Saturday Afternoon Chat: Our last swim? The start of homeschool looms and county fairs

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Saturday Afternoon Tea11 Comments

Thank you for coming to chat with me today!

Can I get you some tea? I have a selection of herbal teas, milk, juice and I actually have ginger ale and sparkling water – two beverages I rarely have.

I’m sitting and doing my best to relax this weekend – the last weekend of summer for us.

It is the last day of August. How is that even possible? In some ways it seems like summer just began, though with all the heat we had summer also feels like it was very, very long.

This Tuesday we start homeschool officially.

This past Tuesday Little Miss and I had a wonderful day swimming at my parents. The pool was in perfect shape and the temperature was absolutely perfect.

We ate some lunch before we went and took lunch to my parents as well. Then we spent two hours in the pool, took a break for a light supper, then back in the pool for another 90-minutes. The temperature was fairly high outside so the pool was perfectly nice inside.

Little Miss enjoyed swimming underwater, doing flips, and practicing floating on her back – all skills she learned this summer.

The Boy helped my dad with mowing the lawn since Dad has been suffering from a pinched nerve in his lower back that has made doing work outside very difficult.

On Wednesday Little Miss and I went back to the pool and Dad and The Boy went to a county fair near us.

We figured it might be our last swim since temps were set to drop the rest of the week.

It looks like it might be close to 80 tomorrow but the pool water probably will not be as nice as Tuesday and Wednesday.

We have had a lot of fun in that pool this summer.

Today Little Miss is having another sleepover which is hilarious to me since I said the one a few weeks ago was her last for the summer. Sigh.

Anyhow, we just had a downpour here and I told the girls to go out and run in the rain.

They ran for coats and shoes and umbrellas. Good grief. When I was a kid, we just ran in the rain! We didn’t worry about covering up. I feel like I have failed my daughter. *snort laugh*


On Tuesday I will start classes with the kids, even though I don’t have everything I need yet for the oldest. He, however, only has a couple of classes to take to finish out the credits he needs to graduate since he is also attending a technical school this year.

Little Miss will be my main focus this year and we are trying new curriculum in almost every subject. We will see how it goes but what is great about homeschool is that I can switch to a different curriculum at any point if needed. I am looking forward to some more routine, which will hopefully make me sit down and finish my book that I hope to have out in the beginning of November.

How was your week last week? Did you do anything interesting or exciting?

(P.S. Aren’t you glad that I’m not talking about “hot statutes of Lucifer” today?)


Summer Movie Marathon: Clambake

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings2 Comments

I’ve been watching summer movies for the last few weeks and this week I finished up the marathon with Clambake.

I thought Beach Blanket Bingo was painful but Clambake – wow. This was even more painful to watch.

I was doing searches for photos from this movie to use for this post and I forgot to add the word movie so I was actually getting photos for actual clambakes and I decided that reading the sites where those photos were from might be more interesting and better than this movie ever was or could be.

Alas, I plodded forward and found photos from the movie instead and then proceeded to do some research about this movie that I had to suffer through.

Let us start with the “plot” of this movie. To give you a short summary – Elvis plays Scott Heyward, the son of a millionaire businessman who works in the oil industry.

He’s been promoted to vice president of his father’s company but he doesn’t feel he deserves it just because he is the son of the boss. He takes off to get away for a while, driving his fancy car and wearing a fancy suit. He runs into a waterski instructor who notices the girl at the sandwich shop is drooling all over Scott and hears he’s the son of a millionaire while Scott’s talking to his dad on a car phone. I’ll get to that later.

The mechanic says Scott has it made. Scott says he doesn’t know whether people like him for him or for his money. Then he suggests he and the water skiing instructor –Tom Wilson – switch places. Tom can go on to Miami Beach with him and pretend to be Scott Heyward, including having access to all the money and Scott will become Tom and see if he can be an average guy who everyone either likes or doesn’t like based on who he is and not whose son he is.

Tom likes this idea and away they go – Scott riding Tom’s motorcycle and Tom driving Scott’s fancy car.

My first complaint came quite early in this movie – about four minutes in when Elvis’s character is talking on a car phone.

He has a car phone. A car phone in 1967. I think not. I don’t care how rich his daddy is.

But after a quick search online – car phones were actually made available in 1946!! What? Yes, you could install a phone in a car but it had limitations. First, it operated on a radio frequencies and there were only three frequencies you could use. Second, coverage was spotty to say the least. Third, they weighed 80 pounds.

Down in Miami Beach we are supposed to believe that Scott is ignored because he is just a ski instructor and not a millionaire. And we are supposed to believe people and women fall all over Tom only because he is rich. Puh-lease…this might be a dumb movie and Elvis may not have been that good of an actor but he is way hotter than the actor who plays Tom. Women are going to fall all over Elvis because he’s hot – poor or not.

So Scott ends up staying in the employee’s room and Tom gets the presidential suite.

Also staying at this hotel that Scott and Tom are staying at is some famous boat racer played by Bill Bixby. All the girls just fawn all over him and his stories about racing. One girl wants to get his attention so she wants Scott to teach her how to water ski as soon as possible. Again, we are supposed to believe she’d rather date Bill Bixby than Elvis.

The young woman is trying to date a man who obviously could be her father. Just – ew, yuck, gross, and shudder.

Elvis’s singing is truly the only thing that saves this movie and even then, it barely does.

This review of the movie cracked me up and summed up my feelings:

“Arthur H. Nadel’s Clambake (1967) was Elvis Presley’s twenty-fifth film, the last he made as a single man and his least favorite.  Before re-watching Clambake in preparation for this post I would’ve said that in comparison to the many, formula musicals Elvis made this one lies at the bottom of the barrel.  It’s unfortunate, however, that even the King himself couldn’t appreciate all the elements in Clambake that make it so awfully fantastic.  I mean it’s really bad, horrible goodness.”

You can read the full review here: https://aurorasginjoint.com/2015/06/08/clambake-1967-is-the-citizen-kane-of-beach-party-movies/

Usually I look up a bit of trivia for a movie but on this one I disliked it so much I didn’t even bother. Ha!



My advice is to watch this one with a lot of candy and soda next to you so you won’t be so miserable while you watch. Take a bite of chocolate every time Bill Bixby gives off dirty old man vibes and you should have a sugar rush that will take three days for you to come down from.

I’m done with my Summer Movie Marathon just in time to start Comfy, Cozy Cinema with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs next week.

We are starting with What We Did On Our Holiday, which we will be watching this weekend and then writing about next Thursday, Sept. 5.

Here is our schedule for the next couple of months if you are interested in joining in.

We will also have a link up and in October we are doing a comfy, cozy care package giveaway so keep an eye out for that.

Just in case you would rather read a recipe for an actual Clambake than watch this movie you can find that here: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/91837/clam-bake/

Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot – Come Link Up With Us!

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings6 Comments

Welcome to another Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot hosted by Marsha in the Middle, Melynda from Scratch Made Food & DYI Homemade Household, Sue from Women Living Well After 50, and me.  Look for the link party to go live on Thursdays at 9:30pm EDT. 

Marsha, our leader, is on vacation right now so we will be sharing only our highlights for the week and when Marsha comes back we will share a round-up of all the most clicked from the three weeks she is gone. 

This is a blog link-up where we not only allow you to share your past posts but we encourage it. So share away!

My highlights for this week:

|| Sharing Prayer Walking by Bettie G’s RA Season ||

|| Books for Middle and High School Boys by My Slices of Life ||

|| Introducing Bookish Bliss Musings and More: A Quarterly Link Up by Between the Bookends ||

|| Leeds Castle: Recommended for Disabled Visitors by Southwest Rambler ||

I’m so glad you are here and taking part in our weekly link-up of family-friendly, fun, educational, interesting, crafty, fashionable, and whatever else posts. I hope you’ll tell your followers about our post (feel free to copy and paste the graphic) and visit the blogs in the link-up. 

Now it is your turn to link up your favorite posts. They can be fashion, lifestyle, DIY, food, etc. All we ask is that they be family-friendly. You can link up posts from last week or even from years ago. You can share up to three links each week.

We are always looking for additional hosts so let us know if you want to help out and we are also looking for more links from fashion bloggers so let your fashion bloggers know!

Also, please take the time to visit the other blogs on the link-up and meet some new bloggers!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter
https://fresh.inlinkz.com/js/widget/load.js?id=c0efdbe6b4add43dd7ef

Summer reading list – what I planned to read versus what I actually read

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn books and reading, everyday musings8 Comments

I often make lists of books I plan or hope to read in a particular season or month but rarely stick to that list and this summer was no exception. Back in May, I made a list of 15 books that I planned to read by September. Today I’ll share what books I said I wanted to read and what books I actually read this summer.

I have gotten comments from blog readers who say they don’t make lists of what books they want to read. They simply read whatever they want to, whenever they want to. I actually do that as well. The man reason I make the lists are so I won’t forget about a book I heard about and wanted to read but couldn’t read yet because I was reading another one.

Plus, I find making lists very relaxing. I know at least one friend who feels the same way about lists.

Anyhow, on to my list of what I “planned” to read this summer:

  • Lord Edgeware Dies by Agatha Christie
  • Little Men by Louisa Mae Alcott
  • Trouble Shooter by Louis L’Amour
  • Ever Faithful by Karen Barnett
  • The Clue of the Whistling Bagpipes by Carolyn Keene
  • Dandelion Cottage by Carol Watson Rankin
  • The Cross Country Quilters by Jennifer Chiaverini
  • The Bobbsey Twins on Blueberry Island
  • An Assassination on the Agenda by T.E. Kinsey
  • The Real James Herriot by James Wight
  • A Sentence to Death by Anthony Horowitz
  • Summer by the Tides by Denise Hunter
  • Return to Gone Away by Elizabeth Enright
  • The Secret of Red Gate Farm by Carolyn Keene
  • Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

Here are the books I actually read or started or am still reading and not all of them were on my list:

  • Tracking Tilly by Janice Thompson
  • Renee by Sandra Ardoin
  • The Secret of Shadow Ranch by Carolyn Keene
  • The Case of the Whistling Bagpipes by Carolyn Keene (on list)
  • Live and Let Chai by Bree Baker
  • The Fast Lane by Sharon Peterson
  • The Women of Wynton’s by Donna Mumma
  • The Sentence of Death by Anthony Horowitz (on list)
  • Lord Edgware Dies by Agatha Christie (on list)
  • A Death At A Scottish Christmas by Lucy O’Connelly
  • Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne
  • Clueless at the Coffee Station by Bee Littlefield
  • The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery
  • Return to Gone Away by Elizabeth Enright (on list)
  • The Key Collector’s Promise by Donna Stone
  • Trouble Shooter by Louis L’Amour (on list and in the middle of)
  • The Cross Country Quilters by Jennifer Chiaverini (listening to on Audible)

Which books were my favorites?

The Blue Castle was my favorite overall, followed by Clueless at the Coffee Station, The Clue of the Whistling Bagpipes, Return to Gone Away, and The Sentence of Death.

Have I written a list for autumn? Of course, I have!

As I said, lists are fun and help remind me what books I wanted to read. They are not, however, written in stone so I often change them based on my mood.

 I’ll be back another day with my autumn list of “planned” reads.

What books did you read this summer? Any that stand out specifically?

Sunday Bookends: The last of the summer swimming, planning for autumn reading, and lists of mysteries to read

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends10 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. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.

This week I’m joining up with Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer, Deb at Readerbuzz, and Kathyrn at The Book Date.

What’s Been Occurring

 Last week was pretty chilly part of the week but things have started to warm up again. Little Miss and I hoped that warm up would include some time in the pool but the nights have been very cool so that has left us with very cool pool water. It’s been so cool our teeth have started chattering as soon as we enter the pool, and our bodies don’t really become acclimated even though we hope they will.

Yesterday we tried again, and I somehow lasted 90 minutes but my body did not feel well afterward. The warmest days this week will be Tuesday and Wednesday so I think we will wait to try again until then and those will probably be the last swims of the season.

This week I will ease into lessons for Little Miss to kick off school, but we won’t start in earnest until after Labor Day. The Boy already started back at tech school. I’ll start his lessons the week of Labor Day as well but he has much less to do this year.

So this week is the last week of freedom, so to speak, for the kids before school really gets underway.

What I/we’ve been Reading

Currently: I am still reading Trouble Shooter by Louis L’Amour because I have been reading a couple of other books in addition to or in between. I am going to focus on the book more this week because there is a mystery woven in and I really want to know what happened.

I am also reading The Gardener’s Plot by Deborah J. Benoit. It is an Advanced Reader’s Copy.

On cozy evenings I am also reading Little Men by Louisa Mae Alcott

I just finished Clueless at the Coffee Station by Bee Littlefield and really enjoyed it. I’ll share a review of it on here tomorrow.

My upcoming list has shifted around some as I plan for reads for Autumn.

Up next, possibly, depending on my mood,

A Simple Deduction by Kristin Holl (An Amish Inn Mystery)

The Secret of Red Gate Farm by Carolyn Keene (A Nancy Drew Mystery)

Murder Handcrafted by Isabella Alan (An Amish Quilt Shop Mystery)

The Cat Who Brought Down the House by Lilian Jackson Braun

Little Miss and I read Homer Price by Robert McCloskey over the last couple of weeks.

What We watched/are Watching

Last week I watched Clambake. I don’t want to talk about it. I’d just like to never remember I watched it.

I also watched a few episodes of the old British show Lovejoy.

I then watched Just A Few Acres on YouTube.


What I’m Writing

I made quite a bit of progress on Gladwynn Grant Shakes the Family Tree this past week. I hope to make even more progress this upcoming week.

On the blog I shared:

What I’m Listening To

I am still listening to The Cross Country Quilters by Jennifer Chiavarini

Recent Blog Posts I Enjoyed

Don’t Wait Until You Feel Like It by Stray Thoughts

Peace Descending by Big Sky Buckeye

Words for Wednesday: Going Through The Motions by Mama’s Empty Nest

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.

Saturday Afternoon Chat: The Italian statue of the devil that was too hot and Timothy is missing in action

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Saturday Afternoon Tea2 Comments

Ah, so glad you’re here. Can I get a drink?

Some tea?  Coffee? Milk?

Juice? Water? Soda?

Let’s chat about our week.

How was your week last week? You can let me know in the comments after I ramble at you about my week, which was rather calm thanks to chilly temps and a car that needs to pass inspection before we can drive it again.

Yes, in Pennsylvania your car has to pass an inspection every year and thanks to some lovely incompetence on the part of a local salvage yard and of another seller, we have been unable to get our headlight that was destroyed by the deer we hit last year fixed until this week. And that is well over when our inspection was due. We have an inspection appointment this week and then I will have a car during the week when my husband is at work.

I didn’t really want to go anywhere this past week anyhow. It was superbly chilly and rainy, giving me the autumn vibes I have been craving.

I spent three blissful days inside my house reading books and working on Gladwynn Grant Shakes the Family Tree, all while cuddled up under my grandmother’s blanket. Grandma has been gone since 2003 so I didn’t steal her blanket. I inherited it. Ha! I always figure I should clarify that since it sounds like I stole my poor grandmother’s blanket and she’s at home shivering in the cold.

All the coziness ended Friday when I had to leave my little cozy cocoon and take my teenage son to get his haircut and pick up groceries.

The Boy started school at the tech school again this past week. This is his second year there and at the end of the year he will be done with school because he is – he is – sniff – a senior!

I can’t even believe he is about to graduate from high school. It makes my head very woozy.

I have started asking myself things like, “Will he still want to go on family vacations with us? Will he go out to dinner with us? Will he still hangout with us? Will he still live here because I really want him to live here for a very long time and my heart will shatter if he moves too far away?”

I’m not handling all of this well and I’m not afraid or ashamed to admit it.

After we picked up groceries and brought them home, Little Miss and I attempted to go swimming at my parents. The nights have been very cold so the pool was like an ice bath. We lasted about an hour and then gave up.

Back at home last night I was again under the blanket as the temperatures went back down. This week the temps are supposed to be back in the 80s but I think our days of wickedly high summer temps are behind us. We shall see.

Even as some forecasters say our autumn season will be warm and dry, The Farmer’s Almanac says it will be cool and wet. We will have to take it day by day and see who wins out. When I first heard we might have a warm fall I wanted to cry. I really want some chilly days where I have an excuse to stay inside. I have no excuses to stay inside in summer unless the weather is so sweltering I know it will make me sick.

In Autumn I can be like, “It’s just so chilly out. I think I’ll stay at home.”

Which is code for – I’m going to read a book and watch an old movie.

Speaking of movies – Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs) and I are gearing up for another Comfy, Cozy Cinema starting September 5.

She’s already made some great graphics to go with the feature so if you want to join along, here is our list:

A little update today on Timothy The Spider, who I wrote about last week – he is currently MIA.

Earlier this week it was raining very hard outside and I think he could hear the rain and wanted to get out because he climbed behind one of our curtains and it was the last we saw of him for the rest of the week.

So far I haven’t seen him on the floor but we have brown hardwood floors and a carpet of various shades of brown so he could be anywhere. If I see him, I will most likely kill him. Poor Timothy. Alas, his life might be short. Or he could already have been eaten by one of the cats, I have no idea. All I know is he isn’t hanging over my head anymore and I sort of wish we had killed him before because now I don’t know where he might show up or when.

In closing, I thought I would share a weird conversation The Boy and I had last night about a statue of “the devil” or Lucifer that was sculpted in Italy in the 1840s by Joseph Geefs.

Geefs statue was commissioned and installed the St. Paul’s Cathedral in Belgium but was then determined to be “distracting allure” and feature “unhealthy beauty” in its portrayal of Lucifer or Satan.

So the church hired Geefs’ older brother  Guillaume Geefs to sculpt another statue to represent the devil and that one turned out to be just as “sexy” or even more so by some definitions. That second statue is still in St. Paul’s Cathedral.

The Boy and I agreed that the second sculpture is actually more beautiful and distracting than the first so we’re not sure why the first one was replaced by the second one.

(The first statue on the left, second is on the right).

What do you think? which one is more hot?

How was your week last week? Do anything interesting?

Lose any spiders in your house?

See any interesting sculptures?

Let me know in the comments.

Faithfully thinking: weeding out the bad so the good can survive

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Faithfully Thinking10 Comments

This post was originally published in July 2017

My son was recovering from an illness on the couch and watching a cartoon on his laptop, my daughter was watching a cartoon on my phone and I was mindlessly scrolling through Facebook when it all shut off out of the blue.

For ten seconds we sat there and looked at each other bewildered. What were we supposed to do now? With all our devices dark, except the phone which continued to work off data, we were completely lost.

Suddenly I felt excited. I felt a sense of freedom and dashed outside to my garden, over run with weeds thanks to weeks of neglect, and began yanking weeds out by the handful. I felt like a giddy child let loose in a candy store. The smell of dirt and grass and nature was setting my soul on fire.

In the midst of the euphoria I was also disgusted that it had taken the electricity going out to wake me up and break the chains of apathy and digital busyness that I had let hold me down.

Logged on to Facebook I seem to think I have to read one more post, see one more photo, laugh at one more pointless video and then before I know it it’s the afternoon and I’ve accomplished nothing. I haven’t finished the dishes, cut up and put the extra zucchini in the freezer, cleaned up my room, made the beds or weeded the garden.

And I certainly haven’t nourished my soul or connected with God.

Instead I’ve only fueled anxiety that I often call “my anxiety” claiming the state as my own, as if it’s an expected mindset for me to be in.

I’ve found that scrolling past story after story, some positive but many aimed at igniting our fear – fear of cancer, of death, of loss – is damaging my emotional health and in turn my physical health.

Many say “I just ignore those negative or fear based posts” but to me it seems the continuous exposure to these types of stories often permeates our thoughts and perpetuate our fears without us even realizing it. The negative affects of today’s social media are subtle and unassuming.

I’m not saying social media doesn’t have its good points or that it can’t be used to help encourage, connect, and support. Along with the good, however, comes even more counteractive and isolating aspects.

We have never been more connected than we are today, Facebook founder mark Zuckerburg likes to tell us again and again. In some ways this is true but in reality we’ve never been more disconnected or separated.

Satan is never happier than when we are isolated, made to feel alone, and spending our days on Facebook, pretending we are actually connecting with people. When we are on our computer or staring at our phone we are not living in the present or focused on those around us. Our minds are on a digital and virtual plane, trapped in a world of fantasy, antagonistic words, pessimistic views and sometimes fake optimistic ones.

I thought about this all as I yanked the weeds out of the garden so I could plant spinach seeds, seeds of a plant to bring our family nourishment.

I found it pretty pathetic that it took the electricity going out to motivate me to weed out the bad and plant the good. Yet it often takes a power failure in our life to wake us up to the good we have been missing out on.

Philippians 4:8 says: “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

Sometimes I need to pull the plug on the busyness of life so I can focus on the noble, the right, the pure, the lovely and the admirable.

If I don’t cut off the power sometimes, or let God flip the switch for me, then the negativity, fear, pessimism and anxious thoughts will grow in my life like the weeds in my garden. The weeds are choking out my healthy plants, stopping them from growing. I’m nowhere near a master gardener and I know I have a lot to learn if I want a bountiful harvest in the future.

There are days I feel the weeds of life all around me, trying to steal my joy, my hope, my fervor for life. I put my hands up to push them back, but without the help of the one who is our Master Gardener, I’ll never find victory.

I need Him to help me keep the weeds in check and to remind me they need to be pulled so I can breathe and grow. 

Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot. Come Link Up With Us!

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings6 Comments

Welcome to another Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot hosted by Marsha in the Middle, Melynda from Scratch Made Food & DYI Homemade Household, Sue from Women Living Well After 50, and me.  Look for the link party to go live on Thursdays at 9:30pm EDT. 

Marsha, our leader, is on vacation right now so we will be sharing only our highlights for the week and when Marsha comes back we will share a round-up of all the most clicked from the three weeks she is gone. 

This is a blog link-up where we not only allow you to share your past posts but we encourage it. So share away!

My highlights for this week:

|| Minted Quinoa Tabouli Salad Tabbouleh by Real Food Blogger ||

|| Hodgepodge Wednesday in August by My Slices of Life ||

|| We Love Our Stuffies by Our Grand Lives ||

I’m so glad you are here and taking part in our weekly link-up of family-friendly, fun, educational, interesting, crafty, fashionable, and whatever else posts. I hope you’ll tell your followers about our post (feel free to copy and paste the graphic) and visit the blogs in the link-up. 

Now it is your turn to link up your favorite posts. They can be fashion, lifestyle, DIY, food, etc. All we ask is that they be family-friendly. You can link up posts from last week or even from years ago. We are always looking for additional hosts so let us know if you want to help out and we are also looking for more links from fashion bloggers so let your fashion bloggers know!

Also, please take the time to visit the other blogs on the link-up and meet some new bloggers!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter
https://fresh.inlinkz.com/js/widget/load.js?id=c0efdbe6b4add43dd7ef