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 have started my annual reading for Shepherd’s Abiding by Jan Karon. I love this sweet story about Father Timothy Kavanaugh who finds a nativity set that he wants to repaint and fix up for his beloved wife Cynthia. Sigh. It’s just such a sweet story.
(If you haven’t read Mitford before, Father Tim is Episcopalian so he is allowed to marry. *wink*)
I am also continuing with the Father Brown Collection by G.K. Chesteron, which is a collection of short stories. I’m a mood reader so I read a story and then switch to a different book for a bit.
I’ve also started Love and A Little White Lie by Tammy L. Gray and am enjoying it so far. It’s about a woman who has taken a job at a church but doesn’t feel she belongs there. It is the first book in a three book series.
At night I have been reading Paddington Races Ahead with Little Miss.
I am also reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain off and on during the week with The Boy, who is reading it for school.
The Husband is reading…. Oops. I forgot to ask before I scheduled this and he’s already asleep.
What’s Been Occurring
I rambled about what has been occurring on a post from Friday and not much more has happened since then. In that post, I shared that we had our first official snowfall earlier in the week, only a couple of days after it was in the low 70s. Last night we had more snow, but only about an inch and a half.
This week we are looking forward to celebrating The Husband’s birthday by attending a festival of lights display about 45 minutes from us and then a quiet Thanksgiving with my parents. We are also looking to five days off from school since the kids seemed to be burned out on lessons. Yes, already burned out. This early in the school year.
What We watched/are Watching
The Husband and I watched two Charles Bronson films this week: Mr. Majestyk and Red Sun. They were both very good. Red Sun featured a bit of female nudity that we weren’t expecting and Mr. Majestyk featured swearing that was tame compared to the movies of today but still swearing. That’s just a disclaimer for anyone who is sensitive to those aspects of movies.
I also watched two Hallmark Christmas movies. Sign, Sealed, Delivered for Christmas made me cry and Trading Christmas made me smile. I own Trading Christmas because it is just a light movie I enjoy watching. Both are on Amazon.
I also watched The Christmas Carol Goes Wrong for the ‘Tis The Season Cinema feature with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs.
This week Erin and I will be watching White Christmas and posting our impression of it on Saturday. Please feel free to join us and post your impressions as well.
What I’m Writing
I’ve started writing a new book while I am editing Shores of Mercy, but I am not ready to share it yet and not sure I will share it on the blog or not this time. It’s going to be different than my previous books, in some ways, and it is not part of The Spencer Valley Chronicles, or any series. I can tell you that the main character is male, over the age of 50, and it will be one point of view, third person. I’ll keep all of you updated.
While I am watching Christmas movies early, I haven’t yet started Christmas music and won’t do that until December, most likely. When I do it will be the Michaels – Smith and Buble.
I found a Youtube video of worship music being played on a guitar that I’ve been listening to while I write.
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.
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 have been reading a collection of Father Brown stories by G.K. Chesterton and have been enjoying them for the most part. The third one I read went off on a weird ramble for several pages that had nothing to do with the story I thought but these were written in the early 1900s so I cut Chesterton some slack.
I have also been reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain with The Boy for school and The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe with Little Miss.
I’ll probably start a new fiction book this week, but I’m not sure which one yet. I have a few I’ve read the first few pages of an am liking so I just need to pick one. The Seven and a half Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle has caught my attention so far.
What’s Been Occurring
This past week Little Miss and I were both surprised when her little friends who moved to Texas a year and a half ago, came back to stay.
Little Miss had a blast visiting with them during the week. We were still able to finish schoolwork but it was pushed off to the evenings to they could play together.
The friends are signed up back into school now so we won’t have our school days interrupted as much.
She was able to visit with some other friends yesterday.
We didn’t do a lot last week other than school. We had been doing game nights once a week with my parents but I had congestion and they were doing other things most days so we will have to have a game night another time.
The weather was oddly warm all week and then today it dropped into the 40s and it is literally downhill from here. It’s like we were in spring and then drastically plunged into winter. Our sinuses are definitely going to suffer even more this week. As I was writing this actual snow started to fall. Yuck.
What We watched/are Watching
This week I watched light and fluffy stuff including a couple of Hallmark movies even though I am not the biggest fan of Hallmark movies. I do like the movies based on the short-lived show Signed, Sealed, Delivered which follows a group of employees in the Dead Letter Office of the United States Postal Service. The premise – of them solving mysteries surrounding lost letters or packages — is a bit far fetched but the overall stories are uplifting and encouraging.
Earlier in the week I watched The Man Who Invented Christmas as part of the ‘Tis the Season Cinema feature Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I started this week. We are watching Christmas movies from now until the week before Christmas. Next up is A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong which you can find here on YouTube:
This special was on the BBC and is part of a series of specials and shows about a theater group who is always messing up or somehow ruining their shows with misspoken words or mishaps.
What I’m Writing
I didn’t share much on the blog this week other than the last chapters of Mercy’s Shore (Shores of Mercy).
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.
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 Dog Days of Summer by Kathleen Y’Barbo for a book tour. It was okay, but I was disappointed halfway through, unfortunately, and need a break from book tour books for now. Those are books I don’t have the benefit of abandoning for a different one.
I switched over to GK Chesterton’s Father Brown stories and am really enjoying it so far. Many of these stories were the basis for the British show, both the original 70s series and the more modern one.
I have a few choices to start as novels next, including The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton, Miss Julia Knows A Thing Or Two by Ann B. Ross, a Longmire book, or a Joe Pickett book, and Criss Cross by C.C. Warren.
The Husband is reading Tishomingo Blues by Elmore Leonard.
The Boy is reading a Percy Jackson book.
Little Miss and I are still reading The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe at night.
What’s Been Occurring
This past week I thought I had caught a cold, but it appears to be sinus drainage from the weather change this week which included temps jumping up, especially over the weekend. I was better yesterday during the day but I continued to cough from what felt like mucous draining down the back of my throat during the night. I think if the weather would stabilize, that would help my sinuses a lot. What I am thankful for is that it hasn’t affected Little Miss like it usually does.
Yesterday, today and tomorrow we are celebrating my son turning 16. He had friends over yesterday and today. We will visit my parents today and are cooking steaks on the grill — a treat since steaks have been so expensive. Yesterday Little Miss and I helped my mom make two apple pies for The Boy who is not a fan of cake but loves his grandmother’s apple pie.
Tomorrow he gets a day off school and we will celebrate some more.
What We watched/are Watching
I failed at No News November so far but hope to do better this week and plan to use shows like Classic Mary Berry to help stay away from news as we move into elections here in the United States.
I won’t completely stay off news, especially Wednesday, but I will be taking a longer break.
If you don’t know who Mary Berry is, she is a cook from the U.K. who might be well-known to fans of The Great British Baking Show, which airs on PBS in the U.S. I had to Google how old she is because during one episode she said she’d been cooking one recipe for 60 years and she learned it in college. It turns out she is 87 and her full name is Dame Mary Rosa Alleyne Hunnings DBE. I know this particular series must have been filmed years ago because there is no way she is 87 in this series. I looked it up and she was 83. Good grief. She ages well. I read that her mom died when she was 105 so it sounds like Mary could have many more years of creating cooking shows.
Part of the time I am confused while watching her cook because they either use a different name for the ingredient over there or I’ve absolutely never heard of a particular ingredient.
I didn’t watch much else this past week, but hope to watch some more old movies, etc. this week.
What I’m Writing
I am currently editing Shores of Mercy and hope to start another story, outside the Spencer Valley Chronicles, this week. I have actually started four other books, but I have to decide which one I am going to continue to work on to release next.
On the blog this week I shared:
What I’m Listening To:
This week I listened to various praise and worship songs.
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.
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’s Been Occurring
Each evening I look around our living room and count heads. Not the heads of children, but pets. I make sure that both our cats and our puppy are inside, safe and sound.
It makes me smile when I look around and they are all there, usually curled up in a dog bed (that’s often our old cat) or a recliner (taking up space where we could sit).
This week I have been trying to remind myself that I get to have this life, especially when I have to do something I don’t really want to do — like drive Little Miss to gymnastics or walk her to the trampoline up the hill, or go get groceries. There is a lot about my life I am blessed to be able to do. I’m blessed, after last year, to still be here.
Our local Christian radio station has had a family hour from 7 to 8 p.m. on weekdays for more than 20-years. They play Adventures in Odyssey and follow it with Down Gilead Lane, Lamplighter Theater, The Pond, or Animal Jam. These are all children’s Christian radio dramas produced by Focus on the Family.
Little Miss and I started listening to the last half hour on the way home from Awana a month ago but I would forget to turn it on the radio at home. I finally put a reminder on my phone to turn the radio on so Friday night Little Miss was so excited and ran around the house as I turned it on, shutting off all the lights to make it “more like a long, boring car ride.”
We huddled under my huge, fuzzy blanket and listened to the stories, imagining what was happening, which was nicer than her playing video games or watching cartoons that are full of subjects I am not too sure about.
This radio station has been a real blessing to our family, especially me this week when I had to drive on a road I am not comfortable driving in the daylight, let alone at night, three times in one night. I turned the station on and listened to encouraging Christian music all the way to take Little Miss to gymnastics, then back, then back to the same place to pick up my husband (who was waiting for someone to unlock our van, but that person never came). I’ve heard people say that turning on this radio station is liking reconnecting with a long lost friend and they are right. Much like God never changes, this station has been there for almost my entire life when I’ve needed it the most. If you are ever in the area, it is Family Life out of Bath, N.Y. and they have transmitters throughout Upstate New York and northern Pennsylvania.
Temperatures have been dropping very fast at night but we have been dragging our feet on turning the heat on because of how high the oil prices are. When it hit 28 one night this week, I decided we are going to have to break down and turn it on.
What We’ve Been Reading
This week I am finishing up Dog Days of Summer by Kathleen Y’Barbo, which I am enjoying so far.
Here is a description:
Mishaps Abound as Second Chance Ranch Struggles to Get Its Start
Grab a lap dog to cuddle and relax into a fun small-town mystery as a new dog rescue project turns into a three-ring circus of calamities in book 2 of the Gone to the Dogs series.
Trina Potter, Nashville country music star, buys a ranch near her hometown in Brenham, Texas, to help her niece open a rescue facility for dogs. Her presence in town stirs up some old high school rivalries—and romance. Finding property to buy is a challenge, convincing her mother to move there with her is daunting, and navigating a string of strange accidents is perplexing. Sometimes Trina feels like she’s purchased her own three ring circus instead of a beautiful piece of land. But her first priority will be figuring out who wants Second Chance Ranch shut down before they even have the grand opening.
More in the Gone to the Dogs Series: Book 1 – Off the Chain by Janice Thompson Book 2 – Dog Days of Summer by Kathleen Y’Barbo Book 3 – Barking Up the Wrong Tree by Janice Thompson
I am also reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn because The Boy is also reading it for English LIT.
After Dog Days of Summer I hope to dive into (in no particular order):
The Father Brown Mysteries by G.K. Chesterton;
Criss Cross by C.C. Warrens;
Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz;
Miss Julia Knows A Thing or Two by Ann B. Ross
At night I am reading The Light, The Witch, and The Wardrobe with Little Miss. I haven’t read this book all the way through since I was a kid so I am excited to read it with her.
The Husband hasn’t — gasped — started a new book yet.
What I’ve Been Listening To
There are so many Christian musicians with new albums out including:
Cody Carnes,
Steven Curtis Chapman
Anne Wilson
and
Mercy Me
I’ll be listening to a lot of new music this week.
What We’ve Been Watching/Watched
Little Miss and both enjoy cooking or baking shows so she asked for the Great British Baking Show, but it wasn’t showing up on the streaming services we have so we opted for Mary Berry’s show called Classic Mary Berry.
Little Miss was absolutely delighted when it started and said, “I love these shows!”
The one downside was the commercials. But we had fun watching Mary whip up a variety of dishes. I’ve never had a poached egg, have you? And if I haven’t eaten one, then I’ve never cooked one. Have you?
I also watched part of the Dove Awards and hope to watch more later:
The Husband and I also watched A New Kind of Love with Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward.
What I’m Writing
I am finishing up Shores of Mercy and excited to start a new book while I let the book set for a couple of weeks and then start editing and rewrites. The book is up for pre-order on Amazon HERE (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BK5CQDVZ)
Welcome to Sunday Bookends where I ramble about what I’ve been reading, doing, watching, writing and listening to.
What I/we’ve been Reading
Last night I finished The Do Over by Sharon Peterson. This is the second book by the same title that I’ve read this year and I liked this one a lot more. Sharon is a new to me author who was nice enough to read and review The Farmer’s Daughter for me about a month ago.
The book is not Christian but is a clean romantic comedy with some mild language. I absolutely loved the mouthy grandma and I am pretty sure Sharon has been in my house and met Little Miss because the little girl in the book acts and talks like her – right down to knowing a bunch of facts about animals.
The only downside to the book was that it was fairly predictable and I already knew what was going to happen during part of it. Luckily it was presented in a very creative and fun way, even though I knew where it was going. In other words, I had fun reading it anyhow.
I also wish all the romances today would stop putting out covers with faceless animated people. It’s not trendy anymore. Everyone is over it. Thank you. *just a little bit of joking. I’ll still read the books, even with those covers.*
Now I will continue to read Dog Days of Summer by Kathleen Y’arbo. It’s a very light read about a country singer who goes home for a visit and learns someone left a bomb at her niece’s dog rescue. I am reading it for a book tour and so far I am enjoying it.
I have a couple other books I hope to get to after these two, including, the second book in the Joe Pickett series by C.J. Box and The Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz.
The Husband is reading The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz.
Little Miss and I are finishing Paddington At Work and then will probably return to Anne of Avonlea. During the school week I am reading a book about George Washington Carver to her for history.
The Boy (I know this is a ridiculous blog nickname for him, but he and I couldn’t come up with a better one this weekend) and I are going to start The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn this week for school. Meanwhile, he breezed through The Lightning Thief by Rick Riorden, which is the first book in the Percy Jackson: The Olympians series. He was up until 3 a.m. reading it one night after which he made a snarky remark that people always suggest reading if you can’t go to sleep but instead it kept him awake until 3 a.m. He is now on book two.
What’s Been Occurring
Yesterday Little Miss and I were supposed to go to gymnastics and then a trunk-or-treat near there, but Little Miss woke up with a congested nose (most likely from the weather change) and threw up. She was a coughing, gagging, miserable mess all day and refused almost all suggestions to help her feel better. Hopefully today will be better.
Almost all the leaves fell off our trees and I found this very depressing because I am not a fan of winter. I do like curling up inside on snowy days with hot cocoa and a good book so I am sure I will survive.
Scout, the big footed kitten (she is a polydactyly cat), decided she wouldn’t come in until 10:30 at night Friday which left me convinced she had been run over and I should have carried her in earlier in the evening. I even drove around the block, looking for a squished kitten on the roads in the neighborhood. After I pulled back into the driveway, I headed to the garage to look again to see if we had shut her in (we rarely actually park our cars in the garage. Don’t ask.). While in I heard The Husband say, “oh there you are Scout.”
We have no idea where that little jerk had gone or where she came from but suddenly she was strolling up to the back porch and I simultaneously wanted to scream at her and kiss her.
She has been snuggling with me at nights, reminiscent of when we first got her when she was a kitten, sprawled on my chest. When I couldn’t find her, I worried we might have had our last snuggle session.
What We watched/are Watching
Last week we watched Brokenwood and a couple episodes of a 80s British sitcom, Yes, Minister.
Yesterday the kids watched Despicable Me 1 and 2 while Little Miss dealt with her illness.
We didn’t watch much else during the week because I mainly read and wrote .
Oh, but I did watch the Season 3 trailer for The Chosen. Oh my. I can’t wait for this season.
What I’m Writing
I am almost done with the first draft of Shores of Mercy so I have been working on that.
This week I plan to listen to the new Steven Curtis Chapman album that just came out. I’ve been listening to him since I was in elementary school so I’m happy he has a new album out.
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.
Welcome to Sunday Bookends where I ramble about what I’ve been reading, doing, watching, writing and listening to
What’s Been Occurring
As I started this post, my cat, Pixel, is asleep in the dog bed (because it’s obviously not for the dog in her mind), snoring away. Yes, literally snoring. I often find myself looking around the room for the source of the snore and finding her as if I keep forgetting that she snores. There is a reason I call her my spirit animal. We’re both fatter than we should be, both snore softly (sometimes louder) and both have sinus issues.
We are also both moody, but that’s a story for another time.
As I continue the post, Saturday afternoon, the wind is blowing hard outside, ripping the last of the brightly colored leaves from the trees and scattering them across the yard, reminding me Autumn has been a beautiful yet short season this year and soon cold will settle in for good for at least four months. I’m not ready for winter, as I never am. I want to hold on to the crisp autumn weather with its mixed days of sun and rain, brilliant colors splashed across the hillside, and leaves crunching under my feet.
We were able to see a lot of the changing foliage Friday, before the wind moved in, as we traveled an hour away to Wilkes-barre (right by Scranton) to visit a mini-Build-A-Bear store for Little Miss to use a gift card she’d received. We traveled some backroads, cutting down on our travel time and adding to the beauty of the journey. It isn’t a trip we’d probably take often due to the twists and turns of the road, how it took us up to higher elevation then back down into valleys, which would leave those roads an icy or snowy mess during the winter months.
I took my camera and my phone, but the camera card malfunctioned, and the phone was barely charged, leaving me frustrated as I couldn’t grab as many photos as I had planned to. Luckily, The Husband let me use his phone for some photos and then he ran into a Wal-Mart and grabbed a spare card for me. That let me take some more photos, but I was still kicking myself for all the missed opportunities earlier in the day.
What I’ve Been Reading
Last week I abandoned the Donald Westlake book, High Adventure, at least for now, because I realized I hated all the characters and didn’t care what happened to them. I may pick it back up again this week because I am curious to see what happens.
This week I am reading The Do Over by Sharon Peterson which I may or may not finish depending on how risqué it gets since it is a mainstream romance and I usually read clean romances.
I am also reading You Are The Reason by Mary Felkins.
Little Miss and I are reading Paddington At Work at night and will be starting a book about Booker T. Washington for school this week.
The Husband is reading Q-Squared by Peter Davidson.
What I/We’ve Been Watching
This week I watched The Baroness and the Butler from 1938 on YouTube. It starred William Powell and a French actress who simply went by Annabella. It was the story of a butler in the house of the Prime Minister of Hungary who gets elected to parliament in the party that opposes his employer.
There is, of course, romance involved.
The Boy and I also watched The Nightmare Before Christmas for the Spooky Season Cinema feature I am doing with Erin of Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs.
Then we watched The Emperor’s New Groove for nostalgic reasons for him, since he watched the movie as a young kid.
Last night The Husband and I watched Patriot Games, which I had never seen before and he saw many years ago.
What I’m Writing
I’ve been steadily working on Shores of Mercy so I can start the full edits and get it to editors in November and release in January.
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.
Welcome to Sunday Bookends where I ramble about what I’ve been reading, doing, watching, writing and listening to.
What I/we’ve been Reading
This past week I finished The Uncertainty of Fire by Stephanie Daniels and posted a review HERE:
I then jumped back into High Adventure by Donald Westlake for something different and am splitting my reading time between that and You Are The Reason by Mary Felkins.
In case any of you are interested in either book, here are their descriptions:
High Adventure:
One man’s quest to make history—and a lot of money: “High entertainment” from the three-time Edgar Award–winning Grand Master of Mystery (Elmore Leonard).
Kirby Galway may be a low-level marijuana smuggler in Belize, but the man has a dream—to make lots and lots of money. So when a local official offers him a back-jungle tract of land he swears would make a perfect cattle ranch, Kirby jumps at the opportunity. Unfortunately, he lands himself in a swamp—that he now owns.
Kirby begins selling homemade “artifacts” from his property to American museums and witless tourists, even building a fake ancient temple and recruiting a tribe of Mayan Indians who know a good scam when they see one.
But his cash-cow paradise soon attracts the attention of two snooping New York reporters, a beautiful archaeologist from UCLA, and a troop of Guatemalan guerillas just itching to shoot somebody. Kirby is going to have to talk fast, move faster, and pull out every dirty trick he knows if he’s going to get out of this alive . . .
You Are The Reason:
A reluctant heiress.
A driven contractor.
An abandoned house in want of a family.
CPA Everley Scott knows exactly what she wants. Status quo. But when her inheritance of Moreland, an 1846 manor house, is at risk of being razed, she agrees to fulfill her mother’s final wishes to restore the house to its former glory and hire her contractor of choice.
Historic restoration specialist, Gabe Bellevue, is in need of a big contract to buoy his reputation as New Orleans’ go-to guy. Stunned at his hefty price, Everley is cornered into involving a high-profile production company that offers funding in return for rights to film the project.
Production’s strict schedule pressures Gabe to rush the job, but his refusal could cost him the deal of a lifetime … and his last shot at satisfying unrequited love for Everley—his high school crush.
The discovery of an impassioned plea penned in the 1800’s by a former Moreland heiress might be the key to unlock Everley’s heart and enable her to embrace the historic treasure. Especially when it comes with a highly capable—and increasingly irresistible—contractor.
Will Moreland, once again, enjoy the sound of love and laughter within its walls?
At night Little Miss and I finished Anne of Green Gables and moved into Anne of Avonlea. During the day we’ve been reading The Year of Miss Agnes by Kirkpatrick Hill and we will be finishing that Monday. I haven’t decided what we will read next for school.
The Boy is not reading anything right now other than textbooks.
The Husband just finished Robert Galbraith’s The Ink Black Heart and really enjoyed it. He is now reading Kill Me If You Can by Mickey Spillane and Max Collins.
What’s Been Occurring
This week the leaves really started to change, almost at what felt like overnight.
I took some time Thursday to drive around our area a small distance and take some photos and then took a few more on our way to and from gymnastics yesterday.
We didn’t do much this week other than school and grocery shopping.
What We watched/are Watching
This week we continued to watch Brokenwood and are now on the seventh season.
I started a detective movie called The Kennel Murder Case from 1933 with William Powell on YouTube, but didn’t finish it. Hopefully this week. It is one of several movies focused on the character of detective Philo Vance developed by author S.S. Van Dine in the 1920s
I also started to rewatch the Pride and Prejudice BBC mini-series with Colin Firth (who is the definitive Mr. Darcy.)
What I’m Writing
I’m working as often as I can during the week on Shores of Mercy so I can finish the first draft and have the final draft to The Husband for editing by early or mid-November.
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.
Welcome to Sunday Bookends where I ramble about what I’ve been reading, doing, watching, writing and listening to.
What’s Been Occurring
My post is late today because today is Little Miss’s birthday and we took a trip to a small restaurant near us after holding a birthday party at home for her yesterday. Between running all over and getting interrupted today, I didn’t have time to finish this post for this morning.
There were seven kids tearing around our house and jumping all over the neighbor’s trampoline for several hours yesterday. Little Miss had a blast.
Today she wanted a family dinner out with her family. Originally she wanted to go to a restaurant to sit inside but this morning, after cuddling with Zooma the Wonder Dog, she decided she wanted to go somewhere we could eat outside so we could bring her furry best friend with us.
There is a restaurant near us that encourages customers to bring their pets and even sells meat bowls for them so we decided to go there. That gave Zooma an outing too and she was so excited to be a part of our day. We’ve been heading out places lately without her and it’s sad to leave her home.
Earlier in the week, we left her home for over eight hours when The Husband was at work, and we drove two hours away to see my 89-year-old aunt who will be going into a nursing home very soon.
Today we went to the restaurant, ate outside, admired the lovely covered bridge by the restaurant, then stopped at a local trail where The Husband and the kids hiked a little bit and I stayed at the van because of a bum knee and because I don’t do well at hiking these days.
I thought the trail was going to be a lot smoother than it turned out being. I hadn’t been there for years and did not remember the trail going down such a steep hill with so many rocks and tree limbs sticking out. I would have liked a little bit more sun during the day, but it still turned out to be a very nice day.
As for the trip to my aunt’s, I hate driving long distances, but my mom doesn’t drive much anymore, and my dad has been driving a lot lately, so I volunteered to drive and actually did much better than I expected. It helped that I know the route there better than some and that it’s pretty much a straight shot up a couple of major highways. My aunt lives in Upstate New York, which is the part of New York most people don’t know exists. It’s a mainly rural area in the part we are closer to, with a few bigger “cities” like Binghamton, N.Y.
There is a three-lane highway that bypasses the city of Binghamton and it’s always a little crazy for this country girl to drive on. Cars are flying from off ramps on one side and people are switching lanes and it is in those moments I long for a tractor to get stuck behind. I did well on that stretch on the way to my aunts but on the way back it was rush hour and there were cars coming in and out and passing me on the right to get around a slow truck and aack! In the middle of all of this, a spider ran across the top of the windshield and I sat for a moment trying to figure out if it was inside or outside.
It didn’t take me long to realize that line of thought was stupid considering I was driving at 55 mph and there was no way a spider could hold on like that on the outside. So here I am trying to maneuver through this year while a spider is running up and then down the windshield and then disappears along the side of it. At that point, I have no idea where this thing is going to pop up. My mom, who was sitting in the front seat with me, told me to focus on the road and not on the spider. I did my best to listen to her and eventually I forgot about the spider. Luckily, he stayed hidden the rest of the drive.
The weather this week was similar to last week with a few days where it rained for a little, then the sun came out, then it rained again, then the sun came out, then it rained…well, you get the idea. My poor cats were totally confused during the day and were either crying to get out or crying to get in. Zooma the Wonder Dog got wet a few times because I let her out and then didn’t realize it was raining again.
The weather was the same on the drive to and from my aunts and during the visit with her too.
During our visit there The Boy decided to stress me out by climbing a really tall tree in my aunt’s backyard. They are selling her house when she moves so it will probably be the last time he climbs that tree.
My aunt’s friend stopped by before we left and when I told her the story she said boys never grow out of climbing trees because the other day she caught her 49-year-old son up her tree. She’d gone out in the backyard and couldn’t find him. That’s when she heard him calling to her from above. He told her he’d just wanted to see if he could still do it.
It will be hard for us not to see my aunt in her home after all this time. I’ve never visited her in any other home and I know this move is very hard for her and for her daughter. We hope to visit her in the nursing home when she moves in. It will be a little bit of a further drive then.
What I/we’ve been Reading
This week I finished The Uncertainty of Fire by Stephanie Daniels.
Description:
What price will she pay for following her heart?
Chicago, 1871. Sixteen-year-old Whimsy Greathart would rather fight against Chicago’s child labor practices than attend her privileged family’s high society events. And a very public social blunder only strengthens her resolve to use her influence for good.
On the night of the Great Chicago Fire, her tenderhearted choice leads her into danger and results in life-changing consequences.
With her world turned to ash, she must rely on the mercy of poor relations to rebuild her future and is forced into the very labor system she wished to fight against. As Whimsy staggers under the weight of street gang violence and hazardous working conditions, a chance at deliverance persuades her to make a promise. One she intends to keep. But now she must determine whether it’s God’s heart she’s following or her own.
A Top Faved Christian story on Amazon’s Kindle Vella. Now available in paperback and e-book.
I had read part of this book on Kindle Vella last year before I had the dreaded virus and was a little too out of it to finish it after the dreaded virus so I was glad to have it in book form to read now. It is well written and a very interesting read, especially with all the history thrown in. The characters are rich and well developed and easy to love – or hate depending on the character. Stephanie will be releasing a second book in this series in the future and I’m looking forward to it. I’ll have a larger review on this later in the week.
I also continued reading A Quilter’s Holiday by Jennifer Chiaverini and picked up another book by her during a recent library visit.
A Quilter’s Holiday is part of the Elm Creek Quilt series.
Description:
For the Elm Creek Quilters, the day after Thanksgiving marks the start of the quilting season, a time to gather at Elm Creek Manor and spend the day stitching holiday gifts for loved ones. This year, in keeping with the season’s spirit of gratitude, Master Quilter Sylvia Bergstrom Compson Cooper is eager to revive a cherished family tradition. A recent remodeling of the manor’s kitchen unearthed a cornucopia that once served as the centerpiece of the Bergstrom family’s holiday table. Into it, each Bergstrom would place an object that symbolized something he or she was especially thankful for that year. On this quilter’s holiday, Sylvia has invited her friends to continue the tradition by sewing quilt blocks that represent their thankfulness and gratitude.
As each quilter explains the significance of her carefully chosen block, stories of love and longing for family and friends emerge—feelings that are also expressed in the gifts they work on throughout the day.
As an early winter storm blankets Elm Creek Manor in heavy snow, the quilters find new meanings in their best-loved traditions and new reasons to be thankful. A Quilter’s Holiday is a story of holiday spirit, in its truest, most generous sense.
I hope to finish reading a book I started a while ago by Donald Westlake this week or next, but with the way I’ve been reading lately – interrupted constantly by life and writing – it will probably be sometime later in October.
The Boy is reading a lot of text for history — a book on Medieval History By Susan Wise Bauer and is waiting for a new copy of War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells after Little Miss’s slime got stuck to the book he is reading.
Little Miss and I are reading The Year of Miss Agnes during the week and The Golden Years from the Little House on the Prairie season at night. Yes, we’ve read it before, but she asked for it again so…sigh.
The Husband is reading the latest Robert Galbraith, The Ink Black Heart.
What We watched/are Watching
This past week The Boy and I watched Hocus Pocus, which I wrote about on the blog for Spooky Season Cinema.
I also watched a lot of Dick VanDyke this week which I do when I am having a stressful week, which I did, but mainly mentally rather than other ways.
What I’m Writing
I’ve been plugging away at Shores of Mercy and hope to have the first draft of it finished in the middle of the month. I announced on social media this week that the book will release January 2023. I also revealed the cover on the Fiction Friday post.
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.
Welcome to Sunday Bookends where I ramble about what I’ve been reading, doing, watching, writing and listening to.
What I/we’ve been Reading
Last week I finished The Cat Who Wasn’t There by Lilian Jackson Braun.
Description:
Persuaded by his beloved companion to join her in a group tour of Scotland, Qwill expects to revel in his Scottish heritage while keeping Polly Duncan safe from the Pickax Prowler. Instead, his trip is cut short when a thief swipes a suitcase, the bus driver disappears, and a fellow tourist is found dead, all in the same day.
Although the town of Pickax is in a tizzy over the recent events, Qwill has other, more puzzling worries on his mind. Who is the fellow still following Polly? Why is Koko licking Qwill’s photographs of Scotland and tackling him on the apple barn stairs? Upon investigating the secret life of the deceased and the bizarre behavior of one of the tour’s members, Qwill’s sensitive moustache tells him one thing: more trouble is on the way.
I then started Becoming Mrs. Lewis by Patti Callahan. I’m reading it via a library book and as many of you know, I have a library book phobia because I am always afraid I will dent it or mark it up. So I tried reading the library book without moving anywhere, but I leaned up to get something and bent the pages slightly. It freaked me out so bad that I looked up on Amazon how much it would cost to get my own copy. It turns out it was on Kindle Unlimited so I downloaded it through there and I’m taking the library book back out of fear of ruining it. I know. I have issues.
I’m also listening to The Extraordinary Deaths of Mrs. Kip by Sara Brunsvold on Audible.
The Boy was reading War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells (yes, still) but then Little Miss left some slime around that hardened on it so the book was damaged. This became a bit of a family crisis because The Husband said he’s owned the book since he was 15 and it won’t be the same thing if I buy him a new copy. Sigh.
The Husband is reading Raising Steam by Terry Pratchet.
Little Miss and I are finishing up a Paddington book we hadn’t read before (Paddington On Top) and during the day we are reading The Year of Miss Agnes, which we might have finished last week if I hadn’t lost the book. Argh!
What’s Been Occurring
The nights are getting colder and in the second half of this week temperatures didn’t get past 65 during the day. It looks like it will be the same next week. Our leaves are turning much slower than I thought they were going to but it looks like we might have some bright colors in October.
My birthday was Monday, and it was cold and rainy and I was excited. I know. I’m weird. I literally giggled with glee because I knew it meant I could read a book, under a blanket, while it rained.
I opened a book and watched a Thin Man movie. I literally did nothing Monday and making myself do nothing was fun. That night we all watched The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill and Came Down a Mountain.
The day before my birthday we went to my parents where they made me a delicious lunch of beef ribs, homemade onion potatoes and cabbage from my dad’s garden. Yum!
My dad also gave me some sunflowers from his garden and my mom gave me a check and told me I couldn’t spend it on the kids or groceries like I usually do. It was very hard because I had a couple pieces of curriculum I wanted to get, but in the end I bought myself a booklight, a journal, a paperback of one of The Cat Who books, and a new cover for my Kindle.
I wrote in my recent Randomly Thinking post that our kitten is a killer. Both my cats are actually, so imagine our surprise on Sunday when The Husband and The Boy saw a mouse running out from under our stove. Hmmmm…. The cats can apparently kill rodents outside the house, but not inside.
Wednesday night, though, our older cat, Pixel was lying in wait by the couch because the mouse ran under the couch Tuesday night after it scampered all over the living room, trying to get away from her. We still haven’t seen a sign that she’s caught it, since The Boy said she was still looing for it Friday night.
What We watched/are Watching
I already mentioned I watched a Thin Man movie for my birthday. I watched it all by my little ole’ self. It was The Thin Man Goes Home and I don’t remember seeing it before.
I also mentioned we watched The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill and Came Down a Mountain. If you haven’t seen the movie before, it’s really enjoyable and fun.
Last night The Boy and I watched Benny and Joon with Mary Stuart Masterson and Johnny Depp. It’s a movie I remembered from my teen years and it was my first intro to Johnny Depp.
Earlier in the week we watched Shaun of the Dead, which I wrote about for my Spooky Season Cinema Post.
What I’m Writing
I’m continuing to work on The Shores of Mercy. I’d hoped to have the first draft finished by the end of September but it looks like it will be mid-October now.
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.
