lilac bush there that had clearly started blooming a few days earlier and they smelled amazing.

We also took a small tour of the Bucknell campus and visited their stadium.

That was our last stop in town before heading home and crashing in our separate corners of the house in silence for a few hours, which is something this family of introverts does every time we go somewhere we have to deal with other human beings.

How was your week last week?

Do anything interesting or exciting?

Let me know in the comments or link up below.

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