Category: Sunday Bookends

Sunday Bookends: Enjoying Spring weather, Magpie Murders, and new book series

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends3 Comments

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what the rest of the family and I have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing, and some weeks I share what I am listening to.


What’s Been Occurring

I sat out on the back porch today. Literally sat on it — my plump rump right on the porch, the soles of my feet together as I did a type of Yoga pose and tried my best to breathe in slowly through my nose (which is a big clogged thanks to allergies). The sun was very warm, and the breeze cool but not too cool. On the side of the house, crocuses are blooming and the buds are up for the tulips that will soon bloom.

As I sat with my eyes closed, I heard birds – which I guess might be robins since I’ve seen at least four this month, two in the last week since the first day of Spring – chirping off to my left. I heard the wind blowing across the trees on the hill above the house.

Little Miss is recovering from a weather-change illness she gets every year this time of year and she shifted herself to sit between my legs, leaning back against me. Zooma the Wonder Dog joined her and there we sat, grateful for the sun and still recovering from the ups and downs of winter – weather, emotionally, and physically.

About ten minutes before we’d walked around the yard, and tossed the ball, a toy, and a stick for the dog. I had bent my toes into the grass and enjoyed the coolness and slowly expanding softness of it as green works to replace brown.

Little Miss walked a little, even tried to run, then realized she still hasn’t recovered from feeling unwell Friday and Saturday so she sat on the edge of the porch, looking – I hate to say it – miserable and not herself. I sat next to her and we talked about how we wanted a garden this summer. She asked first if we could plant a flower garden instead of a regular one, but I suggested we do both and just plant a few things in the vegetable garden. She agreed and we are going to make a list this week of what we want.

The sun helped her feel a little better and I am hoping by Monday or Tuesday she will be well on her way to full recovery.

She hasn’t seen her grandmother in two weeks for various reasons and would like to go visit her but we decided to wait a couple more days in case she is still contagious.

This week we don’t have a ton on tap, other than getting her to her makeup gymnastics class she missed yesterday if she feels better and Awana on Wednesday.

I rambled about our trip to our old stomping grounds in yesterday’s post.

What I/we’ve been Reading

The weather is so nice today that I may go back outside after I post this and read a little bit.

I finished The Burning Issue of the Day last night and am working on Meant to Bee by Storm Shultz for a book tour while also reading A Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie and listening to The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien.

I want to read some books with a spring feel after next week so I hope to go back to Anne’s House of Dreams.

The Husband is reading All Kinds of Eden by James Lee Burke.

Little Miss and I are still reading the Land of the Big Read Apple by Roger Lea MacBride in the evening and during the day we were reading Soft Rain, the story of a Cherokee girl who is forced out of her home during the Trail of Tears. I know it is important for Little Miss to know this history but the book is pretty heavy and I’d love for her to hold on to her innocence a little longer. We may set it aside and pick it back up in a couple of years.

What We watched/are Watching

Last week The Husband and I finished up the Magpie Murders mini-series on PBS Masterpiece. It’s based on the book of the same title (Magpie Murders NOT THE MAGPIE MURDERS! Watch the series or read the book to know why that is important) by Anthony Horowitz.

It was very well put together and not a lot of gore, sex, or language. There was one “f-bomb” in the entire six-part series, if I remember correctly.

Saturday I kicked off my Spring of Cary classic movie series with A Awful Truth. It wasn’t too bad but toward the end I realized I had seen the movie before, but years ago – like probably over a decade ago. It was funny and quirky but not really one of my favorites of his.

I’ll have a post later this week sharing what other movies of his I plan to watch throughout April and May.

I started watching a new mystery show that I had hoped would be a bit funny but was a bit more on the depressing side instead: The Madame Blanc Mysteries. It follows the story of a British woman whose husband dies while in France. She moves to France to investigate what happened to him and stumbles into other mysteries along the way.

The first two episodes were very good and I’m interested to see if the first season wraps up the storyline with her husband or not.

What I’m Writing

As I mentioned on Friday, I am working on the first book in the Gladwynn Grant Mysteries, Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing, which is tentatively being released on June 20 of this year.

I am also working on a few other projects and you can read more about them in this post:

This week on the blog I shared:

What I’m Listening to

I like to listen to jazz when I work on Gladwynn’s story and last week I was reminded of an album by Harry Connick Jr. that I listened to in my teens when I first discovered Harry – Red Light, Blue Light. I have been listening to that a lot this past week.

Now it’s your turn

Now it’s your turn. What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.

Sunday Bookends: Dentists, snow, comedies, and other stuff

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday BookendsLeave a comment

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what I and the rest of the family have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing, and some weeks I share what I am listening to.


What I/We’ve Been Reading

I am finishing up a book by Danielle Grandinetti this week. It’s called Confessions To A Stranger and it will be out on Tuesday. I will have a review up for it on Thursday on my Instagram and probably here. It’s quite good.

I am also still reading The Burning Issue of The Day by T.E. Kinsey and The Fellowship of the Ring, but I didn’t get any of The Fellowship of the Ring read last week. I hope to get more done this week as it would be nice if The Boy and I finished it by the end of the school year at this point. Sigh.

This week I’d love to finish the books I’ve started and then go back to Anne’s House of Dreams and start another Walt Longmire book.

I did have a family friend as me how I read more than one book at once and in case you’ve ever wondered – I switch between books and sometimes I’ll end up reading one more than the other ones, which is why you’ll read on here that I am STILL reading certain books. Ha! There are also times I am reading a chapter here and there of a book, especially the L.M. Montgomery books which are more like little stories in each chapter rather than a book that flows from plot point to plot point.

Little Miss and I are reading Emily’s Imagination by Beverly Cleary again at night and also listened to Fortunately the Milk by Neil Gaiman (and narrated by him) several times this week, including on the way home from her procedure.

During the day for school, we are reading Spirit of the West.

The Husband is reading Upgrade by Blake Crouch


What’s Been Occurring

Friday and yesterday we received some more snow. Earlier in the week we were supposed to receive up to seven inches of snow in a surprise storm but we only ended up with two. Now, watch — tomorrow night we are supposed to get two to four but we will probably get much more because the area 30 miles above us in Upstate New York is supposed to get up to a foot of snow. If the storm slides down just a bit, we could get that amount too. We will just have to wait and see. You’ll have to read yesterday’s post if you want to know my children’s theory on why we are getting nailed by snow.

Also in yesterday’s post, I wrote about Little Miss’s dental procedure. That was our big ordeal of last week. It happened Friday but cast a cloud over our entire week in some ways. It went well, for the most part, but the aftermath of her not being able to eat well has not been fun. I did make her some potato soup with lots of milk and some cheese last night and that was a big hit. I think that’s something I’ll be making for myself from now on too.

I also made sweet potato soup the same way this morning.

I don’t know if I mentioned it yesterday or not, but she has developed a lisp after this and I’m upset by it. No, I don’t love her any less and yes, I am very ecstatic that she is still my same fun-loving kid (though a little more subdued and down with being unable to chew right now), but I was never told this could happen. In fact, I wasn’t told a lot of what would be happening and the fallout.

See that tiny speck of dust on the windowsill over there? (Oops…shouldn’t have mentioned it. The Husband has jumped up to take care of it). That tiny speck of dust is how much I trust dentists at this point in my life. To me they are scammers, liars, cheats, and backstabbing money-grubbing creeps. I’m pretty much over them and how they take advantage of people.

I feel like all some of them are about is money, money, and more money and how to cheat systems so they can get bigger payouts. That’s how I feel about them right now and it’s going to take a lot to change my mind. Sorry for any of you who have family members as dentists. I’m sure they are the exception to my personal rule and feelings about their profession.

People say they don’t know why dentists have the highest rates of suicide. I say it’s because they scam people and they know it and the guilt finally catches up to them.

Pray for me and my disgust with the profession and the people in it! It’s a real hang up for me. I’m serious. Pray for me about it. I know they aren’t all horrible people but we’ve had some really bad experiences of late and it’s left a bad taste in my mouth – in more ways than one.

What We Watched/Are Watching

This week I watched more Miss Scarlet & The Duke. I try to wait and watch certain shows with my husband, but he had a lot going on this week, so I did go ahead a bit with the show and now I’m dying to watch the next episode. I can’t promise I’ll wait for The Husband on this one. We are in season one.

Little Miss and I watched a lot of Bluey this week. A lot. A lot. A ….. loooot.

Hopefully we will take a break this week as I practically have the episodes of all two and a half seasons memorized.

Last night we watched a lot of Studio C, which is a comedy group out of Brigham Young University. We watched the original cast because we haven’t really liked the show since they left.

Friday night we watched the new Puss and Boots movie which is currently free with a subscription to Peacock. It was actually quite good, but I could have done without the bleeping of characters who were obviously saying very nasty swear words, something “kids” cartoons have started to do to try to entertain the parents who are watching with their kids.  Before long they’ll simply be saying the words. Mark my words. It will happen.

What I’m Writing

I wrote some 5,000 words on Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing this past week to try to keep my mind off all the stuff in my life. It was a lot of fun and I hope to do the same this week. I am doing a challenge with a group of other writers and I think I set a goal of 20,000 words for the month. Or maybe it was 15,000. I need to look at the sheet again. All I know is I wrote 10,000 words on the book in two weeks so I think I might make my goal. I’d love to have the book out by the summer.

On the blog I shared:

What I’m Listening To

This week Little Miss and I were comforted by listening to Matthew West a lot. We really needed his music.



Now it’s your turn

Now it’s your turn. What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.

Sunday Bookends

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends4 Comments

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays I ramble about what’s been going on, what I and the rest of the family have been reading and watching, what I’ve been writing, and some weeks I share what I am listening to.


What I/we’ve been Reading

I started a new cozy mystery book in a familiar-to-me series last week. I’ve read four of The Lady Hardcastle Mysteries and last week I started the fifth book, The Burning Issue of The Day.

These books take place in the early 1900s in England and are a lot of fun because of the two main characters, Lady Emily Hardcastle and her lady-in-waiting, Florence or Flo.

The books are written from the perspective of Flo and have a huge helping of humor but also complex and intriguing mystery.

I’m switching between the Lady Hardcastle book and a book by Danielle Grandinetti called Confessions To A Stranger that comes out March 14.

And as if I didn’t have enough to read, I am also reading The Fellowship of the Ring with The Boy. I’m enjoying it very much and will most likely start reading it exclusively soon. I have listened to parts of the chapters on Audible. Once in a while I read a chapter from Anne’s House of Dreams by L.M. Montgomery but I didn’t this week because I misplaced the book. Again. Ha!

At night, Little Miss and I are reading Imagination Station books. We finished a book about Vikings last week and this week we are reading one about Mongolians. These are short chapter books and Little Miss really enjoys reading them to me and then me reading them to her as she drifts off to sleep.

The Husband is reading  something but I’ll have to add this later as he has gone to lay down with a sore back.

What’s Been Occurring

I wrote a bit about what’s been occurring yesterday in my Saturday Afternoon Tea post. You can find that by clicking HERE.

 In that post, I mentioned Little Miss had oral surgery on Friday morning and that I’d love some prayers because she will be going under general anesthesia for the first time to remove several problem teeth. To say I am nervous about all of this is an understatement. My mind has swung back and forth between absolute, illogical terror to slightly more logical contemplation but for the most part, the pendulum has rested right on the terror line.

Little Miss and I spent yesterday afternoon watching Anne of Green Gables The Sequel with my mom and dad. Last night I spent two and a half hours working on my latest book during a writing sprint with a group of Christian mommy writers. It was a lot of fun, but it showed me I need a lot more direction for this book before I can start adding to the word count.

What We watched/are Watching

Last week The Husband and I watched the first episode of Beyond Paradise which is a spin-off of Death in Paradise. It features Detective Humphrey Goodman, who was a favorite DI on Death in Paradise that left a couple of years ago. It was okay, but I wasn’t bowled over by it. I think we will probably return to Grantchester and Foyle’s War this upcoming week, but we also need to return to Magpie Murders, a mini-series based on a book by Anthony Horowitz.

I started to watch a show called Kirstie’s Vintage Homes on Britbox. It is a British home renovation show where they use vintage items to bring new life to modern homes. I got interrupted but will probably watch more of that this week as I try to relax and keep my mind from spinning.

Little Miss and I also watched some Mary Berry because there are days we just need some Mary Berry.



What I’m Writing

As I mentioned above, I am working on Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing, which is the first book in the Gladwynn Grant Mysteries. I shared a little bit about the series on Friday in an update on my writing projects. You’ll notice Gladwynn has one “n” in Friday’s post and two here. That’s because I’ve been going back and forth on whether I wanted her name to be with two or one n and last night I decided it will be two because one of the ladies in the writer’s group said she liked the look of two “n’s”, and I agreed. I don’t know. What do you think? One n or two?

Anyhooo… I worked on that book most of this week and also worked a little bit on Cassie, the book I am writing as part of a multi-author project. That book doesn’t come out until August of 2024.

This week on the blog I shared:

What I’m Listening To

I’ve been listening to the new Matthew West album and really enjoying it. My husband also shared an artist named Marcus King with me.

Now it’s your turn

Now it’s your turn. What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.



Sunday Bookends: Books with no plots, working on new books, and a lot of British shows

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends5 Comments

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays I ramble about what’s been going on, what I and the rest of the family have been reading and watching, what I’ve been writing, and some weeks I share what I am listening to.


What I/we’ve been Reading

This week I finished The Cat Who Dropped A Bombshell by Lilian Jackson Braun and even though it was a later book in the series, it wasn’t too bad. Some of the later books were not the best, which is fine. The woman did write 29 of them and was in her 90s when she died. They couldn’t all be winners.

I wouldn’t really call the book a mystery, but it was light and fluffy and a nice distraction from life.

It didn’t have a plot exactly either…which was fine with me at this point in my life.

This week I am going to be reading The Fellowship of the Ring by Tolkien and Anne’s House of Dreams by L.M. Montgomery.

I also hope to continue Some Through the Fire by Jennifer Q. Hunt, as well, but I am taking my time with it because it is about war and I’ve been going through a lot of depression so I don’t really want to read about war right now. It’s very well written, though, so I do want to continue it so I can find out what happens to the characters.

And I’d love to disappear into at least one short story in Midwinter Murder, a collection of Agatha Christie stories.

Little Miss and I have been reading Imagination Station books by Paul McCusker and we are currently reading one about Vikings in the evening before bed (she’s actually reading the book to me which has been fun) and one about the Plymouth settlement during the day.

The Boy is reading The Fellowship of the Ring, his medieval history book, and a biology book.

What’s Been Occurring

I wrote about what has been going on with us yesterday in my Saturday Afternoon Chat and Something Warm. You can head over there for an update, but I will mention, as I did there, that my aunt, on my dad’s side, passed away last Sunday and so it’s been a tough week.

What We watched/are Watching

Last night the kids and I watched Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Earlier in the day I watched an episode of All Creatures Great and Small. It was a bit sad but also sweet and left me crying a lot.

We also watched a Grantchester episode and a Foyle’s War episode and then we watched – I am ashamed to say it – an episode of the 1970s Hardy Boys. Eek. We didn’t even finish it but may finish it later today. The Husband really wants to see the old Nancy Drew show, though, because of some actress he had a crush on as a kid.

Oh and yes…we watch a lot of British shows.

What I’m Writing

I have been working on a cozy mystery book and wrote a few thousand words on it last week. I’ll share more about it when I know a little bit more about my main character and her motivations.

I am also working on a book that will be part of a multi-author project and will share a bit more about that as I get into that book as well. I wrote about 500-800 words on that last week too.

Last week on the blog I shared:

What I’m Listening To

I did not listen a lot last week but this week I plan to listen to Matthew West’s new album and some new songs dropped by We The Messengers.

Now It’s Your Turn

Now it’s your turn. What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.

Sunday Bookends: Bookish outings, typos in books, Anne of . . . books, and lots of figure skating

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends4 Comments

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what I and the rest of the family have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing, and some weeks I share what I am listening to.


What I/we’ve been Reading

I was determined to finish Anne of Windy Poplars this week because I started it, not necessarily because I am enjoying it. I don’t like to not finish books I’ve started. I won’t lie. I skimmed the last few chapters. I’d heard from some other readers who have read Anne that this one wasn’t their favorite and I can see why. It isn’t a horrible book but there were parts that just dragged on. I mean, the Anne books sort of drag on anyhow. They are written some 100 years ago now and are in the classic style of “head-hopping” and over explaining, but this one was a bit over the top.

With that book behind me I’m planning to read Anne’s House of Dreams but only a chapter or two at a time.

I’m really itching for a cozy mystery so I wanted to delve into The Cat Who Smelled A Rat by Lilian Jackson Braun, even though it is one of her later books and they aren’t as good. I had purchased a mass-market paperback for my birthday this past year. When I opened it last night, all excited to read, though, I realized that there are tons of bizarre typos in it. Like spaces in the middle of words typos. Like I don’t know how this made it off-the-press typos.

I’m so irritated by these typos (I could deal with some missing commas, etc.) that I don’t know if I’ll keep reading this one. I do have four others in the series in hardcover that I haven’t read yet so I may grab one of them.

I picked up a book called A Case of Bad Taste by Lori Copeland at a library sale I mention below, so I am starting that today instead.

I’m also reading an ARC for an indie author, which I am also done with. It is called A New Day Dawning by Sara Whitely.

It releases on Tuesday.

What’s Been Occurring

I wrote a little about last week in the post I shared yesterday.

The Husband and I went to lunch in a town 30 minutes away yesterday and then visited a merchant center, which is sort of like a flea market. There they had a selection of old books, which distracted me for quite a while, mixed in with other items, such as cast iron pans, handmade products, dishes, DVDs, toys, clothes, etc.

For me, looking through old books is so exciting because I just never know what treasure I’m going to find there. I found a book by two “old time” Christian Fiction authors, Bodie and Brock Thoene, that I hadn’t ready before (though I haven’t read a lot of theirs) and one by an author named Sean Dietrich who I found on Instagram. He writes short little tidbits about life, which reminds me of my blog, or at least the early years of my blog.

After we left the flea market, we headed to a library book sale in a small town we pass through on our way home. Okay, wait, we actually stopped by Aldi first for a couple of items, and then we went on to the book sale. I had looked on social media to see if there were any book sales going on because – yes – I am addicted to buying books, just as The Husband said. I say he can’t say much since he stopped by a library to buy a used book on Friday too. Ha!

The sale was upstairs in a conference room of the library (which is in an old high school) and many of the books appeared brand new. A notice on the chalkboard said that the sale was $5 for one bag full and $3 for a second bag full. I could have probably filled three bags with the books we found, even though the selection didn’t look that large on arrival.

In the end, we came home with 22 books for $8 and many of them were hardcovers that looked brand-new. I picked up three books from the Mitford series that were library-bound and spotless. They looked like they’d never been checked out, which is sad because that means a bunch of readers really missed out. I was also happy because I added them to my collection since I’ve been trying to gather together all 14 of the books in physical form for my bookshelf.

I also picked up a couple books by Lynn Austin (Fire by Night and Candle in the Darkness), one by Francine Rivers (Her Mother’s Hope), two books by Lori Copeland (A Case of Bad Taste and A Case of Crooked Letters) and together The Husband and I picked out seven of the first nine books in the Walt Longmire series by Craig Johnson. We own those books already on Kindle, but I always say we never know when Amazon is going to stop their service or something weird will happen and we will lose all those books. I prefer to have the books I really like in physical form.

For Little Miss, I picked up a couple of Native American fiction books because she loved Children of the Longhouse so much and is now fascinated by Native American culture – at least when it comes to books. Those books included Walk by Two Moons by Sharon Creech, Sing Down the Moon by Scott O’Dell, and Zia by Scott O’Dell.

I also picked her up a few picture books.

I didn’t find any books The Boy might like this time around.

Do you do what I do when you see a book by a new-to-you author and read the first few lines to see if you will like the book? If the first few lines catch me then I snatch up the book, thereby adopting it and taking it home.

I didn’t do that with each of the books I looked at yesterday, but I did with a couple, including the Copleand book.

After we came home, Little Miss’s little friend came over to play for a couple of hours. Little Miss stayed with the little friend and her grandmother while we were gone too, so she had a full day of playing, which was nice because it’s hard to get her together with her friends, who all live a half an hour from us.

The day was extremely relaxing and exactly what we needed after the last month of craziness our family has had.

Today we will visit my parents for some lunch and afternoon watching of The Chosen.

What We watched/are Watching

Last week we watched the last two episodes of season three of The Chosen. You can watch them at www.angelstudios.com or on The Chosen app.

They were pretty incredible but I’m going to need to watch them again to take everything in that was touched on. I’m already looking forward to season four.

During the week I watched an episode of All Creatures Great and Small from the most recent version of the show and sniffled through most of it. It’s a very touching show.

The Husband and I watched an episode of Foyles War and really enjoyed it.

I also watched a documentary on Orchard House, which is the house that Louisa May Alcott lived in and wrote Little Women.

Last night I watched video after video on YouTube of ice skaters I used to watch back in the 90s – Scott Hamilton, Kurt Browning, Elvis Stojko, etc.

Browning just had the most amazing footwork. He has always been quirky and fun on the ice too. He has a style that I’d never seen in skating before and haven’t since.

I love watching him.

Elvis was such a powerful skater and Hamilton? Well, we was the inspiration for them all. What a showman.

As I was falling down the YouTube spiral, I saw a video of Browning from last year and – oh my – he still is in amazing shape and skating well at the age of 56.

I spent 2 hours just watching the various performances and it was so relaxing. I need to take YouTube spirals like that more often.

Here are a few of the performances I watched:

What I’m Writing

Earlier today I had a breakthrough with ideas for a cozy mystery I want to write. I hope to start working on it this week.

I’m also going to be working on my Biblical fiction story.

I didn’t share much on the blog this week for various reasons, part of which I wrote about yesterday.

Your turn!

Now it’s your turn. What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.

Sunday Bookends: Need some lighter books, some classic movies, and getting to write Biblical fiction

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday BookendsLeave a comment

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what I and the rest of the family have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing, and some weeks I share what I am listening to.


What I/we’ve been Reading

This week I finished Love and The Silver Lining by Tammy Gray. It was very different than most Christian Fiction books. The characters were very real and raw with a lot of flaws and many of those flaws were not fixed by the end of the book. This is part of a three-book series.

I found some of the romance scenes longer than they needed to be, but still enjoyed the book. I ended up skimming those scenes. They were very clean but also overly dramatic. I think the point could have been explained in only one page versus five or six in those instances, but that is merely a personal preference.

The book was a bit heavy at times so now I feel like I need a bit of a lighter book to give my brain a bit of a break.

Unfortunately, I promised to read another book for an author’s launch and this one looks a bit heavy too. I’ll let you know when I finish it and when it is officially out for purchase.  

To give myself a little break from the heavy parts of Love and The Silver Lining, I read Anne from Windy Poplars. I managed not to lose the book again this time.

I can’t seem to get away from books with some sadness or heaviness in it.

I’ve started one by Jennifer Q. Hunt called Some Through The Fire, which takes place during World War I. I do want to take a break from heaviness but I need to find out what happens to the characters so I will probably pick that up this week at some point. It’s very good if you are a fan of historical fiction.

I really do want to delve into Midwinter Winter, a series of short stories by Agatha Christie, but I really am having a craving for a The Cat Who book so the one I picked up for my birthday could end up in my hands this week.

Remember at the beginning of the year how I had planned out books I would read each month? Ha. Yeah, so far that has not worked very well, but that is okay because reading shouldn’t be structured. It should be fun.

Little Miss and I are reading Paddington at night again and Children of the Longhouse or The Cabin Faced West by Jean Fritz during the day for school.

The Boy is not reading a book right now as I look for another one for us to read for English.

The Husband is reading True Believer by Jack Carr.

What’s Been Occurring

I shared what’s been occurring on yesterday’s Saturday Afternoon Chat so you can catch up there.

What We watched/are Watching

This week we didn’t watch a ton because I was busy writing and trying to figure out my next stories and I made myself read instead of watch.

We did watch The Big Sleep with Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart last night. It had a very complex story and I kept getting distracted for some reason. It was very good but my brain wandered, my son came to talk to me about a show he’s watching, the animals were a bit wild, and I was working on this blog post.

We also started The Top Hat with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. We had to pause it an head to bed. I followed that one better because I set things aside and worked on focusing. Focus is my word of the year (which I will eventually write a blog post about) because I’ve been very bad at it recently.

Earlier in the week we watched an episode of Midsomer Murders. I watched an episode of Finding Your Roots with Julia Roberts and Ed Norton as the guest stars and I guess it was interesting, but I don’t know that I care about the ancestors of celebrities that much.

Tonight, when I get home from my parents we will be watching episode seven of season three of The Chosen and I am very excited since we weren’t able to make it to a theater for the final two episodes. We will watch episode eight Tuesday night. Or maybe we should just wait until Tuesday and watch them back to back but The Husband has a meeting that night so it probably won’t work out.


What I’m Writing

I am working on three different story ideas, but I think one is going to get dropped this week for another idea (a cozy mystery). The one is a story that doesn’t come out until August 2024 and is part of a multi-author project.

The other is Fully Alive, which I’ve shared a little bit of on here. It is a Biblical fiction story and I’m a little nervous about it. I don’t feel I know enough Biblically, but I’m praying about it and we will see where it goes.

This week on the blog I shared:

Now it’s your turn. What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.

Sunday bookends: Losing books and cats, more Mary Berry, and snow days

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, Sunday Bookends5 Comments

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what I and the rest of the family have been reading and watching, what I’ve been writing, and some weeks I share what I am listening to.


What I/we’ve been Reading


This week I am moving back and forth between Love and The Silver Lining by Tammy L. Gray and Anne’s House of Dreams by L.M. Montgomery. They are definitely two different styles of writing with one being contemporary fiction and the other classic literature.

I found Anne of Windy Poplars between my bed and wall yesterday morning after losing it for two weeks. I was so excited to find it and took it with me when I took Little Miss to gymnastics. Later in the day I sat down and looked in my bag for it and it was gone. All I can figure out is that I left it at the gymnastics studio. So aggravating. I really wanted to finish that one.

The Anne books are a little drawn out and rambly, but I still like them. They are a total distraction from real life. I like to read books in a series in order if I can so it irks me that I can’t read Windy Poplars before Anne’s House of Dreams. It’s definitely a “first world problem,” of course.

I abandoned The Jane Austen Society. First, I haven’t read Jane Austen, so I was bored with all the characters gushing over her like she’s the only author who has ever existed. It’s similar to how I feel about many of the “bookstagrammers” on Instagram who act like she’s the only author in existence.

The other issue I had with the book was it was taking for. It took forever to get to the point and the characters weren’t really very likable at all to me. Once a “gd” got dropped, I was out. I had a feeling the swearing would only pick up and while I am not completely opposed to swearing, it just felt totally out of place in a book about Jane Austen.

Love and the Silver Lining is a romance of sorts but it has a lot more to the plot than the romance so I am enjoying it. I still don’t know if I buy the whole idea that two adults of the opposite sex can just be friends, but, hey, we’ll go with it for the sake of the book since it is well-written.

Once again, like Tammy’s first book in this series, Love and A Little White Lie, I can’t stand the one character. Here he is again in this book, and I still want to smack him for being a bit of a whiner. Ha. I think that Tammy wrote him this way on purpose, of course. He’s going through some growing pains, so it makes a lot of sense that he’s the way he is.

After I finish Tammy’s book, I’ll be jumping into something a bit darker, if my mood allows for it. I’ll probably get back into the next Longmire book or Midwinter Murder: Fireside Tales from the Queen of Mystery by Agatha Christie.

Little Miss and I read Paddington at night every night this week. During the day we are re-reading Children of the Longhouse by Joseph Bruchac. Next week, though, I hope to start The Cabin Faced West by Jean Fritz.


What’s Been Occurring

I shared in yesterday’s post that we had some snow last week.

You can catch up with what’s been going on in our world in that post. Spoiler: it’s not a lot.

Yesterday, Little Miss had a friend over and they climbed up on the hill in our neighbor’s yard and made a snowman. Little Miss’s little friend actually did most of the rolling and I was very impressed with the way she shoved that huge ball of snow up the hill with little effort.

They used frozen blueberries for the eyes and mouth, which attracted the deer later in the day, much to the girls’ delight. The temperature got up to almost 50 degrees yesterday, so the snow was melting fairly fast. The sun was out too, which was nice to see since it seems like we’ve had way more cloudy days than sunny days this winter, which is, obviously, normal.

I didn’t have a chance to get a photo of the snowman because I was inside the house cooking some fried chicken that Little Miss had asked me to cook for her. I’d made the same recipe earlier in the week by simply sprinkling season salt in a bag of almond flour, putting the chicken in and shaking it up, then frying it in canola oil. Little Miss was so thrilled with the chicken she asked for it again this weekend.

After the girls came in, I began looking for Scout, our younger cat, thinking I had let her out again. I went out back and called for her several times and even braved the dark between the house and garage, to go and see if I locked her in there. I prayed that a bear wouldn’t eat me since Little Miss and I were alone last night (The Husband was at an assignment for a freelance job and The Boy was spending the night at a friend’s.)

Lately, she’s been sneaking upstairs and curling up on top of Little Miss’s dresser and I started to wonder if that might be where she was, so finally, I went and looked and that was where she was the entire four hours I looked. I didn’t look the entire four hours, actually. I looked and called for her off and on during that time.

What We watched/are Watching

The Husband and I finished Brokenwood Mysteries, which was a bit sad. We are hopeful there will be a ninth season at some point. From what I read online, a ninth series is being planned. One of the actresses let that slip on her Instagram.

We also watched a couple episodes of Miss Scarlet and The Duke, the new Night Court, and The Rockford Files.

Little Miss and I watched a lot of Mary Berry, including Mary Berry’s Favorites. Little Miss says Mary is her favorite cook beside her own grandmother.

“Oh, and you,” she added.

Hmmm….well, thank you, kid. Honestly, though,, I’d love to taste Mary’s food and I think I’d choose her as my favorite behind my mom as well.

We are always fascinated with Mary’s kitchen hacks. Last night I was fascinated by how she used a melon baller to take the seeds out of a cucumber. I told Little Miss to watch and she said, “I’ve seen people do that.”


I said, “I’ve never seen anyone do that.”

She scoffed, stood up to head to the bathroom, looked over her shoulder, and said in a light tone, “Hmmm, where have you been?”


What I’m Writing

I planned to add some words to Fully Alive, my Biblical fiction story, last week but never got around to it. Honestly, I got too wrapped up with making reels and marketing material for the release of Shores of Mercy this week.

This coming week I hope to actually write, including a few blog posts I started last week, but haven’t finished.

What I’m Listening To

This past week I listened to some Mercy Me and Matthew West.

Now it’s your turn. What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.

Sunday bookends: Relaxing books and shows and my reader confession

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends6 Comments

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays I ramble about what’s been going on, what I and the rest of the family have been reading and watching, what I’ve been writing, and some weeks I share what I am listening to.


What I/we’ve been Reading

I laid my Anne of Windy Poplars book down somewhere and have not been able to finish it, so I picked up Anne’s House of Dreams by L.M. Montgomery. It is the fifth book in the Anne of Green Gables series.

I’m not usually a girly girl but for some reason this book is making me act like one, complete with giggling in delight at some of the scenes and lines. I’m really enjoying this one, maybe a bit more than Windy Poplars. I have been taking little moments of respite to read a chapter or two from it a day and it’s like having a mini-vacation in the midst of the mental chaos I’ve been dealing with.

On my Kindle, I am reading The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner, which brings me to confession time.

I’ve never actually read a Jane Austen book. I’ve started them, read excerpts, and seen the movies, but I have never completed a Jane Austen book. If you have, recommend one for me in the comments and I’m going to try to read one in March.

Anyhow, The Jane Austen Society is about a group of people who get together to save Jane Austen’s cottage in England. So far, it’s okay. Nothing stunning but interesting at least and maybe that is because I’ve never read her books.

Toward the end of the month and February, I have the following books up to read:

Midwinter Murder: Fireside Tales from the Queen of Mystery by Agatha Christie

All That Really Matters by Nicole Deese

Hell is Empty by Craig Johnson

By March I hope to be reading:

Banderidge by indie author Anne Calvert

Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz

Love and the Silver Lining by Tammy L. Gray

This list could definitely change. It usually does.

Last week, Little Miss and I read Sarah, Plain and Tall and Skylark by Patricia MacLachlan. They are short and beautiful books. Little Miss wanted to go back to Paddington last night but I hope to continue the Sarah series with Caleb, which I bought recently in paperback and then More Perfect Than the Moon and Grandfather’s Dance.

Have you ever seen the Hallmark movies that are based on the books? They are as beautiful as the books and shot almost scene for scene from Sarah, Plain and Tall, Skylark and Grandfather’s Dance.

Even the dialogue is the same.

We first saw Sarah, Plain and Tall when I was in high school and still living at home. It must have been on regular TV. My mom and dad cried through almost the whole movie, and I kept teasing them about it. My mom even tried to hide behind a newspaper but the newspaper shook with her crying.

“You just wait!” she declared. “When you get my age, these type of movies will make you cry too!”

It didn’t even take me that long. I cry every time I watched the movie after that and still do.

The movies star Glen close and Christopher Walken.


The Husband is reading Racing the Light by Robert Crais.

The Boy got delayed in finishing The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn this past week, but he will finish it this week. I finished it last night. I will need to plan for a new book for us to read for English by February.


What’s Been Occurring

I rambled a bit about what’s been going on in a blog post I posted yesterday and you can catch up there. Spoiler alert: not much has been going on that’s worth blogging about. Ha!

What We watched/are Watching

This past week we watched a Brokenwood Mysteries and are almost done with the last season they have put out. That will make me sad because I love the characters of the show. I hope they are making a ninth season.

I watched a few episodes of Miss Scarlet and the Duke and I like the show but a lot of these period mystery shows are starting to feel the same. Not only that, but they continue to push modern ideas into historical shows and I find that annoying. People in 1890 did not embrace homosexuality, prostitution and cheating like it was run of the mill and it would be nice if a period drama actually showed that more instead of subtly preaching at viewers about how they think it “should have been.”

All that being said, there was only one episode of this show that I felt did that and it was not overly done and not overly preachy. I hope other shows do not do that, but even if they do I’ll probably still watch the show because it is well written and the male lead is quite good looking, as well as Scottish. *wink*

This week I also watched the two episodes of All Creatures Great and Small’s third season that are up on PBS Masterpiece via Amazon video. I’m looking forward to the rest of the season.

Last week we watched episode six of the third season of The Chosen. It was excellent, but episode five was still my favorite. The last two episodes of the season will be shown in theaters on February 2 and February 3 and then streamed on February 4th and 5th (I think those dates are correct). We considered going to the theater to see them but will probably just watch them at home.

My nerves have still been on edge lately, so I also watched quite a bit of The Andy Griffith Show this week.

What I’m Writing

I will be starting two books this week if all goes as planned. One is my Biblical fiction book and another is a book I am writing with a group of other authors. I’ll keep you posted.

On the blog I shared:

What I’m Listening To:

I am loving this new song by Matthew West:

https://youtu.be/VrSh2xtZHdQ

Now it’s your turn. What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.

Sunday Bookends: 2023 needs a restart, a mix of books, favorite blog posts, and Americans portraying the British and vice versa

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, Sunday Bookends9 Comments



It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what I and the rest of the family have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing, and some weeks I share what I am listening to.



What’s Been Occurring

Winter came back with a vengeance yesterday and led to The Husband lighting the woodstove to keep the cold at bay. We stayed inside huddled under covers, reading books, correcting errors in a book (for me), and watching a lot of light and fluffy TV and movies. The animals sprawled themselves in front of the woodstove, looking slightly drugged.

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, the last two or three weeks have been pretty awful for us and this past week was one of the worst as I was falsely accused of something that now requires me to provide a lot of documentation. It has my nerves so raw I’ve started internal trembling again but nowhere near as intense as I had after I had Covid or in 2017 after my dog died and after I had a virus. Luckily my mom is doing very well after spending a week in the hospital with pancreatitis and having her gallbladder removed. The side effects from the virus I had during that time have finally started to subside as well.

Before everything sort of fell apart and the temperatures dropped, I went outside and took some photographs for my stock photography accounts and also just had fun goofing off with the pets who thought they needed to be in the photos as well.

I was actually looking forward to life becoming a little bit more normal. Well, that was short lived but hopefully this year will get back on track again soon.

What I/we’ve been Reading

I finished The Reckoning Trees by Alicia Gilliam last night. Wow. What a ride that was. I held on for dear life during most of it, holding my fingers over my eyes because I wasn’t sure what would happen. It was incredibly well written and I’m looking forward to the second book in the series.

I have a couple more chapters of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain to finish up and I’m sure that will happen on Monday.

I lost my paperback copy of Anne of Windy Poplars by L.M. Montgomery somewhere. Either the house or the car, but I would love to find it this week and continue it.

On Kindle, I have a couple of choices of what books to start next. I have Love and The Silver Lining by Tammy L. Gray, The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner, and All That Really Matters by Nicole Deese.

The Husband is reading The Big Bundle by Max Allan Collins.

Little Miss and I finished Children of the Longhouse this past week and are looking for another historical fiction for children to start for school but haven’t picked one yet.

At night we are reading Paddington again. Sigh. I hope to start Sarah, Plain, and Tall with her at some point this week.

What We watched/Are Watching

I found this lady this past week and have a feeling I’ll be watching her a lot when I need to relax.

We watched See How They Run on HBO Max as a family this weekend. It was pretty good but I was irritated that they had an American actor playing a British cop when so often we have British people playing Americans anymore. I mean why couldn’t one of their British actors who comes over here to play a famous  American play the British cop? Doesn’t make sense.

Still, the movie was good – quirky and fun and what we needed.


Little Miss and I had ourselves a Mary Berry marathon of sorts on Friday and Saturday. Watching her is so relaxing. I still can’t believe she’s 87 and still cooking away. Well, the most recent show we watched, she is 85. And still getting around wonderfully – or at least she was two years ago.

We watched her on Saturday (today as I am writing this) while the fire roared in the woodstove. On Friday we watched her show Mary Berry Loves to Cook and on Saturday we watched Mary Berry’s Country House Secrets, Season 1.

I found the first season of Mary Berry’s Country House Secrets on Youtube, by the way.

Little Miss and I agreed that watching her is very relaxing.

The Husband and I also watched an episode of Brokenwood Mysteries and I watched a couple episodes of a show from the 70s called the Manor Born.

What I’m Writing

I haven’t been writing a lot. I am currently making corrections on my manuscript for Shores of Mercy to prepare it to be released on January 31. You can preorder it here.

I did share two posts on the blog this week:

What I’m Listening to

I listened to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn read/performed by Elijah Wood almost all week. Frodo did an amazing job on the book and brought out some of the crazy hypocrisy of the people of Missouri during the years of slave-owning in the way he pronounced and presented the book.

For music I listened to:

Danny Gokey – New Day

Needtobreathe, Multiplied

Needtobreathe, Happiness

Anthony Brown and Group Therapy, Trust in You

Spirit Lead Me – Influence Music and Michael Ketterer

Blog Posts I Enjoyed This Past Week

I am behind on blog reading but this week I did enjoy the following posts:

Sunshine for a January Soul by Mama’s Empty Nest

Lessons from Damar Hamlin by Fuel for the Race

The Helper by Warmly Meg

Also, please say a prayer for blogger Jinjer from The Intrepid Arkansawyer. She lost her mom this week.

Now it’s your turn

What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.