Sunday Bookends: Christmas movies, Christmas books, Christmas, Christmas, and more … yes, Christmas

December 17, 2023 / Lisa R. Howeler / 10 Comments

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

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

What’s Been Occurring

I wrote yesterday that I tested positive for Covid on Friday. I must have been at the tail end of it because yesterday morning I woke up with my nose clear and able to taste and smell again. I pretty much felt like I hadn’t had anything at all. I had written yesterday’s blog post on Friday evening when I was at my worst – congested and swollen in my nose, no smell or taste, and this horrible burning up my nose and through my sinuses that kept coming in waves and making my eyes water so bad I couldn’t see.

I literally cried when I could taste peanut butter and smell my essential oils in the morning. I know it seems dramatic and if you don’t know my back story with Covid-induced smell and taste loss then it does seem that way.

My previous smell and taste loss lasted a couple of weeks or more and when it returned my smell and taste were distorted for months afterward.

You can read more about that on the blog by searching Covid in the search bar to the right, though I’d just skip it because it’s depressing. Ha! It’s depressing but also gets hopeful later and taught me about trusting God.

Today when I made myself some deli ham on lettuce with Italian dressing (I’m trying to cut bread all the way out for health reasons) and I could taste the Italian dressing I felt weepy. I really did.

Every time I can smell something or taste something I feel immediate gratitude.

While I didn’t like the fear that came with getting Covid again since my last bout sent me to the hospital for five days (hooked up to a very low dose of oxygen for a day and a half of those days), I do like the reminder God gave me with this that he got me through that first bout and he is going to get me through whatever struggles I am facing now.

Much like a rainbow is a reminder of God’s promise to never flood the earth again, being able to smell and taste is like a reminder to me that God hasn’t failed me and doesn’t intend to let me fall now.

This illness was like a short head cold but I was very concerned part of the time it would be longer, like Covid was for me and my family before. I remained calm most of the time with a few breakdowns of crying, but trying to remember the verses about Jesus giving us peace that passes all understanding.

Most of the time I felt very peaceful. I did not feel dragged out like I did when I’ve been sick in the past.

Still, I prayed to God on Friday and asked him to please give me a sign that I was going to be okay. I prayed again very, very early Saturday morning when I couldn’t breathe through my nose. I asked God to forgive me for me being annoyed because I had just been thankful for being able to smell and taste a few days before and now it was being taken away again. I asked God to forgive me for not being thankful that I was breathing okay.

At 6:45 a.m. I still couldn’t smell anything.

At 9:30 a.m. I could both smell and taste.

Little Miss and my fever were gone (mine had been gone even when I tested positive for Covid the day before) and we both felt almost like we’d never been sick in the first place.

Talk about an answer to prayer.

We are in quarantine another day and then I can finally see my parents in person for the first time in two weeks.

What I/we’ve been Reading

Because my eyes were watering a lot this week, I didn’t read as much as I wanted to. I did continue some of my Christmas Regency romance book, which is a collection of novellas in one book. I am in the second novella now.

I also read a little of Southern Snow by B.R. Goodwin. I hope to have at least Southern Snow finished this week, but I also hope to finish Christmas in Absaroka by Craig Johnson.

Since it is the week before Christmas, I will probably continue to read A Vintage Christmas: A Collection of Classic Stories and Poems, which is a collection of Christmas stories by a variety of authors, including L.M. Montgomery, Louise May Alcott, Charles Dickens, and Mark Twain as well.

Oh, and I will definitely be finishing up my audiobook of Shepherd’s Abiding by Jan Karon which I have been listening to each night before bed. I mentioned before on here that I didn’t know if I liked the narrator but I absolutely love him as I continue to listen so I wanted to correct that. From what I understand he also narrates the other audiobooks of the Mitford series so I hope to collect them over time.

Little Miss and I are listening to The Greatest Christmas Pageant Ever again.

What We watched/are Watching

Since we couldn’t leave the house last week, I watched more than I do other weeks.

I watched We’re Not Angels as a buddy watch with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs, and blogged about it.

I also watched Going My Way, the prequel to The Bells of St. Mary’s. I’ll blog about it later this week but really enjoyed it. I might have liked The Bells of St. Mary’s better, though. I don’t know. They were both very good and watching them close together was a good idea.

I then watched the 1938 version of A Christmas Carol and while I am about done with watching any more movies based on this book, I loved this one. This is probably my favorite version so far.

My aunt used to look for this version every year and I didn’t know why until I watched it this week. I wish I had taken the time to watch it with her when she was still alive.

I will blog about it later this week but for now, I will say I loved the acting in the movie. I also loved how I really feel this movie gave us more time with each character and gave us a more well-rounded impression of them. That well-rounded impression connected me to the characters more than any other movie I’ve seen and maybe even more than the book itself, which made the emotional impact of what unfolded even more powerful for me.

I highly recommend this version if you’re going to watch a movie adaptation of this story.

Last night I watched a Christmas episode of All Creatures Great and Small (the latest version).

This week I plan to load myself up on Christmas movies including The Man Who Invented Christmas, The Man Who Came To Dinner, White Christmas, A Charlie Brown Christmas, and maybe Arthur Christmas.

I will also be watching Christmas-themed YouTube videos and a couple of Christmas specials from the creators of The Chosen.

What I’m Writing

This past week I shared a lot of Christmas-themed blog posts including:

What I’m Listening To

I am listening to audiobooks such as Shepherd’s Abiding and The Greatest Christmas Pageant Ever and also Christmas music about the reason for the season (at least in my family) – Jesus’ birth.

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.

A little chaos in my weekly review

June 2, 2019June 4, 2019 / Lisa R. Howeler / 15 Comments

A little chaos reigned for me a few weeks when I watched the movie “A Little Chaos” on Netflix. The basic plot is that Kate Winselt is a designer or a builder or a large breasted woman they needed to look forlorn and longingly at the guy who was also a gardener or a designer or whatever for the king. She is hired to design a fancy concert hall/garden for King Louise VIII (Alan Rickman) and few seemed phased she’s a woman building for the king in 1800 whatever. She’s a woman with tragedy in her past and it takes the entire movie to figure out what her tragedy is.

I believe all the characters are supposed to be French but only the gardener and a couple other characters have actual French accents. The rest have British accents. Not sure what that was about. It sort of reminded me of Robin Hood when Kevin Costner kept losing his British accent and slipping back into Brooklyn or something.

I spent most of the movie trying to figure out why Kate seemed the only woman who wore a dress that pushed her breasts up and almost out completely.

I guess the French were (and are?) an open group but I was really getting confused over who was sleeping with whom as well.

And is it bad that every time I saw Alan Rickman all I could think was “why does the king look like Captain Hook?”

All in all, there was still something charming about the movie. The scenery and sets were beautiful, the costumes were breathtaking, the plot fairly predictable.

Would I watch it again? Not unless I needed another good giggle.

Also in the movie department, I found myself completely delighted with Tea with the Dames on Amazon. This was one my brother mentioned to me when we were talking about another movie. The Dames are Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Joan Plowright and Eileen Atkins. Once a year they meet in the country and chat and “talk shop” so to speak. The movie is a documentary and features the women chatting about their careers, what it meant to become a “dame” and their time as actresses on the stage.

In case your curious, here is a trailer to give you an idea what it’s about:

In the book realm, I am finishing up All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriott and A New Song by Jan Karon.

It was nice of my brother to ruin Herriott’s books for me a bit when he told me that wasn’t his real name. After looking up the reason why James Alfred Wight used a pen name, I understood better and accepted that it wasn’t appropriate for veterinarians at the time to promote themselves so he felt it was better not to use his real name. He also changed the names of those in the books, to protect the innocent and not-so-innocent. The fact James Herriott isn’t his real name doesn’t take away from the witty and touching stories in the book for me like I thought it might. I have learned not to talk to my brother about books I’m reading if he has already read them. Who knows what else he will feel compelled to tell me – maybe the endings of one or two.

I’ve been reading All Creatures Great and Small on my Kindle, which is connected to the Kindle my mom uses. She’s on my account and we share Kinde Unlimited. Normally we are reading different books at different times but Mom started All Creatures Great and Small after me and blew through it before I was done. I almost attempted a competition when my Kindle would notify me that another device registered in my name had made it to a page further than I had, but then I remembered my mom is retired I am a mom with two young children, a needy dog, a pushy cat and a newspaper editor husband who asks me to proof his weekly columns. I finally gave it up and let her blow right past me and finish the book before me, even though I had been reading it for a month longer than her. That’s how slow of a reader I am.

A New Song is a slight departure from Karon’s other books in the series because the story takes place outside of Mitford, N.C., which is where most of Karon’s other books about Father Tim Kavanaugh take place. In case you’ve never read the books, the main character is Father Tim, an Episcopalian priest who lives in the small town of Mitford. The books are about his adventures and how they relate to the quirky, fun, and sweet characters in the town. If you’re looking for something light and not very deep then Karon’s books are for you.

Next up on my book list to read or finish is The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith, All Things Bright and Beautiful (after I finish All Creatures Great and Small) by James Herriott and On Writing by Stephen King.

As for what I’ve been writing on my blog lately: here are some links to my recent posts:

When You Finally Stop Waiting for the Calls to Come

A New Beginning For A Small Pennsylvania Farm

And the fifth part in my fiction story “A Story to Tell”

So what are all of you reading or watching or even writing ? Feel free to share here or find out what others are reading by visiting Readerbuzz’s weekly wrap up and Sunday Salon feature on her blog.

My week in books

April 21, 2019May 9, 2019 / Lisa R. Howeler / 13 Comments

I’m in the midst of the same books I’ve been reading, so I don’t have a lot to report on the book front for this week for the weekly “Sunday Salon”.

First a little bit about when I read and how (playing off my brother’s post from last week). I read any hardcopy books during the day and books on my Kindle I read mainly at night so I can use the backlight on the Kindle, but not use the way-too-bright book light I bought on Amazon for my hardcopy books. So, I usually have at least two books going at a time – one hardcopy and one Kindle.

This week I’m reading the fourth book in The Cat Who series (The Cat Who Saw Red) on the Kindle and the fifth book in the Mitford series by Jan Karon in hardcopy version. I could have bought the Jan Karon book on the Kindle, but it was $5 more on Kindle than a paperback and I got stingy and bought a used copy of it online instead. I bought that used copy and then realized I actually had a copy of the book in my collection so I didn’t need to buy it after all. Oops. Now I have two copies.

I read the Mitford series years ago – or so I thought. It turns out I missed a few books so I’m going back and rereading them. Book 5, ‘A New Song’ takes place on White Cap Island, which is obviously not the main character’s hometown of Mitford. Actually, Mitford isn’t Father Tim’s hometown, but it’s where he’s lived for 16 years since becoming the parish priest of the local Episcopal Church.

If you haven’t already guessed, or don’t know about the Mitford series, the books follow the everyday life of Father Tim Kavanaugh and the characters he meets, adopts, or has becomes friends within the small North Carolina town of Mitford. I can relate to these books because my mom is originally from North Carolina and she is even familiar with some of the towns mentioned in the book, except for Mitford, which is fictional. Plus I live in a small town and some of the characters in the fictional Mitford remind me of real-life characters in the small town I grew up in.

Almost all of the books in the series take place in or around Mitford, with exception of A New Song and A Home to Holly Springs (when Father Tim returns to his hometown). In A New Song, Father Tim has retired from his parish in Mitford and has been assigned, temporarily, to a church on an island, so we are introduced to an entirely new cast of characters, while also hearing from the old ones.

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I won’t mention too many other characters other than Father Tim or I’ll spoil some of the books for you. If you’re looking for something hard hitting, you won’t find it in these books. They do feature some tough moments, some moments that will bring tears of sadness to your eyes, and maybe a cringe or two from the seriousness of the subject, but for the most part, you’ll take a peaceful walk with Father Tim, with a bit of drama thrown in from time to time. In other words, you’ll laugh, you’ll cry…etc., etc. You get the drift. I find I run to Mitford when the rest of the world seems to be crashing down around me. It’s a great, often light-hearted escape (unless Mrs. Karon decides to kill off a favorite character or two and then I end up bawling about how her books are too stinking real and life sucks and hand me the chocolate ice cream already!)

The Cat Who books by Lillian Jackson Braun are similarly fairly light, but are mysteries. As I’ve mentioned before, the books follow Jim Qwilleran and his two Siamese cats Koko and Yum Yum. Koko is mysteriously brilliant for a cat and always seems to help Qwill, as he is called affectionately throughout the book, solve mysteries that Qwill shouldn’t even be involved in. Braun refers to Qwilleran as Qwilleran throughout the books. He’s a newspaper reporter who often gets assigned the lame beats, like fashion or cuisine, or something else he deems as beneath him because his start was in the crime departments of bigger newspapers than where he is working now.

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I can relate to the Cat Who books for a couple of reasons. First, Qwill is a newspaper reporter, which I was for 14 years and my husband still is. Second, Qwill is in his mid-40s and I’m almost in my mid-40s. Braun does seem to describe him a little too often as graying and old, which reminds me I’m graying and old, but Qwill’s quirky cats and personality make up for that for me.

So how about you? What are you currently reading this week? Want to see what others are reading this week? Then join Readerbuzz’s Sunday Salon, Or Caffeinated Book Reviewer, where other readers (most of them really cool book bloggers, unlike this blogger who is sort of a “whatever blogger) and if you want, add your own post about what you are reading, watching, doing, thinking, eating, or whatevering this week.

For those of us who celebrate Easter – I leave with you one of my favorite Easter songs, adaptly titled “The Easter Song” by Keith Green.

There are a few bad things about getting back into reading

April 11, 2019April 14, 2019 / Lisa R. Howeler / 21 Comments

In the last several months I’ve cut way back on social media and found myself very lonely. The loneliness sometimes leads to depression, which isn’t good, but what is good is the fact I’m now back into reading and writing.

I find I now look forward to bedtime, not because I have time to mindlessly scroll through social media without feeling guilty that I should be spending time with my family instead, or not because my old age makes me want to sleep more. Now I look forward to bedtime because I can escape into a good book before sleep. In fact, thanks to the diminutive appearance of my Kindle I can escape into a good book almost anywhere.

I can not tell a lie – I feel a bit of a rush of rebellion when I stay up late with a book and I know it’s because of all the nights I spent with my head under the covers with a flashlight so Mom wouldn’t catch me up reading pass my bedtime. To this day I still feel the urge to pull the covers up over my head when reading a book after midnight. I realize I probably need therapy. My mom wasn’t against reading, in fact she read so much it’s probably why I have a love for it, but she was against me being very tired for school the next day because I had been up too late reading.

Rekindling (pun intended) my love for reading is almost entirely a good thing. Still, it does have its’ drawbacks.

First, there is the fact I often stay up too late when I’m caught up in a good book and pay for it the next day when grogginess causes me to forget to turn on the stove to cook dinner or that I put the dog out an hour ago. Much to my chagrin, I have to admit my mom was right about that needing sleep thing.

Then there is the fact reading, much like blogging and writing short stories, is yet another way for me to procrastinate cleaning the house, folding laundry, loading the dishwasher or feeding my children. Why are kids always so hungry anyhow?

Another drawback to returning to the love of reading is the reminder of how stupid I really am because I have to keep highlighting words in the Kindle dictionary to learn the meaning of them. Truthfully, I could skip the word and keep going but since that nifty dictionary feature is already built into the Kindle it seems a shame to let it go to waste the same way I apparently let my brain go to waste.

Then there is the drawback to being able to look up words with the tap and slide of a finger: realizing you’re not only stupid for not knowing words but also because you keep trying to tap and highlight words when you are reading an actual, hard copy of a book.

Yet another drawback is when a book either is too exciting or jumps the shark and leaves me laying there in the dark all pissed off, tossing and turning, fuming, writing letters of disgust in my head to the writer. I was recently in the midst of a very well written Christian fiction book when it went off the rails into fantasy territory and I was left all theologically pissed off because miracles don’t happen like that in real life. So there I laid lost in deep thoughts about why we don’t see miracles today, instead of accepting that it’s JUST A BOOK! Hello! I decided then I needed to read less theological books before bed, instead focusing on books like The Cat Who… books or The Mitford series.

Despite the disadvantages to becoming a voracious reader again, I’m glad to have a way to escape from both the mundane boredom of my own life and the insanely, way too exciting events of the world around me. Currently, I’m switching between a Cat Who book by Lillian Jackson Braum ( a series of books about a newspaper reporter and his crime-solving Siamese cats) and the fifth book of the Mitford series by Jan Karon.

How about you? In the midst of any books you are using to avoid the responsibilities of life?
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To read more from some readers who read more and write more about what they read, you can click over to Readerbuzz’s Sunday Salon on her blog, or on Facebook.

Wrestlers, degenerate reporters and a president on this week’s reading list

October 14, 2018March 8, 2019 / Lisa R. Howeler / 3 Comments

This post is part of the Sunday Salon, which is a group of bloggers who join together one day of the week to share what they’re reading, watching or simply what’s up in their life, although it’s mainly about what they are reading.

I’m finally finishing some books I started months ago and either wandered away from when a new and shiny book caught my attention (squirrel!) or simply filed away in the Kindle because it didn’t hold my interest.

shawn First up this week to finish was something I don’t normally read – the autobiography of a professional wrestler. Shawn Michaels, also known as the Heartbreak Kid, or by his real name of Michael Shawn Hickenbottom (no, really, that’s his real, non-showbiz name), wrote this second autobiography, “Wrestling for my Life: the Legend, The Reality, and The Faith of a WWE Superstar” several years after his first (that’s what you write when you’re too lazy to look up the date of his first autobiography) and after becoming a Christian.

The book goes into some detail about how Michaels got his start as a wrestler, but not as much as a first autobiography would. Instead, this book is more about how his faith changed him and became the focal point of his life, seeping into every pore of his being, including professionally. He writes about his struggles to learn what it means to be a man of faith, the stumbling steps he took toward kicking an alcohol and pill addiction and becoming a better man for his devoted wife, a former wrestler herself, and his children. This is definitely “light reading” but as a practicing Christian myself, I see a lot of depth in Michaels’ words about his Christian walk.

lincoln A book I’m still plowing through, but haven’t yet finished is The Last Trial of Lincoln, which is about – ummm – the last, um, trial, of Lincoln. Hence the name.

But seriously, it’s a book about the final trial Abraham Lincoln served on as defense attorney before running for president. The basic plot is that Lincoln is defending a young man accused of murdering another man during a knife attack. The question is if it was premeditated or accidental. Much of the book is seen through the eyes of scribe Robert Hitt, the real-life scribe to the trial, whose handwritten manuscript of the trial was discovered in 1989 and is the basis of the book.

The full name of the book is actually “Lincoln’s Last Trial: The Murder Case That Propelled Him to The Presidency.” The author is Dan Abrams, chief legal analyst for ABC News and the book is often as wordy as his book titles (according to Amazon his last book was titled, “Man Down: Proof Beyond A Reasonable Doubt That Women Are Better Cops, Drivers, Gamblers, Spies, World Leaders, Beer Tasters, Hedge Fund Managers, and Just About Everything Else.”)

The book is good, but it’s so chocked full of words and legal jargon and flashbacks that help to paint the picture of who Lincoln was as a lawyer, that I’m finding myself needing breaks from it to rest my poor, less-intellectual brain. I don’t want it to sound like the book is so deep it is unreadable, however, because it is actually entertaining. It’s simply that there are so many flashbacks that I am halfway through it and wondering if we will ever get to the end of the trial before the book ends. I’ll let you know if that happens or not.

A book I just started and read when I want something a little lighter, with quick to the point sentences, is the second book in the Fletch series, Carioca Fletch by Gregory McDonald. Technically, according to my husband, who really should be writing blog posts about books, this is not the “second” Fletch book but it is the book that follows the first book chronologically. In this book, Fletch is in Brazil, having escaped from his past adventure with his life and some money (I won’t spoil that book for you) and is confronted by an old woman who believes he is the reincarnation of her late husband, who was murdered. Now Fletch’s new Brazilian friends, if not Fletch himself, want Fletch to solve the murder and release the soul of the already deceased man.

Since I just started the book, I’m really not sure where it’s going to go but I have a feeling, based on the first Fletch book, it’s going to be a twisted tale where Fletch’s lack of empathy and humanity is going to be showing.

The people in it are pretty sad and without feeling so far, but for some reason, I can’t tear myself away, maybe because Fletch is a crooked journalist and I worked with a few of those during my time as a small town newspaper reporter at four newspapers in Pennsylvania and New York.

When I really need light reading, I turn to something very simple and lighthearted that doesn’t require any intellectual capability at all and for the past few months that has been the Paddington Bear series. Thank you, Michael Bond, for transporting me into a second childhood late at night when I’m trying to take my mind off of the screaming outside word. I’m currently on my third Paddington book – Paddington Abroad.

x400 Writing this I am now realizing I’m, again, reading about a British bear, though the other book (Enchanted Places, the autobiography of Christopher Milne) wasn’t necessarily about the “bear” but the boy who was a friend of “the bear” (Winnie the Pooh). I guess there is something comforting to me about bears and the British, maybe because I still have the Teddybear I had as a child and … I have no idea about the British thing since I have no British family members.