Saturday Afternoon Chat: Spring has sprung and Zooma the Wonder Dog gets sick

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Saturday Afternoon Tea11 Comments

Welcome to my Saturday Afternoon Chat!

As I type this all of our windows are open, there is a cool bleeze blowing our veil-like white curtains and the church bells are chiming loudly – finally on time after being off by an hour for almost a month after the time change.

Outside the window tulips are blooming, my neighbor is digging in her flower beds to get them ready for planting, and birds are chirping at each other.

This week I sipping chocolate almond milk as I write but had some tea when I first woke up and I am going to warm it up and finish it here in a bit.

Spring is in full bloom here.

The blooms are out on all the trees, maybe a little early, which I’ve heard is bad for the fruit trees because then they create too much fruit that sometimes spoils. We will have to see what happens.

I took photos of the pear tree (I think that’s what it is..it never really grows too much fruit) at my parents on Sunday and could hear a loud hum as I stood under it. I believe that hum was all the bees swarming it to collect the pollen, but I’m not sure.

The tulips on the side of our house, which I mentioned earlier, and the tree next to our house are also blooming.

I spent yesterday afternoon and evening on my back porch. I think it got up to 80 yesterday but it was a cool 80, not too hot.

Little Miss ran in the sprinkler earlier in the day and then The Husband cooked chicken spiedies and fries and I sat with the pets outside and ate dinner and read Fellowship of the Ring (more about that tomorrow in my Sunday Bookends post).

It was such a nice end to a slightly stressful week which kicked off with all of us thinking we might lose our Zooma. For those who are new here, Zooma The Wonder Dog is our cockapoo-Shetland Sheepdog mix and she’s the best pet ever. Seriously. Ever. Anyone who meets her loves her – well not that guy down the street who walks by and she always barks at but there must be something wrong with him or she wouldn’t bark at him. A guy my dad knows came to Dad’s last week and Zooma loved him immediately so I figure she only barks at weirdos (and my brother. Ahem. I had to differentiate that he is not a weirdo. Not exactly anyhow. Maybe a bit of one.)

Monday night I came back from taking Little Miss to a makeup class of gymnastics and The Boy was in the yard with Zooma who was trembling and wouldn’t jump up on the porch to come in. When he tried to pick her up though, she would cry out and try to nip to get him to stop touching her. We finally figured out a way to get her in the house and sat with her in the laundry room while I called the emergency number of the vet where we used to live and still use.

The vet suggested she had colitis, inflammation of the intestines, based on her symptoms and the fact she has had some issues with her…um…bottom glands in the past. I also had to confess to the vet that we had been sneaking her food, especially on Sunday when I slipped her tiny pieces of pork chop several times. Later that night my dad also confessed that he had seen Zooma eat a bone in his backyard that he had left out for the birds but that had fallen on the ground. And in fact, everyone in the family except for my mom, who is a saint, had slipped the dog food over the last week or more.

I have a feeling that all of Zooma’s issues had been brewing for a while, though. She’d been acting more dragged out and tired over the last couple of weeks.

The prescription the vet gave was to pull up her food for the next couple of days to let her colon rest and heal. We pulled her food up and Little Miss pulled her dog bed into the kitchen (for some reason) and she flopped down and didn’t move all night, which is not her at all. She usually likes to be in whatever room we are and sometimes up on the couch or chair next with us.

The Boy slept on the floor with her that night because she had no interest in getting up to go upstairs with us.

The next morning, we couldn’t get her to stand up to go outside and when we tried to carry her out she cried as she sat down, started trembling and cried again when The Boy picked her up to put her back on the porch. We called the vet again and they wanted us to bring her right up. The office is about 45 minutes away. To make sure she had space to lay down, The Boy and The Husband took her, so The Boy could sit in the back with her. Little Miss was crushed because Zooma is her best friend and she wanted to be there to care for her.

She kept saying she wouldn’t leave Zooma. The Husband and I also didn’t want her going because at that point we were concerned there was something very serious going on and she would be hysterical if Zooma had to be put down. I just couldn’t imagine our life without Zooma, but I didn’t think it looked good.

My worst fear was that she’d had a stroke or she had a tumor on her spine causing her legs not to work right.

Once at the vet, though, the little rascal started to act better by first being carried into the clinic and the x-ray room and then trotting out of the room like she was totally fine.

The vet said she had gas all inside her stomach and inflammation in her colon, so I believe the official diagnosis was colitis, but The Husband just remembers the vet saying she was full of gas. Luckily nothing was broken because at one point we suspected she had something wrong with her paw or paws.

She was placed on anti-inflammatory medication but seemed to only get worse over the next couple of days. She mainly laid down, not even stirring when there were noises outside, which is highly unusual for her. She had no interest in getting up, looking out the side window of our house like she normally does, or climbing the stairs with us at night. One morning, though, she sat the bottom of the stairs, barking at 5:20  either because she was lonely or in pain. I came down to let her outside, but she wouldn’t move from where she was sitting and simply stared at me.

We had been told to pull her food up and I had been making boiled chicken and rice, so I gave her some of that, which she ate, but then stared at me like she still wanted something. Eventually The Husband came down with her and fell asleep on the floor to try to get her to lay down.

Over the next couple of days I spent most of my time boiling chicken and rice, physically picking up Zooma’s backend to make her stand and get outside to move around and use the bathroom, checking on her, trying to get her to drink water, and occasionally warming up warm compresses to put on her …um…bottom, to see if the warmth would have a soothing affect since she was jumping up off and on like something was biting her in her butt. She wasn’t sure what she thought about those warm compresses and gave me the funniest looks. I wish I could have taken a photo of her but I was busy at the time, obviously.

I also had to spend several minutes making her get up, walk out the door and walk around the yard to use the bathroom and then lift her up onto the porch, hoping I didn’t hurt her. My fear was that this would be how we’d have to take care of her from then on, or that the vet had missed something, which would have been a surprise to me because they’ve always been excellent with the care of our pets.

On Friday morning I had to lift her off the bed because she’d fallen asleep there after Little Miss had lifted her up the night before and hadn’t moved other than the lift her head off and on as if pleading with me to pet her and make her feel better. She wouldn’t jump off the bed herself like she usually did.

The Boy and I both tried massaging her belly area and Thursday night she seemed to get some relief because the boy said there was an awful stench from her.

So yesterday morning I got her to go down the stairs and outside and when she saw our neighbors she made her way over to greet them. She even jumped off the porch on her own.

For the rest of the day, she walked up on the porch herself and seems to be on her way to healing finally. It seemed like such a long time of her being sick, even though it was only five days.

It’s weird how a dog being sick can throw life in a family off, especially when they are such a big part of the family like Zooma is.

Not only did it throw our family life off, but it made me feel off-kilter because I was used to Zooma’s perkiness and crazy behavior instead of looking like a spaced-out copy of my once-loving and fun dog.

By last night things were feeling a little bit more normal because Zooma was a bit more normal than she had been. I hope that trend continues on through the weekend, but there were good signs that it will since Zooma was climbing stairs again and jumping up on the ottoman to look out the window and watch the neighbors come and go.

On Tuesday the kids had an eye doctor’s appointment, which The Husband took them too since he had a week off for vacation. We learned that Little Miss will need glasses. I’m a little disappointed with that but it isn’t that surprising considering everyone else in the family has glasses too. I swear we gave our kids the worst genes. I had glasses around 10 and The Boy had them somewhere around 9 or 10, although he says it was 8. He was older, but that’s okay, I’ll let him have his memories.

His memories are a little skewed sometimes, though.  He often tells me things I said that I never said to him and I sometimes worry he’s creating an alternative universe and life experience in his head with ideas of what he thinks I will say about something. (If you don’t know me then you don’t know I joke a lot and since I am writing this and not saying it, you can’t hear the tone it’s being said in. Know that I am joking – yet, I am a little serious because I’m pretty sure I conjured up some scenarios between my parents and I that never happened too.)

We had nice weather almost every day this week so Little Miss and I spent a lot of time outside, including on Thursday when school was mainly reading books on the back porch.

This next week looks like it is going to be a lot cooler so we probably won’t be outside as much, which will be a little sad, but I know warm weather will come to stay soon.

That means we will be seeing a lot more of our neighbors probably. None of us really see each other in winter because we are all running from our cars to our houses to get warm. The neighbors closest to us have two Shih tzu dogs who they are training to stay in their yard if they go outside their fenced in area. They love to come over and visit Zooma, though, and I’m glad for Zooma to have some socialization. She’s not really too sure what she thinks of Little Louie though since he’s pretty interested in sniffing her in places she’d rather not be sniffed in. Gucci is more interested in attention from everyone else instead of Zooma. He also listens better than his big brother.

So that’s my week in a nutshell.

I hope this week will be a little calmer and that we are able to keep plugging away on homeschool lessons which we only have about a month of left. I can’t believe the school year is almost over. I’m sure the children won’t be happy but I am considering starting our school year on August 1 this year but on a reduced schedule so it will only be a couple days a week until we get to September. I think this will allow us to take more breaks during the school year so that it doesn’t feel like we are slogging through long spaces of lessons without much down time. Who knows. It could totally backfire, but luckily homeschooling allows us the flexibility to try things and then stop doing them if we don’t enjoy it.

How was your week?

What are you drinking this week for tea? Or is it coffee? Or are we on to colder drinks as we move toward summer?

Fiction Friday: Road to Bethlehem. Guest post, children’s author Lesley Barklay

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Fiction Friday1 Comment

Children’s author, or just author in general, Lesley Barklay provided me with a chapter of her book, Road to Bethlehem for today’s Fiction Friday.

Road to Bethlehem is part of the Bible Adventurers series for children.

Description:

‘Dear God’, Hannah prayed. ‘I wish I knew what it was like on that first Christmas morning . . .’

When Hannah goes to bed on Christmas Eve, the last thing she expects is to wake up in a dusty shed with her brother and a chicken. With no time to search for their parents, Joseph and Mary take the children with them on the road from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Will they reach the town in time? And how will Hannah and Joshua ever get home?

A delightful story about the first Christmas.

You can find more info about Lesley and her work on her social media sites: Instagram @authorlesleybarklay and Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorlesleybarklay

Road to Bethlehem – Chapter 1

The first thing Hannah noticed was the strange smell. Had Mummy left the window open? Was there a sheep in the front yard? Then, she heard the noises.

     Cock-a-doodle-doo!

     A rooster? She stirred sleepily. We don’t have a rooster any more. When she rolled over, her hand touched something strange. Something scratchy. What? Her eyes opened. She froze as she took in the small, dark room. Where am I?

     “Mummy?” she called. “Mummy?”

     “Hannah?”

     Hannah sat up and looked around to find Joshua sitting on the far side of the room, panic in his eyes. She ran to her brother, flinging her arms around his neck.

     “Where are we?” she whimpered. “Where’s Mummy?”

     “I don’t know.” Joshua sounded scared too.

     A shuffling noise made them cling to each other more tightly. Then a brown chicken jumped out of the shadows.

     “Argh!” Hannah shrieked. She clutched Joshua tightly.

     Everything was silent for a moment as the chicken regarded the intruders and then gave—almost—a little shrug and started pecking at the straw. Josh laughed. After a second, Hannah joined in. It was a little funny, being scared by a chicken.

     A low voice singing made them both jump to their feet. “Mummy!” they called as they ran out of the small door and straight into a young woman. They flung their arms around her, clinging frantically.

     “Mummy, we didn’t know where you were,” Hannah said.

     “We thought we were lost,” Josh said.

     It took a moment to notice the woman was not hugging them back. Another second, and they realised that this woman had a baby in her tummy. Hannah and Josh looked up, and suddenly saw that she was not their mother at all! She was short, like Mummy, and she had brown hair, but the similarities ended there. This young woman had dark skin, dark eyes, and dark hair covered by a brown veil. And she looked young, like a high school student.

     “Children?” she said with a strange accent. “I am sorry, but I am not your mother.”

     Hannah and Josh let go of the woman. Hannah’s eyes blurred as tears started to fall.

     Josh squeezed her hand so tightly it hurt, and made the face he always made when he was trying not to cry. He opened his eyes really wide, and pinched his lips together.

     “Oh children, do not cry. It will be all right. We will find your mother. Are you hungry? Have you eaten? Why don’t you come with me and I will get you some food?”

     Hannah looked at Josh, and he looked at her. Mummy and Daddy always said that they should never go with strangers, but they were lost and scared, and this woman seemed kind. Mummy did say that if they were ever lost, they should find a policeman, or a shopkeeper, or another mummy to help. Surely having a baby in your tummy counted?

     “I’m hungry,” Josh said slowly.

     “Me too,” Hannah said.

     The woman seemed to take this as consent, because she put down the bucket of grain for the chickens and waved for the children to follow her. Arriving at her house, they found it was like nothing they had ever seen before. It was small, and dark. The roof was very low. The floor was made out of dirt.

     “Come, children, sit,” the woman said, pointing to a low wooden table, with cushions on the ground around it. Still holding hands, Hannah and Joshua sat obediently.

     The girl put a strange-looking bread roll in front of them, and broke it in two with her hands. “I have a little olive oil, if you would like.”

     Hannah bit her lip, trying not to cry. This bread didn’t look like the bread that Mummy bought, and Mummy used olive oil in cooking, not for eating.

     “No thank you,” Joshua said.

     Hannah shook her head.

     Joshua looked at the bread for a moment. “Do you have any peanut butter?”

     “Or white bread?” Hannah added.

     The girl shook her head. “I don’t know what peanut butter is, and I have never seen white bread.”

     “That’s okay,” Hannah said, and bravely took a bite of the grainy bread. The texture scratched her throat. She coughed when she swallowed.

     “Here, let me get you some water.” The girl went to a clay jug and poured water into two brown mugs. Hannah’s finger caught on the rough edges as she traced the edge of the mug. It looked homemade.

     The girl sat down across from them. “Now, tell me why you were in my shed. Are you here for the census? Where are your parents? Where are you from? Your clothing is so strange.”

     Hannah blinked at all the questions. Her mind fixed on the one word she didn’t understand. “Census? What’s a census?”

     A shadow crossed the woman’s face. “The Emperor, Caesar Augustus, has called a census. Everyone must travel to their family’s birthplace to register and pay the tax. I imagine that is why your parents brought you here. They didn’t talk to you about it?”

     Joshua looked like he was thinking hard, so Hannah decided to ask the question that had been on her mind since they met the woman. “What’s your name?”

     “Oh, how rude of me,” the woman said. “My name is Mary. What are your names?”

     “I’m Hannah and this is Joshua.”

     “What beautiful names. Like Hannah and Joshua in the scriptures.”

     “Yes,” Hannah said excitedly. “Joshua is like Joshua who led Israel when the walls of Jericho came tumbling down, and I’m Hannah like—” Here she stumbled. What was the story again? Mummy had told her, but it was so long ago that she didn’t remember.

     “Like the Hannah who prayed for a child?” Mary asked.

     “Yes, that’s right.”

     “And you’re like Mary, the mother of baby Jesus,” Joshua stared at Mary’s swollen stomach.

     Mary’s hands dropped to cradle her bump. Her mouth fell open. “What—what did you say?”

     In her excitement, Hannah didn’t notice her new friend’s dismay. “You know, in the Bible? The angel told Mary she was going to have a baby boy who would be the Son of God and save the world from their sins.”

     Mary’s face paled as she stood. “How could you know that?”

     Joshua looked curiously around the room, then back at Mary’s face, then around the room again.

     “Hannah,” he said quietly.

     “What, Josh?”

     “I think this might be the Mary,” Joshua said.

     “What do you mean?”

     “I think we’re in Nazareth. I think the baby in Mary’s tummy is Jesus,” Joshua said.

     Hannah’s eyes went huge. “Seriously? Are you the Mary in the Bible? Did you see an angel?”

     Mary hesitated, watching the children like they might be ghosts. “I don’t know this Bible you speak of,” she said finally. “But yes, I did see the angel Gabriel. He told me not to be frightened, that I had been chosen by God to bear his Son. When I told my family and my betrothed, no one believed me. Joseph nearly divorced me.”

     “Until he had that dream from God,” Joshua interrupted.

     “Yes,” Mary said. “Even though he married me to preserve my reputation, the other women still laugh at me when I go to the well. How is it possible that you know all this?” She stared at their clothing once again.

     Hannah squirmed self-consciously in her pink princess nightie. At least Joshua’s shark pyjamas had long sleeves.

     “Are you angels too?” Mary asked.

     “No!” Joshua said.

     Hannah stood up and did a little pirouette, almost falling over. “But I would make a good angel.”

     Mary laughed. “I’m sure you would, little one.”

     “Or a ballerina,” she added, but that made Mary look confused again so Hannah sat down, feeling the tears return. For a moment she had almost forgotten that she missed Mummy.

     Mary sat beside Hannah and placed an arm around her shoulder. “If you are not angels, and you are not here for the census, then why are you here?”

     “I don’t know,” said Josh. “But I think we have travelled here from the future.”

     “I asked God what the first Christmas would be like, and then we woke up here. Maybe he answered my prayer.”

     “Of course,” said Joshua. “Time machines aren’t real, so a miracle is the only explanation that makes sense.”

     “But how will we get home to Mummy?” Hannah asked. “We can’t stay here, and she’ll be so worried about us!”

     “I know,” Mary said. “I shall take you to the town gates to see the elders. They will know what to do.”

     “Wait,” said Josh. “If God brought us here, then no one else can really help us except God. Maybe we should pray that he will send us home.”

     “Good idea, Josh,” Hannah agreed.

     Hannah reached out for Joshua’s hand then closed her eyes.

     “Dear God,” Joshua said in a sweet, clear voice. “Please take us home to our Mummy and Daddy now. They will be worried about us, and we are a little bit scared. Amen.”

     Hannah cracked her eyes open. Nothing had changed. She added her voice to her brother’s prayers.

     “Dear God,” she said. “I’ve changed my mind. I don’t really want to see the first Christmas anymore. I just want to go home. Can you please send us back? Amen.”

     She waited a beat before opening her eyes. Her lower lip trembled when she saw they had not moved.

     “It’s all right.” Mary patted Hannah’s arm. “If, as you say, God has brought you here, then He will send you home when He is ready, and not before. You can stay with Joseph and me. We will look after you for as long as God keeps you here.”

     A sense of peace descended on Hannah’s heart. Mary was right. God must want them here for a reason. She still missed Mummy and Daddy, of course, but she was safe. Now that she thought about it, it was rather exciting. She might get to see the very first Christmas!

     “Okay,” Hannah said.

     “Thank you,” Josh added.

     “I can only act as God leads me,” Mary said. “And for some reason I feel that he has led me to you. Now, who wants to help me feed the chickens?”

     “Me!” they both said excitedly.

     “We have three chickens at home,” Hannah added. “Brownie, Book-Book, and Cranky. Brownie’s the brown one.”

     “You named your chickens?” Mary said.

     “Yes, of course. Don’t your chicken have names?”

     Mary gave them a confused look. “No, they don’t.”

     The children helped Mary with chores all day long. They fed the chickens, cleaned, and watched Mary prepare the meal. The food looked strange, but they did not complain about what she put in front of them. Hannah wrinkled her nose. The food here was different, but she preferred to eat than go hungry.

Spring of Cary: My Favorite Wife

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn classic movie impressions, Spring of Cary8 Comments



For the third movie in Spring of Cary (Grant) with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs (and anyone else who wants to join – I’m looking at you kajta, but I know you’ve been busy), we watched My Favorite Wife with Cary and Irene Dunne.

Yes, Irene was in last week’s movie too.

This movie was an interesting concept – if not a bit crazy. Hopefully, you’ll be able to tell as I begin to write about this movie, that this is meant to be a comedy. In fact it was defined back then and now as a screwball comedy.

A man wants to get married, but before he can, he must declare his first wife Ellen (Irene) dead. She’s been missing at sea and was believed drowned seven years earlier.

It turns out, however, that she is not dead, and she returns while Nick Arden (Cary) is on his honeymoon with wife number two, Bianca (Gail Patrick).

Nick is of course shocked and now has no idea what to do because he has two wives.

It turns out Ellen was stranded on an island all those years and it would have been lonely for her if it wasn’t for Steve Burkett (Randolph Scott) who was stranded with her.

That’s a fact she doesn’t immediately admit to her husband and a fact he’s not real pleased with, even though he’s remarried.

That new wife, by the way, is not a very nice woman.

Oh and don’t forget that Nick and Ellen have two children together and all of that will have to be figured out as well.

To break the news to Nick, Ellen heads to his honeymoon, which was the same hotel and place they had their honeymoon, I might add. How tacky is that of him?!

As the movie goes on we the viewers now have to figure out who we want Nick to end up with and for me, of course, it’s Ellen (Irene), his first wife.

It’s clear from the moment that Nick sees his first wife that he is still in love with her.

The problem is that he has to find a way to tell Bianca that his first wife has returned and this is a task he drags out in comical ways. He drags it out so long that eventually, Ellen has to pretend to be a visitor of Nick’s mother. A wild Southern friend.

Of course, the movie keeps it tasteful and never touches on Nick and Bianca “consummating” the marriage, which we are guessing they never have.

Even though Bianca is stuck up, it is very unfair of Nick to keep dragging it out and not tell her the truth. She believes he’s her husband and that he might be running around behind her back. He keeps chickening out because he doesn’t want to upset her but she’s already upset, thinking something horrible is wrong with her and he’s fallen out of love with her.

Every time he has a chance to tell her the truth something interrupts them and he runs off again, leaving her in even more despair.

Of course, one of these interruptions comes from an insurance man who reveals that Ellen was stranded on the island with another man for seven years. Not only that but the man is quite interested in her and he lets Nick know about it.

This was a hilariously ridiculous movie, if not a little bit cringeworthy at times.

I mean are we really supposed to expect they were on an island seven years and nothing “untoward” happened? Hmmm….Well, I suppose it is a movie so we can suspend belief for a bit.

This movie was very similar to The Awful Truth, including Cary’s purposeful awkwardness and the silly and suggestive ending.

Overall it was a cute movie, but I wouldn’t say it was one of my favorites of Cary’s.

Have you ever seen the movie? What did you think about it?

To read Erin’s impression of the movie, visit her blog here: https://crackercrumblife.com/2023/04/20/the-spring-of-cary-grant-my-favorite-wife/

The rest of the movies we will be watching for Spring of Cary include:

An Affair To Remember (April 27)

Holiday (May 4)

Operation Petticoat (May 11)

Suspicion (May 18)

Notorious (May 25)

Little Miss’ Reading Corner for April: Books about Rose Wilder, animal books, and a chapter book we had to abandon

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn books and reading, everyday musings, little miss reading corner7 Comments

Little Miss and I have been reading a lot of different books in the last couple of months.

We’ve read some picture books and a couple of chapter books.

We abandoned one of our chapter books – Soft Rain, which was a book about the Trail of Tears – part way through. It was a bit too heavy for Little Miss right now so we read it almost to the end but then I noticed there was a bit more tragedy than I felt Little Miss could handle at her age. We’ve decided we will try it again when she is older.

We were reading it as part of our history unit on Native American history.

If you think you might be interested in it for your older child or grandchildren, here is a quick description:

It all begins when Soft Rain’s teacher reads a letter stating that as of May 23, 1838, all Cherokee people are to leave their land and move to what many Cherokees called “the land of darkness”…the west. Soft Rain is confident that her family will not have to move, because they have just planted corn for the next harvest but soon thereafter, soldiers arrive to take nine-year-old Soft Rain and her mother to walk the Trail of Tears, leaving the rest of her family behind. 

Because Soft Rain knows some of the white man’s language, she soon learns that they must travel across rivers, valleys, and mountains. On the journey, she is forced to eat the white man’s food and sees many of her people die. Her courage and hope are restored when she is reunited with her father, a leader on the Trail, chosen to bring her people safely to their new land.

A book we did finish recently was In The Land of The Big Red Apple by Roger Lea MacBride. This book gave us a glimpse of life in the Ozarks (Missouri) during the 1890s through the eyes of Rose Wilder, the daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder. This is a fictionalized account of Rose’s life as a child based on stories she told MacBride, her adopted son. I kept calling the book The Land of the Big Red Apple because the library covered part of the title with their labeling. Ooops.

It is part of a series of eight books about Rose’s life as she grew up, including her as an adult.

Description:

The third book in the Rose Years series, the story of the spirited daughter of the author of the beloved Little House series.

Eight going on nine, Rose Wilder is beginning to settle into her new life in Missouri, the Land of the Big Red Apple. Her father is building their farmhouse and she dreams of the day they’ll have their own bright crop to harvest. But before that can happen, she has a fierce ice storm to contend with and her first real Christmas in the Ozarks to enjoy.



We are now reading On The Other Side of the Hill, which is the book right after In The Land of the Big Red Apple.

Description:

The fourth book in the Rose Year series, the story of the spirited daughter of the author of the beloved Little House series. 

On The Other Side of the Hill continues the story of Rose, Laura, and Almanzo as the young Wilder family struggles to overcome a series of natural disasters that beset their little farm.

We had picked up The Little Town in the Ozarks, which is also part of the series, from the library at one point but we didn’t get a chance to read it and sent it back because I didn’t know when we would get to it. We will get it again later, probably this summer, now that we know we like the series.

I didn’t write down the names of all the picture books we signed out at the end of March and the beginning of April,l but we did read a few I remember, including a book about John Audobon called The Boy Who Drew Birds. This fit in nicely with our science unit on birds. We enjoyed learning how Audobon studied and drew birds even as a young child.

For picture books this week, we are reading, or have read:

The Umbrella by Jan Brett

This was a really cute book with amazing artwork. Little Miss didn’t want to read it at first but it turned out to be very creative and entertaining. It was the story of a young boy who went into the jungle to find animals but then . . . well, I won’t spoil the ending.

Verdi by Janell Cannon

This was a cute book about a snake accepting who he is becoming as he grows up and then who he becomes. It is very funny and entertaining and the artwork is beautiful.

Cubs First Winter by Rebecca Elliott

As I am writing this, we haven’t yet read this book but it looks so sweet so I’m excited to read it with her tomorrow.

And Little Miss picked Grumpy Monkey by Susan Long again.

This is a very creative book about a monkey who is grumpy and who decides that sometimes it is okay to be grumpy or sad as long as you aren’t mean to other people.

Little Miss also has two books to read on her own this week for Reading Time:

Backyard Wildlife: Wolves (by Blastoff Readers)

And

I Can Read: Paddington’s Prize Picture

Later this week we will be reading a book about Claude Monet as part of our Art unit on him, but I still have to go pick that one up.

What have you been reading with your kids or grandkids or just what are you reading?

Sunday Bookends: Slogging through a couple of books, warmer weather, and old TV shows

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, Sunday Bookends3 Comments

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


What I/we’ve Been Reading

I’m reading a book called Expired Hope for a book tour. In my head, I call it Expired Drama. There is a lot of drama. Like too much drama. It’s a romantic suspense book listed in the Christian Fiction genre. I am probably not going to read another one by this author (Lisa Phillips) even though she is a good writer. The crisis scenarios that keep happening in every chapter are simply too much for me. It’s a bit overdone for my taste, but I’m sure others enjoy that type of escapism. I think I need it to make a little more sense for me to enjoy it.

I am also still reading Fellowship of the Ring. I feel bad I keep saying that I’m still reading it. It’s a good book. I just keep getting interrupted by either the children or phone calls or life in general when I try to read it. Then I get distracted with other books or writing because fantasy, or at least older fantasy, is not always my thing. I do, however, really enjoy Tolkien’s style of writing and when I sit down and focus on it, I do find myself getting carried away into the world of the Hobbits. I do sometimes wish that Tolkien would get to the point. I didn’t think anyone could write that many times about their characters being lost in the forest and drag that fact out for ten pages of talking about rows and rows of trees, but somehow he managed it.

I will be finishing Anne’s House of Dreams by the end of April. That is my goal. I stopped that one because it was a bit more depressing than the previous books I have read in the series.

I started a Walt Longmire Mystery and oh wow – after reading mainly light and fluffy books for the last few months, it was simply too dark and gritty for me. I had to put it aside for now, even though I love Craig Johnson’s writing.

I’m reading a chapter or two of The Lord God Made Them All by James Herriot before bed.

Little Miss and I are reading On the Other Side of the Hill by Roger Lea MacBride. It is part of the fiction series based on the childhood of Rose Wilder, daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder.

In the evenings we are also reading Mrs. Piggle Wiggle: A Treasury, which is the story of an eccentric woman who helps teach children to have fun when they have to do work around the home or other things they don’t want to do. It was written in the 50s so there are, at times, some old-fashioned ideas – like 8-year-olds having to do all the housework instead of the parents. Of course, the book also exaggerates some of the situations for the sake of the silliness of the stories.

We also signed out a pile of picture books from the library last week that we will be reading this week and I’ll be sharing about them in a Little Miss’ Reading Corner post.

What’s Been Occurring

I wrote about what’s been occurring in my post yesterday if you want to check it out.

My only update is that the temperatures did drop after our rain yesterday and I was glad to have it cooler so I can cover myself with a blanket while I write this and later while I read.

Also, after the rain, the blooms on the tree next to our house opened even more, so that was pretty cool.

I think the forsythia bush bloomed even more too.

Later today we will head to my parents for some lunch.

Tomorrow, we have gymnastics for Little Miss and a guitar lesson for The Boy and Tuesday it is an eye doctor appointment for them both. After that, the week isn’t too busy for us other than The Boy working at his part-time job.

It isn’t too busy for me at least. Ha.

What We Watched/are Watching

Last night we watched the first episode of season nine of Brokenwood Mysteries. We had missed watching the show and had finished up season eight a couple of months ago, so we are glad it is back for a new season.

Little Miss and I watched a lot of Mary Berry this week. Most of the episodes we had already seen a couple of times before but we still really enjoyed them.

Earlier in the week I watched The Awful Truth with Cary Grant and Irene Dunne and this week I am watching My Favorite Wife with the same actors. This is part of The Spring of Cary that I am doing with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs.

We also watched some Newhart last week (all of the seasons are now on Amazon), Hogans Heroes, and I watched a couple episodes of Madame Leblanc Mysteries until it started toward preachy themes about the lifestyles of people.

We also finished an episode of McDonald and Dodds and watched a couple episodes of a British sitcom called My Family.


What I’m Writing

I am working hard on Gladwynn’s first book and hope to have it done by the end of the month, if not before, and out to beta readers. This reminds me: I’m taking applications for both beta readers and launch team members.

If you want to sign up to beta read the book and give me your feedback on the characters and the story, etc., then you can do so here: https://forms.gle/WzSJe2pP71MBWbfn9



If you want to be on the launch team that is just where you get an ebook copy of the book and then help me promote it by letting people on your social media, blog, etc. know about the book, you can sign-up here: https://forms.gle/rfqE8oWqfQzhnrhQ7

On the blog last week I shared:

What I’m Listening To

I did not listen to a ton of music this past week, but I did listen to Fellowship of the Ring on Audible.

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: Is it spring or summer? My son’s life-saving walk around town and a library trip.

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Saturday Afternoon Tea17 Comments

I didn’t drink a cup of tea all week and I missed it.

This morning I poured myself a cup of peppermint tea (I’m a creature of habit) and sat down to write this post.

Maybe it was the chill in the air that made me crave the tea since the rest of the week the mornings have been warmer than normal for this time of year. It was like we went from a hint of spring and right into summer. Thankfully spring returns for a bit this next week as temperatures decrease.

I can’t believe I am admitting this, but I am going to miss colder weather. I know. What?! Me, the person who always rambles about hating winter is actually going to miss winter?! Well, yes, I am because I loved cuddling under a blanket in the mornings with a good book or my laptop to work on my books or blog posts.

I am less interested in sweating on my couch while I try to think about how to write the next chapter in my book.

We took advantage of the nice weather this week by having two Easter egg hunts on Sunday afternoon (one at our house and one at my parents), doing homeschool lessons on the porch later in the week, playing in the backyard some (but not much because Little Miss had allergy issues all week and fought me on taking her medicine), and visiting the library.

On Monday we headed to The Boy’s guitar lesson but unfortunately, he got sick from something he ate when we were almost there so we had to turn around.

He was better later that night, thankfully.

He has a job now so Thursday night he went to work. He’s a dishwasher for a few hours a couple a times a week at a local restaurant.

Thursday Little Miss and I headed to the library. She enjoyed playing with the Legos in the children’s room while I chose books for her and I to read together.

At one point it felt nice to sit on the carpet with all the little train tracks and crack open a book that caught my attention, but that I had never heard of – Mrs. Piggle Wiggles Treasury – while Little Miss played with Legos and a little kitchen set.

While I was there the library director showed me the library website and a link to a resource of online children’s books. I’m glad to know about that for days I want Little Miss something to read something for English. Like I told the librarian, though, I prefer to be able to hold real books as often as I can. I think Little Miss does as well. She wanted to pick out a couple of books on her own. This time we didn’t sign out our limit of books like the last time, but we did bring home a pretty good haul. I didn’t get any books for myself because I have enough to read already.

They had a poetry display up and a place where people could make their own poems with words that stuck to the board with magnets.

This was the poem that was there when we got there:

Then Little Miss wanted to make her own poem so while the librarian shared with me his interest in history, such as the history of Mark Twain, and history books he had read, she made this poem:

On Friday, The Boy had a doctor’s appointment. He had a tetanus shot so I wanted him to hang around me the rest of the afternoon in case his arm got sore or he got tired. An hour after the shot, though, he wanted to go for a walk so I let him, even though I was worried because, well, I’m a worrier. I talked to my neighbor for close to an hour and he still hadn’t returned, which made me a little nervous, so I called his cell phone. He was just going to walk around town and maybe visit the dollar store so I didn’t think it would take as long as it was taking. He called me back half an hour later and told me that while walking he’d found an elderly woman laying in her side yard, unable to get back up.

The sideyard was on a slope so he’d been trying to help her back up the hill to her house but her legs didn’t work well and she kept rolling back down. He tried to talk her into letting him call me, but she didn’t want to be a bother. He mentioned 911 but she didn’t want them to be called either. Finally, he convinced her to let him get her phone and call her children, but she really wasn’t happy about that either because she said they would come and “lecture her again.”

She tried to convince him to leave before they came but he said she kept sliding on the hill even while sitting so he stayed with her until they got there. While they were chatting he found out she was 88 and had been laying there all afternoon. She’d gone out to clean out her flower beds and hadn’t been able to get back up and then had sort of rolled down the hill.

When her family got there, they told The Boy that this isn’t the first time she’s done this and that they don’t mind if she goes in her backyard, which if flat, but the side yard is off limits because of the slope.

They thanked him and tried to pay him for his help but he wouldn’t take it.

When he told me how she’d just wanted to go clean out her flowerbeds because she wanted to be able to do what she’d used to be able to, I got choked up. I was already emotional thinking about how sweet my son had been to sit and wait with her and thinking about how he wouldn’t have found her if I had let my fear rule and made him stay home. It was also interesting that he was walking where he was because that isn’t a street he normally walks on. It’s on the other side of town, on a hill that overlooks our side of town.

He said she said to him while they were sitting there, “You pretty much saved my life, you know.”

I feel that he did save her life. It was 85 degrees out yesterday. If she had been in that sun much longer she may have been severely dehydrated or had a heart attack or something else awful might have happened to her.

He doesn’t remember her name but the daughter works at the tiny supermarket in town (the only supermarket in town). He said he wants to wander by her house on the way to work today to make sure she is okay and hasn’t gone in her side yard again.

Little Miss and The Husband are gone today on a mini-jaunt to pick up Chick-Fil-A. There is a small one at a college about 90 minutes from us. For a long time, it was the only one anywhere near us but recently they put a full-sized one in about 2 hours from us, in an area we don’t often visit. We wanted to treat Little Miss to waffle fries from there after her dental surgery but she was too miserable to enjoy it so we didn’t stop.

He has a week off work next week, so he picked today to take her to kick off his vacation,

The rest of the day I hope to work on my book, read some, and hopefully watch the first episode of season nine of Brokenwood Mysteries with The Husband.

Next week we have a fairly busy week in the beginning of the week. On Monday, the Boy has guitar lessons, Little Miss has gymnastics that night, and Tuesday we have an eye doctor appointment for both of them. After that, I think we are clear of planned events, other than The Boys’ job.

We are winding down with homeschooling and Spring Fever is in full force, but I’m trying to remind the kids there is still a month and a half left of school for them. I’m trying to make school more relaxed and interactive these last couple of months so it doesn’t feel too suffocating for them while it’s nice outside.

We meet with our evaluator (which is the person who has to sign off that I did what I was supposed to do this school year) on June 9.

As I am finishing up this post a rain storm has moved in to bring cooler temperatures in.

So how was your week this past week? I hope you had a good one?

What kind of tea or beverage are you drinking as you read this? Or maybe you aren’t while you are reading, but maybe you had a special one while relaxing one day.

I still like warm tea in the summer but don’t drink it as often as I do in the colder months. How about you? Do you still reach for a warm beverage even as the temperatures warm up?

Fiction Friday: Guest post with author Chelsea Michelle – a free chapter of Hours We Regret

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn fiction, Fiction Friday4 Comments

This week I don’t have anything to share for Fiction Friday so I invited some authors to help me out and A.M. Heath is one of them!

This week Anita is sharing a chapter of Hours We Regret by Chelsea Michelle, her pen name with fellow author Amanda Tero. This novella, which you can get for free (see the link after the excerpt) is a Watson Twins Mystery and is listed in Christian Fiction as a cozy mystery.

And just a heads up for those of you who know about my next book, Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing – I’ve pushed back the release date by a month so I will have time to send the book out to beta readers and editors and give them more time to help me polish up the book before I release it all to you.

You can pre-order it here:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C1KSQJXP

Now, without further ado, a description of Hours We Regret.

Hours We Regret Description: 

A serial killer. A dangerous road. And a cell phone going straight to voicemail…

A string of murders happening just across the state line makes residents of idyllic Maple Springs nervous. While Michelle Watson is obsessed with finding the killer’s pattern, her twin Chelsea disagrees with her involvement.

Reading the victims’ stories makes Michelle face the decisions she’s been trying to ignore. Determined to live her life to the fullest, she makes an innocent choice that takes a life-threatening turn.

When Michelle stops answering her phone, Chelsea can’t ignore the feeling that something is wrong. Very wrong. With friends and family, Chelsea sets out to find her sister, all while questioning if her faith is strong enough to weather the trial. 

Time is running out and the last thing Chelsea wants to do is file a missing person’s report for her twin.

An excerpt

Chapter 1

Michelle: 

“He’s getting closer,” I muttered, staring down at the new dot on the map. 

“Who is?” my sister asked, walking into the kitchen from behind me. 

I froze. 

Chelsea poured a glass of chocolate milk. “Michelle?” 

With a deep breath, I shoved the newspaper into her line of vision. 

“Not another one.” 

I tried to swallow past the lump in my throat. “Yep.” Lord be with her family. My heart yearned to say so much, but it too was clogged. 

Over my shoulder, Chelsea groaned. 

I closed my eyes and waited for her rebuke. 

“A map? You made a map of this man’s killings?” 

“I wanted to see if there was a pattern.” I turned to face her, staring back into a face identical to my own. 

She was getting ready for work, so she wore the cute striped blouse I ached to get my hands on and an understated knee-length pencil skirt. 

“What kind of pattern were you expecting to find?” 

I shrugged, staring back at the map. “I don’t know. It was just a hunch I wanted to trace out. There was an episode of Diagnosis Murder where the bomber was spelling his name across the town.” 

“That’s sick.” She took a long drink. 

“So far they have that much in common.” My eyes bounced from dot to dot, but there seemed to be no rhyme or reason for where the serial killer struck. 

His victims were all women he had run off the road, but I couldn’t dwell on the other known factors of what they had in common. 

“We need to put trackers on our phones,” I muttered under my breath. 

“What?”

I angled away, reaching for a bagel to toast. “Yeah, and buy some mace.” I snapped my fingers, spinning around to Chelsea. “And code words. We need code words.” 

She stared at me blankly. “Michelle, we are not getting code words.” 

“Why not?” I split my bagel and dropped it into the toaster before leaning against the counter and crossing my arms. “They could come in handy someday. You never know.” 

She rolled her eyes. “One: Because I refuse to live in fear. Two: I refuse to entertain you as you live in fear. And three: I would know if something was off. Few people are as in sync as we are.” 

She had to bring up the innate twin connection as her argument. I chewed the inside of my lip as the toaster popped. “We can at least start with the trackers and the mace, and discuss the code words later.” 

Chelsea stared at me. I knew what was coming even as she opened her mouth and said, “Psalm 37 says, ‘Do not fret because of evildoers.’”

I wracked my mind for the rest of the passage. “It also says, ‘Trust in the Lord and do good.’” I made sure to emphasize the last part. 

Chelsea raised an eyebrow. “It also says ‘Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him; Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way… who brings wicked schemes to pass.’”

My mind scrambled. I was not going to let Chelsea win this argument. It wasn’t right to just turn a blind eye to wickedness. I grinned and paraphrased James 4:17, “To know to do good and not do it is sin.”

Chelsea opened, then closed her mouth.

I grinned in triumph.

“Look,” Chelsea said with a sigh. “I’m not saying we shouldn’t help to work against evil. I just don’t think we need to insert ourselves when it isn’t in our path—when in reality the only thing we’re doing is worrying, not actively helping.”

I waved toward the counter. “I have a map. I am actively helping.”

Chelsea picked up her purse and keys and gave me an incredulous look. “Do you even realize how that sounds?”

“Ummm … Like I’m brilliantly inserting myself.”

She rolled her eyes. 

“And before you tell me that it’s not my job, let me remind you that it’s the job of every citizen to help find him. They said, and I quote, ’If you know anything or see anything suspicious please call.’” I pointed again to the counter. “I’m looking for suspicious patterns … and trying to keep us from being victims in the process.”

She let out a sigh. “You know that’s not how it works. I’m gonna be late for work. Bye.” She started for the door. 

“You can’t be serious, Sea. You’re really going to leave without giving me a goodbye hug? This could be the last time you see me, you know.” 

That earned me another famous glare, the I’m-older-than-you, please-be-sensible type of glare that I was always getting from her. “I refuse to live in fear with you, Michelle.” She opened the door.

I yelled back, “I refuse to live in denial with you, Chelsea!” 

“Ha.” She shut the door. 

I scurried across the room and flung the door open, yelling for all the neighborhood to hear, “I love you!”

She turned around, her face a pretty shade of red and silent laughter bubbling out. 

I waved over my head at Ms. Rhonda, our neighbor, who paused her weeding to wave a dirty garden-gloved hand back at us both. “Morning girls.” 

“Morning, Ms. Rhonda,” we said together. 

“Your roses are still looking great,” I said. 

Chelsea walked closer to her car. 

I kept an eye on her as I smiled back at Ms. Rhonda. 

“Did you not hear me, Chelsea?” 

“I heard you,” she said. “I’m going to be late for work.” 

“Not until you say it back.” 

She pinched her lips together. 

I angled my chin in equal stubbornness. 

But time was on my side because Chelsea hated to be late. After only a moment’s stare off she caved. “I love you too.” 

“What? I can’t hear you.” 

“I love you too,” she said a little louder. 

“See? Was that so hard?” 

“Some days it is.” 

I stuck my tongue out at her. 

She laughed and got in her car. 

I went back inside, the trail of the serial killer mocking me from the kitchen counter. 

After spreading cream cheese on my bagel, I scooped up the paper and brought it with me to the table. 

The new victim was twenty-four, which remained in the twenty to thirty-five range he seemed to favor. 

A chill ran down my spine. We were twenty-six and well within that range. 

The article spelled out how beloved she had been to her community. She was saving up for a trip to France but never got the chance to take it. 

Tears burned behind my eyes. So much life was left for her to live, but he selfishly stole it from her. 

Too sick to finish my breakfast, I threw it away and took a shower. 



Author Bio and a Link to the novella:

Christian authors, Amanda Tero and A.M. Heath bring you faith-based, cozy mysteries under Chelsea Michelle. 

Amanda Tero grew up attending a one-room school with her eleven siblings—and loved it! She also fell in love with reading to the point her mom withheld her books to get her to do her chores. That love of reading turned into a love of writing YA fiction. Amanda is a music teacher by day and a literary guide by night, creating stories that whisk readers off to new eras and introduce them to heroic but flawed characters that live out their faith in astonishing ways.

Visit Amanda Tero at amandatero.com 

A.M. Heath is the author of the 2022 Selah Finalist, Painted Memories. She enjoys writing stories that entertain while feeding the soul in contemporary and historical settings. 

When away from her desk, she’s a faithful member of her local church where she teaches a ladies’ Sunday School class. She is happily married and raising four kids while embracing the small-town lifestyle and tightly woven family bonds. 

Visit A.M. Heath at christianauthoramheath.net

Read Hours We Regret for FREE!
https://subscribepage.io/hours-we-regret

Follow Chelsea Michelle on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/@chelseamichelle

Or chat mysteries with them in their Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/chelseamichelle




Classic Movie Impressions. Spring of Cary: The Awful Truth

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn classic movie impressions, Spring of Cary5 Comments

“What wives don’t know won’t hurt them.” That’s what Cary Grant as Jerry Warriner says in the beginning of The Awful Truth, the second movie that Erin of Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I are watching for our Spring of Cary.

Now, last week I was a bit of a downer when I shared some of Cary’s personal life and the tension while filming Houseboat because of his affair with Sofia Loren. I will do my best this week to not be a downer! Ha!

This is a fun, silly movie so I will be able to keep things pretty light in this post. Lucky for all of you. *wink*

So, back to the storyline of the movie, which was released in 1937.

Here is a description on IMBd: Before their divorce becomes final, Jerry and Lucy Warriner both do their best to ruin each other’s plans for remarriage, Jerry to haughty socialite Barbara Vance, she to oil-rich bumpkin Daniel Leeson. Among their strategies: Jerry’s court-decreed visitation rights with Mr. Smith, their pet fox terrier, and Lucy doing her most flamboyant Dixie Belle Lee impersonation as Jerry’s brassy “sister” before his prospective bride’s scandalized family.

We start the movie out with Jerry trying to find a way to look tan so Lucy believes he was really in Florida. Not sure where he was for two weeks, but it apparently was not in Florida. We never really find the truth about that particular story.

Jerry goes home to his wife and finds out she isn’t home either. So, where has she been?

Jerry’s wife, portrayed by Irene Dunn, has secrets of her own, though they may not be quite as nefarious as Jerry’s – or are they? It’s never completely clear who is sneaking around on who in the beginning of the movie.

Eventually, it is clear that both of them are somewhat running around on their spouses, though maybe not full-blown affairs. They are, however, hanging around the opposite sex who are not their spouse.

In fact, both spouses are trying to pull the wool over each other’s eyes.

They’ve grown apart in a way and maybe have grown bored with each other so they are both living their own lives in a way and just when they decide they should officially live their lives apart by filing for divorce, they find there is still something between them they’re not ready to let go of just yet.

All it takes is a bit of jealousy to be stirred up when Lucy starts seeing another man, even before the divorce is final (gasp). From there the misunderstandings, mix-ups, and silliness kicks off and never slows down.

There are so many laugh-out-loud moments. One that stands out for me is Lucy’s call with her lawyer who is trying to talk to her about the beauty of marriage while his wife nags him in the background and he says to her, “Please shut your mouth” and then progresses to, “You shut your mouth! I’ll eat dinner when I want to!”

Irene and Cary are great together – tossing barbs back and forth fast and furious like the ball in a tennis match at Wimbleton.

They made three movies together: this one, Penny Serenade, and My Favorite Wife.

I have My Favorite Wife on our list to watch next week.

According to articles online, there were many parts of the movie that were adlibbed, which added even more to the charm of the movie for me.

The film was directed by Leo McCarey and you can read more about him HERE

According to an article on Criterion.com: (McCarey’s) claims to greatness, reaching far back into silent film, include Laurel and Hardy two-reelers; the Marx Brothers comedy Duck Soup (1933); a beloved melodrama that, astonishingly, he wrote and directed twice—as Love Affair in 1939 and, in 1957, as An Affair to Remember; and two surprise blockbusters, Going My Way (1944) and The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945), gentle Catholic comedies starring Bing Crosby that reflect McCarey’s own devout Catholicism and feeling for the workings of divine providence.”

I have An Affair to Remember on our list for April 27th and I just added The Bells of St. Mary’s to my personal list to watch.

According to Wikipedia, the movie is based on a play of the same name written by Arthur Richman. It was also made into a radio theater program with Lux Radio Theater with Cary and Claudette Colbert in 1939. I’ve listened to the Lux Radio productions before and really enjoyed them. There was one of Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House with Cary and Myrna Lloyd, who were the leads in the movie version as well and that one was superb.

The same article details that the actors at first struggled immensely with McCarey’s freestyle method of directing. They were not provided with a script or much direction, which infuriated Cary who was used to having set scripts and assembly-line type movies with Paramount. He tried to get out of the movie several times, which irked McCarey and he allegedly held a grudge against the actor for decades over that move.

Despite the rocky start, though, the actors eventually determined that McCarey was a comic genius and looked back on the experience fondly, remembering how hard they laughed each day.

The whole article, which details the process of filming and the improvisation on the set is very interesting. If you want to read more of it, you can do so here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Awful_Truth

To read Erin’s impressions of The Awful Truth, well…she doesn’t have one this week so check out her blog next week. *ahahaaaaha* She told me she didn’t have one after I put mine up.

Our remaining schedule for the Spring of Cary:

My Favorite Wife (April 20th)

An Affair To Remember (April 27)

Holiday (May 4)

Operation Petticoat (May 11)

Suspicion (May 18)

Notorious (May 25)

Living our dreams for the people whose dreams were cut short

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings4 Comments

Once again this week I found myself thinking about how I am living out dreams that many others I knew or knew of couldn’t do.

No, I’m not a famous author or photographer or a famous anything. I don’t have throngs of fans or tons of money. I’m a simple homeschooling mom who writes some stories and self-publishes them (and sometimes feels a bit silly doing it.).

But I’ve started to try to look at it as I have been given the opportunity to write and blog, take photos of my family, and teach my kids at home. I “get” to do all this. I don’t “have” to write or teach my kids – I’ve been given the gift of being able to do so.

I’ve been given a gift that many others never had the opportunity to have.

Saturday afternoon I was at a memorial service for a woman who spent a large part of her adult life in a nursing home – not because she was old but because Lyme Disease stole her life from her.

She wasn’t there of her own free will.

In fact, someone essentially incarcerated her there because he didn’t want to take care of her.

She spent the next 20 years deteriorating physically and mentally. Her mother tried to get doctors to care for her, to find out what was going on and why this was happening and eventually, doctors did feel they found the cause. The only problem was they had no idea how to stop it.

What was happening to this young woman also happened to her brother. Both of them suffered from damage to the brain from Lyme Disease, but doctors couldn’t figure out why they were the only family members it had affected this way.

Genetic testing was even done and not many answers came from that.

The brother, Gary, passed away a few years ago. He was in his 40s. Mechelle passed away a month ago in her early 50s. She caught an infection that her body couldn’t fight off.

She spent most of her life in a bed, watching her children grow up and have children of their own and then eventually she didn’t see much of at least one of those children who refused to see her before she died or come to her memorial service. Any dreams she might have had for her life were gone even before her life was physically gone.

It was heartbreaking to hear about it because I never visited Mechelle in that home. I feel awful but she was older than me, I didn’t know her well, and there was a lot of family drama that left me unsure of what I should be involved with and what I shouldn’t.

Mechelle and Gary had their lives cut short. They couldn’t live the way others could.

Their stories make me think of my great aunt who had mental issues and was placed in a mental home in the 1940s and never allowed to come home.

I’m not sure what my grandmother’s sister actually had but some said it was schizophrenia. She wrote letters begging to come back home but the family didn’t know how to care for her. They were also afraid she’d hurt my dad, who was a baby at the time. Not that she would hurt him on purpose, but when she had her breaks, I would guess, she didn’t think clearly and may have accidentally hurt him.

I believe having their daughter committed was very hard on my great-grandparents and maybe it was a guilt they lived with for their entire lives.

My grandmother’s sister died in state care sometime in the 1990s. I can’t even imagine it. Over 50 years living in a mental hospital, then a care home when the state shut down the mental hospitals – not with family or those you were familiar with and definitely no chance to live a somewhat normal life.

My grandmother and the rest of the family did visit Onieta and my aunt was there when she died, holding her hand, but my heart breaks when I think of the life she didn’t get to live – either because of actual mental illness or because doctors simply didn’t know how to help  her back then.

When I get down about my life and think things along the line of how boring or plain it is, I try to remind myself of Onieta, Mechelle and Gary, and even my aunt Dianne who suffered from heartbreak, rejection and health issues for her entire life.

I think how I’m lucky and how I’m able to explore and pursue my dreams, despite some health and financial limitations.

I may never be famous (gosh, I hope I’m not. I like my quiet life.), rich, or popular, but I’m blessed and lucky and I have the freedom to pursue what I love to do in life.

I have to stop squandering that opportunity – the gift God has given me.

No, not the gift of writing or creativity, or being a parent, but the gift of freedom that others either didn’t have or didn’t have for very long.