How do you relax during the week when life is chaotic around you? I’d love to read your tips!
Luckily this past week has been fairly tame for my family. I finished the first draft of the second book in my cozy mystery series and that was a load off of my mind, even though I still need to make revisions and edit before sending it to my editor and proofreader.
The weather has been very gloomy outside and that has been a downer because I haven’t been able to get as many nice fall photo+s as I wanted to this week but I did grab a few.
It looks like the temperatures will be even chillier this weekend into next, but this is the time of year for this weather so I’ll have to suck it up.
Our woodpile is piled high and we’re ready to light the first fire in our woodstove – probably this weekend as the one night is supposed to be in the 1930s.
How about you? Is it chilly or warm where you are?
For the rest of October and all of November, Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I will be watching cozy or comfy movies and some of them will have a little mystery or adventure added in.
This week we watched Strangers on a Train directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Robert Walker, Farley Granger, Ruth Roman, Kasey Rogers, and Pat Hitchcock (Aflred’s daughter). This was yet another movie based on a book. This one was based on Patricia Highsmith’s first book. She also wrote The Talented Mr. Ripley.
This movie kicks right off. No leading into things slowly.
The main characters immediately meet on a train (hence the title) aaaaand immediately I felt uncomfortable with both of them.
The younger one, Guy Haines, a tennis player just seemed quite monotone and bored in his delivery and also anxious to get a divorce from his wife so he could run off with the senator’s daughter. Later, though, I learned the wife was not so nice so I felt better about him. My first impression was not good.
My first impression of Bruno Antony was definitely not good.
Dude gave off serial killer vibes from second one.
For good reason, I might add.
He wants to know, pretty quick into the movie, what way Guy would like to kill his wife. Then he talks about how he’d like to kill his own father.
Then there is this convo:
Bruno: That reminds me of a *wonderful* idea I had once. I used to put myself to sleep at night – figuring it out. Now, let’s say that – that you’d like to get rid of your wife.
Guy: That’s a morbid thought.
Bruno: Oh, no, no, no, no. Just suppose. Let’s say you had a very good reason.
Guy: No, let’s – let’s not say…
Bruno: No, no! Let’s say. Now, you’d be afraid to kill her. You’d get caught. And what would trip you up? The motive. Ah. Now here’s my idea.
Guy: I’m afraid I haven’t time to listen, Bruno.
Bruno: Listen, it’s so simple, too. Two fellows meet accidentally, like you and me. No connection between them at all. Never seen each other before. Each one has somebody he’d like to get rid of. So they swap murders.
Guy: Swap murders?
Bruno: Each fellow does the other fellow’s murder. Then there’s nothing to connect them. Each one has murdered a total stranger. Like you do my murder and I do yours. Criss Cross.
Guy humors Bruno enough to get off the train at his stop and when Bruno says, “So, you liked my plan,” Guy is like, “Sure, sure. Gotta go, dude.”
When we see Bruno later at home with his mother, we see how serious he was about this whole murder thing. That and he may be pretty far out there mentally. Like lunatic level.
His mother is filing his fingernails and wants to know if he’s given up that crazy notion he’d had about blowing up the White House.
Mrs. Anthony: Well, I do hope you’ve forgotten about that silly little plan of yours.
Bruno: Which one?
Mrs. Anthony: About blowing up the White House.
Bruno: Oh, Ma, I was only fooling. Besides, what would the President say?
Mrs. Anthony: You’re a naughty boy, Bruno.
Only, we, the viewers, are pretty sure Bruno wasn’t kidding at all. Not like even a little bit.
Meanwhile, Guy has confronted his ex-wife who is a real “winner”. She says she wants a divorce but then she says maybe she doesn’t, now that Guy wants to marry the senator’s daughter. It’s in all the papers that they are going to get married and Miriam, the estranged wife, doesn’t like that at all. She threatens Guy by telling everyone that he wants to divorce her even though she’s pregnant. She’s pregnant, by the way, with another man’s baby.
Or…is she?
This is all called into question later when she’s running around with two guys at a carnival. That’s where Bruno catches up to her and proves to the viewers that he really is a psychopath who thinks if he kills Guy’s wife then Guy will kill his father.
As in all of Hitchcock’s movies, the angles and cinematography are insanely captivating.
It isn’t a spoiler to say Bruno takes Miriam out and when he does so we watch the killing through the reflection of Miriam’s glasses, which she knocked off in the struggle.
After the deed is done, Bruno can’t wait to tell Guy.
Guy is horrified, not thrilled, and tells Bruno he’ll call the police.
Bruno, however, says, “You can’t call the police. We were both in on it, remember? You’re the one who benefits, Guy. You’re a free man now. I didn’t even know the girl.”
Yikes. Now Guy is trapped and the way the bars of the fence he is standing outside of fall across his face they look like prison bars.
If you want to know if he gets out of trouble, you will have to watch the rest of the movie, which involves a heart-pounding climax where Guy tries to make sure Bruno can’t pin the murder on him by planting Guy’s lighter at the scene.
Almost every scene with Bruno freaks me out but when he starts showing up everywhere Guy is, asking people weird questions like if they’ve ever thought about how to murder people, I really got freaked out.
Especially the scene where he asks a woman at a fancy party at the senator’s house how she would kill her husband. Then he starts to talk about how to strangle a person and offers to show her and – again. Creepy.
He says to her, as he puts his hands around her neck, “You don’t mind if I borrow your neck, do you?”
Shudder.
You’ll have to watch the movie but it’s pretty messed up.
It’s also very messed up to me that Bruno seems to get a thrill from talking about and committing murder. Like a sexual thrill. Yuck. He also seems to have a crush on Guy and when he tells Guy, “I like you,” Guy punches him so I am pretty sure Guy has the same impression.
You can find plenty of critiques of this movie online, including one by Adrian Martin on filmcritic.com.au that states: “The film is ingeniously structured like an obsessive, inescapable nightmare – with uncanny repetitions of events, ghostly echoes of small details, and an ambiguous, implicitly homoerotic emotional transference between the central characters.”
See? I wasn’t the only one that got the vibe that Bruno was “after” Guy.
My husband read that the man who played Bruno (Robert Walker) actually died shortly after production. He accidentally died after he had a psychological breakdown and his housekeeper called a doctor. The doctor gave him amobarbital but Walker had drank alcohol earlier and the two interacted and he died at the age of 32. Ahem. He does not look 32. I thought for sure the dude was in his 50s. Either way, his death was very sad, especially because there is some mystery surrounding it. A friend claims he was there at the time and Walker was acting normally but that the doctor showed up and said he needed an injection and the friend actually held the man down when Walker refused. Walker died not long after. The friend is not mentioned as having been there in the official inquiry, however. Very strange.
A little aside here about Hitchcock: in case you don’t know, he was a sexist. He didn’t like certain women and really liked other women. So if he didn’t like a woman he harassed them nonstop on set. If he really liked them he stalked them. Not a great guy in real life even if he was a brilliant movie maker.
His issues with women showed up in this movie as well as shown in this paragraph on Wikipedia, which is also backed up by other articles about the making of the movie: “Warner Bros. wanted their own stars, already under contract, cast wherever possible. In the casting of Anne Morton (the senator’s daughter), Jack L. Warner got what he wanted when he assigned Ruth Roman to the project, over Hitchcock’s objections. The director found her “bristling” and “lacking in sex appeal” and said that she had been “foisted upon him.” Perhaps it was the circumstances of her forced casting, but Roman became the target of Hitchcock’s scorn throughout the production. Granger described Hitchcock’s attitude toward Roman as “disinterest” in the actress, and said he saw Hitchcock treat Edith Evanson the same way on the set of Rope (1948). “He had to have one person in each film he could harass,” Granger said.”
Ruth Roman as Anne Morton
Hitchcock also didn’t get along with author Raymond Chandler who he hired to write the screenplay for the movie. Chandler didn’t like Hitchcock’s changes to the original novel, for one, and he also hated working with Hitchcock who liked to ramble and analyze what they should do in the movie instead of just getting to the point and letting Chandler write the screenplay. Chandler apparently became so annoyed at Hitchcock that at one point, while watching Hitchcock get out of his car, Chandler said loudly, where Hitchcock could hear him, “Look at that fat b****** trying to get out of that car.” He quit not long after and the screenplay was written by Czenzi Ormond, a beautiful woman, which Hitchcock liked. There is a bunch of information online about his relationship with her as well, but you can look that up if you are curious. Ormond finished the screenplay with associate producer Barbara Keon and Hitchcock’s wife Alma Reville.
The production section of the Wikipedia article is very interesting, but I only have so much space for a blog post so I’ll leave the link here if you want to check it out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strangers_on_a_Train_(film)
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.
I’m writing this post this week with a heavy heart. I’m overwhelmed mentally and emotionally with world events and personal situations. I almost didn’t write a post this week but I also know that trying to keep a routine and do something other than sit and cry about things is good for me so here I am.
I rambled about what has been going on in my world in my post yesterday if you would like to check it out.
Today we are huddled at home with cold wind and weather swirling around outside. I have taken almost no fall photos this year so I am hoping that there will be some sun tomorrow and I can take a few, even if it is only of the leaves on the ground.
Unrelated to my week or what has been occurring, but did you know I host a Clean/Christian Fiction Book Club on Facebook? If you’re interested, you can find it HERE. Soon we will be offering giveaways and author parties and chances for readers to meet new authors. I hope you will join us to discuss any clean or Christian books you are reading right now.
What I/we’ve been Reading
I didn’t read much at all this week.
I am reading Death Bee Comes Her by Nancy Coco and Walls Crumbling: A Seth Browne Novel by Alicia Gilliam.
Both are very good but I think I am enjoying Walls Crumbling a bit more. Alicia is such a good writer.
I am also listening to Death at the Seaside by T.E. Kinsey and I feel like I will never finish it because I keep getting interrupted. I am determined to finish it this week!
Little Miss and I will finish Gone Away Lake this week.
The Boy and I will probably finish Red Badge of Courage this week.
The Husband is reading The Dark Wind by Tony Hillerman.
What We watched/are Watching
I watched way too much news this past week and I will be changing that this upcoming week. I plan to watch Strangers on a Train for Erin’s and my Comfy, Cozy Cinema (see our last comfy, cozy post about that feature and how you can get involved).
We watched The Lady Vanishes last week and it was very good. It was an early Hitchcock film but more joyful than some of his films.
I watched Forgotten Way Farms on YouTube and that was so relaxing and nice. I also watched several Newhart episodes. Having my 9-year-old daughter ask to watch Newhart never gets old either.
This upcoming week I also hope to watch as much calming, fall stuff as I can, along with reading more. I need to decompress, even as I think of all those in the world who don’t have that option.
What I’m Writing
Gladwynn Grant Takes Center Stage is almost done but took a bit of a back burner this week, partially because I filled my mind with too much news and partially because I didn’t know how to end it. I think I’ve found my ending but it’s not what I wanted. Sadly, it is apparently what was meant to be and a character I didn’t want to be guilty is. Sometimes characters tell me their stories and I don’t like them.
I forgot to share a couple chapters from the book for Fiction Friday but will share a couple more this Friday.
I have joined a couple of other bloggers to co-host a blog link-up on Thursday nights/Fridays called Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot. Bloggers can link their favorite blog posts on any topic from the week. You can learn more in this post: https://lisahoweler.com/2023/10/12/weekend-traffic-jam-reboot-add-your-links/
This week I listened to a lot of Matthew West and Brandon Lake.
Little Miss actually asked for Matthew West. His music is such a comfort to us when we are feeling down.
Blog Posts I Enjoyed This Past Week
I am behind on reading blog posts but I’d love it if readers would leave their own favorites this week in the comments for me to look at.
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.
Mention the group on Facebook and the blog share link thing..Weekend Traffic Jam
This week has been a heavy week and while I have so much I want to say today on the terrorism that struck Israel a week ago today, I also like to keep my blog as a safe place where people can escape for a bit. So today I will do my best not to bring the mood down, so to speak. I have expressed my concerns and my anger and my heartbreak on my social media sites (Instagram and Facebook) so you can read there if you would like to know my feelings.
For now, though, I’m going to ask what tea or coffee you are drinking this week. Or if it isn’t coffee or tea, what’s the warm or cold drink you’re reaching for as you read, write, or just hang out with others?
Earlier in the week I was drinking my old reliable of peppermint tea but today I am sipping hot cocoa with cocoa powder in lactose-free milk and maple syrup as the sweetener.
The warmth of my drink is needed right now as our temperatures have dropped significantly in the last week. Not winter temperatures just yet, but we are getting there.
A blogger friend commented on one of my posts that they are looking forward to my fall photos this year. I winced a bit when I read that because I have not taken many fall photos this year and our leaves are almost gone. I’m going to try to make up for not taking many and get some close-ups of the leaves we will have on the trees this week.
For now, I have a few of the leaves Little Miss and I have been picking up as we walk to our car or around the house. I’ve also added in a photo of the bacon pancakes I tried to make for the kids, as well as a view from my parents and the tree in our backyard.
This past week was somewhat routine. I was glued to the news and crying a lot but we also made time for homeschooling (though not all I wanted to do) and visiting with a former pastor and his wife who visited my parents yesterday.
My parents had offered this pastor, his wife, and their three daughters a place to stay more than 20 years ago when the pastor was sort of pushed out of the church that we were attending. It was an awkward time and sometimes I am surprised that I continued to go to that church for many years after that mess.
He was criticized for not bringing in enough new members/money and stepped down. Unsure of their next steps he and his wife were offered to stay in the house I grew up in by my parents. They spent three years there and yesterday they were able to thank my parents for the shelter they gave them from the storm.
They were also able to update them on their lives and the lives of their daughters and now grandchildren. They live three hours away and the woman had a hip replacement this summer so it was extremely nice of them to make the trip all the way up to see my parents.
This is the second former pastor of the church to make a special effort to see my parents in a month. No one from the current church family has contacted them to check on them or to see why they stopped attending the church and that’s been very disappointing, but sadly predictable in this day and age.
I didn’t mean the above statement to be as negative as it sounded – it’s just the way it is right now and it’s sad, but visiting with those former pastors and their wives really uplifted my parents’ spirits and I am grateful to them for making my parents feel special.
This weekend we are taking it easy other than attending a fundraising event for a local charity organization. That will be later this evening and the introvert in me is screaming at me to stay home, but the wife in me says I should actually attend an event with my husband for once since he has to go to so many for work and I rarely join him. I’m not a social person,, but he’s also working at these events so I don’t like to distract him. Tonight should be fun but after that, I am hiding away for the rest of the weekend and into next week.
I do have one homeschool event to possibly attend Monday but the next week is fairly clear for any major events, thankfully. I am really looking forward to being home and taking our time for schoolwork and making soup and whatever else we can do when it is too cold or snowy to go anywhere. Hopefully, I will also take some time to capture some photos before all the leaves fall off the trees.
How was your week last week and what are you looking forward to next week? Let me know in the comments.
Also, don’t forget to share one of your favorite blog posts from the week on the Weekend Traffic Jam blog link which you can find here:
I hope all my blogger friends will add your link to a favorite post from your blog this past week or even from previous weeks (there’s really no time limit). It helps to share your work more and connect with more bloggers, which is why I enjoy it.
I felt a bit numb this week from the news in the world so it was a nice break to wander from blog to blog and read about fashion and tours of photogenic villages and food and anything else not related to heartbreaking topics.
For the rest of October and all of November, Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I will be watching cozy or comfy movies and some of them will have a little mystery or adventure added in.
This week we watched the 1938 Alfred Hitchcock Film The Lady Vanishes. This was my second time watching it but I honestly had forgotten half of it so I was glad Erin suggested it.
I needed the distraction watching it provided this week. I know. I say this every time I write about the movie we are watching, but I need a lot of distractions these days and this week especially.
The movie begins in the fictional country of Bandrika where Iris Henderson (Margaret Lockwood) is vacationing with friends before she goes home to the United States to get married.
She is staying at a hotel with her friends and others, most of whom got stranded when an avalanche wiped out the train tracks. She interacts with the musician — Gilbert Redman (Michael Redgrave) — after he wakes her up with his loud music when she’s trying to get enough sleep for her trip the next day. Because she complains, the manager of the hotel kicks Gilbert out of his room. He makes a very nervy move and walks into her room uninvited and tells her he is going to stay and tell everyone she invited him in unless she calls the manager and tells him to put him back in his room.
There are so very funny quips in this movie and one of them is after Iris calls the manager back to get Gilbert out of her room.
“For the record, I think you are the most contemptible man I have ever met!” she yells at the door as he leaves.
He looks around the door and says in a soft voice. “Confidentially, I think you’re a bit of a stinker too.”
Earlier in the movie the manager tells two British men who are trying to return to Britain for a test match of Cricket in Manchester that he doesn’t have a room for them but they can stay in the maid’s room. There are a couple of funny scenes with the maid trying to change in front of them and them trying to tell her she can’t but her not understanding because her English isn’t very good.
There is actually a lot of humor in this movie, which isn’t always the case in an Alfred Hitchcock movie.
The two British men need some food so they head to the dining room, but are told by the waiter that there is no more food because there have been so many unexpected people staying there due to the avalanche. They can’t understand him because he doesn’t speak English so a woman named Miss Froy translates for them.
They chat with her for a while and she tells them how much she loves looking at the mountains in this country and how she’s been a nanny there for six years and is going home to England the next day.
Miss Froy also speaks to Iris when they both try to figure out where the music is coming from. That’s right before Iris has Gilbert removed from his room.
The movie seems to be all fun and games until someone strangles the musician Miss Froy enjoys listening to. She doesn’t know the man has been murdered, of course. She just thinks the music has stopped.
She also seems clueless the next day at the train station when someone tries to kill her by pushing a large concrete flower box out of the window. Instead of hitting her, though, it hits Iris in the head, which leaves Iris dazed – a perfect setup for a train ride that gets really weird when Miss Froy eventually disappears.
Iris clearly has a concussion but Miss Froy seems to think putting perfume on a hankie and handing it to Iris to put on her head will help. Was that ever a thing for head injuries? I have no idea but it seemed weird. Anyhow, Iris falls asleep and when she wakes up Miss Froy is there and they walk to the dining car and have tea.
After they have tea, Miss Froy tells Iris to rest again. She does and when she wakes up Miss Froy is gone and when she asks the other couple in the car where she went, they tell her they never saw an older British woman and imply Iris is insane.
Implying Iris is insane is the plot for the next 20 minutes of the movie as everyone begins to say they never saw Miss Froy. We learn everyone has a various reason for saying they never saw the woman.
The British Cricket enthusiasts don’t want to be delayed any longer. They have a cricket match to get to. Another couple doesn’t want any attention brought to them because they are cheating on their spouses.
This movie is a master class in gaslighting.
If you don’t know what gaslighting is, it is saying something that happened isn’t what really happened or that the reason you think it happened isn’t the reason it happened. It’s also when a person tries to distract them from what they are concerned about by saying there is another issue altogether. Like if a woman catches her husband cheating and she confronts him, he might say, “You’re so bitter and mean all of the time. I don’t even know what is wrong with you,” to try to convince the woman she imagined it all and the real issue is that she’s mean and bitter. The goal is to make the person feel like they are crazy for being concerned or accusing someone of something.
When everyone starts lying, Iris is about to lose her mind and the only one who will listen to her is Gilbert – the musician she clashed with at the hotel.
Eventually, after seeing a wrapper for a certain tea (you’ll have to watch the movie to see what this means), Gilbert starts to believe Iris that the woman really was there and they begin to look for her together. They both feel something criminal is going on and eventually, it is implied that this crime is related to spying on another country.
Though the plot and issue is a serious one, there is humor involved. For example, humor is employed often in a fight scene between Gilbert and a man who is determined to take evidence of Miss Froy’s existence away from Gilbert and Iris. Not only do animals in the freight car of the train watch the fight going on, but the fight also continues into a magic box placed there by the cheating man, who they learn is a musician.
There seemed to be quite a few subtle slams in this movie against the British who just can’t imagine anything bad is happening on the train and gets upset when anything interrupts their tea time, but I think Hitchcock did that a lot.
The movie is based on a book called The Wheel Spins by Ethel Lina White, but apparently deviated heavily from the plot of the novel. Actually, after reading the plot of the novel, I really want to read it because it sounds very good.
The British cricket enthusiasts were not in the book at all and were added to the movie.
The book was written in 1936 and the movie was released in 1938. The novel and movie’s plot clearly references the events leading up to the start of World War II.
Michael Redgrave was known for his work on the stage and almost didn’t agree to take part in the movie but in the end, his decision to take the park when Hitchcock offered it paid off for him because it made him an international star.
He and Hitchcock never worked together again, however, because Redgrave wanted more rehearsals and Hitchcock wanted more spontaneity.
The movie was a hit in the UK and the U.S. when it was released according to information online.
Geoffrey O’Brien from The Criterion (a movie review site) states: The Lady Vanishes (1938) is the film that best exemplifies Alfred Htchcock’s often-asserted desire to offer audiences not a slice of life but a slice of cake. Even Claude Chabrol and Eric Rohmer, in their pioneering study of Hitchcock, for once abandoned the search for hidden meanings and—though rating it “an excellent English film, an excellent Hitchcock film”—decided it was one that “requires little commentary,” while François Truffaut declared that every time he tried to study the film’s trick shots and camera movements, he became too absorbed in the plot to notice them. Perhaps they were disarmed by pleasure . .”
O’Brien points out that the screenwriters of the film, Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder, were the ones who really added the rich wit that made the film a joy rather than an ominous mystery.
This film was filmed in England and at that time they didn’t have a large budget, which is why much of the movie was filmed in only two places – the hotel and a 90-foot-long train car or two. This constraint would have limited most movie makers, but not Hitchcock, who was still able to line up amazing, eye-catching shots, including one that I noticed with the camera focused squarely on two glasses where a drug has been placed all while a tense conversation is going on in the background.
The whole time there is this tension for the viewer, who knows that those glasses have a drug in them and leaves the viewer with a desperate desire to cry out for the characters not to drink the tainted wine.
I really liked what O’Brien said about the performance of Dame May Whitty and agreed: Since in a moment she is going to vanish, Miss Froy must for a moment dominate everything, and Whitty achieves just that, and even more: she makes us feel an affection for Miss Froy deep enough that her disappearance will seem an unspeakable affront, an assault on Englishness itself in its least threatening form.
If you want to read more of O’Brien’s view of the film you can find it HERE.
We have stacks and stacks of them in boxes at my parents’ house. My job is to go through them and pick out the best to share.
My dad originally asked me to place them in binders but I think I might actually type them up and make them into a book.
I never met my grandfather. I was only two when he died. Through these poems, though, I am able to learn a lot about him, how his mind worked, and how he looked at the world.
Most of the poems are about places he went or people he met. He wrote poems for waitresses who waited on him and my grandmother or people he met when they traveled. He wrote a poem for Christmas each year, or many years at least, and sometimes he wrote poems for family members.
His poems were simple but sometimes, I don’t know, I feel like there were deeper meanings in them – like in this one above.
“Listen all here’s the deal, you’re a cog in the wheel…”
He was writing about his hospital stay one time, maybe around the same time he was diagnosed with cancer, about the nurses and doctors needed to keep the place running, but there seems to be something deeper in it too: “Don’t know where we’d all be without that wheel, don’t you see?”
Yes, we are all in this thing called life together and Grandpa knew that well.
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.
I have to be honest that I’m a little distracted today by what is happening in Israel and I feel like writing a blog post about what I’m reading and doing in my life is pretty unimportant. I’m only continuing because I think we all need distractions right now, no matter how small.
I follow some people who live in Israel and have read some books about the situation in Palestine so hearing the news from the area is extremely upsetting.
I’ll move on for now, though, and relay that I really didn’t do much last week at all but if you want to read about it you can check out my post here.
What I/we’ve been Reading
Last week I finished The Cat Who Blew The Whistle by Lilian Jackson Braun. I enjoyed it for the most part but the ending was strange and a little annoying to me. That happens at times with Braun’s books, but this was at least better than the later ones that were put out and probably not fully written by Braun later in her life.
I am making my way through my autumn reading list slowly, but fairly steadily.
Now I am on to reading Death Bee Comes Her by Nancy Coco and also plan to read a Nancy Drew book for fun (The Hidden Staircase). Death Bee Comes Her was not originally on my list but I picked it up at a used bookstore and it fit well with the theme since it happens in the autumn so I decided to add it in.
The Boy and I are reading Red Badge of Courage still for school.
Little Miss and I are reading Gone Away Lake for school.
The Husband just started a Dennis Lehane book and I’m not sure if he started another one yet.
What We watched/are Watching
Last week I didn’t watch a lot of movies but I hope to watch a couple this week, including The Lady Vanishes for the Comfy, Cozy Cinema with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs.
If you want to join us you are welcome to and we will have a link up for you to add your post to.
We did watch some Newhart and I watched an episode of Miss Scarlet and The Duke.
This week I really want to focus on escaping in some good movies, some wholesome things as well, including The Chosen and The Dick VanDyke Show – anything to calm myself inside.
What I’m Writing
I am working hard to finish Gladwynn Grant Takes Center Stage and am almost done. I did push the release date off by a couple of weeks because I was concerned I might not have time to write it, revise it, and send it the editor, and revise it again in time for it to be released on the original date. I wanted to slow myself down a bit.
Once I’m finished with this book, I’ll be continuing to work on Cassie, which is a book that will be released in August of 2024 with the Apron Strings Book Series. It is based in the 1990s so it will be fun to research that decade, which I lived through but have forgotten a lot about. Ha! Not because I was drunk or drugged but because I was lost in my own little world in high school and college.
This week on the blog I shared the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot with two other bloggers. This is a chance for bloggers to share favorite posts from their blogs for the week. You can still share your posts now and we will be back again on Thursday at 9:30 p.m. to set up the link for everyone who wants to participate.
Also on the blog this week I shared about a movie I watched The Lightkeepers.
What I’m Listening to
I listened to a lot of Brandon Lake this week and other worship music, as well as other Christian artists I hadn’t heard of before in an Apple Music playlist. I needed it.
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.
I’ve written this before on this blog so we will see if I have to write it again in another month.
Last week we had temperatures in the high 70s and low 80s. Not exactly the weather I was hoping for to allow me to curl up under a blanket with a good book or to write a blog post.
Today, though, the temperature is in the low 60s and it’s raining.
Perfect weather for cuddling, reading, and writing this blog post.
Oddly, though, I am not drinking warm tea or cocoa today as I write this. I am actually drinking cold orange mango juice that my daughter made for me in a sippy cup with a straw that her grandparents gave her for her birthday. Why did my parents give my daughter a sippy cup for her 9th birthday? Well, because my daughter likes little cups with straws and now she has one. The cups are so cute, my almost 17-year-old son even likes drinking out of them. I have to admit that even I like having that cute little with a lid in case I knock it over, since I am a bit of klutz at times.
This is completely off the subject but as I wrote the date while saving today’s post in my computer (I write my posts in my computer and copy and paste because of WordPress’s poor composing interface), I realized that today is my late grandmother’s birthday.
Facebook reminded me of this as well with a memory post from when my dad shared a post of mine about my grandmother:
I miss my grandmothers terribly. Mom and I were talking about how remembering our loved ones helps to keep them alive and she’s right. I told her saying that has always felt sort of corny to me since I really want that loved one with me, not “alive” in my mind. Yet, I understand the saying and as I’ve gotten older it has made more sense to me, even if I would prefer to physically hug my grandparents instead of just keeping them alive in my memories.
If you are a longtime follower of my blog you may notice that I mention my grandmothers more than I do my grandfathers. This is because I lost both of my grandfathers when I was very young. My paternal grandfather died when I was 2 and my maternal grandfather died when I was 9 and I only saw him once a year because he lived 600 miles away. I wish I had been able to know both of them better, but I am grateful that the rest of the family has been able to share memories of them with me over the years.
This past week wasn’t a super busy one for us, luckily.
It was mainly homeschooling, reading, working on book two in the Gladwynn Grant Mysteries, and on Friday a trip to get my license photo. License photos are horrible already but I would say this is the worst one I have ever had taken. No, I’m not going to show it. It looks like I smelled something bad but am pretending I didn’t. As someone with glasses, I was told to tip my chin so there wouldn’t be a glare on the glasses. The frustrating thing is that this made my second chin more prominent. Luckily, I have rarely had to show my license to anyone in the last four years so hopefully I won’t have to show this one to anyone either.
We don’t have a lot planned for this upcoming week other than school. The Boy is excited because he doesn’t have school Monday. Well, he doesn’t have it at his trade school at least. I told him I may still give him some assignments for our homeschool lessons, but I really don’t think I’ll be that cruel.
He has been attending a trade school for two and a half hours in the morning and then has assignments from his other subjects in the afternoon. He is learning how to build things such as sheds and corn hole game boards at the trade school and it’s a lot more work than he or I realized, but he seems to enjoy the hands-on work it provides. It is much better than sitting in a classroom and listening to a lecture from a teacher, that’s for sure.
This week he will be going on a field trip to a technical school an hour from us and is currently earning college credits that can be used at this school if he decides to attend it in two years after he graduates.
Switching gears again, the leaves changed so fast here and then fell right off. I barely had time to grab any photos and really had no time this week because I was dealing with a sore tooth that I can hopefully have taken care of in January. Getting into a dentist is hard in our area and then there is the whole thing about needing money to pay for the dentist when you don’t have dental insurance. It’s no fun but I am hopeful I can keep the tooth feeling okay until I can get in.
I did get an antibiotic Thursday from my local doctor because a small bump developed above the broken tooth. While the pain was minimal, I decided I should get an antibiotic to make sure if there is an infection there it doesn’t spread. I am very thankful to God that the pain has not spread and that it doesn’t seem like the infection has either. It’s also amazing I have not had more pain with the shape my teeth are in. Sadly, I’ve always had very bad teeth and some health issues – like hypothyroidism – haven’t helped that issue.
I have been feeling a bit on edge lately with so many personal things going on at once and today I thought I’d be honest that I have not leaned into God the way I should have. I am trying to be better about that but this morning I started to think about how that may be one reason I have not written a Faithfully Thinking post in a while. It is hard to encourage others to trust in God when you know you haven’t been doing a very good job of it yourself.
I haven’t been totally forgetting God, but praying to Him has not been my first reaction for most of the past few weeks. On Sunday the pastor for our online church started to talk about the many needs we all have in our lives and how we need to trust that God is enough. It was hard for me to focus on the sermon because I had just discovered we had a financial shortfall and knew that would mean we would be struggling during the week. This was added to even more financial issues we are having, plus health concerns, health concerns for my parents, work issues for my husband, etc. etc. I didn’t want to hear another sermon about how God was going to come through when I felt like I’ve been asking him to come through for me and my family for a long time and we are still struggling in many areas.
I almost tuned the pastor at but made myself listen at least to the second half and take some notes.
I am going to listen to it again today because I know I need to be reminded – yet again – that when I feel like I do not have enough of one thing in my life (money, health, time, for example) God is enough and will make sure I have enough. This week He provided for our family in many ways. He made sure the pain in my tooth stayed at bay – reminding me of all the natural ways I can help mouth sores or teeth issues. He made sure we had enough food and gas to get to where we needed to go.
He gave me time to quiet my brain a little bit with books and shows or movies I enjoy and spending time with my family.
Instead of bringing Him my complaints and worries every day I am going to try to thank Him for what he’s already done.
The pain in my tooth might get worse this week. I don’t know, but I am thankful for the long length of time I have had without tooth pain.
Our finances might tank even more (though I pray they do not), but I know that somehow God will make sure we do not starve.
I am not faithful the way I should be much of the time but even when I have been faithless, he has been faithful.
I am awful at making gratitude lists, but I want to start doing that more. I want to start remembering more about what God has done for me in the moments when I feel like He hasn’t provided enough.
How was your week last week? Is it chilly yet where you are or nice and warm?
I’ll be back tomorrow for my Sunday Bookends post but I also wanted to mention that I am now co-hosting a weekly post called the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot that allows bloggers to share their favorite blog posts from the week from their own blogs. If you want to participate this week, you can find the post HERE. The post will go live on Thursday evenings around 9:30 p.m. EST. It is a nice opportunity to connect with more bloggers and share your work.
